Picture post

I got my Bountiful Gardens seed order yesterday. That was fast. The seeds look good and there are plenty of them.
I got things like SeaKale, Schizandra,  Serviceberry, Amole and Hawthorn, among other things

My Horizon Herbs order has not shipped yet, i looked up my account and it says backorder.... so i guess i won't know for a while.  I'm a little annoyed, i wish the website was kept up to date better.  If something is unavailable it should not be purchasable until it is ready. Its not a huge problem to me, but i'm just sayin'.....

Shopping bag-full in the fridge

Out in the garden i have more yellow squashes.  I'm still enjoying it but the yearly novelty has worn off.
I need to pick more green beans today and i'm out of room in the freezer so i will eat or give them away.
They aren't producing enough for a big enough canner-load that i'd consider worth the effort.  If i had ripe tomatoes i'd do some cans of beans and some cans of tomatoes in one load.
I have been enjoying the Canning forum at the Ball website.  Its a bit slow there, but the members do answer questions within a day and seem to know their stuff.  They are also patient with multiple questions.

I have an  Artichoke!

And... what is this?

A little closer....

Ooooh!  Its turning color!

I didn't expect Siberia to be the first to start ripening. It was the last tomato seedling i was able to get in the garden and it was not the first to flower. Its also partially shaded from both ends- the corn in the morning and the other tomatoes by the afternoon....

And look at all these green tomatoes!

Even the Topsy Turvy is putting a real effort forward.

Size comparison with the onions

Hale's Best i think....

Are you ready for some Football?   Almost.

Unfortunately the Pony Yellow cracked,  but there are more.
;;

Surprised this missed my daughter's attention....

Carnival squash

The great pumpkin turning orange

A  Point One cabbage that seems to have fully recovered

Corn silk

And tassels

Siberian Motherwort

The patio set...  sans camp chairs. It was threatening rain so we put them away.  We got those Coleman folding canvas chairs. They are more convenient than non-foldy chairs because we can take them anywhere and they store much easier.

And this is Chuck...  Chuck likes collard greens....

Chuck won't be eating my collard greenss anymore, since he has been relocated to a nice place about 8 miles from here.

Oh, and here's what my hubby calls my Nuclear Reactor

Its the warning stickers that freak him out.


We've had sporadic rain showers but nothing substantial. It has gotten hotter in the last day or so and humidity was really high today. Nothing like the middle of the US is getting.

Still trying to keep up on weeding. That seems to be the way of it this time of year.
The seeds i got from Bountiful Gardens will likely be Wintersown since they are shrubby or hardy type plants.

I need to sort through my collection so i have some idea of what i have going on or else i will end up buying even more seeds....  i can't use them all as it is!


,

Woodchuck, part 3.

So, woodchuck number three has been captured and is awaiting relocation.

We actually caught this one last night.  I had the trap set and baited for the last couple days (i think i am getting pretty good at anticipating their entry points) and i had been checking it every so often.  I had spread some blood meal and bone meal on Thursday, but i watered the whole garden deeply yesterday morning, washing much of it away- at least the smell.

But hubby was outside last night, enjoying a cigar and the new patio set he cobbled together from the clearance sections of a few stores. (It looks nice and it all actually matches.) And he kept hearing this clashing metal sound.  After a good 45 minutes he remembered that i'd set the trap and he went to check it.  There was the  groundhog.
So hubby and the groundhog spent the evening  at the patio set, in front of the  fire pit, chatting it up.   Hubby gave it another apple and a few greens.  He placed two small pieces of plywood in a tipi shape to help it relax overnight.

So anyway, its now been moved to the shade and in a few minutes it will be relocated- hubby has some errands to run in that direction but has other things to be doing right now...

I did find it interesting that the first woodchuck was caught in broad daylight- brazen little thing-  that was the crazy one that attacked me and gave me "Lord of the Flies" mental flashbacks for  3 weeks....

The second woodchuck was caught in the early morning and this third one was an evening raider.
I guess they all find their little niche.
And they all found my Havahart.
Of course they found my veggies first.

This one sampled everything though. Carrot & parsnip tops, sweet potato leaves, cabbage, JA leaves, collards, the remains of my broccoli... but not the Swiss chard or Kale.  That kale...  i wonder if the other stuff is simply tastier or woodchucks don't like kale.  Seems unlikely, but if kale would be safe from them i'd grow rows of it forever.  Anyhow, the only things it really damaged are the 3 collard plants.

I haven't cleared out the broccoli and chard yet because the seeds i planted for a fall crop have not sprouted yet.  None of them.  Six types of seed, from different places and no sign of a seedling. I'm a little surprised at this.

I'm trying to think of something i can direct sow into those spots that will actually produce before the end of the season, but i'm not sure of anything- Johnny's SS blog did mention dill and cilantro can still grow this time of year in this area, but time is running out quickly.  I wish i'd planted more beans & cukes and i wonder if its too hot to plant peas.
We have had some cool nights and daytime temps have been cool, high 70's.  Its been great weather for humans.  Its also been dry, no rain the last 4 days and none in sight for the next three at least.

No ripe tomatoes yet. The Romas are starting to get that bronzy look though, where the red pigment starts to come through and mixes with the green.
I have a lot of very green tomatoes and the Polfast has a giant tomato on it.
I guess i have to see if i can look up what weather conditions are conducive to tomato ripening. I have been reading garden boards and blogs a lot and i keep seeing that other people's 'maters aren't ripening the usual way this year.

I picked a huge bunch of basil yesterday and made Macadamia, Roasted Garlic & Basil Pesto. I had to leave the garlic out of hubby's cause he's scared of garlic.  Until he tried mine (i added the roasted and smashed garlic to half the batch in a separate bowl), and realized he was being silly.
I made one of those  "meat" with 40 cloves one time and the aroma of it freaked him out. I thought it was delicious but he was traumatized i guess.  Its been 5 years, but he still thinks i was trying to drive him out of the house that night, lol.

Oh, speaking of garlic, i think i might pick the bulb fennel, it hasn't grown at all for weeks and i'm sure its planning to bolt, but when i pick it i think i will sow some buckwheat there and in the fall after first frost i will plant some garlic.  So i can't wait to have baby fennel, roasted in EVOO.

I picked another pound or so of green beans and probably another 3-4 pounds of summer squashes. We've been eating and sharing it out.
I can pick the squash daily, the green beans get picked every other day and are still producing  nicely.

One of the oval watermelons is about the size of a Nerf football and the round watermelons are approaching croquet ball size.  I picked one of the slicing cucumbers the other day, it was over a foot long but not over ripe and the pickling cukes are averaging one good sized cuke a day.  I need to plant a lot more of these next summer if i want to use them for more than a daily snack.

I haven't felt up to doing any work in the flower beds and where hubby has seeded the bare half of the yard i can't really get in to put the edging around my grape and berry row.  It also seems like the corner brackets i wanted to get from Lowe's are unavailable. What a shock. >8o(

So not much going on but weeding, woodchucks and trying to decide what to do next if at all....

We have another woodchuck.

Its about time....
This one has gone for the collards,  He's eaten 3 of them pretty bad.  The plants are big enough to recover by now,  but he took quite a chunk out of them. Its amazing how much they can eat. 

So i have the Havahart trap set and i hope i catch him quickly so he can find a new home.
I spread some blood and bone meal out in the garden to see it it can maybe keep him out and make the bait look like a better deal.
Only problem is that the dog thinks the bags were full of treats (the bone meal smells like cheap dog treats- for good reason) and she was almost howling while i was hand-broadcasting it. She thought she was being teased i guess.
I've concluded that Bassets are totally ruled by food. lol

I think the green beans are about done,  but i haven't been able to get out there and pick. There were a lot of little ones still starting the last time i was out looking closely. I'll try to make it a priority.  I should get another pound or two out of them if they haven't gone by.  A lot of them were coming out crescent shaped, i was told that this happens when things get dry and it was dry for a time there.
My legs hurt so bad last night that i was nauseous... so i don't know if i may have to send my oldest out to pick or maybe hubby will be willing to.
I don't know if he has ever picked green beans before. :oP  My oldest only picks cucumbers.
But i need to try and do it cause i promised the neighbors some more summer squash and i haven't gotten it to them yet. I have some in the fridge, but there is something in me that won't allow myself to give them 3 & 4 day old produce.

I keep forgetting to update the harvest record on the side bar. I really wanted to keep it going so next year i have some idea of what to expect and to decide what to do if i expand a little.  I guess i'm just not that dedicated, lol!

I have gotten well over 30# of food so far from green beans and squash to cukes and Swiss chard.  That's not so bad considering i never got any cauliflower and only 2 nubs of broccoli, and i harvest the SS so small.


 I'm trying to revive my Kefir grains.  They got neglected in the refrigerator about 5 months ago. I wasn't finding the time to refresh them every day and drink the milk so i set them in the fridge and lost track of it.  Its hard to tell if they are kefiring or if the milk is just souring,  it smells like Kefir, but i think i'm going to discard the milk for a few more days just to be sure.

I gave the grapes some bone meal as well as the berries.  I couldn't find anything else at the store with a higher P number that didn't look like fruity pebbles cereal or cost an arm and a leg.

I think that's it for today... and i am awaiting delivery of my canner.  It is like Christmas in July!

This and that

I got the email that my  canner has been sent out, ETA is tomorrow, which is sooner than expected.  But who's complaining?
I showed it to my hubby (the item listing) and he said it looked a lot like his grandmother's, only hers had a gasket.

Its going to be fun to see if i can get enough out of my garden at one time to use it to capacity and if i will have enough time to pick and prep enough to use it.

If not this year, there's next year.

I learned a lot so far this year. The most important things were regarding the sun direction and where shade is coming from.

I think i might run my rows in the opposite direction next year. My dad suggested this becuse the way the slope goes, having raised my raised beds against the flow of water will trap the water for the plants.
If we have a wet year, this might work against me though.

I could put the tall things all the way to the back  and the shorter things will come forward.

The way i have things now, nothing in the garden really shades anything else in the garden, but that is not always such a good thing.  I think my kales and collards should need shade.
Good thing is that hubby likes the garden well enough this year that he thinks we might add another row to it,

Corn is starting to tassel, i think Golden Bantam  was the first (closest to the tomatoes) and next is Incredible, Stowell's Evergreen was the one that didn't germinate so well or as quickly- but that was seed from 2008 anyway.  It is catching up though.

I picked a few carrots yesterday to have a sample. They were small, maybe a nickel size diameter, but they were longer than i expected them to be.  You read about soft, sandy soil and how carrots need it, but i  wasn't quite sure if my soil fit that definition having little to compare it to.

I have only gardened in my family's soil for the most part, and even now most of my soil came from the same 10-15 acres i grew up on, how many people get to say that?  I get to stick my toes in the same dirt i grew up running around on as a kid.

Anyhow, the carrots were a little less tender than i hoped, but i wouldn't call them tough, they were a bit bland, i was hoping for a sweeter taste, but maybe that comes later.  I'm sure my test sample of 4 were picked a bit early.  But i at least saw enough to know that the soil is a good texture for them and they showed no sign of insect damage.

I'm sure i have some more cukes to pick, one of the slicers was getting about grocery store size and it rained last night.  Cukes stop producing if their fruits mature too far and i didn't plant enough to make us happy as it is, so i can't let them stop producing too early!

One of the Carnival squashes are getting huge.  When i grew them in my tiny garden they didn't get much bigger than normal acorn squash. They were about the size for one serving for two people when cut in half.

I did find out that Jerusalem Artichokes can be canned, its in the Ball "Complete Book of Home Preserving". Its a relish recipe that sounds nice.  I should be able to get enough to try making some.
I do plan to grow less of them next year and give the extra space to the asparagus, but i had to start out with so many to be sure i'd have enough to try myself if something tried to eat them on me.  I planted a few pounds in my parent's garden many years ago and chipmunks ate them all.  So i overplanted my sample plot in case they attract chipmunks.  Right now it looks as if they don't.

I thought it was interesting that USDA and Ball don't even recommend canning summer squash anymore.  I guess its no big loss, even freezing it 'ruins' it.  Its great to add to sauces like that, but after any type of processing its definitely best as a secondary ingredient. Its not "butter ready"  from a can or freezer bag.

There is a bird that keeps spearing my unripe apples. I found one last week that had peck marks in it, so i pulled it off and tossed it.  The other day i found another one with the same marks.... this time i left it. Maybe the bird will remember that he's already sampled from this tree...  Where i missed a couple sprayings i have misshapen apples, but its not a big deal, i wasn't counting on much from this tree this year.  I mainly wanted to see if it would survive to produce after being neglected so long and to get apples big enough to try and have the type ID'd.  We are still going to go to the orchard this fall where we will end up picking three times as many apples as we need.   But maybe this year i could can some pie filling and make sauce.

I need to get back in and catch up with weeding again. I have let it go a bit since the plants are big enough to not get smothered easily, but i can't let the weeds go to seed or it will be another uphill battle next year.

I also ordered some bare root Bocking Comfrey from a place called Horizon Herbs. They ship Priority Mail with about a $14 minimum so i  looked around and they also have Clove plants for a decent price. This is guess is the first time they have had any to sell. Its a different name, but according to Wikipedia they are synonomous-  Syzygium aromaticum and Eugenia aromatica-   why they are different names i have no clue.  But anyway i figured buying one was a better way to justify the price of shipping the Comfrey roots.  If they do well for me i can share any future comfrey plants out.

My current clove tree is doing fine, it isn't really doing anything, but it does not appear to be dying at least! :o)

I also put in an order with Bountiful Gardens, some berry plant seeds and they have SeaKale which i think i can wintersow.  I can wintersow all the seeds i just ordered, which is why i figure i should get them sooner than later.  Either they sit in my fridge or theirs.

video post

It is giving me trouble, takes 20 minutes to upload each 2-3 minute clip and i had a hard time getting it to let me place my paragraphs so the videos would be in order.  To keep the filesize well within the allotted size i had to shoot in the lowest resolution my camera had.  So forgive me the wind, my getting flustered and not-so-smooth camera handling, lol

But it was fun to play with this feature!


Tomatoes and corn

...

Peppers, eggplants, cole crops

.....

Parsnips, houseplants, sweet tater......nettles!....summer squash, burdock.

 

Salsify, rosemary, cauliflower...- no,  brussels sprouts, beans, rutabagas, beets n' carrots....

....

Cukes, havahart trap, winter squashes....

....

..

The rest of the yard, asparagus, Jerusalem Artichokes, berries and grapes, dirt...

So that is that.

I'll probably try it again later this summer and see if i do better. 

Oh and the blue thumb, that is the remains of a manicure my oldest daughter did for me for 4th of July.  My nails were a mix of blue, red and white. Only my thumbs still have paint on them. lol

Tomatoes....

They have 4 days to ripen if i am going to meet my goal of garden tomatoes before August.
I have never written it down anyplace that i can remember but i don't know for sure when tomato season usually starts.

A lot of them are getting pretty big but no obvious ripening yet.

I tamed the Birdhouse gourd yesterday. I had been pulling at it and trying to redirect the way it grew, but it was going where it wanted anyway.  So i got the big kitchen scissors out. Anything going toward the center of the garden was removed.  I discovered a few little watermelon fruits were hiding under all those leaves.  Some are oval and plenty that are perfectly round.
The gourd was also crawling over my rosemary plot and the two strawberries from seed that made it (those are looking good actually)  and the Shiso plant.
I'll have to look back at my seed list to remind myself of which plants are watermelon, and which are cantaloupe type, also which ones the oval ones belong to.  I know Pony Yellow is a round type, but that is as much as i am sure of.
 

I also toned down hubby's pumpkin. It was getting impossible to get past it in the row and it was encroaching on my onions.  I also had to trim and redirect my summer squash plants. They were trying to crawl into the aisles and they were shading out my globe artichokes.  I had expected my globe artichokes  to be taller in their first year than they turned out to be.  They are barely 8" off the ground, if that. I have no idea if that is normal.  One did try to produce a tiny choke about the size of my thumb. The plants are  fairly wide but not tall at all.

I have lots of things to take pictures of to keep the monthly/weekly growth comparisons current.

From the back:

 

 

 

 

Its almost August?!!!

Summer is going by fast. 
The garden is good, we've gotten some nice rains in the last week.  I have blanched, vac-packed and froze 4 pounds of green beans and 2 pounds of  summer squash.

I love my new Foodsaver.  It is so easy to use compared to my old one.  Now the old one wasn't bad, but it was like driving a stick-shift compared to driving an automatic with cruise control.  They both work fine, but one is way more comfortable to drive.
My new Foodsaver has settings that the other one didn't. It has a 'gentle' setting so it won't smash things like blanched summer squash, and it has a setting for 'wet' foods- also like blanched summer squash.  This means that it won't vacuum so hard that it sucks out the water and ruins itself.  Any water remaining in the blanched foods did not become a vacuuming issue even with the heat seal- which i noticed is almost 2x as wide on this machine as my old one.
I'm sure part of the difference in the way they work is because of the brand name bags.
I had been using the generic food storage bags that i could get for about $1 less at WalMart.  It had been so long since i had used real Foodsaver bags that i didn't notice there is a difference in them.  The new Foodsaver came with a roll of bags and a whole packet of pre-cut bags.  The brand name plastic has a different texture, almost rubbery. 
I had tried using the generic bags to store things like pet food and dehydrated apple rings, but those items had sharp edges that broke the bags so the air leaked back in after a few days.  I bet the brand name bags would work better if i try that again.

The reason i tried vacuum packing cat food was because my cat eats Solid Gold brand cat food.  Its not a cheap food and we normally buy it in 5# bags.  When i worked at the same pet store we bought the food at it was easy to buy 3 bags at a time and my employee discount made it a better value anyway.  After the accident and since i don't always feel up to a trip out to get pet supplies hubby took over most of  the grocery shopping duties. He thought we'd save a few dollars and a trip or two if we bought the big bag of Solid Gold.
Problem is that we have one cat.  By the time he eats the whole bag the last half is stale.  He also likes his dry food to be cold. I have always stored his food bag in the fridge, (one main reason for that is because we had ants that were attracted to the meaty smell and the fats that are in it) so he is used to a fresh bowl of food having a different temperature.
Anyway, you can't fit a 20# bag in the fridge.  So i tried measuring out and vac-packing 2 week portions in the generic bags.  I figured i could probably clean and reuse the bags on more cat food a few times if it worked.  But it didn't because the food punctured the bags.  Since the bags were ruined and could not be reused, what we saved on the bigger bag of cat food was lost in trying to keep it fresh until it was eaten. 
I don't know if i would ever bother trying to use it for cat food again (unless i think it may have some emergency food storage applications like a Bug Out Bag for natural disaster evacuations- which are almost unheard of around here- but you never know!), but i do think i will be trying the brand name bags for foods that are dried to a crisp.
Now that i can compare the bags side by side, i don't like the generics very much at all,  I'll pay the extra for the real ones.

I'm not sure why my apple slices dried so crispy though,  the slices i get at the health food store are leathery.  In my dehydrator, the apples were either too soft and obviously not done and then they became crisp...no in between- or i missed it.  I have read books on dehydrating, but i don't remember what i read about apples...  maybe i need to borrow the book from the library again.

On to grapes...

The Frontenac has decided to wake up and show signs of life! It has just unfurled some small leaves.  Of course it would do this after i completely gave up on it and spoke to the company it came from.  They have a pending order to send me a new one in early April 2011.  So i feel weird now.  BUT both Burpee and Stark have unconditional guarantees- "if for any reason you are unsatisfied....refund or exchange will be granted".
I hate to complain,  i might do it a lot in some things but i don't enjoy it.  But i really was unsatisfied with the grapes from Burpee and this one from Stark's.  Everything else met or exceeded my expectations, so maybe i should stop feeling dishonest when i accept my refund/replacements.  Bottom line is that i don't know if these 3 grape plants will even make it through the winter considering how late they began above ground growth.  They may not have time to harden off this Summer's wood. If that is the case, i will be correct on two fronts.  I was shipped plants that not vigorous enough to grow well their first year, this could delay my years till harvest time frame.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and feeling bad for not being happy. I don't like to be ungrateful about anything, even little grape cuttings. I think i need to get off the guilt trip, stop feeling bad about being displeased and let the companies do their job and make it right.  Why is that so hard for me?
But i have decided to do it.  So i will.

My lilies bloomed a few days ago.  These were bought as Stargazers but i remember Stargazers as having more white along the edges.  Maybe its my growing conditions.  They are on the back side  of the house and you don't see them when they open, you smell them.  I planted 2 bulbs about 3 years ago, this year i got to pick them and bring them in the house before the bugs got to them too bad.  The three blooms perfume the whole house.

Yesterday my dad brought over 3 loads of topsoil for us

And then he spread it out with the big tractor.

Today he plans to stop by with the littler tractor and drag a weighted pallet over it to smooth it out better.  Hubby will put down some seed and with luck, we will have a nice lawn to enjoy next summer!

Update on the Koolickles.  They are delicious. Something like a bread and butter pickle but more tart. Not as sweet as a sweet gherkin but maybe its because i used a sugar-free mix.  I can't actually taste 'strawberry' flavor, but it has the tart/tangy/salty/sweet thing going on. I bet adding a hot pepper will make it even more interesting.  Anyway, the flavors don't clash at all like i thought they might. I plan to keep a supply of these going indefinitely. 

I need to update my harvest record on the side bar. I haven't done it in about a week, but the garden is really beginning to supply what i finally feel comfortable as calling a "harvest".  I have been able to give away some produce even.  The tomatoes are not red yet, but there are a lot of green fruit on all of the plants.  The tomatillo has even gotten a husk on it.

I have not done any further work on the flower bed, but the neighbor husband has picked out a few plants they wanted to have (my hubby told them to go ahead if they wanted or they could wait for me to save them some)  he replanted them in their back yard where it looks like they are creating a sort of pocketed terrace on the slope.  It looks like it will turn out pretty neat if they continue to enlarge the beds. I'm glad he felt free to come in and take what he wanted, that way i'm sure they can feel more in control of what they see out their window.

Hubby is now painting the door to the shed.  He has been doing the shed project gradually. It used to be a screenhouse, but we hardly ever used it. The screens let in dust and after a couple rainy summers things started to get moldy. We had a table set out there that got covered in dust and pine pollen, then in the damp it all grew mold. Took an hour to clean it up whenever we wanted to use it a few times a week.  So we stopped using it.  The screens were also disintegrating.  So we decided that we needed a shed more than a screenhouse and hubby got a few sheets of plywood and closed it in and painted it up nicely.  It was a few weeks longer before he could get the door made, but he did and now it needs a coat of paint to finish the job.  He's pretty pleased with himself since he really did it all on his own.  Its a good sort of manly ego boost. :o)

I plan to get more pictures of the garden, i have to keep a visual record so i can compare years against the others.
The pictures from this Spring compared to this Summer are always quite amazing.  I don't know why i forget every year how quickly and large the plants end up growing. Its funny.

I'm really tired today so i hope to spend much of it simply reading and picking away at small household tasks.

Success and failures of an assorted nature...and drama too.

A couple times over the last few days i have tried to put together a video "garden tour" for fun.
I have run into a number of problems.  For one, file size. Blogger only allows 100MB videos. At low resolution and with my camera, this means about 4 minute clips.  Which isn't that bad.... but...it means i have to film in short increments and watch the camera timer.
I also have trouble keeping a steady camera. My camera is a decent one, but it has no in-film zoom, so i have to move the camera in close.  The more the camera is moved, the harder the video is to watch.  My limp does not help things and the harder i try to keep it steady, the jouncier it seems to get.  This would be almost instantaneous motion sickness for easily affected people like myself.  In fact, thinking about it makes me a little nauseous.

Another issue is that (and i never would have imagined this)  even though my garden is tiny, it takes me more than 15 minutes to film it all and point out each variety i have planted- even if i prattle on really fast.  If i have to speak slowly and move the camera slow and steadily, that time will increase further.


Now, for me, this is not actually such a bad thing. I could put up with most of the above myself. But where i have decided to make a public Blog of this garden... i should probably think of the people who are nice enough to stop by and who may want to watch the videos.  I wouldn't mind an array of ten, nine-minute videos of my garden to watch some day in the middle of February, but its unlikely that as nice as my fellow gardeners can be, not everyone will be as fascinated with my garden as i am! :o)


So i'll need a balance.  But i really want to do this, so i plan to keep trying. Its been frustrating, but its fun and i do like a challenge!


On the weather:
Wednesday, we had some big storms roll through.  I think we managed to get about 1.5 inches of rain. We needed it very much. We were lucky to not get much for high winds, but in Southern Maine there were some actual tornadoes that touched down. This is highly unusual.  I have not read or watched the news reports, but hubby has and he said there was a lot of damage.


Cuttings- the ones a dear friend sent me.... well there was a lot of failure on my part.  They didn't take for me. It may have been the soil i used, the surrounding temperature, the moisture level, any trauma they endured travelling through US Mail...lol
But i did have one glimmer of success! One of the hardy kiwi cuttings has taken root and is pushing up some new leaves.  Its pretty thrilling since this turns out to be an "against all odds" result.  The type of hardy kiwi is unknown, the sex is also unknown, but i think some research will help these questions be answered. Whichever it is, i will need to buy it a mate if i expect to get any fruit from it.  Of course that will be at least a few years out ahead and it still has a Winter to survive.

You can see the shiny new leaves:

 And here's the Autumn Olive from seed, while i'm posting pictures.

I have started work on the side flower bed.  This has caused a little bit of friction with our nice neighbors. When we bought the house, there was a short fence along the side in question.  About a year after we moved in, the fence was so rotted we had to take it down.  The fence had been placed so that it was right through the middle of the flower bed, cutting it almost in half lengthwise.   Our neighbors eventually started tending that little strip of escaped plants because it buts right up against their pavement and would have just become an eyesore.

The fence could not have been installed because of the paving, but where we now know the lines and the pavement is breaking up, we will be able to get more precise.
The end to the right is where some goldenrod and the raspberries are taking over.  The goldenrod will be removed and the raspberries will be salvaged.

When we bought the new lot we had our entire property surveyed.  My premise was that i wanted to have every inch of soil that i owned, but i didn't want to take anything that was not mine even by mistake.  The surveyor pins show that the entire flower bed does belong to us (as well as a good bit of their pavement), however, they have been tending it for at least a few years so she is not wanting to let it go.  The neighbor lady is also not happy that we are planning to put a fence back there.  The neighborhood kids (that we refer to as "The Hooligans") use our yard and theirs as a highway and step on anything in their path & steal things along the way, so we want a fence to stop this. 
Its going to be a neighborly fence, maybe 5' high, not so high that an over-the-fence conversation cannot be had...
I tried to explain what i plan to do with the plants that are in there but i'm not sure if we are understanding eachother.    I'm also not sure if she isn't understanding what plants are flowers and which are weeds...
Its a hard conversation to have. I'm trying to not sound like i'm saying
"The whole thing is mine, the plants are mine and i'll do whatever i want with them."
---Though, essentially, i could say exactly that. 
What i did tell her is that i am going to remove all the plants and bulbs, sort them and decide which to give away, put back or place somewhere else.  I told her that she could have all of what she wants-  there is a ton of Iris and yellow lilies in there-  some i am giving to my mother,  but she can pretty much have the rest of them.  
Some of the problem is that i don't quite know if she understands that i am not just getting rid of everything completely.  When we first moved in, i gutted the long-neglected beds and split everything that needed splitting, rearranged things that were in unsuitable places ...  when i was in the middle of that project, she was almost in tears, thinking i was getting rid of all of the former owner's flowers. They had been long time friends and i understood, the lady was part of our extended family too and i respected that, the beds needed work but no i wasn't destroying them. 
My hubby and her hubby have talked and he's ok with whatever we want done... but i think his wife is having some trouble.   I think much of it is due to failing health and without sounding disrespectful, a touch of senility setting in.  She is also the reason that 'beautiful' box elder eyesore is still standing instead of a dwarf, ornamental flowering tree that i offered to put in it's place.
Like the first time i messed with these beds, i'll simply have to do my work despite her fears and when its done i think she'll realize that my plans weren't as frightening as she thought they'd be.
Of course its going to take me 10x the amount of time to complete it compared to when i wasn't disabled.
Its easier on the involved when something seems to happen overnight.  Like last time, it took me two days.  It was started and finished before she could get too much more upset with me, but this time she will have weeks to fret about it.
 I am going to use some highly visible colored rope to string a line along the survey pins, hopefully to assure her that i am intent on playing by the rules.  I really think that she has a lot of trouble dealing with change of any sort.  I fully expect to have similar issues as i grow older. I can see it starting already, so though i am frustrated with her i understand, but i still get to do what i want with my own yard.
There's always something dramatic going on around here! lol

The beans have slowed down in production and the summer squash have picked up. I think i will only plant one of each next year.  Unless i am prepared to can them.  Shredded, they make a great bulk filler for spaghetti sauce.  


I won't be able to get my pressure canner for at least another 2 weeks, so the beans i have will need to be frozen. 
I was worried that i won't be able to use my canner this year since i probably didn't plant enough cukes for pickles and the beans are running low, my swiss chard tasted like mud this year and i won't have any fruit in quantity for preserving....but then i remembered the  15 tomato plants i have growing....  what better garden produce to practice canning with.  Its what everyone seems to start with.
I will also have winter squash and i am pretty sure that can be canned.  Since i am getting a pressure canner, i can preserve most anything in it, including beef and chicken or recipes that include meats.   Wouldn't it be nice to open a jar of pre-cooked chicken or tenderized beef?  Chicken could be chopped and made into chicken salad,  beef would make quick work of a soup or stew..among other things.
The Ball book has a number of recipes for cooking ahead, worth trying at least once....

Hubby went and picked up my landscape edging yesterday. It looks like nice stuff,  but he wants me to hold off until the lawn is prepared and seeded.  I have no idea when that is going to happen, so i'm not too thrilled to wait to get started on that.
I like to get things going shortly after getting the notion in my head. But between having to wait an unspecified length of time before i get started and knowing it will be longer and more painful to do than it should be, i'm getting all anxious over it.
I just want it done! :o)

Other than this, not much else is going on. The garden is still weedier than i like, but nothing has raided it recently, i still need to use BT on the brassicas because i saw some caterpillar poo on one of the cabbages and dime-sized holes are forming on my kale leaves.   Last time i grew tomatoes they were attacked bu hornworms and destroyed my plants in one day.
I'm a little uncomfortable with BT, but not enough to stop me from using it when i think i need it.

So that is all for today.

Tomato press....

I was actually on Amazon looking for a food mill when i remembered that i picked up this contraption about 8 years ago at Good Will.

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 It cost me all of $2

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Apparently, this was a pretty good deal.

I had gotten it home, the box had unravelled itself and i was afraid that it might be missing parts, so i tucked it away since i had no garden at the time and no actual use for it. I knew it resembled a Vegetable Strainer that i had seen in catalogs with price tags of over $30, so i hoped that it would be usable some day.

I have been reading up on canning the last few days and the Ball's "Complete Book of Home Preserving"  mentions food mills a lot. So i had gone to Amazon to do some pricing.  That is where i saw the pictures of food strainers and thought to myself

"I have one of those, don't i?"

Its been a long time and all i have done is move the box from spot to spot to get at something behind it.

I think it does have all its parts.

The clamp, a hand crank and the sprocket-looking thingie.

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There is the strainer mesh....  Unlike some of the Amazon ones, this is a one-size, permanent screen.
This may be a good thing, or it may be a not so good thing.
One less part for me to lose.... that is a good thing. Chalk up another for the good side.

The sprocket thing looks like it has all its proper bits. The crank handle threads are pristine.

I don't think this item has ever been used..

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It came with on-box instructions. Thank goodness i kept the box. Simple enough, but since i wasn't exactly certain what this was at the time i bought it, i am glad i have it!  lol

.I put it together and the crank turns smoothly, the sprockety thing makes a reasonable clicking sound, not a grinding or squeaking noise,  the clamp disagrees with my countertop thickness and overhang distance, but i can modify something for that- or just hold the bottom.

Judging by the pictures on the box, i can use this for things besides tomatoes... though tomatoes are likely the main thing i'll be using this for....

I wonder if it is dishwasher safe....

Anyone else out there in the Blogosphere have one of these and could give me some tips, pointers or advice?
Such as....  do the tomatoes have to be cooked before this is used on them?  Do i have to blanch-skin them?
I see some that are juicers, will this help me make tomato sauce or will i get juice instead?

I'm guessing if i use raw, diced tomatoes i will get juice. If i dice and cook the tomatoes and run them through this i might get sauce with the seeds and skin removed?

  Searching "tomato press" finds me the food mills and strainers that reminded me that i have this contraption in the first place. :o)  But i'll keep looking anyway.

Maybe, just maybe, i saved myself $20 or so 8 years ago......or i got a $2 deal on a fresh headache.  LOL