What did you do in the garden today?

[ChicksnMore]

Thank you! I'm sure I'll be learning and making mistakes along the way.

We moved to AZ from the east coast about 20 years ago when the kids were young. When is one considered a native? Lol! Landscape plants were my first focus when we moved out here-- what a difference from what I was used to!!

For gardening out here, though, I've only had some herb gardens on & off over the years-- mostly for my pet rabbits. With kids grown now, I have more time for gardening (and for finally having the chickens I've always wanted!).

Photo shows an old herb garden... the most "gardening" I've done since living in AZ, which clearly isn't very much.
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Now I have 3 elevated beds waiting. Each is 3' x 6.' Not alot, but hopefully enough to get my feet wet.

We moved here almost 27 years ago and I still don't feel like a native...though I can sleep in the heat now.
That's a good looking herb garden

 

[NewBoots]

Another 5 pints of salsa.

I think I'm going to try making a green salsa too. We have enough green tomatoes for it, so why not?

Do the green tomatoes change the flavor?

Green tomato salsa is like green salsa made with tomatillos. I tend to make it much hotter than my red salsa.

Apoquel worked for my hound in the summer for about 3 years then suddenly stopped. His allergies are horrific. He is a super large pooch though and they started at a pretty high dose.

Did you switch to something else?

Made Dilled Carrots yesterday. I now have a blister from all the washing, peeling and cutting into matchsticks:

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The Hyacinth Bean Vine is really pretty! Nasturtiums are below them.
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We planted 5 kinds of mustard. You can see 4 of them in this pic. They range from spicy to sweet.
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Your dill carrots looks excellent, I didn't get any sprouts at all so I mught try that with store bought carrots. And your garden looks great!

Spent an hour picking wild huckleberries and wild blackberries at Eel Lake, just got about 3.5 cups of fruit. I have more respect for the locals that pick wild huckleberries and sell them now. But the good news is berries make a heck of a lot more juice than crabapples do. I got slightly more than 7 half pints of jelly out of them. Such pretty jars too. I'll do it again especially if I can get a good deal on berries.

 

[NanaK]

The weather was cool this morning for a change. So much easier to do chores when it's not so muggy. Supposed to be this way the rest of the week! They say the heat will be back next week.

I got the broccoli planted today. Now I need to clean up the tomatoes and green beans so I can get the rest of the collards planted. I already have a spot ready to set some mustard seed. I need to pick cucumbers and butterbeans tomorrow.

Started working on integrating this years babies with the main flock. We are doing the "can see but not touch thing" for a bit. It's a cockerel and 4 pullets. Those girls followed him around all day. I love to watch them exploring new areas.

Sounds like everyone is real busy!

 

[Ascholten]

From my somewhat limited experience, it seems about 15 to 16 weeks is when the babies are big enough that they can start beating them up -> back -- at the bigguns and start holding their own instead of being in the corner in terror all the time, they are actually truly establishing their pecking order now.

Now that big red passed, the other red one assumed the role as flock bully, and got her ass swatted a few times when she got mean with one of the babies, but the babies are pecking back now, which is a good thing. they are for the most part merging into ONE flock now, still a little picking going on, and feeding time, the two young are still separated but will run in take quick nibbles until they get nipped by one and run off, only to do it again a few seconds later.

today the main flock showed the babies how to hop up in to my STRAWBERRY PLANTS and dug the crap out of them. All 5 of them in my, whats left ratted ass out strawberries now. I did my normal throw a flower pot at them, one of the little ones got clonked and went skwaking off, the big ones already learned that lesson, the moment they see me pick up one of the plastic pots, they take off directly for hiding under the boat, they know what's coming !! The flower pots are those black plastic ones you get plants in, it can NOT hurt them but it sure scares them and makes a nice whumping sound when it does hit, it's more scary that harm. To be honest, the strawberries were lookig kind of sorry anyways and probably need to be re planted next year but it's not them, its the worms they are digging up which is what is pissing me off about the digging, because my raspberries / black berries are in there too and when the dig too badly it can kill / injure them as well.

Aaron

edit - since the strawberries are all but wrecked, i think im going to put more dirt / compost in there, several inches, it needs it, if they poke thru and survive, well good for them, ill put some coffee bags on top too to help prevent the digging, or at least make them work VERY hard at it.

 

[WthrLady]

Was just finishing making supper and spotted the alpacas being overly curious of the cows, which can only mean one thing. Spent the next 30 minutes mending a fence and putting a calf back.
Came in and put dinner back on the flame.
I leave the short stalk and the tomato roots in the ground until spring. Then they just come right out, no dragging a ton of soil with them.
Mine are starting to show signs of potassium and nitrogen stress, but it's too late to fix that now.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Just unloaded 100 bales of hay into the barn.... Starving, itchy, and dirty now.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Made Blackberry Jam walked the garden nothing ready to bring in.

 

[Ascholten]

Been working on the tilapia pond again. man, i got screwed over, once again, I should have listened to my grand pappy, NEVER pay for something up front, ESPECIALLY from a friend or relative, because they will $#$k you over every time. Once they got your money they got what they want, you can go fluffer yourself after that.

He put the pond up last week, at least the water holding part. well it leaked, so I finished draining it, only to find out he didn't glue the pipes properly on the bottom, so they just with a light twist snapped right out (BIG disaster that would have been with fish in there!!) oh but when I took the pool off, the wood plywood it's supported on, one plank was just plain rotted, I mean this thing is crumbling to touch it. he put that one in the inside so you couldn't see it, unless you took the tank off (which was not supposed to happen, but for his sorry ass work gluing it) I think he was in a hurry because I got on his ass for taking an ENTIRE YEAR to do this thing and was all pissy about it.

So tomorrow I get to get some plywood and cut a new foundation, get some more plumbing fittings and hopefully get some water flowing in it and settled out for a few days to make sure it WONT leak when I put fish into it. Next step will be getting the filtration system plumbed in and located and finally I'll be putting the grow out bed area up, then topping it all off with the proper amount of water and throwing the fish in. With luck I hope to be putting the fishies in next week sometime.

once I get it up and running, I am planning on planting some trees around it, or bushes, maybe some figs or stuff that's a bit sensitive to the frost, my idea here is, when those cold days DO come by the thermal mass of the pool will emit enough heat to keep the trees from freezing over, and the trees in the summer will provide some shade for the fish. not to mention with water running it will be misty moist so water loving plants should do very well. Banana's are not out of the question either. An ice cream banana taste wonderful, grows about 12 foot tall or so, so would be perfect shade, and in winter, the heat rising from the pool should keep the main trunk from freezing over.

We shall see in a year or so

Aaron

I got my go pro working again, it was acting stupid so am thinking ill be recording here and there in steps as i go through the entire process of getting this disaster together and then posting it so others can get an idea of probably what NOT to do, when their turn comes to do a tilapia pond

 

[chickengr]

I thought the peels were supposed to make them bitter...

I have never noticed any difference between peeled and unpeeled tomatoes.

 

[chickengr]

Made Blackberry Jam walked the garden nothing ready to bring in.

I am jealous! I have not had blackberry jam or juice in ages. I will try to plant blackberries in my new place.