the fifth of July

Yesterday, Saturday, the day after the big holiday, my sister and I made a trip to the lake where our folks have a cabin.  We picked Saturday because that was the day that our brother was also making the trip so we would all be there at the same time.  It worked out nice.  The weather was beautiful, we had time to do a little shopping in town and had some great food.

For lunch we had pretty typical summer party food.  I have no pictures but my mom makes a mean taco salad and it is something that I don't make so it is always a treat.  My dad was manning the grill and we had brats, along with potato salad and a couple other salads and fresh melon, strawberries and grapes and Lisa's macaroni and cheese. (recipe Sweet corn mac and cheese) 

For supper we had a chance to use a hamburger gadget that Jack brought along to make stuffed hamburgers.  A patty is placed in this mold and there is a top that when pressed into the patty makes a depression that can then be filled with a fun stuffing.  A second patty is placed on top of the stuffing and then pressure is applied again to make a thick patty which completely encloses the filling.  The patty is popped out of the mold and Jack, with help from Lisa, took a moment to go around each burger pinching the seams to discourage leaking of the filling and then they went on the grill.

This patty is getting stuffed with mac and cheese and chili

Stuffed and plain patties on the grill.

We stuffed ours with Lisa's mac and cheese and we added some chili to one.  They turned out great.  Jack did a great job on the grill.  The hamburgers were cooked perfectly.  The filling was the right temperature and even though they ended up shrinking a little during the cooking they still hung over the edge of the bun.  All in all a  very satisfying sandwich and fun to do. 

My sandwich.

A few more food pictures.

 

 

Lisa's boozy watermelon appetizer (melon, run and mint)

my contribution, cupcakes in patriotic wrappers

steamed zucchini topped with crab salad

a garden update--where to start

So I worked outside a lot this weekend and took a bunch of pictures tonight before i came in the house and now the question is how to pull it together into a post that makes sense.   One of the reasons I write about the garden is to create a garden journal of sorts.  My photos are more to document than decorate.  Maybe someday I will take pictures that are just beautiful.

So where to start?  Maybe with the lawn.  We had some rain and then we had some hot weather and the lawn grew like crazy.  It was hard to keep up. I didn't keep up.  So, part of it had to be mowed twice, once with the deck up and then again with the deck down.  There was all those grass clippings to pick up.  So I have been using the lawn sweeper to collect the clippings and I am using them as mulch to keep down the weeds in the garden and it has been working so I decided that with the abundance of clippings that I could use them a few more places.

Here is the blueberry bed after I weeded it, added a soil amendment to help acidify the soil, threw on some old pine needles to also acidify the soil, watered it well and then covered the soil with a nice thick layer of grass clippings.

And here is a picture of my few berries just starting to turn blue.

And here is a shot of my black raspberries.  They turn red before they turn black and I have been checking them every day or two.  They have not started to turn black yet but there are many that are missing so i think the birds are not waiting for them to get ripe.  I am going to have to come up with a way to cover them with bird net next year.

red berries

no more berries

I have been pleased with how they are doing and I think that there will be more berries next year.  We still have lots of volunteer canes around the yard so I think i am going to start another row in the cornfield.

Here is my apple project that I worked on Saturday.  I noticed that when I mow I cannot get close enough with the mower so I dug up the sod to make the circle larger and mulched with grass clippings to help keep the weeds down.

Can you see the apples?  They are getting bigger!

 And here is the other apple tree.  It is next in line for a bigger mulched circle.  These apples are getting bigger as well.

And as long as we are talking about fruit, here is a shot of the developing grape crop.  We have four grapevines and here are pictures of the fruit of two of them.  One of these will turn dark purple when ripe.  They are a small grape with seeds, not easy to eat like a table grape but great for jelly.  This year I think it might be fun to try making a few bottles of wine.  I think a little research is needed.

Here is the Johnny corn.  The tallest stalks are as tall as me or taller. 

And they are getting tassels.

No ears started yet.  Here is the other variety we planted, the Perry corn.  It was planted several weeks later and is half as tall but the stand seems to be more consistent probably because the weather conditions were better--warmer and drier soil.

Here is Cody standing between the yellow squash plant and the Perry corn.  As usual she is trying to hide from the camera but it gives an idea of the height of the corn.

While I have been mowing I have not been weeding so you will see a few (I wish it was only a few) weeds in these pictures.  Here is our dill.

Here is a yellow squash plant...

And a peek at a yellow squash...

These are acorn squashes...flowering but no fruits yet.

And butternut squashes in the front and pumpkins in the back...

Zucchini on the right...

cantaloupes and yellow watermelon...

gourds on the left and a double row of bush beans on the right...

The vine crops are starting to move so it is time to begin evaluating the spacing of the plants for next year and to consider which would benefit from trellising of some sort to grow vertically.  At this point in time the zucchini and yellow squashes are just starting to set fruit, the butternuts, acorns and pumpkins are flowering and the melons are not flowering yet.  The melon plants are also smaller, lower to the ground with smaller leaves.

This is the row of cucumbers green ones on the left side of the fence and lemon cukes on the right side of the fence. 

This is looking like it could be a challenge.  The cucumbers are all over the place, I will need to look at plant spacing and better trellising.  The plants are planted in a double row and the plants are only 5-6 inches apart in the row.  The trellis is looking like it is not going to be up to the task.

Pole beans climbing the fence...

Next post--tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, potager




 

The garden is loving this weather

I can't believe how much things are changing since I did the first of the month garden update photos (which ended up being the first week of the month).  I should really have taken new ones and if we have some dry weather this weekend I may get more pictures done.  The Johnny corn has doubled in height and the Perry corn is a least a foot tall.  The pumpkins vines are getting huge and spreading all over the place.  The zucchini and yellow squash is making fruit.  I was able to pick the first zucchini tonight and it was about eight inches long.  There are more coming.  The lemon cukes are spreading into the walkway between the rows instead of climbing up the trellis.  They are flowering but no fruit set yet.  The gourds look like they are getting ready to flower.  The pole beans are flowering and climbing the trellis.  All of the tomatoes have little yellow flowers on them.  I did add some tomato cages yesterday and today I bought some stakes to try to stake up the remaining   Most of the squashes are flowering but the melons are smaller with no flowers yet. 

I have some crops for fall that I would like to seed so hopefully that will get done this weekend.  The poor flower bed is taken over with milkweed but boy does it smell nice when you walk by it and there have been a few monarchs in the yard.

look at this poor little zucchini...

And there are four more just like it.

The flowers are almost bigger than the plant.  We had a half inch of rain during the night and things are looking a little perkier in the cornfield. I don't think that watering is quite the same as a nice rain shower so it was nice to have a little help from mother nature.

Tomorrow the plan is to get some measurements to get water through the grove so that we can use a hose to water.  I don't think that we will find a portable tank.  The two options that are being considered are a hose or lengths of pvc glued together that would lay through the grove and hoses would be attached at each end to get to the faucet on the east end and to a sprinkler or wand on the west end.  Mom and Dad are coming out and we are going to check out our hose supply and see if we can come up with a solution.  Carrying water was doable but very putzy.

Just as an update I think that I am done planting corn.  We currently have with the two varieties 42  planted rows that 20 feet long and 40 seeds planted in each row.  It is last years seed so we can expect some loss in germination rate but still hoping for enough to eat, share and freeze. And maybe sell some.  It would be nice to have enough sales to pay the expenses like seeds, seed starting mix and containers and the additional utility costs for the greenhouse.

I have a couple small spaces yet that are not planted which could be succession plantings.  I have planted a row of carrots, a row of cilantro ad a row of kohlrabi mixed with radish.  They are planted along side the melon patch.  I think I have space to make three more raised rows that can then be planted.  I will have to inventory my seed stash and see what i have left.