Weekend "Activities: Dom's Shed and Garden Delights

Spend the weekend at Dominic's place, helping him finish up the shed we began last year, and then worked to harvest our garden's potatoes, squash, the last of the tomatoes, cucumbers, and a few ears of corn. Yeah for Fall.

Dominic and his little hobbit carpenter friend...

A Great Weekend

Well, yeah. That says it all. Pat and I went up to Belfair, Wa to visit with Dominic and Kelsie. We drove up in the Smart car (Which does 75 on the freeway just fine, thank you), on Friday night, and stayed until Saturday afternoon. We really enjoyed the new chicks Dom had hatched in his incubator and then got the hen to adopt by first putting golf balls in her nest. She shared with us some of their squash and cucumbers, and we brought up blueberries, potatoes and corn on the cob.

Sunday morning I went to the garden to harvest the rest of the green beans, and what do you know there was also more corn that was ready (another 26 ears). I brought the last of the green beans home with the sweet corn, and canned 11 pints of corn and 7 pints of green beans. Then put on some vegetable soup for supper, washed the two cars, mowed the lawn and did laundry and dishes. Suddenly I'm feeling tired. Oh, and my letter to the editor at the Columbian was in today's paper and I already got a call from a fan. So, I challenge anyone to top this weekend!

Oh, see the picture at the bottom. That was two seonds before the chicken nibbled on Dom's ear, and one second before he turned his head to look at the chicken, and when the ckicken pecked him in the eye.

Garden Update

This picture shows the monster corn we have. I no longer can reach to the top of the plants. They are putting on ears of corn now. Maybe ready in a couple of weeks or less.

And some of today's brief picking.

This shot compares to the others from around the same angle. Note the squash monster has taken over a quarter of the garden, and the peas are about done. Thanks Diana for picking peas.

And this shot is to prove to Dom that the squash plant did have a shoot that was as thick as my wrist.

And the beet goes on.... And the beet goes on...

The garden is producing well for us. You can use this picture to compare to the prior ones from about the same angle. Since this we did the first harvest of peas, and weeded the buggers. Also green and yellow beans and an initial installment of carrots. The peas were frozen, and the beans and carrots are canned. What a weekend. You can see in the picture towards the back that the corn is now fully tasselled, and the potatoes are, well, huge. In the last picture you can see the beets I just picked. There's about another crop that size if the one's that were left behind will just grow now. I'm becoming a big believer in thinning when the plants initially come up, especially beets and carrots.

Peas, beans, beets and carrots will continue to produce over the next month. Then the corn will be in. The squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and finally potatoes and pumpkins. We are going to need a lot of canning jars.

I wish I had a new picture of Pat's hair as it comes in. It's salt and pepper and soft like a baby. Now about 3/4 inch long. It' s looking pretty good too.

Olie said to Lena... "Hey Lena, I've been taking this Vigaro because the doctor said it would make me more potent." Lena says.. "Oh Olie, not Vigaro. Vigaro is a plant fertilizer. You're not supposed to take that. You are thinking about Viagra." Olie says, "Oh my, that might explain the berries!" [Courtesy of Garrison Keillor]


See the beets. You thought they were apples, didn't you.

Peas, yummy.

Garden update: The weeds are doing as well as the intentional plants, but we are staying somewhat ahead. From the back of the picture... The corn is standing chest high in the back, then the potatoes, about hip high and flowering. We pulled up one of the potato plants this weekend and there were small golf ball sized tubers. Yeah. Next on the left are the beans, green and white. In the middle is still the chicken poop and harvested weeds and we pulled up the radishes and they are piled up there too, temporarily. Then on the right is the beets, just days away from harvest and canning. In front of all that on the left are flowering and poding peas (Maddie just weeded, Thank you Maddie), then some squash and cucumbers in the middle, and on the right are fingerling carrots, spinach and lettuce. Not seen are the tomatoes that are nicely flowering and onions that are thumb-sized.

OK, so I decided to plant more in some of the bare spots, and again closer to the chicken poop in the middle. Also tilled up the old radish area where I planed corn. I found another spot for more corn too. In front of the tomatoes I could not resist planting romaine lettuce. And I made 6 dirt mounds and planted watermelon, buttercup squash, big pumpkins and more cucumbers.

We are very pleased with the garden, and have found this a great opportunity (Thank you Brian and putting his garden spot on Craigslist) to reconnect with gardening that both Pat and I did throughout our childhood, and to pass on the gardening pleasures, yes, even weeding, onto Maddie and others.

So far, so good.

A tale of two gardens

Random pictures of produce is today's theme.

A fledgling garden of peas, corn, beans, potatoes, beets, onions, tomatoes, squash, radishes, lettuce, carrots, spinach and various species of weeds. All organic. From our back yard, Maddie made a rhubarb pie! Yeah, my favorite. And, then there's Mom's new crop of post-chemo hair, which has us all very excited.

The long view of the garden. Peas on the left. Potatoes and corn to the back. The potatoes have hay spread between them to promote the new potatoes under them, and to conserve water and keep weeds down.

The first crop of radishes. Big, fat and wonderful.

Yummmmm!

Mom's hair is growing nearly as fast as our corn! Enjoy the pictures!