What did you do in the garden today?

[Acre4Me]

The work is never done when you're a homeowner, I am learning!

True, very true!

 

[Acre4Me]

Garden is finally producing nice red peppers. Mostly Italian type - a touch of heat to sweet. The poblano plants (2) have been very productive as have the tomatillos.

San Marzanno plants (2) are also producing well, will be able to make sauce soon!

 

[Sueby]

I think everything is put away & ready for Henri. Or at least I hope. The garden is staked & tied as best I can. Picked all the Dahlias, they're all over the house. Brought in whatever was in pots. Not much more I can do. My fig tree got a haircut from the ceiling fan blade when DH brought it in.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning all. Working on the storm prep, however, it appears the storm has turned and @Sueby will get a stronger blast of it than I will. The winds are not supposed to be as bad here but you just never know. As a precaution I picked everything in the garden that was close to being fully ripened. I will be thinning the peaches to lighten the load on the branches and hoping this will minimize damages to the branches. My fig tree will be rolled into the garage later today, but the other pots should be fine. I'll bring some of the smaller ones into the sunroom. I stopped by a local farm stand yesterday and bought enough cucumbers to make two batches of pickles. My pile of SM tomatoes is growing so I'll be making sauce soon. I am seeing more tiny ears of corn growing. Hopefully the squirrels will share some of it with me. Have a great day everyone. Stay safe @Sueby!

 

[muddy75]

We picked all the ripe habaneros and other peppers to start fermenting and I will be picking the ripe butternut squash this weekend to cook fresh and possibly freeze some for thanksgiving pie. We will probably need to do tomatoes again.

 

[WthrLady]

I think everything is put away & ready for Henri. Or at least I hope. The garden is staked & tied as best I can. Picked all the Dahlias, they're all over the house. Brought in whatever was in pots. Not much more I can do. My fig tree got a haircut from the ceiling fan blade when DH brought it in.

Better the fig tree than the baby, ask my DH. LOL.
Kid is fine, college grad with honors. Ceiling fan died long ago, which goes to prove kids are toxic - to ceiling fans anyway. (Monsters Inc had it right all along.)

Made tomato, cheese, salad for a picnic later today. Little italian dressing, some orzo, and balsamic vinegar and garlic. Wish I had some basil, but I don't. Bugs got to it.

Also have some cornbread in the oven.

All this with sinus' that made me spacey and playing 'get the barfy dog to the door'. UGH. Some mornings, eh?

@Sueby but it's not a hurricane and the storms missed us yesterday for the most part.

Have a grubby day all.

 

[Sueby]

The problem here in CT now is not really the wind & wether it's a TS or a Cat 1 or whatever - the trees are decimated because of the Ash borer & the gypsy moths. They have had a rough few years between the 2 & people forget just how much of a canopy CT really has, FL & the gulf coast can't compare. We regularly lose power twice a month, sometimes because it rains & sometimes just because a dead tree fell. The electric company came out & said last night to expect 50% of people to have no power for 10 days. They've been working on the trees for the last 3 years but it's still a mess. It's going to be devastation no matter how strong it is or isn't, just power wise.

 

[gtaus]

You may be surprised how quickly plants can bounce back after some rain, maybe it's not too late for some.

Well, for the first time in over 2 months, we got a full day of off and on rain yesterday, but enough to call it a good soaking. Already this morning the lawn grass is looking much better. Also, we had days in the mid 90F's most of the week, and today the temp is currently 56F. The cooler weather with the rain yesterday should help our plants. I don't know if it was too late for the main garden, but I'll check it out later today - weather permitting. We might get more rain today as the skies are all cloudy and the wind is still blowing.

Yesterday my brother was here visiting and I was talking to him about the forecasted rain for our area. I don't know how much of Minnesota was declared in a drought, but he lives up on the Iron Range part of Minnesota and he told me that they were banned from using any water on their yards. That's the first time he ever heard of that. I guess their water reservoir dropped to a level where they had to ration water. I know people living out in desert areas have to deal with water issues frequently, but we live in the "Land of 10,000 Lakes"!

Fortunately, I live on a lake and have well water. So I was able to use the house faucet to water my new raised beds I built this year and put out in our backyard. Those raised beds did great this year because I watered them almost daily with a sprinkler.

Speaking of those new raised beds, I planted one of the beds full of first year Seascape Ever Bearing strawberries. For the past couple of days this week, I have been picking my second harvest of strawberries from them. This time the strawberries are almost twice the size of the first batch I picked earlier this summer. The plants have filled out and look great. Given the time of the year, I don't expect to have another picking of strawberries, but the lady I bought the strawberry plants from said I would get about 3 pickings per year. So I am thinking next year the berries will come in earlier and I have a good chance of actually getting that third harvest before winter.

 

[gtaus]

A creek bed that runs through my property, most often dry, is now pushing a 30 foot wide stream, likely, just about 3 feet deep in the middle of the creek! That is common enough, just hope it does not get 7 feet deep and a couple hundred feet wide, because it could wash out my largest lower garden!

Wow, that sounds dangerous! Hope you don't get flooded out. Been watching the evening news and seeing houses floating down rivers.

I am not a total anti chemical guy! But we have to do better, at how and what we use, in our damaged environment! We can live well, without Roundup(glyphosate) and by having a mixed species natural yard, instead of a carpet of lawn grasses that requires constant re applications of chemicals to maintain. WE, don't usually eat our lawns, but we are letting our lawn maintenance destroy our water and hasten the demise of species. Stupid, isn't it? I was a licensed (not just certified) chemical applicator in Tennessee at one time. Boy o' boy, how they deceived me!

I am not an anti chemical guy either, per se, but I chose not to use chemicals on my lawn or gardens. I use a lawn mix of grass seed mixed locally for our area and for 30+ years have never had to water the lawn (except for new seeding). Since I feed all my grass clippings to my chickens, I don't put any chemicals on the lawn.

@TJAnonymous my DH ran pex to the garden for me this spring, he was sick of moving my hoses when he mowed. He buried it & used 90 degree fittings for the corners & put a spigot in in the garden. He'll just blow the lines out when the seasons done. I couldn't be happier!

Yep, that's basically what I did, but with black tubing. I do all the mowing, so it was worth my time to trench in the tubing once and never have to move hoses above ground again.

The work is never done when you're a homeowner, I am learning!

When I was kid, my grandparents had a summer cabin we stayed at all summer. We were either on the lake fishing, or swimming in the lake. When in high school, we were out water skiing. As an adult, I bought lake property and at times I get so busy with just everyday homeowner projects that I don't even see the lake.

We regularly lose power twice a month, sometimes because it rains & sometimes just because a dead tree fell. The electric company came out & said last night to expect 50% of people to have no power for 10 days. They've been working on the trees for the last 3 years but it's still a mess. It's going to be devastation no matter how strong it is or isn't, just power wise.

No power for 10 days! I hope you guys have decent backup power supplies. I think it would be great if we had access to inexpensive homeowner battery power stations that could be trickled charged on off peak rates and then turned on if main power was lost. I see some electric cars are now promoting their product by saying you can use the car/truck batteries to power your house for up to 3 days. Maybe not long enough for your expected 10 day power outage, but at least it's moving in the right direction.

 

[Sueby]

We have lots of generators & lots of fuel for them all! We'll be ok for at least 2 weeks. & we have a shared well that has generator backup, we may be under a boil advisory, but we'll have water. We don't drink that nasty water anyway. I was talking to a guy who installs whole home generators around here, he said he's booking out well into next year that's how bad it is around here. Longest I went was a few years ago at 8 days. Then we had 6 just a year or 2 ago.

I saw that truck ad the other day & asked DH if it was real or really overstated & he said probably just about true! Neat idea.