More Gardening Updates


 The above are my pumpkin vines in the foreground; barely visible behind them are the cantaloupe vines. They grow more and more every day, so my search for squash bugs is becoming a challenge.  I manually pick them off the vines and toss them into a jar of soapy water.  They die within minutes.  Nasty outfits.  Then I have to check every leaf for the eggs.  I have eliminated most of them, but they keep coming in from somewhere.  


 

The vines are finally getting teeny pumpkins on them, but the weather is worrying me.  Today, Tues, July 9, 2024, we are getting the fallout of Hurricane Beryl.  It looks like it will rain pretty much all day.  Pollinators are not very active on super rainy days.  

********

The peppers are really coming along.  


These all came off of just a few of the pepper plants I have out there.  I hope the other plants start producing soon.  I need to fertilize them I guess.  The banana pepper plants are coming on like gangbusters.  I foresee myself donating most of them because they are a bit spicier than any banana pepper we have ever had before.  Last year's banana peppers we had were super mild.  These are almost like jalapenos.  They will be good to add a bit of spice to pickle relish.  In fact I might sacrifice some of my current green tomatoes to some relish NOW instead of waiting til fall.  Usually I wait til I have to pick all of the green tomatoes before a frost, but I might just do it now.  

I don't have a picture, but my cucumber plants are pretty steady.  Between my plants and my sister-in-law's plants I have enough for a batch of sweet pickles; which I will be processing today.  

I also pulled my onions last week.  There are a ton of them, but due to the rainy weather, and my neglect to weed them, I have a few that are rotting.  I need to go through them. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Oyster

It isn't even halfway through the month yet and I have run out of lists or anything amusing to tell you about the dairy. So here is a poem I picked up on a homesteading forum. It does deal with ag issues, just of a different sort... Enjoy! The Oyster Baxter Black The sign upon the café wall said OYSTERS: fifty cents. "How quaint," the blue-eyed sweetheart said with some bewildermence, "I didn't know they served such fare out here upon the plain." "Oh, sure," her cowboy date replied, "We're really quite urbane." "I would guess they're Chesapeake or Blue Point, don't you think?" "No ma'am, they're mostly Hereford cross . . . and usually they're pink But I've been cold, so cold myself, what you say could be true And if a man looked close enough, their points could sure be blue!" She said, "I gather them myself out on the bay alone. I pluck them from the murky depths and smash them with a
Read more

Like Cats A'Fightin'

Image
That's a local saying when it's snowing hard. Snowing like cats a'fightin'. You can look out and see the fur flying. Ellen had never been outside while it was actually snowing. She was enchanted. She had to have a bucket of it to carry around. It was in the mid-20s but we took a bit of a walk before coming back in for a nap. The snow is still too dry to be able to make a snowman, it is really powdery. So far we have somewhere between 3 and 4 inches, I would suspect.
Read more

The Blind Calf Story

Image
This happened last month. I thought it was an interesting case. Wed Aug 15th 2007 8:30 AM: Went out and brought new heifer calf and cow in from field. Not too sure how old calf was; umbilical cord sort of dried up, but calf still seemed damp. Left her with cow all morning ‘til maybe early afternoon, then separated them. Beautiful, normal calf. 6 PM Fed calf bottle. She slugged back the whole thing. Thurs Aug 16th5:15 AM (approx) Calf comatose. Or as near as I could tell. She was on her side, non-responsive, drooling, head on ground, eyes closed or just barely opened. I tried to feed her bottle but she only swallowed convulsively once or twice, then milk just drained from her mouth. 5:30 AM. Husband went out and looked at her. Drug her out of pen and out of the way to be taken to boneyard later after chores were all done. She was barely breathing and as I said, totally non-responsive.This was a real grief as the cow she came from is a great milker and to get a heifer from her was a joy.
Read more