Harvest Monday 8.12.13

It's Harvest Monday again.

I've decided to take the tally down. I don't keep track of how much I'm bringing in currently so it's pointless really. Maybe I'll put it back up. But, I realized that I never accounted for any of the blueberries, or the potatoes I harvested... much less the sweet potatoes I've harvested. I'm just not good at it. I know I've gathered over a hundred pounds this year. And the most productive time is yet to come. Heck, I had my garden completely out of order for a few months while I created the new beds. (I seriously love my new beds BTW)

SO, news for this week? I had a harvest to show you. I had a lovely bunch of green beans... well I should clarify. Green yard long beans in a bowl waiting to go inside. In the bottom of this bowl I had my cow peas. Pink Eye Purple Hulled and a couple holstein beans. I set the bowl down to go out and trim up the orchid tree where it was rubbing the fence... guess what I had when I came back?

Only the dried or drying cowpeas. All the green type beans for fresh eating were gone! THIEVES! DAB BLASTED... FREAKING FRACKING.... bushy tailed RATS!!!! Now, granted that I went from just trimming that single branch back to all out cutting a third of the tree down as it was encumbering my guava bush and it ended up taking me an hour - but sheesh! I'm guessing this may be part of the reason my harvests have gone down so drastically this summer. Not that I have a lot to harvest, but this was the frist time ever that I've actually been out working and had the critters steal stuff from under my nose. >:-( Grrr...

OK- Onto another interesting development. One of my little lovely fluffy butts has given me a little gift of wonderment. She normally lays eggs that are a plain pale pink but yesterday she gave me one that apparently went in for a second coat in the paint department. What a beautiful egg! I'm not sure I'll be able to bring myself to eat it.... wait a minute. I'm sure I'll get hungry enough at some point, but it will be hard to crack that pretty thing.

Normal above - Yesterdays speckaled job below

 Pretty eggs. Make for a yummy breakfast. Thanks Dusty! She's a great bird. Now that it's getting so close to Fall I'll have to start thinking about ways to preserve some of their eggs. They are all over a year old and likely to stop laying over the winter. (BOOO, HISS!)
 What would I do if I had to pay for eggs?


The main garden was turned under as promised and I sowed out this weekend: corn, roma bush beans, Kentucky wonder beans, pole Violetta, popcorn (different silking by 30 days) and watermelon. Also in the main garden is: Tomatoes - Betterboy, big huskey cherry, bog boy and solstice.
I also have a good 30 tomatoes chitting currently that are mostly determinate type for the high raised bed. These are due to be planted into the first cups today if it doesn't rain and I can get the mix on the way home. I should have a good 10 extra tomatillos if anyone needs some. LOL.

That's all the big news at the moment form this end. Things have been quite in blog land because summer is coming to a close and we have been busy making preparations and finding courses to enroll in. I'll delve more into that in another post since we have a complicated mix here. I hope the Back-to-school preparations are going well in your land, too!

See you soon!

Barbie~