A Week Later...

We were out of town last week. Our wonderful friend, Tim, agreed to water the garden while we were gone. This happened at the last minute--we had so much rain in the last month or so that we didn't pay attention to the forecast for the coming week, so we didn't plan ahead for watering. That was a bad idea, because it was hot (near 90) and dry the whole week we were gone. Thank you, Tim!

Even though we'd encouraged our neighbors to pick whatever was ripe, we still came home to huge yellow squash, zucchinis, and cukes. There were six yellow squash, weighing over 10 pounds all together; five zukes totaling over eight pounds; and 10 cukes totaling over 10 pounds. The biggest was a yellow squash weighing more than 3.5 pounds, and measuring 16 inches in length and four inches in diameter. It looks like a baseball bat without a handle. That's it at the front of the picture. Looks like I'll be making zucchini bread tomorrow.

Oh yeah, I'll need to pick the beans, too. I'm expecting about two pounds of yellow wax, green filet beans, and pole beans.

So far, the deer have stayed away from the vegetable garden. It seems they've been too busy eating the landscaping in the front yard. While we were gone, they chewed up the coral bells, deciduous azaleas, red twig dogwoods, and tall garden phlox (which are right up against the front porch!). Last year, we sprayed Liquid Fence on the plants they were eating. It is the most vile-smelling thing I've ever encountered. It seemed to work, as long as you reapply after a heavy rain.

It's good to be home. It's even o.k. to have a to-do list a mile long. I'll get right on it...tomorrow.

Vegetable Harvest

The vegetable garden is getting into full swing. The peas, sugar snaps, spinach, and lettuce are done. This week I harvested the first (and probably only) cabbage, and the one experimental clump of broccoli. The cabbage is a bit ragged--since I didn't use any pesticides, various insects have chewed up the outer leaves quite a bit. Even so, the whole plant was almost three feet in diameter! Once I took off all the outer leaves, I had a nice looking head of cabbage weighing about a pound and a half. The other plants are much smaller, and don't seem to be forming solid heads. My daughter bought me a small broccoli plant at an Earth Day festival. We stuck it in the ground to see what would happen. It grew into a gorgeous head--tasted yummy for dinner tonight, too! It was an awfully big plant for the relatively small edible amount, so I'm not sure it's worth the space in the long run to plant enough for a reasonable crop.

The beans are doing quite well. First up were the yellow wax. The pole beans are just beginning to produce. The filet (bush) beans were the last in the ground, and they're just in flower. We're hoping to have a lot of fresh beans to eat, plus plenty to blanch, vacuum seal, and freeze for the winter.

After a brief rest this week, the cukes are kicking back into production. We picked four more today, and there are plenty of little ones coming along. My daughter's a big fan of the little carrots. I find them a bit bitter.

I'm enjoying the progression of different crops through the season, and I'm looking forward to the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants later in the summer!

Another Day, Another Cucumber.

Or three, or five, or more. The cukes have been the most successful crop by far this summer. We're overrun. Today, we tried pickle-making. We used an old family recipe for bread and butter pickles. First, I sliced the cukes and onions, then salted them, covered them in ice, and let them sit for three hours. Next, I mixed sugar, vinegar, and spices, brought it to a boil, added the drained cukes and onions, and boiled it again. Finally, we put it in jars and processed it. Ta-dah! They need to sit and pickle for four to six weeks. I'm looking forward to trying them.

Bluebirds!

We put up our new bluebird box this spring. Within days, a pair of bluebirds was hanging around, and we hoped that they'd found it to their liking. Eventually, we saw them making regular trips in and out, so we looked forward to seeing the new family. About two weeks ago, we could hear the babies when either parent came to the box. This morning, things seemed a bit more urgent. The parents were constantly going back and forth, the babies were really loud, and we finally saw the babies at the hole for the first time. We set up on the deck with the camera and binoculars right after lunch. Then we saw two babies on the ground below the nest box. We'd been keeping an eye out all morning, but somehow we missed their first flights. For the next two hours, we watched. The parents were still coming back and forth, alternating between feeding the babies on the ground, and taking food to the box. We caught glimpses of two more babies inside. Finally one stuck its head out, then grabbed the edge of the hole with its foot, and then...fell back inside. Again it came to the opening, looked around, and ducked back inside. Finally, it popped up and just sat there, for about five minutes. One quick flap, and it was sitting on the ground with the others!

Garden Critter

I went out to check on my garden before dinner tonight. I picked my first cuke and a handful of sugar snaps. I oohed and aahed over the tomato blossoms. I snipped off the pole bean vine that had already topped the six-foot bean tower. My daughter came out to join me. She bent down to look at the cukes and found Jethro here, our new garden feature, curled up under the cucumber vine. Yes, it's a copperhead. Yes, it's right next to a cuke that's big enough to pick. No, I didn't look for snakes before I reached down to pick that cuke. Yes, I'll look the next time. Yikes. I really hope he's big enough to eat chipmunks.