The heat wave is almost over....

But first, we have to get through today. High humidity expected, its about 7:30am and the temperature is 80.  Humidity is 61%.   Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler, relatively, but after that one more day of extra hot.  Then thunderstorms.
I watered the garden as well as i could yesterday morning as i hoped to do, so it shouldn't really need it today.
I took some pictures of things here and there and for my records i'll post them.
I love seeing how fast the plant can grow once this type of weather hits.

Those berry plants i saw on the roadside... i did get to stop and photo them:

 In my original guess i was sort of half right.  I was wrong when i hoped it was Sea Buckthorn, but i'm confident that i was correct thinking that they are some sort of wild Honeysuckle.  I didn't realize that the berries also come in orange as well as red.

Its too bad they are inedible, there's so many of them.

I decided to buy one of those Japanese Beetle Traps yesterday. I know there is debate whether or not they actually attract beetles to your plants or away, but i had so many on my plants i figure it couldn't hurt at this point.  I have a porcelainberry vine in the overgrown flower beds and they attract the beetles most shamefully....  Within 2 minutes of opening the pheromone packet, they came swarming!  It was like a cross between Hitchcock's "The Birds" and Pearl Harbor rendered in Popillia japonica!
Not sure anyone else can make out the beetles, they are the tiny, white, somewhat blurry spots...  there were about 30 of them in the trap within minutes. I'm sure there are hundreds in there by now.

I have green tomatoes!  These are Polfast.

Swiss Chard recovering...  i think i need to pick some.

Slim Jim eggplant.  The leaf color is so deep its almost black. The camera did not capture the color.
I have been thinking that the beds that currently hold overgrown flowers might be better used as veggie or berry plots...  if i do decide to go in that direction, i think this plant would be a great edible/ornamental candidate.

Rutabagas.... Two naughty ones trying to go to seed....
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Provider bush bean flowers

Finoccio

Rosemary

Summer squash... hopefully this one won't fade away.

Sunburst patty pan squash, these are really yummy and best when small, so it won't be long before these are ready to collect.

Blogger is uploading these photos extraordinarily slow today....

Birdhouse gourd....  i think it is going for world domination here.

Watermelon, finally starting to get somewhere.  I forget which one this is... the others aren't as big as this.
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If these flowers set fruit there should be enough time for them to ripen to eating stage before summer is over.  We usually run out of time with melons so i hope this year is going to be a good one.

Borage. This plant has struggled to grow, its no more than 8" tall, but it has a flower!

Marechal Foch in bloom. Fascinating teeny flowers.

Edelweiss making an unexpected comeback.

The big tree hydrangea budding up.

Marigolds from seed... finally blooming. These are in a large pot at the front door, there are others scattered throughout the veggie garden. They are also beginning to bloom.  The potted ones are Aurora Mix from Park Seed.

This rose came with the house. Its been hit pretty hard by the Japanese Beetles, but it manages to bloom nicely anyway.  I think i found the name tag that goes with it, but i don't remember for sure what the name is.  I think it might have been Mary Washington ...  its some historical American woman's name at any rate.

.Purple Smokebush. I need to move it someplace it can spread out. The silky dogwood is crowding it out. I might take cuttings of the dogwood and then use an herbicide on the rest.  I can't dig it out like i want to.

Not exactly sure what this is, i tried to get it ID'd at Gardenweb and i think they guessed "Nettle-leaved Bellflower" but this plant looks more hefty than the pictures i have been seeing online, but i think i agree.

Yes, the picture is upside down. I couldn't reach through the raspberry canes (they belong to the nice neighbors but the plants have totally invaded my flowerbed) to get a picture any other way.

Clematis Henryi

My Bay Laurel might have enough leaves this year for me to harvest and use without killing the plant. lol

I bought some landscape fabric yesterday.  When the hot weather lets up i hope to start digging up the flowerbeds.  I'll have to use herbicide on some of the ornamental grasses that have overstayed their welcome and overgrown their boundaries.  Then i can use the landscape fabric to prevent things from getting so darn crazy so quickly.  It only took one year (the year i spent on the couch in recovery) for the gardens to totally get out of control.  I don't ever want to see that happen again.

Well, that is pretty much it. The rest of the day will consist of house work. I might take a roller brush with herbicide on it to the aisles in my garden. The weeds are harder to pull from there because the earth is packed. Some of the weeds are trying to go to seed and i can't allow that.

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.

Woke up to no power this morning. Its weird when that happens, everything is so quiet.  It took a few minutes to decide that it was not something caused by our end.  Then i started planning my day according to having no power. Like reducing the times i open the fridge, which windows to keep open to let in cool air rather than hot.
Then the power came back on.  Its supposed to get into the 90's again today it is nice to know we would have air conditioning and the fridge won't be in trouble.   The local news has mentioned nothing about the power going out so whatever it was, it apparently wasn't critical enough to draw the attention of our very bored and overreactive  local news stations.

The majority of my corn plants did manage to reach the "knee high" goal for the Fourth of July.  Some didn't do very well at all though. I had some seeds leftover from 2008 "Incredible" was the name. It germinated well the first time i planted it, but not so well this time around.  Since it came up so thin, i went ahead and planted that packet of Purple Podded bush beans i bought the other day. The Stowell's Evergreen and Golden Bantam seem to be doing well enough.

Saw my first Monarch butterfly of the year yesterday. It looked like it was thinking about laying its eggs on one of my uncertainly identified perennials... it came tangled with another plant i bought, which died during winter.  The seller of the original plant told me that the stowaway was a white hyssop.  Since it now has pink buds i have decided that was a missidentification.  I think it might be some sort of milkweed, but i have not gotten a close enough look to be sure of which one.  I tore the tip of one leaf and there was a small bit of milky sap.  I'm leaning toward Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) I looked for Monarch eggs, but didn't see any.

It has been three days now since the last raid on my garden. My Swiss Chard is almost recovered enough to harvest some for myself.

Not much else to report i guess and i have some busywork to do around the house today...  Have to pick up some odds and ends at the hardware store too.

Things will need watering....

The forecasters are telling us we may see temps in the 90's before midweek.  High 80's until then. Its going to be dry until Tuesday when they are saying the humidity will be heavy and there is a chance of thunder storms.
I made some "beer fertilizer" a while ago. Its a home made fertilizer i learned about on an exotic houseplant forum a few years ago.


Beer Fertilizer

1 12oz beer (something medium bodied, light beer isn't worth anything)
1/2 cup of household ammonia, non scented
1 cup epsom salts
2 cups of water


Mix one tablespoon per gallon of water.  Its mild enough to not damage leaves.  I think i will feed the garden with it when i do some watering  tomorrow.  I got one of those Miracle Gro feeder-waterer sprayers, so if i put the fertilizer in there it should mix about right, and if its stronger i think it won't be too strong. 


I gave my tomatoes some calcium the other day too,  i read that about 3 capsules per plant is about right. I had a couple bottles of a calcium & magnesium supplement that had expiry dates from 2005, but i didn't want to throw them out because i knew i could use them in the garden some day. I never remember to take supplements and it takes me 5 years to remember to use things i have saved for other purposes.  At any rate, it finally got done the other day.   I simply scratched them into the soil surface at the base of each plant and will let watering and rain take over the rest.  I had enough to put around every plant in the garden.  So calcium should not be a problem in the garden this year.


I tried to go yardsailing today, but i guess i stink at it. We followed a couple posterboard signs around town, but they were small sales. A couple tables full of used Walmart glassware and little wall hangings from the 1980's, you know, the ones that are made to look handmade but are just factory prints from China.. We checked out the local flea market too, but nothing worth paying for there either. A few genuinely interesting things, but sellers wanted too much for what was essentially  dust collecting agents.  Lots of cassette movies and romance novels though. Gag.



Sooo....  we ended up going to Good Will. And i found a a few good things. I got a waffle iron, i have been trying to catch up with one for about a year. Found a good Oster for $4,  its a round one. I can make my low carb waffles in it, the divots make wonderful butter-catchers.
I found a really nice roaster pan with a lift out rack and domed lid.  I have needed one of those for quite a while as well. That was only $15.  I'm tired of trying to cook turkeys and chickens with roasted vegetables on sheet pans.

The really cool thing i picked up was a new Food Saver vacuum sealer that was only $25.  It came with a roll of bags and an unopened stack of pre-cut bags. It was immaculate looking, even still had the permanent freezer marker clipped to the inside of the lid.  I looked it up online and direct from the Foodsaver website it is a $170 machine!  Its really great because yesterday i was using my old, smaller Foodsaver and i was thinking i'd really like to have a new one. It can be finicky and since my hands were feeling terribly achy  that day (from who knows what) it was more difficult to use than it should have been.  I was planning on researching the cost of a new one so i'm glad i found this one right away.  Hubby was even impressed.
This one is all automatic. You put the food in the bag set it in place and push a button. You don't have to press down and lock the lid and it has settings for  wet or dry foods and a gentle setting for stuff you don't want smashed. It will also seal without vacuuming out any air so i can reseal things like potato chip or cereal bags.  I am so thrilled.  I hope to dehydrate a lot of herbs, fruits and greens this year, i really hope that i can use this Foodsaver to seal and store them. 


I also got the beta a new home,  his vase was too small and i didn't like how it looked.  I got him one of those vases that look like a very large brandy snifter.  It holds just under a gallon of water, which is way more fair than the tiny vase he was in, even though i changed his water regularly. I washed it well with vinegar and hot water and he looks much happier in that. He gets more attention now too, i'm sure he appreciates that.

 I got a few other odds and ends, some clothes for the kids, a fascinating little tea bell shaped like a tiny house that i really shouldn't have bought cause i am trying desperately hard to not acquire any more knick-nacks....  It would make a great Christmas ornament with a cotton ball soaked in pine needle extract tucked inside it.

It was a really good day, i am  sore and achy from walking but the sun was out, it was almost too warm, but nothing has raided my garden in the last couple days, things appear to be on the mend or growing well.  The kids are happy and healthy and i had some hot jalapeno cheese for a snack.  Things are good!

Chilly days....

Well, nothing much going on really.  We did catch a woodchuck in the Havahart trap.  It is no longer in our neighborhood.

We plan to keep the trap baited and will continue to remove any other woodchucks that we happen to capture.


Thursday was rather cool outside (this entry was begun Thursday evening and its now Friday am). My oldest daughter remarked that it felt like Fall, and it really did!  It got into the high 60's, but i think that may have been as high as it went, that i noticed at any rate.  Its pretty chilly this morning still.


I went to Home Depot to get chicken wire and the inside of the store was hotter than the outside.

Last night the overnight lows went down to about 48. It seems strange, but weather is like that sometimes, but i do wish it would warm back up within reason. My corn looks like it just might reach the "knee high by the Fourth of July" standard.


I did another order of seeds through Pinetree.  Remember i said i'm considering specializing in Kale?
Yeah, so i got a couple ornamental types and some bred for eating.  The ornamental is said to be fairly good for eating and if i grow it in the flower beds or garden at least it will look pretty.  Not relying on it being tasty, but i think a nice row of edible kale flanked by pretty kale might be a cheerful sight one frosty morning.


I got some Purple Sprouting Broccoli too.
And they had a close-out on their Hopi Blue Dent corn that i have wanted to try for a number of years.  I decided that if this year my sweet corn does not make it through the season i would start growing either ornamental or 'meal' corns.
I also got a packet of Podcorn, which is an ornamental type in a sort of breeding throwback, it has husks on each kernel, more like its earlier ancestry.
They are also having a closeout on their Banana Legs tomato. Its supposed to be a pretty good paste type and we prefer paste tomatoes here.  I keep growing salad tomatoes because i can't resist all the different types, but when it comes down to it, our salads and sandwiches taste best with sliced paste tomatoes. Types like Pear Tomatoes get eaten like grapes.
I found they had seeds for  San Marzano Tomatoes,  they are supposed to be the very best paste tomato- ever.  But not very disease resistant.  But i decided to try them.


I got some red cabbage and some green cabbage and some Saltwort to try and i got seeds for Leeks and Rue.
 I also grabbed some Beit Alpha, Spacemaster and Boston Pickling cukes. I was going to be out of my cucumber seed stash for next year and according to some sources it is not too late to plant cukes up here. I may try it.

I also saw they had a really good price on a book called "The 64 Dollar Tomato"  which sounds amusing and fascinating and maybe a little more familiar than i'd like to admit .....  so, looking forward to reading that!


I got some Kossack Kholrabi.  I wasn't very impressed with the Early Purple Vienna i had.  They need to be harvested small... and the ones i had to rescue from the woodchucks were only a little bit smaller than ideal...  but considering it takes the same effort and spacing to plant Kossack....  why harvest something quarter sized when i can get baseball sized veggies.   The EPV were very pretty and i might plant them just for color, but its like chopping down a redwood for a toothpick.


Oh, i didn't do very well by those cuttings i got a couple weeks ago.  They looked like they were doing fine, nice and green. But literally overnight, some went brown and crisp.  The mulberries look like they might yet hang on and one hardy kiwi cutting is still going. A couple each of the cherries and cranberries look ok-ish still.  But the Raspberries were looking fine and then poof.  But that's the way it can go with cuttings, sometimes they do awesome and sometimes they just sit there and give up.  I once tried rooting some Kaffir Lime cuttings i took in attempt to save the plant i had and they lingered for 6 months and suddenly gave up.  No roots at all.
But i have some berry seeds and i looked up what to do with them, i just need to find the time to do it. :o)


So as far as the actual garden goes, there isn't much going on. Things are simply growing,  and growing well.
I keep pulling out a few weeds here and there, i plan to plant some more beans somewhere in there, maybe try again with some herbs.
Hopefully the woodchucks will go into the Havahart instead of my garden.


Oh, yeah. The chicken wire i bought.
I think i will use the buried fence idea.
I got 2' x 50' fencing.  So i can bury the bottom half in a way that flares it out away from the garden. About 2-3 inches from the top of the fence, i can run one strand of electrified wire to repel climb-overs.
I plan to use the Mantis Tiller to loosen up the soil so i can bury the fence. I should be able to till, then simply scoop the dirt off to the side, set the fence in then cover it.  I bought more PVC to use as non-conductive posts so i don't have to play with insulators.  The PVC will be sturdy enough to stand a number of years.  I will drill small holes into the PVC and use cotter pins to attach the chicken wire and the hot wire.  The height should not be too tall for me to step over comfortably, though it might be pushing it.  I may have to lay the fence out far enough away so i have a whole width of space in the front just for walking to and from each row.  I can't straddle the 4' growing rows.  I'll work out the details as i'm doing the project. I can't add too much space since i only have 150' of chicken wire and my garden is about130' around.  Not a lot of room for error.


I might begin today or next week sometime. I have a lot of house stuff to do.  Laundry sorting.  Whatever no longer fits or no longer gets worn needs to go to GoodWill or Salvation Army.  But it needs to be washed and dried first, ideally it should get folded too.  But its really booooring  to do.

Blueberries are planted.

Since i dragged out that big container and got all the decomposed peat out of it and into the wheelbarrow... i figured i'd might as well plant the blueberries  'cause i had to dig the peat moss into the soil anyway.

The weather decided to be a pest, there'd be sudden downpours and then it would stop and the sun would go blazing hot then pour again, so it wasn't a simply walk out and plant kind of thing.
But it made me mad so i didn't just go in and plan for tomorrow.

Of course as soon as the plants were in the ground and the name  tags were shoved in place, i slogged back into the house and stood in front of the air conditioner with my arms over my head for about 10 minutes.

I finally cooled off and dried out enough to take pictures for the record a couple hours after.
I planted them just about 6' apart at either end of the grape row. I also planted them more in the center of the weedblock than the grapes since they will become more bushy than the grapes will be.

Blueray on the left and Patriot on the right

The other end of the grape row,  this time i have the Patriot blueberry on the left and the Blueray on the right.

We will use landscape timbers to edge the bed and mulch the landscape fabric, its on the list of upcoming projects. Now that i have all the plants installed that can happen sooner than later.

I saw this ladybug while i was walking back to the garden:

And when i checked my garden i noticed that  the cabbages actually are resprouting from the ground. These sprouts may try to form medium sized heads if they are aren't eaten before they can.

.That one was blurry, here's a better  shot:

Cool!  Grapes  coming back from the roots and cabbage coming back too....

I'm now in a much happier mood about this enterprise!

Seeds, again!

Yes, i bought more seeds.
But i had to!
Because they were there and my plants are not.

I bought some Calabrese green sprouting broccoli.  I got some Broccoli Raab, some Arugula and i got a bush bean with purple pods.
I have grown purple-podded bush beans before and i liked how much easier it was to find and harvest the beans.   Depending on the variety, if the bean pods are missed and mature too far the plant will stop producing, so purple pods that make more thorough harvesting easier help to prevent that from happening.  That, and i like the change of color. As much as i like green foods, sometimes one gets tired of eating that color.
I got the broccoli raab because it is more bitter than classic calabrese. I noticed the kale was not being raided, maybe the flavor wasn't as mild as the cabbage and gypsy broccoli.  I don't generally mind bitterness within reason so i figure its worth a shot. If its less appealing to the evil, oversized squirrels  i may have a shot at harvesting some for myself.
I grabbed the arugula just for the heck of it.  I might just scatter the seed in the lackluster carrot beds. 

I have a very large, plastic, terracotta colored window box style pot that i was considering growing some broccoli in, i remembered that the soil in it right now is mostly old peat moss.  I had put it in there, having no other place to put it, the bag was shredded, it was about 1/4  of one of those huge bales i got at Home Depot...  i think that will be perfect to add to the soil where the blueberries are going to go. Its been in there for about as long as we have had the house....  7 years or so...?   I can trade the peat moss for potting soil, compost and yard dirt.  Hopefully the plastic is sturdy enough to not break.


My other alternative is to use my 30 gallon rubber tub. It was once 30 gallon patio pond that was made to look somewhat like an oval cedar trough.  The liner is a thick, slightly flexible rubber. I think its the same material horse watering buckets are made out of.  If i get the guts to cut a drain hole in it, i could use that as a planter too.



I went out and retrieved the big plastic pot. It looks like its still strong enough to plant in. It barely looks its age actually. 

Just a little weedy and dirty

My little blueberry plants need to be planted soon, the Patriot type are flowering. I need to remove them too.

Also, this might be good news!  While i was out (in the oppressive humidity) i checked on the grapes, the Edelweiss grapes don't look like much still, but i did notice the weedblock was lifting a bit next to the really dead looking Edelweiss twig. I pulled the fabric back a bit and out sprang a green vine tip with a couple crumpled leaves.  I do believe that the Edelweiss may be regrowing from its roots!  I'm pretty sure its a grape shoot, the leaves are more rounded than the others, but i looked for some leaf pictures and that type of grape has rounder leaves.  I won't know for sure until the leaves unfurl completely, but it should happen in a day or so.  As far as i know, Burpee does not graft these grapes, if it is on its own rootstock, i will at least have a chance at ending up with one Edelweiss after all!

This is a big relief, because this year it seems that the things i was most excited about are the ones that weren't panning out too well  so far.

 Oh... one bad thing... the Japanese Beetles are out.  It seems early this year and that is not a good thing!

Havahart trap is still empty. Nothing more eaten in the garden, but the horseradish leaves have been munched on again.

Oh, my beach plum saplings are looking good. They had leafed out nicely late this Spring and have grown quite a bit.  They need planting out too, but with the fencing and the yard not quite done i don't know where.

Topsy Turvey looking pretty good, has a lot of catching up to do.

I applied roundup to the far edge of the garden where the Jerusalem Artichokes, Asparagus and Horseradish plants are. I think i'm going to restring the electric fence and enclose those parts too. The ground is more level there and i think i will have fewer gaps to deal with.

I applied the roundup maybe 20 minutes ago, when the weather radar map showed no storms in sight, and all of a sudden we are now under a severe thunderstorm watch. 
If i want rain all i have to do is apply Roundup to the weeds.  But it did this to me last time and though i had my doubts it did end up working, it just took longer to see the results.

Well i think that is it for now.
It's almost 1pm.

Make your own Vanilla Extract.

Having sworn off white sugar (any sugar really) and most all grains entirely, i like to know what is in the stuff i use.  I like to have vanilla in my homemade yogurt, but i found that many vanilla extracts available have sugar added or other unnecessary ingredients.  I don't really call myself a purist, but when i can control the ingredients of a thing and make it myself, i find it to be another fun project.

So i make my own Vanilla Extract.

Its super easy.  Just find yourself a good source of fresh beans (i suggest eBay, its where i got mine, there are good sellers there).

Depending on how much extract you want to make, you can buy as many as you want.
I happened to get a large batch of beans because i plan to use them for things besides extract and i plan to use the beans themselves as well as the extract i make as gifts.

This spread cost me under $30 including shipping. 

The recipe is simple,  about 6 beans per cup of extract. The only other ingredient is Vodka.  Smirnoff works well, it has the right balance of price and taste for my purposes.
I am making double strength extract so i can dilute it if i want or just have that extra rich flavor in my recipes. Regular recipes say 3-4 beans per cup of Vodka.

So i start by measuring the Vodka.
I have 12 relatives i plan to give the finished extract to for Christmas, so i need at least 24oz per batch.  I have two types of beans, Madagascar and Tahitian.  Madagascar extract is the most common type available, Tahitian is rare as an extract but it has distinctive different flavor.  So i am making a batch of each.
I want to have some left for myself so i am going to make 26 ounces of each.  So i needed 52oz of Vodka.  A 1.75 liter bottle gave me plenty with some left over.

Weighed for each jar:

 One pound, 10 ounces give or take.  (zero out the jar on the scale first)

That equals roughly 3 and one half cups

And for double-strength extract, that's 6 beans per cup.... 21 beans needed

Slit each of the beans lengthwise and scrape out the insides

Into the jar it goes. 

 Rough chop the rest of the bean and put it in the jar....  repeat 20 more times ;o)

Cover and shake.  

Here are the Tahitian beans:

A second jar, before shaking.
Allow to steep at room temperature out of direct sunlight.

This is what the jars look like after one night of steeping.

The extract needs to steep for at least 6 weeks.  The beans can be used about 3 times. I heard of people simply topping their jars off with fresh Vodka and adding the occasional bean.  The extract can last indefinitely since the Vodka's high alcohol content keeps things quite sterile.

Strain it through a fine mesh, bottle it and use like store-bought, or use it straight from the jar. The bean particles settle out of the way so you can do this.

I plan to purchase a number of  new 2 ounce glass bottles with dropper tops, i'll make a nice label to go on them and they should be a unique and useful gift. 

There are DIY Vanilla extract recipes out there that are non-alcohol. Usually the vodka is subbed with glycerine. Not the solid bar soap glycerin, but the liquid type. I have bought it at the pharmacy before, i used it to make bubble bath, lip balm and other homemade cosmetic items.I've never bought it for edible purposes but as far as i know the pure glycerin is safe to eat.  It is more pricey than Vodka.

The recipe i found for Non-Alcohol Vanilla Extract is:

12 oz Glycerin
4  oz warm water
2 Whole Vanilla Beans

Procedure is the same as the regular method, split, scrape and chop the beans into the liquids, keep in a glass jar, shake often. Should be ready to use after a month or so.  I'd probably double the bean bill. But that's me.

Rainy day today

And that is good, we need this nice soaking rain. Its been a firly decent year so far, generally warm with regular installments of rain at the right times.

I'm glad i got all the weeding done yesterday. I had to do it all at once or the pain will catch up with me. Last night my leg hurt so bad it almost made me sick to my stomach.  I'll have to try and take it easy the next few days.

Hubby went  ahead and bought me a Havahart trap yesterday after he saw what the beasts did to my horseradish plants. We baited it with the remains of a few of the broccoli plants that took the worst damage, we also tossed in a chunk of grocery store broccoli floret for good measure.  If i have to trap and relocate woodchucks all summer (or for the rest of my earthly existence) i'll be ok as long as we get them before they get my veggies.
I think i might be able to rely on the fence a little more now that i think i fixed the issue of the lower wire height.  It was too high from the ground on the far side.  The way my raised bed slopes was part of the problem there. The wire looked low enough, but the slope of the ground made a perfect gap that a 'chuck could slide right under without contacting the wire.  I was going to mound it up with dirt, but i knew that would not be solid enough so i took some scrap boards and set them just under the wire to fill that gap, since the boards are on the inside of the wire they can't be moved from beyond the wire and they can't be used to jump over.

My descriptive powers are not good, so:

and the hopeful fix:

I really hope i get it right this time!  There have been a few not-quite-ideal situations with this fence. The fence itself functions like it is supposed to, but my end of the bargain has been lacking.

First, relying on one strand was naive.  It was effective on the neighborhood dogs and cats but not on a determined predator of vegetables.

Second,  i should have used Roundup along the fence line in the first place, hubby didn't want me to but i convinced him it was necessary for the fence to work.  I should have just done it instead of letting my point become obvious.

Third, i should have paid much more attention to the contours  of the ground and how the slopes created wide gaps.

Fourth, i should have included the asparagus and horseradish bed in the protected area.  I didn't have enough wire from the original kit to run two strands around all of it, but hubby bought me 1/4 mile of wire  a few days later and i should have restrung it right then.  I plan to fix this mistake next chance i get.

If it turns out that the fence is effective after all the tweaking is complete i'll be thrilled.  If not, i'll still keep using it to keep the cats from using it as a litter box and the loose dogs from trodding down my veggies.  I do plan to use the trap continuously each year to try and keep numbers down.  We'll have to find a good place to relocate them where we won't be causing someone else the same trouble.

Best of all, if the fence finally works, i can stop blogging about woodchucks!!!

Soon i should be able to buy the mini fridge for storing my seeds so i can get rid of the boxes, trays and such that i store them in now. I'll also have to buy a bag of silica gel which i can get in the cat litter section of the pet store. 
If i can get the fridge set up the first week of July i can sort my seeds and start replacements for a fall crop.

I planted the cilantro seedlings out in the gaps left by badly germinating parsnips.  I also planted my peppermint next to the pepper plants,  a couple of the sweet and hot pepper plants shriveled and died earlier this spring so i just stuck the mint in there. I may regret planting my mint right in the garden like this since i hear it can get aggressive and invasive...  but i'm throwing caution to the wind this time.
I had some buttercrunch lettuce seedlings that spent too much time in their flat, but i planted them in the gaps left by the eaten broccoli.  I'll see what they do.

I have some perennial seedlings that need to be potted up, they are still lingering in the 9pack trays.  I have been saving gallon milk jugs to plant them in until i can put them in a permanent place...  i mentioned to hubby that i might be doing that for this week's projects (he's tired of seeing the flats sitting at the edge of the driveway collecting silt and i don't blame him, i'm not liking it either, i have to  drain the trays after every rain and they look messy), but judging by his lack of response when i mentioned that is what i had been saving the milk jugs for...i have a feeling my jugs took a trip to the town's "Transfer Station". Which will be a bit of a problem.  My other option is to  go to  the local nursery and see if they will let me have some of their  discarded nursery pots.  I have gotten pots from them before, a whole bag of assorted sizes.  If they still do it, it should be all i need.

The cuttings are still hanging on, some better than others.  I have at least 2 of each type that are not drying up or gotten fuzzy. They don't look like much, so i haven't taken pictures.
I have another Autumn Olive seed that has sprouted and needs to be potted up, the first one still hasn't broken the surface of the soil yet.  No luck with the other berry seeds from that eBay order.
The Goji seedlings are still alive, they must grow super slow because they haven't moved an inch  yet. I think they still have only their seed leaves.  I might try potting them up or planting them in the garden  for the rest of the year.  I read they are a bit weak their first year to overwinter so i might have to bring them indoors for the winter and maybe store them in the entry of the basement inside the bulkhead,  or i'll have to set up a place for them with lights.

The dog has decided to be a brat the last few days.  Her former owners used to let her lay on the furniture. I can't allow this personally, hounds have a smell and i can't deal with it on my furniture.  I have a nice chair that we allow her to use just for her and its in the living room with everyone else so its not like i am isolating her from the family. She just isn't allowed on the other two pieces of furniture. 
Well i kept smelling 'dog' when i sat on my couch with my morning coffee and it was annoying.  Then i started catching her on the couches when i woke up in the mornings before she did.  She'd get scolded and then directed to her chair.  At night i started laying the baby gates across the couches to keep her off them while we were asleep.  Well, Bassets can be spiteful creatures so she retaliated by peeing on my carpet.  After three nights of finding puddles and scolding her (she was taken outdoors for a pee break last thing before bedtime each night) i decided to gate her in the hallway by the side door with the baby gates. Its a 6'x4' area and its tiled, so i folded a blanket into a bed for her, put her in and gave her a small treat and said goodnight.  No pee this morning.
This will be done until i have the money to buy her  a kennel (soon). She used to be crate trained so i hope she takes to it again.  A dog with an at-will and overnight crate is a happier dog in my experience. She also needs an escape spot to go to for when our toddler starts pestering her.

I started the homemade Vanilla Extract last night. I'll post the 'how to do it' instructions & pictures later today or early tomorrow.  It is an easy project.