More hot days

Not that i'm really complaining.  Its 77.4 degrees out at 7am.  Last night was one of those nights where they say you can actually hear the corn grow. I guess it makes a creaking noise if you have enough of it. Of course we have those air conditioners going on, so that means i can't hear any outside noise at all. That is the main thing i dislike about the air conditioners, well that and the electricity they use. But i won't get into that.

I'm hoping to get out and put some water on the garden before 9am so it will have time to soak in really well before the sun gets too strong,  its supposed to be awfully humid so it might not make much of a difference.

I think the heat is making a few of my rutabagas try to bolt.  Its odd, i thought rutabagas needed to be made warm, then too cold, then hot again before they do that.  I seeded them in when it was warmer and i don't think we got a temperature drop below what induces them to flower...  in any case its just a few of them (like 3)  in a 4'x3' square.  This is my first try at rutabagas myself, so its possible that a few in each crop does this anyway.

The finocchio are looking good.  I was worried for a while that they weren't going to get anywhere since they were also getting nibbled by the groundhogs. I really hope they bulb up and don't bolt!

The Provider bush beans are in full flower, i like the light purple color. There are a lot of pretty flowers in vegetable gardens that don't get noticed.  My Red Eye and Carnival squashes have gigantic, brilliant yellow  blooms. I have some nasturtiums planted between them and the red and orange flowers look nice with the squash flowers.
I noticed that the tiny cucumbers that started about a week ago have not grown at all and a couple actually fell off.   We'd been having rain at the right times and i have watered a bit in between when necessary, so i don't immediately think it has to do with dryness, maybe heat?  I'll have to look into it, i am sure i read about it someplace but i have terrible memory. 
That first little summer squash i took a picture of a week back ended up melting away. I think a slug got to it.

The celery stump i planted seems to be continuing to look good, i have another package of celery hearts that i plan to enjoy with some spreadable brie, so i'll be planting a couple more later.  If i don't get full sized stalks i won't mind cause anything more i get from these stumps will be a bonus.  I am definitely going to try it earlier next spring by deliberately buying a bunch of celery  mainly for planting. We do use a lot of celery when we think to buy it. Its so good stuffed with cream cheese and olives or no-sugar-added peanut butter, and i like it diced and added to my chicken or egg salad.

Its looking pretty cloudy out right now and that is probably a very good thing. It would be much hotter already if the sun was out and strong right now.  I think we are expected to get into the high 90's but not into the 100's.

I have a few more things to plant, so as soon as the weather relents, i will be planting them.

Oh, the other day i saw a roadside plant that looks a lot like an Autumn Olive. I want to get hubby to help me get a closer look at it. Its not in anyone's front yard, its in a scrubby waste spot next to a big road drainage trench. I don't know what those are called, a large gully maybe...  Anyhow, i think i'd like to clip off a few pieces so i can get a positive ID and then try and root the cuttings. There are also a few other shrubs there with red berries, i'd like to ID those and get some cuttings if it is also an edible.  There is yet another plant i need to look closer at, this one is in the back yard, beyond our fence and on the nice mneighbor's property. Its in the scrubby corner where they don't go  and it will be hard to get a closer look, but i can see enough of it to try and decide what it is.  It looks like a familiar plant, but i don't remember what it is. I don't think its an edible, but i like plants that attract birds.  The red berries are double.... and i think its some sort of wild honeysuckle. They don't have much of a scent when they bloom, so it does not call attention until it gets those juicy looking (and probably inedible) berries.

I need to go out and take some pictures and edit them in later.

I guess its time for house work stuff.

I am the Weed Warrior....!

I almost feel victorious.

I finally got everything weeded and i do mean everything.  With varying degrees of thoroughness, the Jerusalem Artichokes i sort of slacked on, but after almost 3 hours of weeding i didn't care.
The rest of the garden was done as thoroughly as i possibly could get it. It was a great day for weeding, cool and overcast... i think i still got a sunburn.

It kinda stinks that the carrot and parsnip beds look so bare when everything else looks so good.  I left the weeds in the aisles sonce i don't feel like doing the extra work of removing them.  I might later but not now.

I don't usually take the row pictures from this end of the garden, but i felt like doing that this time.

Now that they are weeded, i can actually see my peppers and eggplants.

Burdock and then Globe Artichokes... the artichokes don't seem to be going anywhere yet.  The Summer Squash are small too...

Salsify, surviving brusseld sprouts and cauliflower plants, then beans...Provider bush beans.  I forgot the name the other day.

Birdhouse gourd, i love the leaves on that plant. They are velvety and soft, not like summer squash, melon or cucumber leaves which are spiky and irritating.

I have native ladybugs all over the place here, i like them better than the asiatic ones- the type that swarm and sometimes bite.  These are rounder and have a larger black 'head'.

Here is a ladybug larva

And i found this yellow ladybug eating yellow aphids.

My experiment with the celery base is working, cause its really coming out of the soil now

Marechal Foch with flower buds.

i hate the dust in my camera lens.



While i was out weeding, i found a few spots where i think the fence is too high.   I think the groundhogs are just walking right under it. I found that they have eaten the leaves of my horseradish almost to the nubs...  so i might go use roundup and totally re do the fence and include the far part of the garden that i didn't think i had to worry about-- the JA patch and the Asparagus bed.
I thought we had gotten it low enough to stop them last week, but the rain compacted the soil and they got under it again.  So i'll try this one more time and see if that is what was happening...

Who knows.

Smoking fish, regrowing celery and the usual rambling.

I made up the brine for the tilapia and it should soak for about 1 hour.

Then it comes out and gets a light rinse and on the racks to dry

 Allowing the surface to dry before smoking causes a 'pellicle' to form,,, its a slightly tacky skin that helps the smoke flavor stick to the meat and helps preserve the texture of the fish.

Then on to the smoker racks (sprayed with canola oil) to go in.

Preheat the smoker and get the chips going.

I'm out of Alder so i'm using Mesquite. I have Hickory but i like that better on beef or pork. If i use it on fish it hints too much of bacon and i like seafood with bacon but its not quite right this way to me.

In goes the fish

Another few hours and a couple pans of chips.  It smells glorious.


(photo to come later if i remember, they are still smoking)

And here  they are:

Wrap in foil 2 fillets each

Bag and label then refrigerate. It can keep for 2 weeks i'm told.  But it will be eaten before that.

I could have smoked twice the amount that i did, i spaced widely and didn't use all my racks, but where this was an experiment with this type of fish i didn't want to do a big batch.
I think it was a success, it tastes very much like smoked herring without the bones and less salty.

I watched an episode of Emeril this morning and he smoked some tomatoes.... he also mentioned smoked garlic. I have to keep those things in mind for later on this summer.



I sent an email off to Burpee about the grapes. I tried to not be longwinded, but i told them that i didn't want to use up my replacement option right away because of the winter factor in each possible scenario.  I basically said that i think the plants are dead, when would they advise the best time to try again? Only i think it took me 4 paragraphs to do it.  lol

I took my Sea-Buckthorn  seeds out of the fridge a few days ago but i have not seen anything sprout yet. The Huckleberry seeds will be ready to come out of the fridge soon too. The Rose of Sharon seeds haven't done anything yet, its been a couple weeks out of the fridge for them and it will be time to take out the Autumn Olive seeds by Friday.  I got them on eBay and the skill of the seed collector and the suitability of the plants the seeds came from for seed propagation varies greatly.  The listed seeds cost me less than $10 to attempt... of course i would like to see something.  I have enough left of a few to try other methods, such as wintersowing, if the tray chitting method bombs.
I also have something of a care package coming from a dear friend, with cuttings and starts from a few berry plants to try out.
I'm seriously considering  ripping out the flower beds and going to a strictly fruit and berry garden. lol I was going to put the flowers back, but i'm reconsidering that.
I noticed that what i think are the nice neighbors' raspberry plants have almost totally migrated to my garden. Its really invaded quite badly. It is a little annoying, but i'm going to pay more attention to the fruit this year and if it is good i might leave it right there. Extracting my Clematis from it will be tricky.

I have to find a spot to plant some dill.

I may need to hill up some of my brassicas...  i took the row cover off and of course the next day was windy and some of the plants were not quite ready for that.  So they are leaning a bit to the side. But i have to make sure which ones can be hilled in case its not good for all or any of them.
Its been a long time since i have  tried kohlrabi, mine don't appear to be getting ready to bulb yet. The plants are pretty tall and a nice vibrant purple color, but the stems are still pretty slender.
Its been an odd year and where i had been planning this garden since early winter it seems everything should be along further that it is, but it really isn't that late in the season.  Its only mid June, normally my earliest plants would only have been in the ground for 2 weeks instead of 4 or so.


Free Celery!

I took a short reading break in between writing here and doing little home tasks and while i was reading one of the other blogs i love to follow, i came across an idea from Providence Acres
I learned that i can regrow a celery plant from the cut bottom of a grocery store bunch.  It makes sense, i have often noticed the tiny, partially formed mini stalks inside the cut-off celery heart, but i never thought the plant could regenerate to a reusable extent from that rootless bit of waste destined for the compost pile.  But i guess (get full details and instructional pictures at the link to Providence Acres) you simply cut the bottom couple inches off, and plant it.  It can sit in a saucer of water overnight to give it a boost or to keep it until you have time for it.  Then plant it in the garden, cover with an inch or so of soil  and within a week you should see green tops coming up.  I am under the impression that this can be done over and over again to subsequent bunches indefinitely.  The idea of "never having to buy celery again" seems to not be a far fetched notion.
I use a fair amount of celery, but trying to grow it from seed seemed like a hassle and i never expected it would work for me, but this sure is worth a try.