Hello, friends. One of the recent changes from my time with the Dr's means I'm able to eat eggs again, which is lovely. I made my first ever batch of mayo last week, using a recipe from Heather of North Ridge Farm. It's wonderful, heading into the warm months, knowing I can again make pasta salad, potato salad, egg salad, and deviled eggs, and use it in sandwiches. I did have a vegan version of potato salad that was pretty good, but lots more work than what I used to make with mayo. I've been enjoying egg sandwiches and scrambled eggs. With us both eating eggs again, our girls aren't keeping up with it, so I got a dozen from a neighbor. She wouldn't let me pay for them, as I recently gave her lettuce. Come August, we should have more than enough eggs to go around.
There were patches of Black eyed Susan's and lamb's ears that were growing outside the flower beds. Each of the beds had holes in them, from moles or some other critters, with little to no plants left in the bed itself, so I assume they ate and moved them around a bit. I moved the Black eyed Susan's back into the bed, but not before putting a stick with some bone sauce down into the hole. I hope they'll stay put this time. Some of the lamb's ears were put back in the bed, and other's were planted under fruit trees. As they draw pollinators, and provide ground cover against weeds, it should be a good combination.
The weather has been interesting. There was rain in the forecast several days last week, which ended up not being enough to be measurable, if any. Very thankfully, on a night with none in the forecast, we got 3/4". We don't have enough to switch the house back to rainwater, but at least there's some in the tanks now. Everything is pointing to a dry year, so I'll try to be thankful for well water, no matter how unpleasant it is. Fruit trees and bushes were fed with compost extract. I worked on cleaning up the back fence of the garden, where saplings, Virginia creeper, cleavers and catbrier were growing. There are concord grapes planted along the fence, so this will give them some breathing room again.
Soaps in the shop sold out, so fresh batches were made this week. A batch of ketchup was made. The last of the peppers were transplanted to bigger pots, as well as a parsley, and two cilantros. Saturday night got down to 36, with patchy frost. It's a good thing J covered the sweet potato plants with straw. Though we didn't notice any frost here, they probably wouldn't have been happy exposed. Volunteer marigolds came up in the garden. I transplanted them to the ends of garden rows. Plums came up in the twelve apostles patch, and J transplanted them to more appropriate spots. He moved chips with his tractor, and we spread them out around fruit trees. The chips are definitely dwindling, but we're so glad to have been given them, and able to put them to good use. Wishing you a beautiful week.
