The Old Folks Home

[chickadoodles]

Around here we only have the wasps left to pollinte our stuff. So we try to get along with them. We have had tons of wasps and carpenter bees. But this year they have just showed up late. So I am leaving my flowers and the tomato plants for them. I will keep them watered but dh can pick anything he wants. lol

 

[Leave a LightOn]

Copra is a hybrid and the best storage onion there is as far as I know, with a strong flavor, I still use it in everything including salads, raw you might want to go a little light on it/use less. I wanted to go all open pollinated/heritage for my entire garden and thought about getting the spanish onion which is a open pollinated variety of sweet big onion that is good for growing in the north, but it only has a storage potential of four months. I guess maybe we could have chopped and freeze what we don't use up quick.
Yeah, 1015 yellow is 'Texas super sweet', 2-3 months on storage. One other thing to look at is whether you need short day variety (south) and generally not storage onions, or long day variety (north), intermediate day is OK for both.

OK, Thanks! I guess I'd better concentrate on what grows best here - short day. I'll eat any onion you throw at me. Please do not throw onions at me.
I'll check into intermediate day also.

I don't have much "soil" so most of what I do is raised beds and/or raised bags. In fact, that's all I do. It's a lot of hauling dirt (I take the dirt out of the bags at the end of each season but leave the raised beds intact) but what's nice is at the end of the season I take the container dirt out and spread it in the biddy bunkers in the chicken run.
Pretty much a win-win.
Might be too hot where you are to get away with raised beds/bags but it works fairly well here.

Yes, heat! Trouble in the past has been early bolting. I really want to try to have a garden next year. Thanks for the tips.

 

[perchie.girl]

Thanks Wisher and Scg. Those are the killer bee's right? Scary!

I got stung on my hand 5 times by 5 red river wasps a week ago. I went to pick some ripe tomatoes and low and behold they had build a nest in my tomato plant! I told dh not to kill the bees but to remove the nest. So he went out after dark and got rid of the nest.

I am a nest remover as well. At night...

deb

 

[microchick]

I discovered an old bee hive in the wall of my chicken shed. It had long ago been deserted but I was really impressed by how opportunistic those little devils are.

As for Carpenter Bees, I'll make a deal with them. If they stop boring tunnels in the wood frame of our back porch, I'll stop whacking them with my Harbor Freight electronic fly swatter.

In all seriousness, they are funny bugs. If you go outside here and stand on the edge of our back porch, they will come up and hover about a foot away from your nose. I like to stare back at them and then take a swing at them which makes them take off and zip around my head as if saying 'Neener neener neener, can't catch me!"

That's usually when I go looking for the electric fly swatter.

 

[chickadoodles]

I discovered an old bee hive in the wall of my chicken shed. It had long ago been deserted but I was really impressed by how opportunistic those little devils are.

As for Carpenter Bees, I'll make a deal with them. If they stop boring tunnels in the wood frame of our back porch, I'll stop whacking them with my Harbor Freight electronic fly swatter.

In all seriousness, they are funny bugs. If you go outside here and stand on the edge of our back porch, they will come up and hover about a foot away from your nose. I like to stare back at them and then take a swing at them which makes them take off and zip around my head as if saying 'Neener neener neener, can't catch me!"

That's usually when I go looking for the electric fly swatter.

We have old nests all over our sheds and the lean too. But they never bothered us much. My husband left them alone as long as they left him alone. If one stung him the nest got doused with gas.
I told him to stop dousing them, we need them. I wish I could get the bees here earlier in the year for our fruit trees.

 

[chickadoodles]

I made a loaf of bread this evening. I used a apple walnut recipe but used my homegrown, homemade pear sauce and home grown pecans.
It came out pretty good. I should have picked a lighter crust.

 

[Beer can]

They say it's good to get stung once in awhile, keeps you from being allergic and I've heard good for your joints? I should be good for awhile. Few weeks ago I got stung on the head, ankle, thigh, all swelled up pretty good, mowing the lawn uncovered a quarter size hole in the bank next to our garage, yellow jackets. Then the next day changing the sensor on our dusk to dawn light stung on the arms and back by paper wasps. Kinda hard to run from them on a roof when your afraid of heights...
Then late that night while watching TV DW was screaming upstairs, not her usual 'I thought I saw a spider' scream, ran up and there was a bat flying in between her room and the kids. I ended up catching it with the kids butterfly net, at one point it was crawling on my back and neck. We think it got in through the space around the air conditioner, sealed now Lol. We weren't going to get the shots but DW read that the only people that have died from rabid bats were one's that were sleeping and didn't think they got bit, so the whole family got the shots. I had six, three in each thigh, and one in the arm initially, then just in arm after. They informed me the ones in the thigh hurt, my leg is already swelled up and hurts from a wasp sting... they got the OK from the doc, said the other leg will swell up if I had a reaction...
Great summer otherwise. ..

 

[chickadoodles]

They say it's good to get stung once in awhile, keeps you from being allergic and I've heard good for your joints? I should be good for awhile. Few weeks ago I got stung on the head, ankle, thigh, all swelled up pretty good, mowing the lawn uncovered a quarter size hole in the bank next to our garage, yellow jackets. Then the next day changing the sensor on our dusk to dawn light stung on the arms and back by paper wasps. Kinda hard to run from them on a roof when your afraid of heights...
Then late that night while watching TV DW was screaming upstairs, not her usual 'I thought I saw a spider' scream, ran up and there was a bat flying in between her room and the kids. I ended up catching it with the kids butterfly net, at one point it was crawling on my back and neck. We think it got in through the space around the air conditioner, sealed now Lol. We weren't going to get the shots but DW read that the only people that have died from rabid bats were one's that were sleeping and didn't think they got bit, so the whole family got the shots. I had six, three in each thigh, and one in the arm initially, then just in arm after. They informed me the ones in the thigh hurt, my leg is already swelled up and hurts from a wasp sting... they got the OK from the doc, said the other leg will swell up if I had a reaction...
Great summer otherwise. ..

Wowzers! What a mess! I would not even want to leave the house for a week! So sorry y'all had such a time!

 

[superchemicalgirl]

I made a loaf of bread this evening. I used a apple walnut recipe but used my homegrown, homemade pear sauce and home grown pecans.
It came out pretty good. I should have picked a lighter crust.

Chicka that looks amazing (and I love your towel). There's something to be said for warm bread right out of the oven. I taught someone to make bread about 10 days ago. She went home with 2 loaves - which were gone in the same number of days. Sunday she made another 2 and brought one to her neighbor. She told me today she was re-making it and this time keeping both loaves.

Teach a woman to make bread and sew and she won't annoy you.

 

[microchick]

I started picking my Asian pears today and the first apples out of our orchard....man that bread looks delicious chickadoodles! I'm thinking, leave out the pecans...yeah, another allergy rears it's ugly head... I could probably sit down with a big cold glass of milk and some apple butter and do a loaf of bread like that a lot of damage, LOL. I love to make bread. I usually don't do too much baking over the hot summer months but I can hardly wait for the smell of fresh baked bread in the house come fall. This winter I want to try to make steam baked bread on top of our wood stove.