Harvest Monday 7.14.14

It's Harvest time, again! Yippee!!!

I had a couple of weeks there I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever get back here to report a harvest again. But, here I am! Linking in from Daphne's Dandelions, don't forget to drop by and see what others are harvesting all over the world.

This week brought me - green garlic. It appears that yet again my garlic will not be making bulbs. So, I took a few of these for cooking. YUM... so fragrant and delicious. If I didn't like actually having storage garlic for use later in the year it wouldn't bother me to use this all the time!

This single garlic stem covered my 4' table from one end to the other. HUGE. The usable white part was over 20" long. So growth isn't the problem necessarily. It's hard to grow certain things in Florida, and for me - this is one of those things. Some gardeners still manage to grow it fairly well, but the bulb size is never overly large.

The other thing I've been harvesting is my avocados!

Oh, this makes me happy. I was afraid that like the peaches once the squirrels and rats figured out the fruit was there that it would be gone. However, apparently when they are not ripe they don't entice the little critters. That's good because we have a thing for all things avocado around here. These beauties make me a little less hostile towards the squirrels. Only  a little though. THey are still stealing my tomatoes, beans and anything else they can get their paws on.

Today's avocado will be put into a salad with cranberries and a poppyseed dressing.. Oh my - I can't wait!


Not harvesting these yet, but the promise is there. So far the pomegranates have never had issues with either bugs nor critters. Something tells me that the critters don't like all the thornlike stickers on the bush. This works for me, because they are another one of this families favorite things. From popping the arils like little candy treasures to juicing. Poms are well received here.

Currently there are 7 poms on that have swollen enough I am no longer concerned about them dropping. There are another 6 that look like they have set but the branch hasn't thickened at the base of the fruit so I'm still holding my breath for another week - 10 days on those.

This tree blossomed earlier in the year and only set 1 fruit at that time. It is blooming still even with these beauties on and growing.  It's a good news/bad news scenario really. It means that the single crop I could have had (that is normally a large crop) is not going to happen. But, it also means that these fruits that are setting weeks and even months apart will provide me with a drawn out harvest. In the long run I'd rather have the fruit on an as needed basis to prevent waste, even though I probably will not get enough to juice, reduce and freeze yet again this year.

I have another bush that sits right next to this one and it tried to bloom earlier in the year. Non of those set any fruit and I can only hope that it will try to bloom again this summer so that I still might get even more fruit. That bush is older than this one and has yet to give me any fruit. I think by next summer if it doesn't set I may need to replace it!

That's it for my harvests this week. Nothing spectacular, but it's nice to have something from the garden anyway. Hope you are harvesting well!

See you soon!

Barbie~

Duck tails

I am hoping to chronologically picture all of the drakes progress soon, but right now I had to share the newest thing. The oldest drake (13 weeks) sprouted his 'drake feather' last week. It's so stinking cute. He actually has two and they are on opposite sides of his butt. So, it looks more like horns than anything. He has also stopped trying to quack. (Oh, thank goodness) and sounds raspy like a normal drake should.

The funny thing is that even though the ducks are easily twice the size of my two little hens, the hens really rule the roost around here. 

The ducks even let the hens have first go at their treats. Once the girls get their noses wet a time or two they quickly lose interest in the ducks seeds I give them.

Here he celebrates the small victory.

 Actually managed to lift himself up a good inch or two as well. Silly bird. 

While I've enjoyed having them here and watching them grow I simply can not wait to bring them to their new home. Having this many ducks in such a small area is difficult to keep clean. They are dirty birds. After I finally gave up leaving them free access to the little tot pool here and realized they only need the bucket of water to rinse their nares? So much easier. I dump the pool every 2-3 days now because they are only swimming in it for about 2 hours a night. It also keeps the area they stay in drier over all. That makes it easier to clean.  

They say that ducks poop more than any other fowl - but I'm wondering if that is not the case in particular but more of the fact that they do not scratch and thereby eliminate the evidence of their poop. I'm going to get help with that little problem as well. The drake that will be staying with us will have to be housed in the hen pen in the future. This weekend will be the first I will be trying out the drakes in there. I fell a little bad putting them in with the bullies (hens) but it is necessary. I'm bringing home the babies tonight and I need the 'nursery' space the drakes have been using for them. They will all forage in the yard together in the evenings to make the transition for the ducklings into the flock easier.

That's it for now. If all goes well I'll be back soon with pics of my new babies. Exciting, and daunting at the same time. I really can't keep them all here much longer.

Be back soon!

Barbie~

It's True!

It's true! I <3 July! I just can't help it. There is so much promise in July for me. Later this month I'll start new tomato plants to transplant for the Fall season. That's a great kick start to the garden and a huge help to the brain that just sees the garden that is sweltering and drowning out there. It's been raining non stop for 5 days now. Blech.

 

But it's all going to change tomorrow. We're heading back to the property tomorrow and that promises campfires, picnics, cookouts and lots of family memories. It also promises a few grouchy moments, a lot of Gatorade and some more sweat. We do a lot of work while we are there. But this trip is always one of my favorites of the year. It may not be as nice of weather that April usually brings us, but the kids are always more eager to help out and excited for the sparklers and campfires that we do.

 

But, I'll post about that when I get back. For now I wanted to tell you about what I'm most excited for in the Fall garden. I've got some new seeds to try and a couple of them have me just dying to plant already!

 

This fall my garden will (hopefully) feature:

 

Graffiti Cauliflower

 

Burnet (herb)

 

Pole Bean Trionfo Violetto

 

Unfortunately they were out of stock of the parthenocarpic cucumbers that I ordered. Seeing as I wanted to start those right away on my porch I was less than thrilled about that. Oh, well. Hopefully they'll get them back in soon. If not I'll cry in my soup and have them order another type. I always sow at least 3 types of cucumbers and while some do better than others I usually count on these types of cukes to give me the largest harvest the fastest. The plants don't stay around long term, but I generally get enough for my pickling needs and then use traditional plants for my fresh eating.

 

For the first time in a few years I also ordered a few flower seeds. I just couldn't resist a new blanket flower color. I also got some status for drying inside. Hot pink for my girlies. I thought they'd appreciate it and since our Fall and early spring is the best time to grow it here - BONUS!  :-) I got some dianthus for the Fall as well. I thought that the pink to white dianthus with a purple pansy or such in front would be great along my ginger and walkway for some color. It's always so drab there once the lilies go to sleep for the summer.

 

OK- so NOW do you see why I get so excited about July? It hold so much promise! Come August the heat is so miserable and I'll be scrambling with getting the kids back to school and that it entails, I'll forget all about how wonderful it is. September the garden will be reseeded for the fall/winter months and it will all start over again.

 

So, I guess for me this is my version of getting those garden catalogs in the mail in the dead of winter. 

I'll be back next week. Until then.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~ 

 

 

Harvest Monday 7.1.13

July! July? JULY!!!!!!



 

I'm SO excited! It's J~U~L~Y!

 

Know what that means?

 

 

Sweat. LOTS of it. But, it also means. Ice tea, lemonade, grilling, broken air conditioners (in Alabama FUN!) Lots of work outside, and lots of cooling of in the shade.

 

This week the work was clearing out the rest of the broken corn. I got a few more ears of corn, but a lot of it hadn't matured right. It simply wasn't able to fertilize being mashed down.

 

Some of the corn did better than others.

 It seems that even the ears that got fertilized was stunted in other ways. Some of it had rows missing, and other ears were stunted in length.

But, all in all it only took another 3 weeks out of that part of the garden it's the time of year that I can't grown much anyway so I don't feel that I've lost anything by trying. We actually had enough corn to throw on the grill for all of us with some left over and we each ate an ear or two of the decrepit corn with only a few kernels while we were plundering through the garden. There is just nothing like fresh veggies in the world and this is one of my favorites. All told we had 4 pounds of edible corn. More went to the hens that was demolished by the caterpillars. Because the corn was laying down it was hard to keep it treated with BT and soap. I don't normally treat with anything else so I did lose a bit to that. Luckily those ears were also quite small.

 

Also in the mix this week a couple of choice blackberries and some tomatoes.

The tomatoes are a bit sun burnt I was trying to keep the dang stink bugs off of them, but apparently that didn't work out so well. I can see the little points of color change on the skins where the bugs damaged them. I was thinking sun burnt might be better than stink bugged, and I didn't see any signs of the bugs when I went out tot he garden.  However, apparently not having the leaves cover the tomatoes must have simply given the stupid bugs a better lookout and not so much less of a place to hide. :-( It just didn't work. Bad thing is the bugs aren't even that bad this year - yet.

 

Ah- so that is my report for Harvest Monday. I'm hoping the blackberries will be strong in Alabama. I'll report back next week! I'd like some black berry syrup and some blackberry jam and just black berries! Wish me luck!

Oh, and don't forget to check out Daphne's for more Harvest reports from all over the world.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

 



Harvest Monday. 7.30.2012

This July has been the worst yet for me on record. Of course, my record is fairly short. But this week things are finally picking up again.

There have been long beans, rice peas, mulberries, a strawberry here or there (for the chickens as they are seedy and kind of tart now) a pomegranate, some peanuts that ended up getting pulled when I pulled the marigolds last week, and a few other assorted things here and there... I didn't get a lot of pictures, but I did get a few. :-)

Peanuts, pomegranate, mulberries, an overgrown cucumber (was still good, btw)

a load of peppermint, rice peas,

 

and lady peas as well - these were delicious!

My gals. the little fluff butts. We got the first eggs this weekend. My what a raucous! You'd have thought the world was coming to an end. Sheesh. I'm afraid the chicken sharing with the neighbor will be coming to an abrupt end very soon. There is no way the HOA will put up with this. :-( It makes me sad.

This proud young lady is definitely the owner of one of the little eggs. Can't you tell? That  waddle looks like it's on fire! LOL

My son is showing off his bounty and contribution to the harvest this week. He and my husband went out with some friends... and my, oh my, did they contribute...

Nomnomnom....

So, while i"m busy eating, Y'all have fun.

Linking in with Daphne's Dandelions. Don't forget to stop by her place and see all the wonderful things that everyone is harvesting from all over the world!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

My Herd

I  may not have a herd of cattle. Nor do I have a herd of goats, or a gaggle of geese, I do however have a cat. Don't ask me what that has to do with this post. It doesn't.
I have a herd in miniature. I herd of beneficial insects. I am Oh so grateful for them. It seems they keep some of the other insects in check, but the mature insects that are the same size as they are or larger tend to go either unnoticed or simply cannot be overpowered. Then again, even though I can overpower an adult stink bug I sure as heck wouldn't eat it. So maybe it's a choice thing.
I just wanted to share a few pictures of different assassin bug babies in my lima patch yesterday. They are everywhere I look. Some are shy and ditch under the leaves as soon as they see me like this:

Others are more interested in seeking out playmates.

Some are carefree and just enjoy basking in the sun....

In this particular patch of beans the only sign of damage from any other insects is rather obvious. Grasshoppers have been in here. That is far too large an insect for these adolescents to take on. Otherwise this section is pretty clean of bad insects and since it is such I have no intention of disturbing this herd and losing ground to aphids, thrips, beetles, moths, and other not so nice bugs.

Beyond the occasional leaf miner my limas are obviously very happy with the care they are providing. I was so happy to see all those blooms I baked them a plate of cookies....

And then because they don't eat cookies I ate SIX of them myself. :-D

And brought the rest to work where they were devoured before lunch by the herd here. LOL.

I do need to lodge a complaint however.

Are you ready?

Really ready?

You sure?

OK here goes....

They eat ladybugs, too. :-(

I almost cried.

Apparently they are indiscriminate feeders. Any insect small enough to catch will do. I've noticed a decline in lady bugs in the garden. I mean it's really hot and about time for them to move on, but I'm pretty sure these critters aren't helping anything. *pout*

Think they make non-ladybug collars for them? Perhaps training methods to get them TO eat stink bugs and moth caterpillars? Humph. Too bad.

'Till next time!

Barbie~



I chit too much.

*Snicker*
No, seriously. There should be a program for this.

Right now I have chitting:
Rutgers 5ea
Tomande 2ea
Cherokee Purple 3ea
Homestead 2ea
Mountain Magic 2ea
Roma 4ea
Better Bush 2ea
Stupice 2ea
Matina 2ea
Black 2ea

And that is just the FIRST set of tomatoes for the fall. Me thinks me has an addiction. If any of the determinants that I planted 2 of don't grow well I'll be starting 2 more each. They are the trials for this fall. 24 tomato plants just to start? There must surely be something wrong with me! I only have room for that many. Guess I'll be looking for some more pots soon for the second set of plants. :-) So far the tomatoes in the pots are doing the best out of all so this could be good.

The bad news is that now that I've chitted, I'm in a chittin' mood.... (I like the word what can I say) I have a hankering to put in some  more beans or some corn. I'll have to rip something out in order to put something in so it's time to start thinking about what I want where because whatever I plant now will affect my cold crops latter. Believe it or not I'm only about 6 weeks away from starting some of my wonderful winter veggies! That's odd considering I can still start melons and beans, and mater, too - but SOOOO nice.  I can't wait to get some broccoli and carrots and lettuce in again. Don't even get me started on the spinach. MMMMmmmmm....

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Crop failure!

Well, the one thing I think I was the most excited for this summer turned out to be - a crop failure!

Left in it's wake is a slightly weedy, very much nonproductive almost nonliving practically just stems

 piece of garden. LOL. This was supposed to be Yin Yang. I was SOOOOOOO looking forward to it beans. I couldn't wait to show them to my little girls. To hear the giggles as they talked about how they looked like little Shamu's. And, to top it off we had plans to back up the bean harvest with a trip to Seaworld. I guess that is just not gonna happen now. The irony here is that right beside these beans, only separated by about 6" (to the left) are THESE BEANS:

 A little different, No? Yes. Indubitably so. The beans were all planted at the same time. Treated the same way. Have the same soil. In the same part of the garden. Now, this could be as simple as the Yin Yang is not as well cut out for our Florida summers - that could be the case, true. I hate to go off ordering another $5 packet of seeds to find out though. I'd like to try them again in the fall though. Just look how robust these rice beans are... and they are flowering already, too.

While I'm doing an update of sorts. Remember that I said the assassin bugs love my tomatillo plant? Well apparently they've been throwing some pretty good parties in there...

The great big all red one is a new one for me. Never had one like that before. Don't know if it is just a new morph or a different type of bug altogether. There are several life stages here so - Any entomologists out there? There are a lot of firsts for my garden this year. Not only is it a first for assassins, but this red bug is new, the cucumber beetle (certainly not happy about that) is new and so is a white 'eyed' bug as well. That thing was wild. It made me run around squealing like... well, like a GIRL when it flew up at me. I may be of the female persuasion, but 'girl' is not exactly what most people refer to me as. After all. When the man of the house next door had a snake in his closet it wasn't my husband that ran to save him.

The Yin Yang was replaced with Black Eyed Peas, and the crew of assassins were left to be - though I'm thinking there IS to much of a good thing going on there.

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Stiches, and little bits.

Right now everything is in little bits.

Like this:

 

Little bits of handfuls. Little handfuls of grapes. YUMMM

Little handfuls of Everglades tomatoes...Usually in my little bits hands. The girls eat these like candy. They are technically a wild tomato possibly more closely related to a currant. And, I like them so much better than most other cherry tomatoes. Those and Grannies Sungolds - the rest of the cherries will be pulled from the garden this week I just don't like the others flavors.

Little handfuls of parsley, basil for daily doses of cooking, dill, and green onions, and mulberries, too.

But what is coming in by the bushel? Rosemary! I wish I'd have taken a picture. AFTER taking off the wood I harvested 9 OUNCES of the stuff. Some people at work asked for some and I really wanted to get some back in my cupboard as well. This is one thing that grows with a vengeance in my garden and NO BUGS care to even look twice at it. I should have planted it at the end of the row rather than the middle - but that being the worst of my sins it could be moved if I really wanted to.

I haven't abandoned my blog, nor my garden. I've just been busy. Hubby went to the Spinal Institute of Florida this week and Thank GOD - no surgery. At least not yet. There are other options to explore first and so far he seems to be recuperating fairly well. THat is to say beyond the emotional scars that competitive tennis may not be in his future quite the way it has been in the past, and he may have to come up with a new hobby, sport and stress reliever. Tennis will have to be only for fun now. Poor guy. It's like taking oxygen out of the air for him. But, in time he'll adjust I'm sure.

The other thing I'm experiencing a little bit of is whiskers. It seems my son has grown some -

3 stitches. *sigh* When it rains it pours. And speaking of pouring - we've gotten over 6 inches of rain the last weak. It was great for some things in the garden, and not so great for others. It did finish wiping out what was week - and strengthened the things that needed that so all in all it was a good thing. I just don't have the heart to rip out some of my favorite things when there is a chance they could turn the corner and come back. This helped make my decisions easier. And with that another 30 gallon trash bag full of the suffering plants from 'the incident' have gone out of the garden. The turn around is nearly complete now and hopefully by the weekend the garden will be completely back to planted again.

Meanwhile I have no cucumbers producing which is a major shock to my system. It's very odd for us not to have some cukes in the garden at any given time that there hasn't been a frost. I'm trying to console myself with barely dilled pickles, but it's not working well. I may have to resort to the box store just for faster turn around. The rain dampened off all my seedlings I had started a couple weeks ago.

And, it's time for starting my fall tomatoes! My list for this seasons plants are (3 each):

 Stupice, Mountain Magic, Black, Matina, Tomande, and Chocolate cherry to trial

and my stand bys:  Roma, Cherokee Purple 

I'm running into problems with my HOA so I'm trialing the semi-determinate and determinates (and the cherry) to see if I can deal with the flavor/texture/maturation rates and sizes this fall. In the spring if all goes well I'll have a few of these determinates as well as some of my favorites again. So this weekend I will be planting up my first set of tomatoes for fall. I'm starting to worry about space for all of them, but I'm sure that my schedule will hold and they will go in the ground just like planned. Some day the second part of the garden will get done. At least part of it anyway.

'Till next time!

Barbie~



Harvest...Tuesday?

Well, it’s not Monday but here are a few pics of this week’s goods from the garden. It’s been decided that starting with the fall crops that I am planting now I will measure what I bring in to try to keep a tally of the types of veggies and fruits, the days to harvest and the weights of harvests. I’d like to get some true comparisons and see what types of veggies do best for flavor , vigor, production. Right now production is key because we will be stocking an entirely empty freezer. But, next year I believe that flavor and production will be a battle. J

These pictures actually span about 10 days. The Sunflower was brought in and dried first. The carrots are pathetic, I just needed the room and finished clearing out their space. Loads of okra, some PEPH trailing in still, the new plantings will be putting on soon as well so I expect that harvest to ramp up this month Tobasco peppers come in 10 or 12 at a time every couple days, and a cucumber every few days as well. Sometimes they go into our salads and other times fridge pickles. J

Speaking of freezer… So my freezer is on the fritz. It’s an oldie, but a goodie. It’s an old 6’ stand up with the wire shelves that have the refrigerant run through them. We bought it not long after we got our first house, and subsequently boat. Original purpose for it was bait, fish filets, crab. It’s been repurposed a few times now. I have fixed it twice on my own. Once was a simple reset fuse thing, and the other was a problem with the seal. This time I’m just not sure. In 4 months it’s completely iced over. The freezer used to vacuum seal when I closed the door and for the past 2 months it hasn’t been doing that at all. Then the past 2 weeks it started doing it again! I don’t know what to think. I know the freezer is somewhere between 12 and 15 years old – I know we should probably just go and get a new freezer lest we lose everything at once. It’s happened before. Twice. Once fully - completely stocked, with venison, beef, chicken, veggies…it was devastating. I can’t imagine that happening again. Thankfully it was due to a hurricane and not the freezers malfunction but still! Ah, but there is this extremely frugal side of me that says just defrost it again and see what you can do with it. I’ve also recently heard that a ‘frost free’ freezer won’t keep meats and veggies nearly as long. I need the dependability of keeping our meats for a year. We hunt only in the winter for deer, and while we might take a hog in the summer we certainly do not count on it. It’s just to blazing hot to be sitting on stalk. We don’t have our dog anymore so we can’t go to the pigs, we have to wait for them. We tend to also only purchase large quantities of chickens in the fall/winter as their production slows down so we are able to swoop up 40 chickens for $60 or $70 – cleaned! So anyone with info on the whole freezer thing- I need help! LOL

Ah, that brings up something that I’ve been longing to do. My old crab traps are long gone and I didn’t really realize that I missed them until now. Actually the ocean itself. That salt air, the sticky sweat, the slime of the fish, the stench of the mud…. Oh so delightful. It’s time for these old memories to be made with my children. At nearly 4 years old the twins are well past due for the first squeals of delight that a blue crab scuttering away bring. Of course I’m well aware that with that comes the inevitable screams of terror when after telling them for the millionth time not to get too close they get a finger pinched and it scares the living daylights out of them… teehee. Yes, these are the memories I want to make with my kids. We’ve found a nice little fishing spot this summer that we frequent. It’s time to expand their horizons a bit more. I’m thinking this fall we may just need to make a little trip out to hangover island. It’s time to do some good old fashioned camping, FLORIDA style! :-D