Wonderful Rain!

We got a wonderful rainstorm on Monday. A couple of inches all together, and weren't all the plants just wonderfully happy! Me on the other hand? I was certainly grateful for the rain. It started as soon as I finished watering the entire garden. That's always the way though isn't it?

Gramma's amaryllis bloomed again. None of us have ever seen an amaryllis bloom in the summer! I was just reading a care article that stated that if kept in an evergreen state (where the leaves are allowed light and water all year instead of storing the bulbs for the winter), amaryllis will continually bloom. Plants are boundlessly interesting aren't they?


When I had decided that none of my pepper plants (from seed) where going to grow in time, I bought some pepper plants from the nursery. This is one of them, and its already got this beautiful little pepper on it! I can't wait to taste it, but it's got a little more growing to do.


The Boston pickling cucumbers are growing. Just a few so far, but there are lots of flowers and buds.


A handful of blueberries that I pulled off yesterday. They were a little tart still, so I'll be waiting a little longer to pick them. The second bush is going strong now that we caged it away from deer and bunnies.


We got our first yellow squash just today! We fried it up with some onion and zucchini (from the farmer's market) and was that ever good! (We also got corn, canadian bacon, cucumbers, peaches, and red onions. Yum, yum, yum!)


These are the garlic heads, going to seed. They're even growing already! We learned from a farmstand at the market that in order to get bigger heads, we need to pinch off the scapes when they grow. That will prevent all the energy from going into the seed and instead encourage it to grow larger bulbs! Guess what we'll be trying next year!


Until next time,

Everything is Blooming!

The cucumbers finally set flowers, and we are so happy! Anxious is more like it. They are climbing and sending out their little climbing tendrils, so they must be a vine-type. Gramma was concerned that she'd never seen a cucumber that wanted to climb, but the neighbors have climbing cukes too. These are also pickling cucumbers, because I've always wanted to try dill pickles. Mhmm... my mouth is watering just thinking about them.


The yellow squash are setting flowers like no one's business. Mini squash are growing, growing, growing! I am very glad I gave their plot extra compost this year, the plants are going to need it if they keep going like this! Gramma's yellow squash got aged horse manure and they're just as happy.

On Sunday after church I went to Rachel's house and got to use their new pool! It's 14' diameter by 42" deep and it's fabulous. We were in it for five hours, almost. Halfway through we were out and wandering around the yard for a break. I love going to their house. They have a real farm, with cows and sheep and chickens! They have a huge garden this year and Momma R and Rachel's sister Kate were snapping the ends off green beans. They let me reach into the bag and munch as many as I wanted. They also shelled peas yesterday, but I wasn't there for that (I did eat a few peas too though). Rachel also showed me their black cap bushes. I'd never heard of black caps, so I looked them up. They're wild black raspberries! They were good too.

Swimming yesterday wore me right out! I went home, made some dinner, changed into my pajamas, and was asleep on the couch by 7:30!


I noticed yesterday (the 17th) that the tomatoes have their first buds forming! I had just about written them off as failures. Three months and two days since I first poked the seeds into the potting soil, they are finally setting flowers! I just about danced yesterday when I found them.


The horseradish just wouldn't give up, so I let it grow, behind the log. I don't like horseradish at all, but others in my family do. I might even try to make some sauce out of it for them.


The last of the peas are drying on the vine. I will save these for seed next year.


The carrots are growing well. I wanted to check on their size, so I pulled one. They still have some growing to do. Our immensely rocky soil doesn't seem to be deforming them yet, but they are small.

Until next time,

Hot Days at Sweetgrass

Coming off our week of near-constant rain, we've had a week of constant sun and humidity. It's consistently run 80 degrees with 75+ percent humidity. The tomatoes are loving it, but I'm not. I won't complain though, I can work through it. It's mom that seems to have trouble with it, but she's always run a little hot anyway. I re- discovered the four pepper plants that I bought a few weeks ago. I had completely forgotten their poor existence. I watered the droopy things today and I hope they'll make a turnaround soon. They've even got little peppers a-growing.

I also finished weeding and mulching my strawberry patch. I've picked off all but one runner because I couldn't bring myself to, it's growing so strongly. I did separate one mini plant from its runner and planted it. I couldn't find straw in the hardware/feed stores, how weird is that? So I raked up the dried grass from the last lawn mowing and used that. It'll break down faster than straw, but it will work for now. I also scraped up a bunch of the dry grass for the compost to help dry it out.


Plenty of peas are ready for picking! I have to leave some on to mature so I'll have them for next year, but it's so hard to do. Fresh peas taste so good! No wonder I've never liked frozen peas. Blech! I know to stake them better next year. I'm picking up lots of plant to get a few pods underneath.


The yellow squash are loving this weather. A day or two after this photo and there are already two or three squash a inch or so long.


Here's a photo showing the two squash plants. One gets about an hour of more direct sun than the other, and you can see how it feels about that.


The front one is so not happy. Hopefully as the bushes (next to the squash on the right, not in the picture) grow, they'll provide more filtered light and the squash will be happier in successive years.

That's what's been going on 'round these parts. I have some more fun things coming up (something like five posts in the Drafts folder), so check in soon!

June in Review

June also has had it's set of challenges as well, but I met with a lot of success!

Strawberries Are still doing well, including those I got from in and amongst my new herbs! Though they are a wild-type and therefore skinny and small. They are producing small berries.

Tomatoes I planted these outside near the first of the month and they almost immediately got powdery mildew. I made up a solution of milk and water and have been spraying it on the leaves of everything that will hold still and so far, it's being kept at bay.

Blackberries & Blueberries Our lone blueberry bush has tons of blueberries on it, so we netted it over. I got cuttings from another blackberry bush and am trying to root them. I got a blueberry bush on clearance for $2.49. It was the only one left and I thought it the perfect companion to our lonely one. I planted the new one a couple of feet from the first one on the last day of the month.

Raspberries The two surviving raspberry bushes have berries growing on them! I bought two more for a total of four. How excited I am for next year's crop!

Peas My first pea flower came out! I can't wait to taste my first homegrown peas! The first peas came out as well, but are too small to harvest yet.

Carrots Still growing tall and strong, but we have very rocky soil, so I'm not sure how they'll grow. Good thing it's an experimentation year!

Cucumbers Grew big and are planted on Gramma's side of the yard. We started with five, but there's four left now. They are growing strong.

Squash Were planted the same day as the tomatoes and are loving this sunny weather. Gramma has a few of these on her side of the yard as well.

Herbs I received Oregano, Mint, and Bible Leaf from Rachel's mom. I bought peppermint. They're all in containers and very happy!

Beans I planted Purple Podded Pole Beans and green beans, but I can't remember what variety right now. They are coming up beautifully. Except that an entire row of the Purples decided not to grow, and something is eating the leaves off every Purple that did come up. The green beans are coming along great though.

Lettuce I dug up all the Amish Deer Tongue lettuce and replanted black-seeded Simpson because the ADT was too close together and didn't form heads, just spindly leaves. I spaced the Simpson out much better!

Structures I also got pallets this month. The first batch was mostly rotted and bad, but I didn't know that before I accepted them. So a friend with a truck and I drove 45 minutes to get them. When we got back she said she had a few more for me. Then I called the local hardware store and they told me I could have all the pallets I wanted. I got a different friend with a truck to get those for me. I'm planning on building at least the framework and walls for my chicken coop! I built the compost with four pallets with some of these.

I keep letting myself get disappointed by other bloggers' success. I keep having to remember that they probably have longer growing seasons than I do. After all, I can't count on the last frost until almost the very end of May! I have all winter to refashion my garden plan with all the experience I'm getting this year and so next year will be better. But, most of all, I am having fun.