The world seems hot, wild fires, drought. Our garden hasn’t been watered except rainfall and two other well water sessions, but the weeds don’t seem to care. It was looking terrible yesterday, so the line trimmer was taken over to attack the paths. The deadnettle has been regularly weeded from the tomatoes and peppers and when I see it in the beans, the copy cat weed. As the trimming was being done, there were many blueberries to be picked, a total distraction, but also realization that if weedwacking was done there, it would damage many low branches of those shrubs. That put me on hands and knees to pull all of the grass and the insidious creeping weed that is trying to overtake the garden, but the blueberries are clear for now and the corn bed was done too. Doing that showed that the only pumpkin that came up was gone. Seminole pumpkins take 60-90 days and we have that much time before first frost, so this morning, more were planted.
In the cooler part of the morning, today, the last of the spring peas were picked, providing about 8 ounces of shelled peas. A basket full of green snap beans also picked, a handful of blackberries. The blueberries and blackberries were added to my bag of frozen smoothie fruits, a favorite summer breakfast.
After lunch and our hot walk, more time was going to be spent in the garden, planting the fall peas, fall potatoes, and preparing the bed that will be beneath the little greenhouse for carrots, radishes, spinach, and komatsuma, but just as I reached the back door, we were given a severe thunderstorm warning that produced lots of noise and light close by, but almost no rain. It seems to have passed, so a bit more work will be tackled out there to get the fall garden started. The green beans from the first planting provided 3 more pounds today but are no longer flowering, there are a few more to harvest, and the second planting is coming along nicely and just beginning to flower. The later ones are never as good, but if picked young enough, can be frozen or made into dilly beans for later in the year.
The garden really needs a real compost bin system or compost tumbler. I’m in a bad habit of weeding and leaving the weeds to compost in the paths instead of turning them into usable soil. This morning’s weeding was at least added to the pile, but yesterday’s weeds need to be cleared and put in the pile, and the pile needs to be turned.
This is the time of year when the garden had gotten ahead of me and a few days of work put it back into a friendlier place that doesn’t frustrate me when I see it.
The storm was short lived so another couple of hours were invested, the fall potatoes and fall peas were planted. The spring potato bed was smoothed and the greenhouse frame set in place to show position of the rows for the other fall seed that will be sown this week. As soon as it was done, rain started to provide a heavy shower to settle the seed in. Another shower is expected before dark.
I opened this house while smoothing the bed, to remove old nests and found these feathered little ones staring back at me. That task can wait for another day. I didn’t see Mom so I’m not sure what they are as I didn’t want to disturb them too much. There has been an Eastern Bluebird gathering food lately, so maybe hers.
Though I’m not much of a selfie person, I had to take this photo in front of the tallest sunflower, I can’t even reach the top.
The cleaned up garden. Some weeding along the fence is needed, but that too will have to wait for another day.
The first tomatoes are coming in, the pepper plants all have some peppers on them, the cucumbers are growing, but not producing yet. We will take what we get. The Pinto beans are beginning to dry. It doesn’t look like there will be a great number, but fun to have grown my own bed of them for the first time. Maybe next year there will be a large bed of them and forego the corn that really hasn’t done much.
During all of this, spinning and knitting is still in the works. The monthly challenge is a scavenger hunt with spindle photographed with the item. And some of the spinning from last month and early this month is being knit into a chemo cap as a tribute to my friend that passed from cancer earlier this summer.
