What did you do in the garden today?

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. One more hot day to muddle through. They're saying it will only get to mid to high 80's but again humid. Yesterday I watered my indoor plants and sat with the chickens later in the afternoon. This morning I picked some more pole beans, my very last cucumber and some SM tomatoes. I also picked 6 peaches that were ready. Some of the peaches I picked early due to the storms have ripened. So minus the peaches I have eaten, I have a little over 2 pounds in the refrigerator. I need to run out and get some gas for the riding mower this morning. I can handle mowing the front yard on a hot day just driving around the yard and up and down the hill. Tomorrow it's only supposed to be in low to mid 70's so the heavy stuff and trimming can wait until then. I noticed a recipe for dill pickles in my Joy of Cooking book and I plan on making at least one batch for DD. I'm not a fan of dill pickles, but she likes them so maybe I'll have more of my bread & butter pickles for me. It looks like next week will be canning again. Making peach jam and tomato sauce and maybe the dill pickles. I'm going on a daytrip to Vermont to celebrate my 70th birthday in a few days. It's not all that far away, but I've never been. It's one of my bucket list items. Really looking forward to seeing an actual covered bridge and eat Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Sorry, I have a low bar for excitement these days. Have a great day everyone.

 

[Swiss]

It is entirely possible I brought home twice as much straw as I need..... My math told me I needed 50 bales, so I brought home 48. My garden is covered at least 16 inches high, and I still have at least 24 left..... do I just keep piling it on? Do I use it by itself to expand the garden? Do I attempt to store it in the pole barn (if my husband would even let me, I think he would say no because of mice)? Do I just leave it outside by the garden?

 

[WthrLady]

It is entirely possible I brought home twice as much straw as I need..... My math told me I needed 50 bales, so I brought home 48. My garden is covered at least 16 inches high, and I still have at least 24 left..... do I just keep piling it on? Do I use it by itself to expand the garden? Do I attempt to store it in the pole barn (if my husband would even let me, I think he would say no because of mice)? Do I just leave it outside by the garden?

It will settle VERY fast. When it does add more.

Stored it will draw some mice, but it takes more than one season for it to be a true problem.

But outside it rots in the bale quickly, not want you want if you want to use it later. (is what you want in the garden, but IN the garden LOL)

I'd just add more to what you have on the ground as it settles, thicker is a good thing.

Mine was 3 feet high and settled down to about 10" after rain, wind, and snow weight and settling.

Still your call.

 

[Acre4Me]

It is entirely possible I brought home twice as much straw as I need..... My math told me I needed 50 bales, so I brought home 48. My garden is covered at least 16 inches high, and I still have at least 24 left..... do I just keep piling it on? Do I use it by itself to expand the garden? Do I attempt to store it in the pole barn (if my husband would even let me, I think he would say no because of mice)? Do I just leave it outside by the garden?

@WthrLady has good advice. The only other thing I’ll add is that I’ve seen “straw bale” gardening, and you can have better luck with aged bales -partially broken down. Still add some soil to the planting hole. So, if that interests you, just set a few aside to age over the winter to use next year- tomatoes are a popular choice for the bales, but not the only thing that does well.

otherwise, toss on garden, or into run. Then in spring can compost it down.

 

[Swiss]

It will settle VERY fast. When it does add more.

Stored it will draw some mice, but it takes more than one season for it to be a true problem.

But outside it rots in the bale quickly, not want you want if you want to use it later. (is what you want in the garden, but IN the garden LOL)

I'd just add more to what you have on the ground as it settles, thicker is a good thing.

Mine was 3 feet high and settled down to about 10" after rain, wind, and snow weight and settling.

Still your call.

I'll just put it all on now, then. Then, I don't have to worry about storing it or it rotting outside of the garden. Maybe I'll "accidentally" spread it past the edges of the garden...
This should be the last of my questions for a while! It's all coming together!

 

[WthrLady]

@WthrLady has good advice. The only other thing I’ll add is that I’ve seen “straw bale” gardening, and you can have better luck with aged bales -partially broken down. Still add some soil to the planting hole. So, if that interests you, just set a few aside to age over the winter to use next year- tomatoes are a popular choice for the bales, but not the only thing that does well.

otherwise, toss on garden, or into run. Then in spring can compost it down.

OH I totally forgot about that!!! Wonder how squash bugs would be confused or emboldened by putting squash in a straw bale. Hmmmmm.

 

[littledog]

After canning for the first time on my new stove I can honestly say I'm so glad I got rid of the glass top monstrosity. The 16 quart canner heated up much faster and maintained the boil steadily. My huge exhaust hood was pretty amazing too as it sucked all the steam and heat up and out of the kitchen. Henri is finally gone out to sea. Yay!

Those bread and butter pickles look delicious! Your little chef there looks like he approves - is his name Henri?

He seems to be a good natured cat

We're going to make the visiting semi-feral kitty our own ! She's been visiting us since last December when she was a 3 or 4-month-old kitten, and soon she started coming inside to eat, be petted, sleep with us, purr, rub her face on the dog, etc. She wears a collar, but no tag, so we thought she must belong to some neighbor. A while ago I taped a note to her collar, to let her owner know she spent most of her time here and asked who they were and if they wanted us to bring her home, but got no reply.

So a few days ago Mr. Dog was chatting with a neighbor guy from a few blocks away and got all the info. Apparently, someone in the area had a cat who had a litter of kittens, then moved to Texas and just abandoned the cats. The neighbor guy's wife has caught most of them and either found them homes or gotten them spayed and neutered through a feral cat program (they give them vaccinations, spay them, and let them go, after tipping one ear so they can be identified as neutered. Not an ideal life for them, but better than adding to the feral cat population.) Our kitty friend was one of the kittens she couldn't catch, so now we are going to keep her and get her spayed, microchipped, vaccinated and licensed.

The only problem is our usual vet is so booked up - they are willing to fit her in for vaccinations/checkup in two weeks when our dog goes for her already-booked appointment, but I couldn't get the kitty an appointment to get spayed until Dec. 8 ! I'm calling around to other vets to see if we can get her spayed sooner. The last thing we need is another litter of kittens, since she's close to a year old now, and trying to keep her inside for the next three months would be a disaster. Hopefully we will find a spay appointment soon! I might even ask my horse vet...

My canning is building up, tomatoes and cucumbers sitting on counters. Oh and I need to pick the crabapples and get them canned as well.

Same here! My fridge is full, with more tomatoes and cukes every day, and the basil patch growing like crazy. Also zucchini! At least I'm keeping up with picking those before they become giants, though what to do with them is a challenge - I even pickled some.
I'm so backed up on processing, I'm getting behind on picking, never mind weeding. Canned 14 quarts of pickles and peeled and diced a gallon of lemon cukes to make soup, then picked enough again today for the same load again. Also beans are starting to become more prolific than we can eat for meals. The basil...OMG. At least I bought all the ingredients for pesto and for cuke soup, better get on those this weekend.

The garden was looking like some kind of showplace a few weeks ago, now it looks like a jungle! Pumpkins and butternuts are spreading everywhere, even after training all the earlier vines up onto tripods. Tomatoes are so heavy with fruit that some of them broke their ties and ended up along the ground - yikes! I grabbed some heavier baling twine and re-tied some, but I better do the rest this weekend if I expect to make all the sauce I want.

Apples and pears are almost ready too ...

Not bad problems to have - this year's garden is turning out to be the most productive I think I've ever grown. I like to think it's because of all the hard work I put in building raised beds, testing soil and working on compost, and raising seedlings, but I also suspect a lot of my garden's success has to do with the hot, dry weather we've had, only watering when it needs it.

I am loving "Chip Drop!" We used up the last of our pile to make walkways between the raised beds, so I signed up for another delivery last Sunday night, hoping we'd get more chips by the time the garden goes to bed in late fall. That Monday morning a new pile showed up, less than 12 hours since I'd asked for it. I guess we live in a perfect spot for local arborists to deliver - we're pretty accessible to an intersection between two highways, on a dead-end with a wide turnaround.

The only sadness here, is we lost both of our baby chicks, we're not sure how or why. They just disappeared - no blood, no bodies, nothing except one tiny pile of feathers on the ground inside the coop. The coop is really secure against any overhead predators and all but the smallest mammals, and none of the adult chickens were injured at all, so not a weasel. All we can think of is maybe a gopher snake got in? Those are the only snakes we have in our area that are thin enough to get in the coop but large enough to eat a chick. We're definitely going to build a Fort Knox setup for any broody hens and their clutches we might have in the future, and break any broodiness in the meantime.

 

[Swiss]

Is straw math like chicken math?

I decided to leave it for now, use the remaining bales as a bit of a border to keep it in, and add more as it settles.

My next garden task is going to be a fence, especially because I parked it right in front of a game trail (probably deer). But I have until planting season to get that figured out.

I definitely need to start keeping a garden journal. AH! It just started raining! I should get everything put away. How's that for timing?

 

[BReeder!]

I was too tired to water my garden and went to sleep. around 1 am I heard noise from the coop. I went there and found a little pekin cockerel with beheaded by a rat (who ate 2 muscovie ducklings a few nights ago). he ate baits as well and I hope he will die soon. I just don't know how many of them there are.

Wow! My ducks make noise pretty much every night. I have gotten to the point I don't bother checking any more. I have added a few protections around their pen since possum attacks we suffered last winter including hardware cloth and netting. However, anything that moves seems to startle the ducks. A rabbit, squirrel, the chickens making some noise... you name it, it startles the ducks. And don't get me started on needed to clean their pen or pool and the commotion that ensues.

 

[BReeder!]

Found a bunch of fig beetles hanging out on the corn.. now they are hanging out in a bucket of water. Cleaned up a few spots to plant fall crops in, the seeds I started in July are ready to transplant. Went to the store looking for lima bean seeds since only a couple of mine came up, but couldn't find any. Didn't cross my mind till I got home to buy a bag of butter beans and hope they sprout, but maybe I'll do that tomorrow. Have to set more rat traps tonight, I found a half eaten jalapeno in the garden.

I looked up fig beetles. I call them June bugs here. I didn't realize they eat figs though and I have figs growing on my little Chicago Fig tree. I have cheap bird netting hung around the duck pen to discourage climbing critters and hawks. The June bugs get caught it in the netting (3/4" openings maybe) and get really tangled up. I decided to just let them dry out. DW seemed to get a kick out of picking them out and feeding to the ducks. If the sun hits them just right though, it's a beautiful spectacle of shimmering lights. LOL.