Locked out? Fines...and rambling.

Well, I'm still locked out - and have been for months now of all the social sites. This must be some sort of virus that finally infiltrated the blog. Losing Facebook? I can live with that. I didn't frequent it that much and other than keeping up with a few select people well - it seems more of a time suck anyway.

But I couldn't lose my blog. So I have a safety net. I have 2 identities here. :-D That way I can at the least reset the password on one or the other to get in and post. Posting via email in the interim worked, but then I still couldn't post the comments or update, post links, etc. It just felt strange knowing the blog was all by itself. Lonely on the web. Kind of like leaving a teenager at home by themselves for the first time. The same way I feel when I go on vacation and leave the garden all by itself. LOL.

At any rate - I'm back in. Once I got here I realized I REALLY need to update the harvest tally. So I'll try to work on that today so I can update it by Monday.

There hasn't been a lot of harvesting this week. Things are so water logged that they are rotting. The rest of the onions and garlic seem to be rotting in all the rain. Par for the course - I should have know better than to have them out when the summer rains hit so it's my fault, just not a happy thought to throw that food into the compost pile.It's so water logged the roads look more like rivers. You think I'm joking? This is 3 lanes of road and a sidewalk...

The caution sign actually floated away you can see it up on in the parking lot. I need to bring a paddle to work to make sure that I can get home each evening now.
While the harvest is slowing to a crawl some things are picking up rapidly. Weeds are growing faster than you can blink. That much rain and heat make good mushroom weather, too. That means every other fungus will be attacking soon as well. I'll have to break out some sort of fungicide soon. This is where my organic methods fail me. I've not found anything that works against these conditions yet. :-( It may be a lack of knowledge base, so I'm all ears and willing to try if you have any ideas.

The weeds are where the fine part of the post comes in. My HOA is at it again. They are trying to fine me for weeds in my yard. my front yard. Now my back yard - that is different. I will admit the area we don't use daily back there the grass has gone to seed and the seed heads are a little unsightly...My lawn mower has been out of commission so part of the back has been pretty bad. But, we've been using the weed whacker to keep all the long stuff at bay in the front and the main area in the back. Yet, I got ANOTHER threatening letter in the mail on Monday telling me I'm being fined $100 a day. AGAIN

Here was my yard on that day:

(For reference it had not been cut for over 2 weeks - our mower was out of service)

Flooded? A little patchy maybe - it's native grasses. possibly not perfectly manicured- but weedy or high? NO! The neighbor adjoining was a good 8" taller so this irks me considerably. I'm sorry I know I complain a lot here about this type of thing. But, I'm not about to complain much to my neighbors. The last thing I need is for them to go talking to the wrong person and for it to get worse.
Good news is we are the proud owner of a rather used RIDING lawn mower. Of course it doesn't fit in a lot of places in the back yard, but that is what the weed whacker is for, right?

So between the rain and the season change I need to do a lot of maintenance in the garden. Problem is the worst of the storms are in the evenings, when I could get to the garden - guess it's time to start utilizing the free labor I have when I do get out there. Time to put the kids to work! I'll have to mark of sections of the garden and give them gloves. I'll just let them go at it. If they pull up more than I wanted them to then - so be it. That is what seeds are for. Growing new things after all.  They need to learn about this part. They've been planting and harvesting with me for years. Time for them to learn about culling as well. Time for me to get over my fear of losing a few productive plants and gain trust in them.

Here is what needs pulled. This picture is now 2 weeks old so what is little is not so little any more...

The lattice is barely visible now, and the soy beans are flowering. Sweet tiny little flowers. Not what I was expecting at all. LOL. Should have read up better I suppose. I just hope they do OK through all the rains. The germination was spotty at best and I'm blaming the squirrels for a raid on that one. I shouldn't have planted the peanuts at the same time. I need enough to reseed a fall crop - or spring crop.

That's easily half the garden space that will be freed up. Cowpeas will go in, and a few more Okra. More peanuts as well. I have visions of peanut butter dancing in my head. Some limas and because I can't not do it a couple watermelon vines even though I don't expect much. I might let them compete for space on the trellis but its sagging and I'm not sure what to do with that... ???

WOW this is a long post - but you can see I have a lot of work ahead of me right now. I'll try to remember to take pictures along the way. I'm not always so great about doing that, but I'll try. It should be one of the larger changes to my garden area. Then again I've not have this large of a garden this time of the year before.

'Till next time!

Barbie~