Garden Pics!

Just a few garden pictures today:
  These are half of my beans that are in the garden, well almost half; more like a 1/4 of them.  they are in full bloom and seem to have secondary flower stalks.  Now these are a green bush bean after the pitiful results from the pole beans last year.  I did get some of my Tiger's eye beans planted up front with the hot peppers and if they do well there I might just go ahead and order some for next year and cross my fingers that they'll produce well.
 The Tiger's Eye beans are a bush been that can be eaten as a green snap bean or left to be a dry bean.  It's a pinto "style" bean if you let them dry.  Which if they do well would be great as we do make chili.
 I have also started some long beans growing as they take the hottest part of the summer and do well in it.
 I spent the early part of this morning feeding the animals (kids' job during the summer btw), the kids got home very late last night so I let them sleep in.  I went to check the plants which I took these pics during.  Then I did a little digging in the pond.  I came back into the house, got a cup of tea and started working on the blogs... including the one on the website that I started last year, that I am hoping to keep up to date as well:
  http://wolfwoodsinmo.weebly.com/1/post/2012/06/early-sat-morning.html
 That's today's blog post if you decide to check it out and you can get to the rest of the website while there. This is one of the green cabbages that I grew as you can see it's starting to head finally.  I hope they get big and the red ones to as I really want some cole slaw and I have just to wait on the cabbage for it...
 The girls are going on a overnight trip tonight, well they're leaving this afternoon.  I hope they have fun, it's with their church and they kinda dropped the trip on us so we can't take them we don't have the gas for it.  As we're doing "kid taxi" to the library events so we planned for that only.
 We should have a "farm hand" here after the 27th, it won't be Rayne as yet... still no word as to when he'll be here for sure.  however a young person is coming by to stay and help out in exchange for a place to live and food to eat.  I hope it works out well for us as we really do need some help for when Silver's not feeling well.  It would just make most of this work easier sometimes with extra hands. This is that volunteer squash we have growing and as you can see it's in full flower, they are still just male flowers; but hey... considering how early they are we might get lucky.  especially since the Dark Star that I planted have started to show some flower buds, which means they will be flowering soon as well.  I should be able to get a better comparison on them soon.
 The lemon squashes that I planted only one is still sprouted, and it's growing very slowly; so I am not sure it's going to do very well at all.  The luffa gourds are doing very well, or seem to be doing well.  They are still growing, I am guessing they are a slow growing gourd.  So we will see as they get bigger (crosses fingers).  My remaining bushel gourd is growing as well, and I hope it continues as last time I tried growing one it grew a bit then gave up.
 I am thinking of harvesting some Lamb's quarter's tomorrow morning for a nice breakfast, with some squash flowers if we have more tomorrow.  An onion or two, and some fresh herbs.  Maybe with some fresh flat bread, I swear I prefer it over regular bread now.  It's wonderful to use as a plate when the item you are eating goes well with bread, then the juices get absorbed into the bread an gives it such a lovely flavor.  I wonder if that is what I've read before called "trencher" bread (pardon if I messed up the spelling), I've read about it in books before and I wonder if it's a flat bread.  Maybe I'll find out one day. This one made me smile this morning.  This is one of the two flower heads on the one Elderberry that is blooming.  As you can see if you look closely the flowers are now opening.  I am going to keep a good eye on this as I am not sure how long after they produce ripe fruit.  I am still trying to figure out if I'm going to make them into jam or just save them for tea making this winter for colds. As it helped out Silver immensely I am seriously thinking of going the tea route, thing is though as we don't have a dryer yet I'll have to just freeze them and use frozen berries to make tea with.
 We have a newer project before the dryer, as I still need the money to build our house we are defiantly just considering putting on a addition for this winter to give us more space and have "rooms" for the two "farm hands" provided they both get here of course.  We need the space, so the kitchen can be just a kitchen.  I want a separate room for our TV and some book shelves for our books to go on.
 ...and if we're lucky we'll have regular internet by winter, though I am hoping to have projects to work on all winter to keep us busy.  I am determined to try to get some rugs done this winter, so next time we head to the free store I am picking up jeans to make the strips for rug braiding.  I hope I'm good at it as it seems I have an odd problem with crocheting and knitting, I do it too tight.  I was told by one woman who taught me that she had NEVER seem someone who made the stitches so tight that normally people have to learn to make them tight.
 Well that's it for now,
 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Not a pond Day

Well I had a nice quiet morning, I woke up at about 7am here. I went and fed all the animals and watered the garden then sat and enjoyed about 2 cups of tea before anyone else started waking up. The plan today was to go out and do some digging in the pond before midday.

Well I went out after breakfast this morning and discovered something. I had sent my son out yesterday with the weed whacker to cut from the front back through all of the clearing. Well he went out, he cut some of the grasses down. Only by where the dog house we aren't using is. So we spent this morning clearing the rest of it, between the weed whacker and clippers we got most of it clear before noon. Funny thing where we are digging the pond we have JUST grass growing, after cutting about half of that I raked tit up for the chickens to go wild on.

It seems all my Dark Star zucchini are sprouting, so we will have about 6 plants; which hopefully will produce lots of fruits. The Lemon ones are just starting to sprout now, and one of the pumpkins has sprouted.

We used the Weed Whacker so much that we are now out of string for it. Pity it's one of the few types that cannot use the plastic permanent blades. So we have to wait till after the first to get more string for it.

The man who had my girls fostering the puppies and training them, is going to lend us a kennel for Paris and her puppies. Which will be wonderful as I’m going to have to bleach my floor as they puppies now almost a month old are wandering a peeing everywhere. Anybody living fairly nearby want a puppy? We will have 4 of the chocolate females available in about 2 more months. Mom is of hunter line (no we have no proof) she chases birds, as does the father of them. Just contact me if you want one.

That's it for now,

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Weekend Wrap-up

 So over the weekend we did some planting, and removal in the garden. I went out and made the executive decision and removed my pea plants. Yes, they had a grand total of 4 flowers on them; however I did not think I could really leave them there when I really felt I needed to get the squashes planted.

All of my beans have sprouted, and about half of them are already on their second leaves; some have what look like the start of their flower stalks. I should be able to harvest more lettuce tomorrow, and I hope it's not bitter. I had picked some a few days back and it had a few bitter pieces in it.

I have planted 4 “hills” of summer squash, two of them are Lemon squash; and 2 are Dark Star. Dark Star is a zucchini type, these are one year old seeds so I hope they do well being they are planted in what was the bean bed last year. I have planted (well my son did) our pumpkins, Lady Godiva; as I want edible seeds and the flesh. That type is suppose to provide both and with the benefit of the hulless seeds. I have also transplanted my eggplants between where we planted the pumpkins, this is my first year of planting eggplants. I am hoping they do well as we do eat eggplants when we can get them.

I still need to go out and clear the unwanted plants from my potato bed, looks outside yep still raining. So I am hoping to do that tomorrow, along with pulling up more red clover for the chickens; and possibly getting out to the berry plants and trimming back the briar again. I had my girls get it a couple weeks ago and it's growing back pretty fast right now. We got some of the “grass” in front of the house cut this morning till we discovered the string in the weed wacker is stuck.

I am starting on a book that I am planning on writing a review on once I am done with it, I found it at the free store we stopped at on Sat. I found a couple of cooking and gardening books this time around, which is good for me. We re-arraigned our furniture/appliances in the house and got our open space back and moved our deep freezer to where we can get at it easier.

My tomato plants are finally taking off, and I hope to get the materials I need for the pots I am going to put them in. I am going to fill these large (bottom broken) tubs half way with straw then a mix of compost/manure/topsoil and plant the seedlings in that. That mix worked well for the tomatoes last year so I am going to repeat it.

That's it for now folks,

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...