Friday, July 1, 2011

Slow time.

For me this is the slow time.  Its too early for anything to be ripe, too late to plant early crops, too soon to plant fall crops. The only thing that needs doing is weed...weed....weed...  and i still can't keep up.  I could be weeding right now but i caught up with much of the housework so i could take a break from it much of this holiday weekend.  Hubby gets Monday off for Independence Day so its a 3 day weekend.  Anyway, so all my energy is mostly used up though it looks like little actually got done.

I drained the worm bin of juice today and i put it on the small tomato volunteer i replaced one of the Pruden's Purple tomatoes that up and died. One of the Banana Legs also croaked.

I'm totally redoing my garden plan for next year.  I won't have enough tomatoes at this point to can. 

Though the corn is almost knee high (by the fourth of July), i'm wondering if i'm being totally silly even growing it.  I don't have a grain mill...  i stick to mostly grain-free eating...  But then, i have seen people selling these types of corn strung on thread as beads in ceremonial Native American necklaces.  Maybe there is a reason to grow it. Hummm...lol
But next year that space is going to something we actually will eat lots of.  Be buy a lot of canned tomatoes at the store so canning tomatoes, be it stewed or sauced,  will be worth it since it definitely will be used.  I eat a lot of green beans, so canning them will be worth it as well. 
I'm going o be able to tell if my small plot is big enough to be worth growing potatoes in.  I'm from a major potato state, so they are not very expensive up here.  So it will depend on how much yield i get from most of one wide row and 6# of seed.

I guess what i am now is bored. 
Last year i had all this stuff i could think about. I was planting grapes, berries, studying pruning, researching comfrey, composting methods, pressure canners, dehydrators....  now i've done all that and am just waiting to use what i have learned and what i now own.

I have been crocheting some, but as i have mentioned before, a toddler makes free time hard.  Right now she is sitting on me watching Kipper ( a somewhat educational cartoon starring a very cute beagle) while i type this out.  A post normally takes a whole day to write up, 5 minutes at a time.  I take her outside for at least a couple hours each day and sometimes i get pictures of the plants while i am getting pictures of her.  And sometimes her naps are long enough for me to post all the plant pics.

Its just such a different year.  When she is older and more predictable i'll have more opportunity to utilize.  I hope she grows up in the garden.  I so wish we had this extra yardage when my oldest was little! The oldest one looks like me, but the youngest one acts like me.
Well, back o garden stuff.  We are having a dry spell. The garden plants are looking well.  The kohlrabi is beginning to bulb up.  I wish it would hurry.  I want that space for the remaining volunteer tomatoes that are kicking around in that plot.  I also want to eat the kohlrabi and see if i should plant it again.  I like kohlrabi, so unless this kind turns out too fibrous itt should be a go for next year-- only i'll get it planted early.

The purple sprouting broccoli seems to have been a waste of space because it got planted too late.  It went straight to flower immediately on me.  I left the flowers there because i think i read something somewhere that brassica flowers attract beneficial insects.  I guess i'll see if it does something for me then.

There's not really much else i can think of to make a note of right now, so i guess that's it for today.