Sue is not in the garden ...

She's in Hawaii for two weeks with Rouse the Spouse.

Happy 30th anniversary to us!

 

So glad to miss the 100+ degree extended heat wave!!

Gotta getta lotta stuff done ...

Harvesting and cooking zucchini, edamame, beet greens, etc before we leave for an extended vacation.  Andrew will be here to take care of the chickens and perform "must do" garden chores, but I can't count on him to pick and process lots of produce.

Wild Blackberries

This year's crop of wild blackberries is the best we've ever seen! Rouse and I spent one-and-a-half hours rambling through our favorite roadside brambles. There was an abundance of big, plump, juicy berries. We ended up with 7 pounds of berries ... enough for three batches of jam!

The End of Now and Future Squash

We have a major infestation of SQUASH BUGS. That's it for the squash.  I have to admit, I allowed the garden to become so overcome by squash bugs this year I had to resort to the use of seven dust to eradicate them ... the first time I've used that kind of poison in my garden.  They have even gotten into the gourds, which they have never done before!

The zucchini plants are history, as are the winter squash plants that were growing well but never had a chance to produce.  I'm very disappointed not to have any winter squashes this year. I'm beginning to think an early crop of squash is the only possibility to consider.  Squash planted later in the summer gets overwhelmed by bugs. Maybe I should take a break from growing squash at all for a few years, but I hate to think of life without fresh squash.

Today I roasted twelve zucchinis for the freezer and made two loaves of zucchini bread. The official count for this year's yield: 50 zucchinis

Major thinning of beets

Today's the day to harvest the beets.  I have three rows planted in the same bed as the okra ... rows alternating. Hot weather is coming.  It's time for the young okra to have its day in the sun.

I pulled mature beet plants and sorted through them, separating the roots from the tops.  Then off to the kitchen where I cooked the roots in the pressure cooker - 20 minutes gets the job done - and washed the greens, preparing them for the the cook pot in the near future.

Temps Expected to Hit 100 Degrees Today!

I'm heading to the garden NOW to beat the heat!

Rattlesnake Pole Beans on the Menu Tonight!

The plants have quickly grown up their string trellis.  They're healthy ... not yet riddled with pesty beetle damage or ugly leaf spot.  And the foliage is relatively sparse.  The leaves are not so lush as to hide the gorgeous purple-streaked beans.  This means that the picking is easy!

The beans are coming on in bunches.  Andrew says I could let them mature a bit more, but I'm ready for that first mess of pole beans!

Berries for Breakfast

It's berry season. Git 'em while the gittin' is good!


Blackberries, Blueberries, Wineberries
topping vanilla Greek yogurt
with almonds and whole grain cereal nuggets



First Day of Summer

The prolonged pleasant spring weather is about to turn ... right in line with the calendar!  We're heading toward the mid-90's today.  Heat and humidity, here we come!  I got out into the garden early this morning to complete my chores:

• picked jade bush beans and rattlesnake pole beans
• checked squash, cucumbers, and peppers for ripe fruit; found a couple of each to pick
• secured rapidly growing tomato plants to newly installed supports; trimmed suckers

Items to watch for:

• recently sown sunflower seeds have sprouted
• squash seeds planted in the new raised bed have sprouted and are growing well
• melons, limas, blackeyed peas are blooming
• edamame beans are set and maturing; trying to keep kudzu bugs and caterpillars under control
• sweetheart peppers have set fruit
• basil is starting to take off; needs to be pinched back to encourage branching / growth
• okra is stretching out above the beets; beets must be harvested soon to make way for okra

.6" Rain Yesterday Afternoon / Evening

New roo crows for the first time in his new home

Our young rooster must be feeling pretty comfortable in his new digs.  He got the granddog all riled up this morning with his crowing.

I was getting ready to dash off to yoga class.  Grayson, the granddog, was relaxing in the family room.  All of a sudden, he jumped up.  The hair on his back was standing on end.  He growled.  He went to the back door, itching to get out.  I opened the door.  Then I heard it.  A weird, loud sound ... a short, bleating, bawling sound.  I was afraid it might be a fawn separated from its mother.  I told the dog to "wait" while I put on my shoes.

The sound was coming from the barn area.  We slowly made our way in that direction.  I stopped and listened again.  Strange!  Then one more time ... and I heard the distinctive cadence of a rooster's "cock a doodle doo".  He has declared, "I am the boss!"  

Roo establishing his Harem

Oh, boy!  Now one of the Dominiques has joined New Roo and his girlfriend on the nighttime roost.  If I had to guess, I'd say it's First Lady.  She was the favorite of our last rooster, Barack.  I think she missed his companionship after his untimely death last fall.

This handsome new rooster is proving to be a chick magnet!

Zucchini Still Life

... that's 38 and counting!

My new Nikon Coolpix 14x wide zoom camera has a filter effect called "painting".  The most recent pile of squash made such a lovely photograph ...  I thought I'd like to make it look like a painting.  Voila!

These squash have since been cut into chunks, doused in olive oil, sprinkled with course salt and freshly ground pepper, roasted in the oven, and tucked into the freezer for future use.  They will contribute to a fine ratatouille!

What a glorious morning!

Temps in the mid- to upper- 50's with low humidity.  It's a pleasure to work in the garden under these conditions.  I found plenty to do.

• The sugar snaps have exhausted themselves.  I picked the last few pods and removed the tangled plants from the bed, creating a little elbow room for the adjacent edamame plants.
• I checked the edamame for pests.  There are still a few kudzu bugs to remove each day.  Something besides the kudzu bug is eating the edamame leaves and leaving little black feces.  I suspect a worm, but I couldn't find one.
• Cross-striped cabbage worms have begun to eat holes in the kale.  I harvested the nicest remaining leaves, then pulled the rest up.
• I picked zucchini, jade bush beans, cucumbers, banana peppers.
• There are plenty of good-looking beets, but I didn't harvest any today.
• The first batch of rattlesnake pole beans will be ready in a few days.

New Roo Settling In

Well, that didn't take long!  New Roo has made a new friend. He and the light colored Ameraucana have been hanging out in the chicken yard.  Now they're sleeping together!

New Roo Beds Down with the Chicks

The plan was to house the new kid in separate quarters for a few days to allow acclimation.  But his first day (yesterday) had been a rainy day, and it turned into a rainy night.  I dutifully checked on him throughout the day, trudging out to the barn in my raincoat and galoshes, protective umbrella overhead.  There he was in his separate safe zone, eyeing the hens ... with the apparent desire to be out there with them.  They were calmly hanging out in the chicken yard, seemingly oblivious to the light rain.  I never saw the rooster go into his enclosed roosting box.  He simply took cover under the slight overhang of tarp that covers the roof of that structure. I didn't worry about him since the other chickens were playing out in the rain themselves all day.

That night, Rouse the Spouse and I went out to close up the chicken coop and check on our young roo.  He still had not taken refuge in the dry roosting box.  Chickens are creatures of habit.  We would have to teach this youngster where to sleep.  But he looked so lonely I couldn't bear to stick him in there alone.  Rouse was convinced that he could hold his own if we just put him to roost with the hens and let them all wake up together in the morning.  So, that's what we did.

This morning, they were all waiting for me to open them up to the chicken yard.  New Roo is a bit nervous - and I had to teach him how to get out of the safe zone into the chicken yard - but they all seem to be getting along OK.  The new kid will gradually work his way to the top of the pecking order ... he is a rooster, after all!

New Roo

There's a new rooster in town!  Our son, Noah, and his fiance, Ashley, raised up some biddies this spring. One began to crow last week! Roosters are not allowed in urban chicken coops, so this little boy had to be sent to a new home in the country.  We have a "grandchicken" now.


He arrived "special delivery" in the middle of the night.  Noah packed him up in Asheville and met my sister, Janet, who brought him to us.  Of course, he was belted in for safety... in the front seat, no less! Once in Pittsboro, he spent the rest of the night in his box in the car.  First thing this morning, before the hens were up and moving about, I transferred him to his new home.

He was very calm when I opened his box and allowed me to pick him up with no protest.  He moved about his new space, checking things out and making little chicken noises. Noah and Ashley named him Pippa when "he" was thought to be a "she".  When Rouse saw the box the rooster arrived in he declared we should name him "Rex".  We'll have to get to know him to see if one of these names fit his personality ... or if another one comes to mind!

He's temporarily housed in the
back of the "safe zone" with his own protected roost, personal waterer, and feed dispenser.  We're going to give him and the rest of the chickens a little time to get used to each other before integrating him into the flock.

Silver Laced Wyandotte Rooster
Very handsome, indeed!  Welcome to our happy chicken yard!

Anticipation ...



Little green tomatoes

Baby cucumbers



Okra rising above the beets

Winter Squash

Sugar Dumpling Hybrid Squash
Single-serving, pumpkin-shaped fruits that combine the eating quality of Delicata and the storage quality of Acorns.  Creamy yellow background with dark green stripes.  95 - 110 days.  Harvest when they reach full size, begin turning the appropriate color, or after first frost.  For long-term storage, harvest before frost.

Argonaut Butternut Winter Squash
Enormous butternut-type, with honey-sweet flavor and meaty texture.  Bright gold fruits are 15-27 in. and weigh 30 lbs. or more. Will hold up to 8 months in storage. Vigorous vines are easy to grow. 140 days.  Harvest when the stem is withered and the skin is hard to pierce with your thumbnail.  Cut from the vine, leaving a 2" stem attached to the fruit.

Today I planted two hills each of these winter squash varieties in the newest 5' square raised bed.  Germination should take place in 10 days to 2 weeks.  I planted a volunteer Thai Basil plant at the center of the bed.

Sun Flowers - Helianthus Annuus

We have a wedding coming up!  Our daughter, Abigail, will marry Andrew West late this summer.  The wedding will be held at the church, but the reception will take place under a big tent at her grandparents' home.

Abi has chosen to exclusively use local, seasonal flowers, with lots of red, yellow, and orange.  We have contracted with a local florist / farmer for the bulk of the flowers, but my mother-in-law and I are consciously planting late summer / autumn bloomers in anticipation of creating a celebration of color at the party.  Marigolds and geraniums are boldly showing off now and we are diligently dead-heading to keep them blooming.  I hope we can keep them all healthy and beautiful until wedding time.

Today I went in search of sunny spots to plant sun flowers.  The problem?  I'm not sure when to plant them in order to get blooms at the desired time!  I'll plant some now and more in a couple of weeks and hope for the best.

Rouse created a little bed for me in front of the chicken coop, to the right of the door.  It's a bright spot in our shady landscape and the tall sunflowers will be perfect there.  It didn't take long in the progression of the day, though, for us to realize that an overhanging limb was blocking the sun right in the middle of the day.  So up the ladder he went, off came the limb, in poured the sunshine.  It's amazing how the loss of one limb can totally change the feeling of a space, but it makes me smile just thinking about those happy sunflowers!  Autumn Beauty  5' - 7' tall; Blooms in shades of lemon yellow, subtle bronze, rich wine, and bicolors on multiple flowerheads.

As an experiment, I planted a different sun flower mixture along the fence in the sandy soil of the backyard bed. Summertime Mix 4' - 5' tall; Pollen-free, hybrid mixture of colors and forms, single-stemmed and branched flowers.  In front of them I planted a patch of Burgundy Blanket Flower Gaillardia Aristata; Heat, drought, poor soil tolerant, a strong plant that returns each spring.  I also sowed a few of the gaillardia seeds in between the (bolting) cilantro plants  in the bed near the mulch bins.

I already planted Royal Flush sunflower mix seedlings on May 21 at the back of the bed near the leaf mulch bin. They are beginning to bloom, but are nowhere near their advertized 6' height ... "Dazzling 4- to 6-in. sunflowers soar on 6-ft. stalks. Dynamic color combinations—red with red and yellow, rusty reds and yellow—contrast with dark brown centers. Dramatic as cut flowers. Impressive for borders and backgrounds. Happy even in poor soil." Maybe they will do well in poor soil, but what if the challenge is poor sunshine? I suspect that might have something to do with their stunted growth.

One More (!) New Bed

Well, we had to even them out!

Andrew built a second 5'-square bed to match the old sandbox structure.  We felt that the one bed looked lonely by itself ... just sticking out in the yard.  He filled it with topsoil from B and L Supply.  The soil in the bed on the left is composed of more clay compared to that of the one on the right, which is composed of more sand.  It will be interesting to see how this effects the health and productivity of plants.

The chicken / rabbit exclusion fence will be extended around these two beds. I will place cardboard / newspaper covered with leaf mulch between the beds to kill the grass and discourage weeds.  I've already planted melons and cucumbers in the bed on the right, with several sweet basil plants in the center.  I'll plant winter squash in the bed to the left. 

Available yard and available sun will dictate these to be the "last" raised beds to be added to the garden.

Dead Chicken

One of our older chickens died today.  She had been feeling poorly and had turned "yellow".  That's right ... the color of her comb and face had changed from red to orange.  Her legs and feet were a brighter yellow than usual.  She was eating, drinking, pooping OK, although I'm not sure she was laying anymore.  She stayed with the flock. I never saw another chicken harass her.  But she looked tired, sometimes sitting with her shoulders hunched up.  I knew it was just a matter of time.  Now it's ten hens in the chicken coop.

18 zucchinis and counting ...

... but I'm a little concerned that I'm seeing some yellow, shriveling baby fruits.  They seem to be rotting from the blossom end.  I have read that this problem may be caused by a calcium deficiency in the soil (maybe), a lack of water (doubtful this year ... I would believe too MUCH water), or (most likely) insufficient natural pollination by insects.  Cool, wet weather may have interfered with the activity of the pollinators.  Whatever it is, I don't like it!

Green beans are on the menu!

The beans on the upright plants are easy to see, easy to pick ...










... but don't forget to look under the leaves, especially on plants that have fallen over.  These are the Jade Bush Beans.  They make tender, stringless, delicious beans.  And they are prolific!  I expect them to produce well all summer and into the fall.  This first batch is destined for a fresh green bean salad to be served at Sunday dinner.

Raised Beds ... Old and New

Last week I mulched the tomato / cucumber bed using hard-wood mulch from the bottom of the pile.  This week I have a new crop of grass sprouting throughout that bed.  Curse those unseen seeds!  But I took care of the baby grass today.

First, I put out layers of newspaper, surrounding the desirable plants and covering the entire surface of the soil.  Using the garden hose, I wet the paper.  Then I piled on old leaves from the leaf mulch pile and thoroughly soaked the whole thing.  That should kill the grass, but I have to wonder how many rogue seeds are hiding out in those leaves?

This morning Rouse asked Andrew to take the kids' old sandbox to the dump.  Andrew had a better idea ... Let's turn it into a new raised bed!  Yay!  I NEED another raised bed!  I have melon seedlings and basil plants waiting to be tucked into their own bed.

No sooner said than done. The grass has been chopped.  Giant rocks have been removed.  The 5' x 5' wood-sided structure is in place, filled with a rich mixture of soil, horse manure, and other organic matter.  The garden hose has been employed to give the soil a good soaking.

Now fencing must be placed around this bed to keep the chickens and the rabbits OUT.  Then it will be ready for planting.  Soon, the melons will be putting down roots!  Don't I have some awesome guys?

This year's first sighting of Japanese Beetles ...

... found on the rattlesnake pole beans and the zinnias.