Flowers and the Garden

I went down to get the mail and I saw this pretty little flower right beside the driveway.  Not sure how it got there but it is pretty. 

 

 

The snowball bush is quite lovely this year. 

 

The red beets are doing really well.  There are also several tomato plants and onions planted in this garden.

 

The peas and tomatoes are doing great.

 

Onions and lettuce.  There is also kale, celery and broccoli in these rows. 

 

These are the vining plants. Cucumbers, pumpkins, spaghetti squash, zucchini and I think cantaloupe and a watermelon plant.

 

The zucchini are doing great.  There are 5 or 6 squash ready to eat.

 

Another view of the zucchini.

 

Broccoli!

 

Spaghetti squash and this one has several smaller squash coming on also.

 

Baby cucumbers! 

 

Our Grape arbor!

 

It's loaded with grapes again this year.

A Mostly Picture Post!

 

 

I took the camera and went around the homestead and took some random pictures. The rhododendron is in full bloom.  I included some close pictures of the blooms.  I love how pretty they are!

We worked on the garden Saturday evening. We got most everything planted.  We use grass clippings for mulch to help with weed control. 

 



 

We will plant more seeds next weekend.  That will help with canning.  Everything won't be ready at once!

 



We decided to use the raised mounds again for the garden.  It was very successful last year.

 



This is the back side of the rhododendron bushes from the garden. 

 



Front

 



From the driveway.

 

From the driveway.

 

 

Nathan painted a flowerpot and planted a pretty purple flower. He did a good job of matching the house!

 

 

Last year we had a hanging cucumber plant on the front porch.  This year I bought a grape tomato and Jeremiah planted it along with two onions. We will see how this goes!

 

 

This about sums up the homestead at the moment.  I hope you enjoyed the pictures.  I was going to include more but thought it may be a bit of an overkill on the pictures!  I personally like picture posts! :-)



Watermelon!

We harvested our first watermelon this weekend.

 

We have not been able to grow a decent sized watermelon here- ever!

 

 

 Other years when we tried they grew a bit bigger than a softball but none of them have ever reached a full size before.

 

 

It was so juicy!  It reminded me of the watermelons we used to have before the seedless watermelon.  I don't think that the seedless watermelons have much flavor. 

 

I can remember my brothers and I having a seed spitting contest when we were little. I wasn't a very good seed spitter.  My mom used to tell us that we couldn't eat the seeds because it would cause a watermelon plant to grow in our bellies! Haha!  I told Madi and Ryder the same thing when they were little. 

 

 

Ryder and I were taking turns cutting it. He cut through the tough outer layer and I cut it into the smaller sizes. It was heavy and needed to be cut into sizes that I could manage with a sharp knife without cutting myself!

I like to have bite sized pieces in a bowl ready to eat.

 

I think it is such a pretty melon.

 

This bowl holds 4 quarts.  It was overflowing as soon as I finished cutting it.  We ate quite a bit of it immediately and I packed some for Jeremiah's lunch. 

My mom likes to sprinkle a bit of salt on her watermelon when she eats it.  I do this occasionally but not often.  Does anyone else eat watermelon this way or have you heard of doing this? 

Pines Update!

   This site has been quiet lately and I apologize for that.  We started school on August 1.  I was hesitant about starting early but it has been so hot out that staying inside in the air conditioning has actually been a blessing.  Madilynne has a full class schedule that includes many extras that she is interested in this year and Ryder is keeping things basic-hitting only those subjects that is required by state law and sign language.  They are both doing a good job at getting school done each day.  We started with an 8 am up-and-at-'em game plan.  Those that know my kiddos know that 8 am is early for the night owls!  :-)   They are adjusting pretty nicely to the new schedule.  Do they like 8 am? No, not at all but it sure is nice to get the school done early. 

   Our garden is producing like crazy! It's awesome but keeping me busy.  I have been canning green beans, red beets and experimented with some pickle recipes.  I will pick some green beans tonight and harvest some green peppers too.  We have two watermelons that are getting really big.  I am so excited about that!  We are also getting two cantaloupes.  We never tried to grow them before so getting two of them is really good!

   We have also been doing some baby/child sitting and visiting with friends.  We have spent some extra time in the pool and yesterday we met some friends at a local park to swim and visit.  It was hot but the visiting was well worth it.  I can handle a lot of heat when I am visiting with good friends.  Ok, well I also had a quart jar of lemon ice water! 

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   Ok, you know it's bad when I couldn't even get this posted three days ago!!  LOL  Before I could finish this posting I was interrupted over and over!  I also ended up processing more green beans and baby sitting my sweet little nephew for a couple hours.  We ended up going to a BBQ (BaByQ) baby shower for Jeremiah's cousin and his wife. 

   It has continued to stay hot and humid here. Today there is a higher chance of thunderstorms.  We are planning on going to Jeremiah's parents for a cook out and swimming this afternoon. His sister is coming up so hopefully the weather will cooperate.  :-)   

   So now since I have a minute I will post this before the next pressing item pops up! I hope everyone is having a great summer. 

Large Cucumber and Recipe Request

 

 

 

  I went to the garden tonight to see what was ready to pick.  I had three spaghetti squash, one zucchini and three cucumbers.  The cucumber on the far right in the picture is almost as large as the zucchini.  Apparently, I missed it when I harvested the last time.  It will go to some of the chickens to munch on!

   I was very happy with the size of the watermelons that are growing.  I hope they continue thriving.  I will have red beets to harvest, hopefully by the end of the week or early next week.  Our tomatoes are coming along beautifully also.  I am excited about the rest of the veggies!  They are looking so healthy. 

   I had to remove of the cucumber plants I had on the front porch.  They had reached maximum potential and were quickly dying.  The cucumbers were no longer growing.  It was a very cool idea and I think that I will try that idea next year but with a different kind of cucumber plant.  Hopefully they will taste a bit better.   

   With all the zucchini we have grown, I have been giving it to family and I tried some new recipes.  We made zucchini fries tonight and I don't think we will repeat that recipe again.  I will stick with our regular favorites of fried zucchini and zucchini bread. I will also freeze some of it.  I wanted to try a zucchini pizza recipe but both kids vetoed it!  They asked me if I remembered the spaghetti squash pizza disaster!  Don't mess with their pizza!  Plain ol' regular pizza makes them happy. 

   How do you like zucchini?  Any suggestions for how to use up some of my extra zucchini?  What about spaghetti squash? Any delicious and easy recipes you could share? 

Garden Update

I thought I would take some time this morning and give you a bit of an update.

 

 

Yesterday we spent the afternoon visiting with some friends.  It was a great way to spend a super hot afternoon.  I am so tired of the heat already but I am not looking forward to giving up my shorts, t-shirts and sandals/flip flops!

 

Afterwards we ran some errands and headed home.  As evening arrived the temperatures started to cool off so I told the kids we better go pick some blueberries as we were a bit behind on picking. We also checked what was ready in the garden. 

 

This hot and humid weather has been great for the garden.

It has really grown!  We were late in planting this year but wow it has taken off!

At the top of this picture, you can slightly see some of the blueberry bushes.

 

I was pleasantly surprised by how fast the zucchini and spaghetti squash grew.  I was up and checked the garden at the end of last week.  It was doing good and I harvested three zucchini.  I sent one to my brother C's family and gave one to my in-laws.  My mom had three zucchini she just bought the day before at a small produce stand near her house.

 

 

I was kinda shocked that we have small watermelons starting.  They are a little bit bigger than a tennis ball right now!  We have only successfully grew one small watermelon in our many years of gardening.

 

 

Ryder's corn has shot up!  He is happy with it! He worked really hard to plant those seeds so I hope he gets a good crop!

 

We ended up harvesting 2 spaghetti squash, 3 cucumbers and 3 more zucchini!

 

This is a very large bowl so it is a bit hard to tell by this picture but we picked about 4 quarts of blueberries.  We have lots of other goodies coming along too.  I think that I will be able to harvest some radishes soon and some red beets! Busy days are ahead on our little homestead!  

Our Late Garden 2016

   We are several weeks late with our garden this year.  I am really not a good gardener- Jeremiah is so much better!  I do not find it relaxing to dig in the dirt and pull weeds.  It is a very dreaded chore for me and I was happy to not do it for the last couple years.  I had been going to a local produce stand that is less than 2 miles from our home.  I was happy to let them do the gardening part and with a smile on my face I would hand over cash to bring home the produce to can, freeze and process. 

Ryder's section of corn

  Well those were the days. Last week Ryder decided that he wanted to garden this year.  He wants corn and lots of it! It is a mite late to plant corn but we will see what happens. He went to work and started on tilling the garden.  That's all it took for the gardening gene in Jeremiah to explode so on Monday...a small corn patch has turned into a full garden. 

   We put in tomatoes, green peppers, green beans, red beets, carrots, radishes, watermelon, cantaloupe, spaghetti squash, zucchini and cucumbers along with Ryder's corn. 

 

   Jeremiah made a kind of raised bed this year.  He can run the tiller through the rows easier to keep weeds at bay. 

 



 
   I planted a marigold at the end of each row.  I thought it would make the garden look happier and deter small animals from coming into the garden with their smell.  We will see how that works but it does give the garden color at the moment.

  
   This photo shows the corn section in front of the garden.  They are close so it makes watering easier.  The last time this section was planted it was full of tomato plants, 50 I think! It was several years ago.  Ryder had his hands full getting the soil ready to plant.

  In the previous picture you can see one of our kitties "Meow" in-between the two gardens.  I took a picture of her since she was accompanying me while I took the photos of the garden.  She is 14 years old and a very affectionate kitty.  She will follow you around the yard and loves to be petted.  She is a loyal pet and a good mouser which is a good thing on a farm.