Garden happenings

Since our return from Canada and Pennsylvania I have been working, alternately, on several projects.

I've gotten the overgrown weeds in my flower garden under control again.   We weed-wacked the heck out of the overgrowth of vines in the far corner past the tomato cages, where it looks like(is) mud.  It looks ok for now, but I need to get in there and dig out the roots of the vines that are growing back before they take over again.  I'm hoping to plant a fall crop of Kale, Kohlarabi and brussel sprouts .

We are making progress on the water drainage too.  We've laid down some weed barrier  and are slowly filling in with dirt.  With each rain the dirt is settling in and becoming more stable so that we can lay pieces of slate across the pipe.

This pretty orange gladiola is a nice surprise that popped up unexpectedly.  Only a few came up last year, so I was surprised to see these return.

The vegetable garden overgrowth has been cut back and partially tilled.  The strawberry plants are to the left of the tree and still need weeding.  The blackberry/raspberry plants are to the right.   But we have enough area cleared now and can plant the green bean crop.  

We harvested 1 green pepper and 4 roma tomatoes yesterday, and are hoping the eggplant will produce some fruit soon.  

The yellow squash has blooms so we should be harvesting them soon too.

garden pests

Last week hubby came in from the garden all upset.   Something had eaten the tops off the tomatoe plants!  

The garden has done poorly this year and we have barely harvested enough beans or zuchinnie to eat.  Now some critter was destroying the tomatoe plants.

Today we discovered the culprit!  I've never seen anything like it.  Just last night the tomatoe plants in my garden were perfect.  This morning, the leaves and tops on 2/3rds of the plants were eaten away leaving just bare stem stalks!  Many of the green tomatoes had big holes in them.

We looked carefully and discovered 6 of these guys!

These worms had to be at least 2inches long!   GROSS!!!

Hubby grabbed them off with a plyers and squished them.   Don't know where they came from and sure hope we never see them again!  Hopefully the remaining tomatoes will survive and ripen!

2016-06 My backyard garden

Two weeks away in Canada and Pennsylvania and my little garden had turned into a jungle!

The peas and spinach had shriveled up and died.  But,  I was able to harvest several kolharabi bulbs and they were delicious!  I've also had several kale salads from my garden this week... and I left the plants to continue growing in hopes of salads to come.

Several of the Gladiolas bloomed, as did the Vinca and one of the Geraniums.  The second Geranium doesn't look too good, but maybe some TLC will bring it back to life.  My roses had all bloomed and were covered in japanese beetles!  YUCK!  I cut off the eaten flowers and will talk to hubby about something for the beetles.  Hopefully I'll have more blooms.

Once the weeding was done I began laying down the shale rock to cover the drainage pipe.  Hubby didn't want it burried again.  It will be easier the next time it gets clogged to just lift off the shale rather than dig it up again.

Back in April,  I saw a suggestion on the internet that you could cover a slice of tomato in soil and plants would sprout.  So I filled two pots with soil and tossed a tomato slice from an heirloom tomato in each pot and covered them with dirt.

I was pleasantly surprised that it worked!  Between the two pots, one month later I have 9 small surviving plants.  I planted 6 of them plus two store-bought Roma tomato plants in my garden.  Hopefully I will have lots of nice fresh picked tomatoes next month!

Hubby's garden was a jungle too!  You could hardly find the strawberry and bean plants! He has spent several hours each night after work weeding out there and is harvesting zuchinni, yellow squash and green beans.

The strawberries are done for the season.  We are waiting on the raspberries and blackberries to ripen and have harvested about 2 quarts of blueberries.  YUM

2016-05 garden happenings

Early in April we had to cover the strawberry patch with cheese cloth to protect it from last frosts.  Now it is, hopefully, protecting the berries from birds.  We've already picked several quarts of tasty, juicey berries!   YUM

This is my garden... where the tree root used to be.  I've got 3 rose bushes and half rows of peas, kale, spinach and kohlrabi.  I've planted seeds in front of the roses for galardia and callendula.  I'm not sure what will come up there as Toby has decided that loose dirt is his playground and he has been digging in there.  If nothing comes up in the next week or two I'll have to run to the nursery and buy some plants.

Our grandson has his garden planted now too... lilliputt, medium and large zinnias, sunflowers and cosmos.  He is hoping to earn a ribbon again at the fair in August.

He has been very helpful planting and watering beans in the vegetable garden. He had wear his backpack fully loaded and armed to defend against anything that would dare hurt  his plants!

Overwhelmed!

Over the last 10 days we have been picking and enjoying strawberries from the garden.

I have made 8 jars of preserves.

I have made 4 pies.

And we have eaten many fresh strawberries with cereal, ice cream, or just by themselves.

But last night, I was officially overwhelmed!

I wish they had a much longer shelf life!

Strawberry Pie

Strawberry Pie

9in Baked pie shell

5 C strawberries quarterd and hulled

¼ C cornstarch

2/3 C sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp almond extract

1 tbs lemon juice

Place 2 c of strawberries in small saucepan.

Mash until strawberries are chunky.

Add: sugar, cornstarch, vanilla extract, almond extract, lemon juice and salt

Bring to a simmer over med heat stirring until sugar dissolves and glaze thickens

Cool

Add remaining 3C strawberries and mix until well coated.

Spoon into prepared pie crust.

Refrigerate 2 hours before cutting to allow filling to set.

Top with optional whipped cream

Strawberry Time

Do you remember all those overgrown rows of strawberries that I posted a picture of last week.  Well, with the warm sunny weather this week they are pumping out berries like crazy :)

We have been enjoying strawberry shortcake or strawberries and ice cream or strawberry shakes!.... and I still had way more in the frig! LOL

Yesterday I decided to make some sugar free preserves.  I was surprised at how quick and easy it was to do.  Two cups of crushed berries and some pectin... cooked, jarred, processed and in about an hour I had 3 jars made.  I made a second batch last night.

And I still have more quarts of strawberries in the frig and still more to be picked!   I'm thinking that maybe I'll do up a couple of quart sized jars and when I want a strawberry pie all I have to do is make the crust, fill and bake!
YUM!

Garden update

After much digging and cutting out some HUGE tree roots the Easter azaleas are finally planted.

The garden is mostly weeded at this point.  Hubby will get the tiller going this weekend and we will be ready to plant the tomatoes, squash and beans in-between all the berries.   

The strawberry plants were in rows last year... you can hardly tell to look at them now.  We dug up some plants for my daughter to plant in her garden.
The raspberries (red and black) and the Blackberries are coming back strong too.

The snow peas I planted with the grandson are about a foot high now.  I'm not sure if they will produce anything to harvest now that the warmer weather is here.  I will have to try planting again in August or September and hope to get a crop in the cooler weather before the frost.

It's hard to believe we started with just 4 Black Eyed Susan plants 2 or 3 years ago.  Now we are over run with them!  They have taken over the backyard garden and have overfilled the front walk garden.  I have resorted to selling some on LSN this year to try and thin them out.

The iris are coming up strong and blooming nicely now too.

Garden work

Last year we had several huge old trees removed from the side/front of the house so to prevent disaster from striking.  Unfortunately, our rhodedendrens were damaged in the process.

So, taking advantage of the comfortable weather (72deg and overcast)  I went out this morning and after a couple hours was able to remove the damaged plant, weeds and black paper burried under pebbles and mulch. The broken plant is going home with my daughter to be planted in her yard.  If it survives she may have a very pretty bush.  If not, there is no great loss. 

 The soil is a bit muddy and clumpy, so I'm going to give it a couple of days to dry out a bit before planting my new Easter present.