What did you do in the garden today?

[AllenK RGV]

Phew, all caught up! Lots of adorable baby chicks, beautiful veggies & hurricanes! Hope everyone is safe from the storms.

I have a newly undiscovered broody who the neighbor dogs turned up recently. She brooded 7 or so unwanted chicks that we discovered Friday night outside the wire. My wife made me help with the rescue operation in "feels like" 107F temps. They would have all drowned 12 hours later with the location she chose.

No chick picks though as I never wanted more silkies I am not allowed to process. We saw her from time to time enough and stopped counting them as silkies do what they want. We are not natural born cat herders here. Also she never made the ticking time bomb noises you would expect from a broody.

In funnier news:
Here is the "ala Me(hi)cano" version of the Cajun Navy for high water rescue(sorry DW and I had a great laugh over this one not often you see box springs floating down our street) wiki my township:

 

[Acre4Me]

Did your tomatillos just bust out of their husks like that? Maybe I am not leaving mine on the plant long enough???
I don't think I have ever seen a cucumber stem like that one!! I know I have never heard of those varieties of cucumbers before. Most interesting.

Yes, ours burst out of the skins. In our grocery, they are generally out of their skins like this, but skins still attached like this. We use them in a pumpkin stew, but green salsa is probably the most common way to use them.

We’ve grown lemon cucumbers the past three years. This seed source seems to grow a nicely shaped lemon cucumber, and it seems to be tolerating the heat and @#%! cucumber beetle assault fairly well. The Crystal Apple ones are new to us, and the vine has grown well, but is only now beginning to produce cucumbers. We bought both these varieties from “Seed Savers Exchange” which is located in Iowa.

 

[Cupcake1243]

uh... i dont have any plants or flowers growing in my garden but i did watch my beautiful hens playing about!!

 

[Sueby]

@Acre4Me my neighbors Lemon Cukes did that too with the vine! He brought me back there last week just to show me how neat that was!

@AllenK RGV - I do not like cilantro either. Ick.

This weekend our highs were 90/91 with heat indexes of 100 to 102. Humidity was high as well. It felt like you were walking in an oven. Next weekend is supposed to be a bit cooler!
I picked a few more cucumbers, 3 or 4 slicing tomatoes ( a bug that looks like a stink bug to me has been eating on some of them ), a couple of cherry tomatoes ( which are really big this year), another handful of strawberries and a green pepper. Oh, and a pea pod. Yep, just one.
I need to get out there and replant some green beans since the bush ones didn't do anything. I also want to plant more lettuce but I figure it is way too hot and I need to wait for cooler temperatures first.
I'm glad some of you are getting yellow squash! I got 2 small ones and that is all so far. I did grate up some zucchini and got it in the freezer!
My Mom is still in the hospital. She went in on Monday (I think). Anyway, not sure if I mentioned it here or not. She has a UTI and a blood infection, and they are keeping an eye on her kidney function. I believe that she is just waiting for a bed at the nursing home/skilled care center. I am guessing it is so they can isolate her for 14 days since she has been in the hospital ( don't want to risk Covid). They did test her for covid, but she was negative!
Anyway, I am hoping she gets to go home soon. She sounds very weak and worn out.

I sure hope your mom feels better soon. & please come take some yellow squash from me. This is what I came home to after my long weekend away:

I'd gladly take any squash recipes anyone wants to share! I'll be pawning some off on my mom, sister & neighbors & then today I'm making squash boats to freeze for lunches, lemon blueberry bread (low carb so almond flour), fritters & will probably shred & freeze some. Any other ideas?

So good morning everyone. Gonna be almost 100 today & humid - joy. I fed the girls, watered the garden & tied up some tomato plants this am. I need to dig up my garlic today too.

Have a great day all!

 

[igorsMistress]

uh... i dont have any plants or flowers growing in my garden but i did watch my beautiful hens playing about!!

That's ok, welcome to the thread.

 

[Acre4Me]

Surprise!!! The chicks in incubator are chirping and pipping TODAY!!! I was just expecting them tomorrow! Granted, they will spend all day, working on hatching and drying, but was not expecting this yet! So far, I can see external pips on half the eggs! This was the only clear pic I could get - the windows are a bit foggy bc Humidity is increased.

 

[adirondak5]

Good morning all . Well , dang deer found the beans last night .

Usually they don't bother the garden , there's so much growing at this time of year . I'm gonna have to figure something out to keep them out of there .

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. It's almost 80F right now and will be near 100F today. I picked a yellow squash, a cucumber and some green beans this morning. Although I picked up the copper fungicide at TSC the other day, I think I will wait until after the season is over and treat all the beds. After reading up on the safe use of it it's a bit too hot to use right now and I don't want to risk putting too much on. The tomato plants are looking a bit better and the tomatoes themselves look healthy enough. I trimmed most of the yellowed leaves and will give them another dose of epsom salts water tomorrow. The squash seem to be snapping back after drying out from all the rain we got. I do need to water the containers in the front yard today. I don't grow tomatillos but found a nice recipe for green tomato salsa verde last year. Yummy stuff. I've used it to make green chicken enchiladas and green chile stew

. So this morning I found a young Mourning Dove in the garden and another on the other side of the fence. They sat there for the longest time. This is as close as I could get to them. Best wishes for your Mom's recovery @karenerwin. I hope the flood waters subside soon @AllenK RGV. Thoughts going out to @TropicalBabies and her hurricane. I am speechless @Sueby. I was going to ask you for a good gluten free zucchini bread recipe. Now you are asking for recipes? Too funny. As for the deer @adirondak5, if you put sticks / posts around the inside of your garden fence it may help with the deer. They won't jump over the fence if there is not a clear space for them to land. It has worked for me for the past 3 years. Have a great day everyone.

 

[WthrLady]

OK two funny stories to start your morning, and then I have to pop out for the day.

1. There is a lady on our local craigslist, who apparently never knew you don't need to plant the WHOLE package of zucchini. Yup, it has taken over the world. She is selling zucchini.
(Told the story before, but as a kid, mom used to send us down to the local market with our wagon loaded with bags of the stuff. If your car door was unlocked, surprise, you win free zucchini!)

2. I've been sharing the exploits of our large flock of newly fledged barn swallows. We had many nests fledge at the same time, and they have now formed their own gang. I won't call it a flock, as they fly around all day, en masse, getting into all kinds of mischief. They really love dive bombing me while I'm in the garden and seeing how close they can get to my head before I start swearing at them. The game 'drop and catch the feather' from great heights is still of hearty amusement to them, although the hens would prefer it if they would gather the loose feathers from the yard and not their butts.

So yesterday, I'm taking three minutes to myself in the shade of the barn, just kicking back in the Addy Chair and I hear one of those giant black and gold cicadas we have here. I love listening to them. But this one sounded odd. It wasn't a steady whir like it normally was. It had a doppler shift to the whirring. The sound was coming and going faintly, but not like it does when they have trouble getting their little engines going. So I got up out of the spot and wandered back into the sunshine (blast furnace) to look for it.

The whir was to my left, so I went to the willow tree. Nope, right, back to the garden. Behind me, off to the woodpile. Above my head, wait, what the hell?!

I look up and there is the Barn Swallow Gang, and one rather unfortunate Prairie Cicada. One of the birds had managed to snatch it, but either didn't know what to DO with the darn thing, but didn't want to let his treasure go, or he was taunting the others with his great treasure. He was flying to and fro with the thing, landing on the wires next to his friends, and all the while the poor thing is rattling off it's displeasure. This went on for almost 15 minutes before I got too hot to watch anymore, but good grief.

 

[Sueby]

@Wee Farmer Sarah - I can always use more suggestions! I made this bread https://joyfilledeats.com/keto-zucchini-bread/ & this one this am https://www.wholesomeyum.com/recipe...recipe-with-lemon-glaze-low-carb-gluten-free/ The lemon blueberry one is delicious, haven't tried the first one yet. I'm not sure how gluten free they are, I think baking powder has gluten. The much prettier ones are the lemon blueberry, the other one uses coconut flour so I knew it wouldn't look too appetizing.

I made quite a few squash boats, a little undercooked so I can freeze them & reheat for lunches.

I then froze 6 separate cups of shredded & squeezed squash for later use. I'da baked more bread but I ran out of baking powder.