Hello, friends. I hope you've been doing well. The usual things have been happening, on the homestead. J pulled the garlic. I began harvesting the grow bag potatoes, and he joined me. We had a good garlic harvest. The potatoes, not so much. So, the final potato tally, from the long rows that should have given us 200#, gave us a little over 20#. From the 25 grow bags, which should have yielded 4-5# per bag, we got 9# total, so basically 2 grow bags worth. I've since read we could have put several plants per bag, which we didn't do. Oh well. We'll keep trying.
Shortly after my last post, I began finding squash bugs on the Ronde de Nice zucchini, along with the yellow squash. As of today, all the zucchini are dead, and two yellow squash are still hanging on, but not blooming. So, the pest resistant qualities of the Ronde de Nice didn't really pan out. The good news is, I harvested our first tromboncino, which will hopefully take the place of the other summer squash. Also, the lima and green beans have got tiny beans on them. I gathered flowers for a bouquet for the house. I was happy to see a monarch on the milkweed. I recently saw a tip to cut the milkweed down by half, after finished blooming, to allow for fresh growth of leaves, so they'd be much more tender for the caterpillars to munch on, so I did that.
From the garden, I harvested yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, basil, oregano, and tomatoes. Blueberries and blackberries were gathered, and frozen. I'm still going through my recipes, which has resulted in lots of paper to shred. Some of the shreds were used, after cleaning the chicken coop. Some went in the compost bin, and I've begun using it as mulch in our enclosed berry patch. I'm finding hornworms most days, on the tomatoes. Two of them had been visited by parasitic wasps. They remained in place, but all others have been given to the chickens. I was happy to see Food Lion again had organic black olives on sale, basically half price, so I did another stock up. I've been intending to do another skoolie post, and hope to do that soon. Take good care of yourself.
3 comments:
Life as a gardener isn't easy, is it? ;0D We have to take the bad with the good. My potato harvest was not great, but I think next year I will be planting a lot more.
The berries on your header look scrumptious. My blueberries are still struggling, so I may give up on growing them.
I recently read that planting calendula near peppers and tomatoes deters hornworms. But I'll bet your girls enjoyed their treats!
Hope your week goes swimmingly!
Thanks, Daisy. I'm sorry about your blueberries. The birds really did a number on mine this past week. Yes, the good and the bad. This year, I've got lots of marigolds throughout the garden, but J weed whacked the calendula :o(. That was the start of the garden discouragement this year. Ah well, got to keep plugging along. Fresh veggies are so worth it.
Well the good and the bad with gardening. I only have 6 tomatoes from my 4 large plants so I don't think that was worth the time and money. I think we've had more rain than sun. I do have lots of weeds though. (I just noticed the other post mentioned good and bad too...I guess we all think alike!) My garlic did poorly for the second year. I guess I'll have to do a new spot this fall that gets less wet. andrea
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