Twiggybet1's Blog

It's Monday morning, hubby's at work and daughter's at school.  I have a some time to myself to reflect, write my blog, and plan my day.  Well, some of it's already planned for me.  Dentist appointment this afternoon, never look forward to those, just looking forward to getting it over with.

During the past week, we have had some stormy rainy days and some sunny days.  Glad for the rain, saves on using the sprinkler and glad for the sun!  Since returning from our short 5-day mini vacation for the 4th of July weekend, I have been trying to catch up on the weeding.  It seems that once behind, it's a struggle to catch up again.  But I'm making progress.  I take it one area at a time.  I need to replenish the mulch in areas. 

We have been enjoying beans and peas.  The peas especially have been doing very well this year.  The plants seem taller than in past years, and the yield seems larger too.  I used bean and pea innoculant this year when I planted.  In past years, hubby declared he believed that buying and using innoculant to be just an added unnecessary expense.  I talked him into trying it this year.  I think that it made a huge difference. 

This picture is of a basket full of peas that I picked yesterday afternoon.  It took me quite a while to shell that many peas.  As you can see, I also pulled some rhubarb.  It is finally coming in good, I have been so impatiently waiting for it!  Now perhaps my lucky family will get a pie for desert tonight.

These are the first of the tomatoes to ripen.  They are golden cherries.  It was all I could do to get them to last until this photo was snapped.  They dissappeared soon after and are now history. 

The asparagus was let to go to fern for the year.  We had gotten a couple good meals from the new patch, which was more than we expected, being planted just last year.  There is still plenty of broccoli side-shoots producing, I get those about every 3rd day or so.  The cabbage is making nice heads now, I just need to keep the slugs away.  I have been sprinkling crushed eggshells around them, but I am going to need to make some spray for reinforcements!  The celery seems to be doing good.  I did find some caterpillar on one, I don't know what kind, but it got moved to native flowers.  I don't want to squish an endangered specie, but I don't want to share my celery, either.  I took a picture of the critter, but I can't find the picture now. 

The peppers are putting out a few blossoms, and there are a few growing on some plants, but this isn't going to be a stellar year for peppers.  For some unknown reason, they are not growing and performing as they usually do.  Hmm, I will have to spend some time finding out why. 

The potatoes seem to be doing really well.  We planted two varieties, a red one that we bought sets for, and white ones that we saved from ones we grew last year.  The blossoms are pink on the red potato plants, and the blossoms are white on the white variety.  Makes it easy to tell them apart w/o digging.  The trench/mulch method seems to suit them fine.

The sweet potatoes are settling in fine.  They are starting to vine out, but are still small enough to distinguish individual plants.  But it wont be long before they run riot, if the weather stays warm. 

My summer sqush plants are blossoming, but not any set fruit yet.  It will be fun to see what kind of fruits we get this year, as I planted a medley of assorted types.  Many years we have bought plants for the zucchini, but this year they are all from seed.  A little bit later, but that's o.k. It will give me a bit more time to concentrate on canning the beans. 

The corn stalks are now the tallest plants in the garden.  They surpassed the tomatoes, just in the last week.  I spent some time yesterday removing the suckers from most of the stalks.  I had to leave a few in place, as the pumpkin vines are using them for support.  Some of those plants are nearly as tall as the corn!  I decided to interplant pumpkins and butternut squash with the corn.  When using this method, from what I read, any pumpkins or squash harvested are supposed to be considered "bonus" fruit, but I can't help being hopeful that we will get a lot of them.  If this method works out well, I will do it again.  Almost like doubling your garden space!

My husband pulled the first of the carrots yesterday.  I had to replant most of the carrot block, because I left the clear plastic cover on too long and fried the tiny seedlings.  I will try not to make that mistake again.  So far, no root maggots have showed up.  We made sure to plant them far, far away from the spot they were in last year just for this reason.

I will be able to harvest the first of the beets soon.  They are in the block next to the carrots.  I plan to pickle some for my husband, because that is his favorite way to eat beets.  I planted Detroit red and Detroit white this year.  I am guessing that the white ones will be much less likely to stain things, and I am curious if they have a milder flavor. We will soon find out.

 Until next time, Happy Gardening, everyone!