Summer Ramblings - Part 2

To me nothing says summer more than Day Lilies! I just love them. I have them lining the barn and walkway to our kitchen door. I also have them lining our pool fence. Today they were in full bloom and so now it feels like summer, really like summer. Ahhhhh...

Today Kyle helped me mulch the middle vegetable garden. It was a big chore that took us a while. Am I glad it's done and I am glad he helped me. It was wonderful to work in the garden together. It's been a while since he's shown interest in that. The weeds were really looking awful and making the garden totally uninviting. I've been avoiding that section for two weeks. Tonight I spent two hours in that garden and enjoyed every minute of it. Not only do weeds rob nutrients and water from our garden plants they rob us of the enjoyment we get while working in our gardens. Weeds are terrible things to have in the garden. No weeds allowed! Now that the entire veggie garden is mulched I was able to begin watering the plants with a lovely tonic that I made. It is a combination of rain water, worm composting liquid, liquid seaweed, and liquid fish emulsion. I made the "tea" light, about the same color as a weak tea. And as I was watering I was able to continue my battle with cucumber beetles. Those bloody little flying buggers! Something I noticed, that you may already be totally aware of, is that if you wait until dawn or dusk to go out looking for them to squish it's a heck of a lot easier than in the middle of a hot day! I tried mid day and couldn't get them no matter how hard I tried. They were so fast and they can fly. But as the air cooled they appeared to slow down and settle in on their squash leaves and the task was much more successful.They also like to hide on the underside of the leaves. Just yuck. These bugs done a number on my pumpkin plants and my zucchini plants as well. They haven't much touched the yellow squash plants. Interesting. I also found some very large squash bugs that experienced the insides of two large flat rocks. I just can't bring myself to squish them. Wimp, I know! I also found egg clusters on the bottom side of the squash leaves and squished them between rocks too. No potato beetles yet though. Now I just jinxed it didn't I?

I tied up the tomato plants for the second time. I've got tomatoes growing! Here's a link to a great tutorial explaining and demonstrating one way of staking tomato plants. This is how I did it this year.
http://www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com/how-to-stake-a-tomato-%E2%80%93-in-5-easy-steps-giveaway/?cm_mmc=DailyNewsNL-_-07082011-_-Kitchen-_-NA

While we're on links to great webpages I'd like to share this blog on putting food up that I just love: http://wellpreserved.ca/ I've gone into the archives and what a treasure trove. I particularly liked the "From nose to tail" posting. If you look under "categories" down on the right bar on this Well Preserved blog page you'll find a lot of categories to look through.

And another link on canning I like too: http://www.sbcanning.com/2011/06/why-is-my-canned-fruit-floating.html I learned why my canned fruit float! And steps to take to prevent it in future cannings.

Now that I've got the garden mulched and fertilizer feeding 1/2 way done I can begin to focus on the lower garden, what I like to call my spring garden. This is the first garden plot. It's fenced in and it's where I grow all the cool season crops like lettuce, radishes, greens, beets, peas, etc. As I went down to look it over to begin to think about what I want to yank and what I want to replant I thought I'd grabs some lettuce, greens, and carrots. And sure enough carrots were ready for thinning.
First carrot thinnings of the summer! Yummmmm

This garden is a mess. The old strawberry bed needs to be put under plastic and killed off :( The radishes and greens have all gone to flower. While bees love them I figure they've had them for about two weeks now. I'm yanking them and taking the space back. Will replant with some root veggies (lots more carrots), greens, and beans.

I finally gave up on cucumbers in the gardens. Something keeps eating them as soon as those two little cotyledon appear! Ugh! I've replanted three times. I give up. So I got a long planter from the garage. Filled it with soil, planted some cucumber seeds and put it by the pool. That better work. I'm just bummed because all my pickling cukes didn't make it. BUMMER! Oh well.

Tomorrow I will make the last of garlic scape pesto and begin picking raspberries! I love when the raspberries come in.

Hope your gardening is going well and that you are enjoying your time in your garden.
Mary
Gardens make the world fresh and clean - AHS