Thursday, June 28, 2012

Peppers

All of my pepper varieties are doing very well. The bell peppers seem to be doing the best. Better than usual even. This year I have been using sea minerals as fertilizer I have three different colors planted, but all are still green. There are so many that the plants are being pulled over. I decided to go ahead and pick about 1/3 of them this morning. Here are a few pictures.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Canning

Here are a couple of pics from the last two days. I put up 15 pints of salsa, 6 pints of black-eyed peas, and 3 pints of carrots. That's 24 more pints that I canned last summer. Hoping the drought and the heat do not return.

Like (Black-eyed) Peas & Carrots

Late June and the heat has finally arrived. Weatherman said the heat dome has set up and for the next week, at least, we need to expect 100+ degrees temps here in central Oklahoma. By this time last year they had been around several weeks and everything was turning brown. Thanks to some decent spring rains, we can expect it to stay green a little while longer. The garden is doing great and looks really good.

Mornings are the time right now to get out and do the garden and yard work. This morning I picked black-eyed peas and my purple carrots. These purple carrots are only that way on the outside. Once they are peeled they look like any other carrot. You can find them that are purple throughout. They look really nice canned and in your salads.

While it is still cool this morning I had better go pull grass burrs. I sprayed them a couple of days ago but a few were headed out already. Unlike me, they love this heat.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Payoff!

Pulled the broccoli this morning. Then I planted some more squash where it had been along with some nasturtium. Supposedly that will keep the squash bugs away. We'll see. I picked the biggest bell pepper I think I have ever grown today (Sea Minerals?) as well as some pretty good sized jalapeƱos. The tomatoes are starting to come off too. That means fresh salsa for tonight's game 2 of the NBA finals (Thunder Up!). The strawberries are starting to make again but not a lot. The fridge smells like broccoli so I had better get it eaten or frozen. It is not a pleasant smell.

Gotta go. Thunder watch party at the house tonight!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

More Chard

I cut another grocery sack of Swiss chard this morning.  I need to get it frozen before it gets hot this afternoon.  Blanching all that will definitely heat up the house. (I still have the last chard to freeze as well.)  I got another good bunch from my broccoli plants.  I'm not sure if I am ready to pull them ar not.

While the mower was being repaired, we let the goats run the yard.  They stayed away from my flowers and garden for the most part, but they did finally find the tomatoes and gladiolus.  We put some smaller wire along the fence to keep them out of the tomatoes.  The gladiolus are just going to be gone.  I did however reap the benefits of teh goats eating away at the tomatoes.  They knocked off a few green tomatoes and we had that favorite southern delicacy of fried green tomatoes.  I had never had them before.  They were really good.  Kind of a pain and the house still smells like a deep fryer, so they won't be made too often.  Besides, I need ripe ones or salsa.

Drew, the dog, has become much more used to the goats and we actually have taught him to somewhat herd the goats.  I'll have to get video of that.  he is a German Shepard, so that is what he has been bred to do.  For no real training, he seems to be doing it quite well

So, I saw I had a visitor to the site from around my old stomping grounds of Elk City.  Someone from Erick, OK, home of Roger Miller. Howdy!

On a totally unrelated to gardening issue,  here is my kiddo with Kevin Durant before game 6 of the Western Conference Finals.  (He got to high five James Harden, The Beasrd as Elijah called him, as well!)  The Thunder beat the Spurs 107-99 to move on to the NBA Finals!  Thunder Up!




Tuesday, June 5, 2012

More Mulch

So, I got the wheat straw put down. This straw is much better than last year's because they harvested it first. That should mean a lot less wheat coming up in the garden. I cut some Swiss chard. This year I have white, yellow, and red. I will freeze this first batch since I don't have any plans for it at the moment. The broccoli has slowed way down but I'm still getting a little. I'll give it another week and then I might plant something in its place. I may leave it empty for fall broccoli.
Mulched except for the upper right corner.  I just now planted my sunflowers there.


Lunch


Freezer

last of the broccoli

Guarding the Garden :-)