Garden saga continues...

The potatoes in the hay bales, they are doing extraordinarily well! 

Can I stop there? No... Ok...

I planted some summer squash seed, in the hay bales, along with some pumpkin seed.  They all came up, great and strong, and looking terrific!  The next morning... Stumps.  A slug fest, a slug FEAST, and my poor plants were the victims.  I have put ONE MORE batch of seed in, and totally covered the hay bales with diatomacious earth, until I can get some Sluggo, or something that will keep the little slimy monsters from ruining my new plants.  I don't have any copper, or I would make a barrier with THAT, too. (Supposedly, slugs don't like copper, it gives them a bit of a zap, and they don't go past the stuff.)

I put in Kohlrabi,  just a few days ago, so hoping for the best, as it was requested by a couple friends.

I planted 4 different kinds of corn, and nothing seems to be coming up.  However, no birds have eaten it, so the netting is doing its job.  But I really want the various corn types to do SOMETHING...

Planted beans.  Both green beans, and dry beans.  The dry beans are mostly because I like them, they are Wolverine's Orca dry beans.  Cool looking, some of the money goes to a good cause, and we'll have beans for eating.  Win, win, win!!!

I have some crookneck, zucchini, and my tomatoes, all doing okay, at this point.  The tomatoes seem a bit small, but I will give them a bit of time and attention, that should help.

The watermelon in the hay bale... It's okay. Not dying, not thriving.  It's... Meh.  The one in the soil, is doing better, but I had to have Husband help me by digging out a dock weed.  Nasty long roots on those things!  Well, he didn't realize the watermelon plant was there, and dropped a big clod of dirt on it... It's doing alright, but it did munch it a bit.  I have now put flags by all the items that need to be noticed, so hopefully that won't happen again... Eeep.

And, I have most of the weeding in all the beds finally down to a manageable level.  I do need to work on two of the beds, one is covered in... Dandelion starts?  I think?  The other is just wild grasses.  I hope to get them finished this next week sometime, or sooner, but this week seems to be filled up already... 

Time.  Let's see, there are 96 hours in a day, right??? 

On the go, now go slow(er).

I have been on the go of late.  I actually did go one time on my own, for a movie I wanted to see, but the rest, either stuff to keep the place going, (read: groceries and animal feed), or ‘stuff’ for the volunteer work.  I am getting to the point that the volunteer work is going to be scaled back. Pruned, even… I have already turned in notice to one group.  I turned in notice earlier, IN WRITING, to another group, but they still have me as lead.  They will learn…

But due to varying personal reasons, and just the fact, hey, I want some “ME” time…  I am going to be cutting back.  And you know, I am (mostly) not feeling guilty about it.  I am still volunteering for the Sheriff's Office, and I will still do a few other things from time to time, but I am really needing to back off, and maybe work on some things closer to home...

I will still be knitting for others, but I have two projects I wanted to knit for me.  I have knit one, a vest.  I have yet to sew it together and finish it (it has some fluffy edges that needs be done after being put together), and a nightcap from the 1840’s.  The juxtaposition is rather astounding, one is quasi-hippie, the other is somewhat highbrow London.  I am not eccentric eclectic for nothing!

Deciding to sit down and read casually again was a good thing on my part.  I read through… Game of Thrones, Clash of Kings, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Dance of the Bones (J.A Jance), and decided to try Don Quixote.  I saved Swarm of Swords for faire reading.  I think it will fit in rather well, actually.  Even if Mister Martin doesn’t have a clue about the melting temperature of gold… Sorry, my willing suspension of disbelief sort of fell by the wayside for that chapter.  Hopefully I haven’t dropped any spoilers.  My reading speed seems to have been fine, but I am most glad I have my "superpower" glasses (bifocals) now, I don't have to put the book against my nose to read print!

This week will be getting costumes and such readied for faire.  It will be a bit bittersweet, this will be the first year I am not going to be manning much of anything.  I will help a friend with her booth, she is going through some medical issues, and she is scaling back, too.  I will help with one or two items, but faire is more or less free for me this year.  That said, one of my friends there passed away this morning.  It was expected, and we are going to have a memorial for her there.  Several of my friends that started faire are gone, and while I still see the fingerprints of them, I miss the people…

My Auntie is coming for a visit next week, not sure what that will bring.  She lives in Arizona, so I hope she remembers to bring her down parka and long underwear!  (I do think perhaps she won’t be quite that bad, but I do know the temps are supposed to cool here, and she had been dealing with 100+ for a bit.  Sweaters will indeed be a good thing, though.)

I have been working on keeping the garden picked.  However, keeping up with zucchini is a challenge.  If you miss one, you end up with a baseball bat. Husband and I joke, there is a recipe for Zucchini Boats.  When they get that big, you have Zucchini Battleships…  The chickens don’t seem to mind, so it works out.  And it’s been a pretty prolific year for my tomatoes, I hope to put some up, but man, oh man, right now, I need to start figuring out who would like some, because I could make tomato soup for a LARGE group at the moment.  Blackberries gave me several pints of jelly, I could probably make more, but I probably have enough jars to last at least a couple seasons.

I also have apples.  I had to laugh, I had spent most of the morning picking tomatoes and zukes, Husband commented, wasn’t I going to pick apples?  I told him no, I was getting a bit tired.  He said, uh, I could pick some, I don’t want the pie crusts you have to go to waste…

So, there is a pie cooling on the stove right now.  I will have to see about getting something done with the tomatoes, but you know, there are priorities.  If Husband was willing to go pick a mess of apples, well, I was willing to make him a pie!

Saturday post. GARDEN!!

(We will hopefully resume normal posting Monday, but thought I better skip a day to make it line up a little more evenly for some folks that can't get to my blog every day...)

I am getting really, really REALLY eager to garden.  So much so that I asked for (and received) some starts that were in the office, from some succulents, so I could plant something!  They really seem to like the new digs, as it were, and are starting to grow some new shoots.

I go out as soon as it stopped raining, and looked at my garden area.  Sort of like a small child, can I plant yet, can I plant yet?  I know so very well I can't plant yet.  If you can pick up a ball of dirt, and it falls apart when you let go, it's dry enough to plant.

So far, I can't find my hand for the mud... Sigh.

I keep talking about all the different things I'd like to do, I am seriously wondering if Husband has been keeping his hearing aid out on purpose.  I guess I am getting just a little obsessive... Maybe.

However, one of the family members asked if I would grow some tomatoes for them.  I asked what kind.  There was a bit of a pause.  Well, do you grow more than one?

Oh, you poor sheltered thing...

I grow tomatoes that are several different colors, I grow them for eating fresh, for drying, for cooking...  I have grown as many as 12 different varieties at a time, just to see what some are like.  I normally grow about 6 or so, as there are some others like, and some I grow for myself.

(My Mother will chime in at this point the irony, that I grow bunches and gobs of tomatoes, and I really do NOT like them fresh...)

Then the rest of the veggies, of course.

Yep, I am so looking forward to growing something!  While it's not snowing here, I can relate to this meme all too well...

(where I found this...)