What did you do in the garden today?

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. It got up to 91F yesterday with sky high humidity. I had to run the AC all night. I really don't sleep well with the noise from the AC un its but it was just too hot and humid. I aired the house out this morning for about 2 hours then turned the AC back on. It is already 90F at 10:30 am. I gave the backyard garden a good drink after taking are of the chickens. Tomorrow I need to start picking some of the outer leaves on the kale plants and maybe some chard and curly endive as well. The tomato plants are looking really good and healthy with many starting to bloom. I wasn't able to work on the chicken coop expansion yesterday but am determined to get something done on it today. I turned the brooder plate off and will remove it from the brooder cage today to give them some more room. The littles are getting cramped and crabby. I may move them into the brooder cage in the main coop after this heatwave breaks. It's not ideal, but it is bigger than what they are in now. Not much to do in the garden right now, just maintain. I noticed my asparagus is sending up a few new shoots. But I'm letting them go and am looking forward to a bigger harvest next year. Good luck with the heat wave and stay hydrated.

 

[gtaus]

Most addicted people would like nothing more than to get free of their addiction,

Unfortunately, this is not the case with the people I took care of in our locked hospital. We were not a voluntary treatment center, per se, so I only saw people that had been court ordered to clean up in a locked hospital. I think some people with drug addictions do get to a point in their life where they want to be free of their addictions, and then they will seek help. We were not that kind of hospital. But we did clean up our patients and gave then another chance at a better life, drug free, when they left. We had people in our hospital long enough to break the physical addiction, but that is only a start.

Hats off to all those people who have programs to help recovering addicts build a better life on the outside. I think I would have enjoyed that much more than what I was doing. I never worked with anyone who voluntarily came to our hospital to get free of their addictions and to try to live a drug free life. I only wish, after 5 years of working with people with addictions, that I could tell you even one success story. But I can't. Not where I worked. And that was most discouraging.

I wonder if anyone here on the garden forum treats recovering addicts by using gardening activities. I think lots of us garden because we find some inner peace and satisfaction in the process. Well, I do at least. Despite my many garden failures, I still have enough success stories to try again next year. Ever hopeful, I guess. But maybe more people need that same attitude to get through their life as well.

 

[gtaus]

Also I called the grocery store & they are giving me a watermelon bin for my chicks!

What's a watermelon bin?

 

[gtaus]

Last night I cooked a whole chicken in the pressure cooker. This is a CornishX we raised, so it's pretty large for a chicken. Only 12 min once it got up to pressure and less than 10 min for the pressure to reduce enough to open - pretty quick!. I was cooking it to have some "plain" chicken for recipes.

Boy, that looks like the meat will just fall off the bones. I bought a very nice pressure cooker for Dear Wife about 5 years ago. It was normally priced over $100, but I got it on a Black Friday sale for half price. I don't know anything about pressure cookers, but there was a lady there at the same time I was and she was loading up 3 of those pressure cookers to give to her daughters. I asked about the quality of that cooker and she told me that it was a very good one, which is why she was buying them for her daughters.

Long story short, Dear Wife is from the Philippines, knows her way around a frying pan and wok, but not so much ever dealt with a pressure cooker. After 5 years, the pressure cooker is still sitting in the original box, unopened, never used. If anyone in our family shows any interest in cooking, I'll just give it to them. Too nice not to be used, too valuable to be given away to someone who does not want it.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Morning Gardners. Marine layer is back over us heat is broke can do things outside now may get hot in the day cools at night

 

[gtaus]

OH, I grabbed a box of grape nut FLAKES the other day and there was a recipe for protein balls on them. OK I'm addicted. DS makes them for us and puts them in the fridge.
1 cup of the flakes
1cup of the peanut butter - any nut butter
1cup of coconut (I use unsweetened)
1 cup of honey
(I add cinnamon, vanilla, and a bit more cereal)
scoop, chill, roll into balls and roll in extra cereal/cocoa/coconut, keep in fridge.
UM YUM.
you could add dry fruit, nuts, granola, oatmeal

Sounds good to me. I printed out your recipe and hope to give it a try. I have become very good at making rice crispy bars, but this sounds much healthier. Thanks.

 

[Sally PB]

It started to sprinkle, so we'll see if it gets more serious than that. I'm not so sweet I'll melt in the rain if I go out to weed!

I turned the brooder heat plate on its side and put it against the brooder wall. I don't see the chicks snuggling by it, so maybe I can start weaning them off the heat soon. I have a max/min thermometer in there, and it didn't get below 75, so I'm thinking they're ready. I will pay close attention tonight when they settle in.

 

[MeliticusBee]

Now you need to buy a blacklight flashlight so kid can look for them after dark - the tomato hornworms will glow under blacklight! those flashlights can easily be found at any hardware store.

Fascinating! I did not know that and will be super helpful!

I bet that was satisfying! And probably much less disturbing than feeding a squeaky toy sounding pinky mouse. I have a beardie at school. Luckily no horn worms yet. Be cautious about feeding wild caught insects, etc if you use any chemicals and there is also a small chance of transferring parasites.

Yeah - garden is "organic". Bugs have been taken care of thus far by handpicking (and soap on squash).
I have more trust in the bugs from my garden than buying them from pet store...

 

[BReeder!]

Need to catch up on 2 pages, but wanted to share between work meetings that we have pumpkins from LAST YEAR that are still perfectly good. These two I just cut open. We will be filling them with a savory ground venison stew or chili and baking them until tender. That's dinner, from last year! Lol.

 

[MeliticusBee]

Need to catch up on 2 pages, but wanted to share between work meetings that we have pumpkins from LAST YEAR that are still perfectly good. These two I just cut open. We will be filling them with a savory ground venison stew or chili and baking them until tender. That's dinner, from last year! Lol.

Regular pumpkins? I'll have to try that!