What did you do in the garden today?

[gtaus]

OK, going back to the bread making: I'm curious as to the price of bread in your area @gtaus. Two loaves of moderately priced Canadian white bread here is $5.

We can get wheat bread at WalMart for 88 cents a loaf. Can't make bread at home for that price. Not to mention the time and effort it takes to bake your own bread at home if you are on a busy schedule. Having said that, Dear Wife and I don't eat much bread anymore. We end up giving about half a loaf of bread to the chickens as treats because our bread gets old before we eat it all.

Good thing we have chickens as lots of our food gets past dated before it gets eaten. We feed almost our kitchen scraps to the chickens and that saves food from going to the landfill. Too many leftovers, no problem, chickens will help out.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Where do you guys order garlic?

Last year I planted bulbs that I picked up in the produce aisle at the store. I bought regular and organic in case the regular was GMO and wouldn't sprout. It ALL sprouted though.... I'm probably just going to take a clove from this year's harvest and plant it.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Today is hay day.... Everyone is complaining about it.... It's HOT so I can't blame them. Usually the farm we buy it from loads it for us. We decided to wait until dark to unload it this evening.... That should help everyone NOT get heat stroke.

Here's a picture of the mystery plant that is clearly NOT Holy Basil.... Any guesses on what kind of pepper it might be?

When I gave 2 chicks that I hatched out to my broody, I expected her to abandon the eggs she was sitting on so I brought them inside and candled them. There were 6 eggs in all different stages of development. I put all 6 in the incubator. Two hatched this morning... The rest still have a week+ I think. I'll put these chicks in the brooder with the ones I kept indoors since they are only a few days apart.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

We can get wheat bread at WalMart for 88 cents a loaf. Can't make bread at home for that price. Not to mention the time and effort it takes to bake your own bread at home if you are on a busy schedule. Having said that, Dear Wife and I don't eat much bread anymore. We end up giving about half a loaf of bread to the chickens as treats because our bread gets old before we eat it all.

Good thing we have chickens as lots of our food gets past dated before it gets eaten. We feed almost our kitchen scraps to the chickens and that saves food from going to the landfill. Too many leftovers, no problem, chickens will help out.

Have you considered freezing half a loaf of the fresh bread you buy, then less is wasted. Bread is not all that good for the chickens or even wild birds. Apparently you don’t compost your kitchen scraps, I save vegetable and meat scraps in the freezer to make stock with. I haven’t bought chicken stock in years and only rarely need beef stock. ( I don’t eat a lot of red meat) Homemade stock like the bread has much better flavor than what you find on the grocery store shelves and there are no added chemicals. JMHO!

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Today is hay day.... Everyone is complaining about it.... It's HOT so I can't blame them. Usually the farm we buy it from loads it for us. We decided to wait until dark to unload it this evening.... That should help everyone NOT get heat stroke.

Here's a picture of the mystery plant that is clearly NOT Holy Basil.... Any guesses on what kind of pepper it might be?

View attachment 2772247

When I gave 2 chicks that I hatched out to my broody, I expected her to abandon the eggs she was sitting on so I brought them inside and candled them. There were 6 eggs in all different stages of development. I put all 6 in the incubator. Two hatched this morning... The rest still have a week+ I think. I'll put these chicks in the brooder with the ones I kept indoors since they are only a few days apart.

That looks like some kind of pepper plant to me.

 

[Elyrian1]

Today is hay day.... Everyone is complaining about it.... It's HOT so I can't blame them. Usually the farm we buy it from loads it for us. We decided to wait until dark to unload it this evening.... That should help everyone NOT get heat stroke.

Here's a picture of the mystery plant that is clearly NOT Holy Basil.... Any guesses on what kind of pepper it might be?

View attachment 2772247

When I gave 2 chicks that I hatched out to my broody, I expected her to abandon the eggs she was sitting on so I brought them inside and candled them. There were 6 eggs in all different stages of development. I put all 6 in the incubator. Two hatched this morning... The rest still have a week+ I think. I'll put these chicks in the brooder with the ones I kept indoors since they are only a few days apart.

I'm thinking serrano of some variety... Where did you buy it?

 

[BullChick]

I'm thinking serrano of some variety... Where did you buy it?

Serano is my guess too

 

[TJAnonymous]

I'm thinking serrano of some variety... Where did you buy it?

Our local employee-owned grocery store carries a lot of gardening plants and even trees in the spring. They had marked down a lot of the leftover plants on clearance for 25 cents each. I picked up 6 tomato plants and this fella. The plastic tag in the pot said it was Holy Basil. It clearly isn't.... Someone must have randomly placed the tag in the pot.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Our local employee-owned grocery store carries a lot of gardening plants and even trees in the spring. They had marked down a lot of the leftover plants on clearance for 25 cents each. I picked up 6 tomato plants and this fella. The plastic tag in the pot said it was Holy Basil. It clearly isn't.... Someone must have randomly placed the tag in the pot.

That happened to me at Walmart a few years back. I thought I was getting zucchini but it turned out to be patty pan squash.

 

[NewBoots]

Having said that, I do have a few success stories that keep me going. I started building some hügelkultur raised beds a few years ago. In past years, they were OK, but I don't think I saw any great improvement over my regular raised bed. This year, however, with no rainfall to speak of, my hügelkultur raised beds are producing like crazy.

You've convinced me, I now intend to raise the beds higher and fill the bottoms with large pieces of wood. This will take a while since the current beds are practically new but the climate has and is changing and this area is simply not as wet as it used to be. And as we get older, higher beds will be helpfull.

Speaking of corn stalks, the glass gem corn stalks are HUGE! No ears yet, but the tallest stalk is right up there at 9-10ft with the sunflower that's blooming. I've never seen corn this tall, and I drive past corn fields regularly.

Keep us updated, I might eventually figure out a place on the property to have corn. And as I recall, the white flint corn we grew at our old place was 8 to 10 feet tall. Beautiful stuff.

If anyone wants to order garlic for next year, order now. One site was sold out of several already. It gets shipped out in Sept/Oct for fall planting, to be harvested next summer.

I have tons of hardneck and I'll plant it this fall but I'd like to get some softneck as well. I'll check the local farmer's market, they usually have area hardy crops. My best producing pepper came from a farmer's market.

I'm going out to clear the garden of any goodies while it waters. I'll trim off sunflower heads for seed to dry for next year and I'll check on the progress of our resident swallowtail caterpillars.

Are you raising fennel or milkweed or something for them?

Watered last night and tied up more tomatoes and a few flowers this morning. I talked DP into making some bread so I'll roast some garlic later. My squash and cucumbers in pots aren't doing much, just a few squash and a couple of cucumbers. I think the black pots get to hot and dry. Next year I'll use the fallow raised be DP used for clover last year, it'll need some additional love to get back in useful condition but that's alright. Additionally, I'll get some tires too.