Here is What Has Been Happening This Summer

This year I am doing more yard clean up.  If you ignore your yard a little or a lot for a year or two or three like I've done then you will have a lot of clean up.

June 7, I decided the pineapple plant that has been growing in a pot for years needed a bigger pot.  I was quite surprised when I saw the root system.
 

                                                                  

All the roots were short except one that wound around the bottom of the pot.


Hubby has been slowing cutting down the dying Pussy Willow bush that he kept trimming to grow like a tree.

The bottom is growing like crazy, but the doves are enjoying it as a new perch.  One is up high.  Is he looking at the one on the lower part of the stump?

Tuesday August 10, I went outside to pick more ripe tomatoes.

This is the third tomato I have found this way.  They are in the middle of the plant like this, so I know there is a tomato horned worm somewhere, but I cannot find him no-matter how much I look.  Hubby and I have both looked.  I'm picking the tomatoes while they are still orange and I'm getting them before the tomato horned worm.  There is another tomato plant next to this one.  I hope the worm doesn't find its way to that plant. 2014 was the first year that I saw tomato horned worms.  There were 3 on a plant in a pot on the front porch.  I haven't seen one again until this year.  I'm hunting this one tonight.

Some critter came for a food haul from the compost bucket.

The bucket is just inches away from the trailer fender.  Early the next morning this stash was nowhere to be found.  I must have interrupted his collecting adventure.  That is what happens to compost material when you don't keep it buried in non-critter-eatable material.

Look what I found at the edge of the garlic bed. They were mostly shaded by the wooden frame around the edge of the raised bed.

I've now know that if you leave your garlic in the sun for a month it will start turning green. LOL. I guess those will be some on the ones I replant soon for next years harvest.

August 11 I picked the last 65 pounds of peaches from my dying tree.

We have canned peaches, peach jam, peach syrup, and peach leather for this winter.

The cabbage and Brussels Sprouts from my neighbor are growing good.

I cut the bottom off of some buckets and put two around this plant.  When there was only one it kept blowing off and something kept eating all of the leaves.
I haven't covered the cabbage yet and so far there are no cabbage worms in it.  There will be tomorrow after saying there are none.  Isn't that how it goes?

Here is what my cabbage bed looked like last year and almost daily I found a cabbage looper moth trying to find her way out.  She had no problem getting in.  I killed more eggs and worms than I want to ever see again.


I want to know what is doing it's daily duty in my garden.

As you can see, it is dried and has fallen between the cabbage leaves.  I swear there are geese in my garden.  I am constantly dodging these geese sized land mines.


The lettuce is going to seed.

The lettuce is flowering and will soon be going to seed.  This year I will collect the seeds and not leave them in the paper bag for 2 months and let the bugs eat them all.  Little Freckles (the darker one) is my favorite lettuce and I planted the last of the seeds this year.

I planted potatoes in pots this year.

     

I covered the growing plants with soil in the 4 pots grouped together, but none have done well.  The two huge pots have grown even less.  I added a little soil once to those growing plants.  They didn't flower this year and are dying as small plants.  This seems to be the same problem a lot of people are having this year.


I dug up the dead plants and this is what I got.

The back left two are Kennebec (usually a large potato), the back right are Blue, and the front group are Yukon Gold.  I told Hubby that we should have eaten the seed potatoes.  They were a bigger crop that what has been harvested.


On a happy note:

This is the first year we have gotten Green Gage plums from our tree.  Hubby picked 6 more today.  They are hard to find on the tree, but the birds can't find them either.

Saving Seeds and More

I went outside today to see what seeds I could save from the flowers and found that I was too late for many of them.

Here are some yellow Columbine.  See all the brown (they look kind of orange) seed pods have opened and the seeds have fallen out.

I found some pods that were not open yet, so I put a bag around those.  The seeds will fall into the bag now.

I don't remember seeing this purple and white Columbine.  There are a few seeds left of this plant.  I put a bag around them and tried to bend the plant down, but broke it.  I'll get a few seeds, probably not as many now.

The front bag is the Columbine from the picture above this one and the back bag is Coreopsis AKA Tick Seed.

There are some of the Tick Seed still blooming and some going to seed.

All those green button looking things are Hollyhock seed pods.  The flowers are Maroon.  If you want them let me know.  Otherwise to the trash they go.

The White flower is Moonflower.  I have been throwing out these seed pods too.  If you want some let me know.

On the way back into the house I scared a lizard and he scared me.  He hit one of the Coreopsis plants and seeds fell on the sidewalk.

Now lets go to the vegetable garden.

Lots of Spinach seeds ready to save.

While I was saving flower seeds and broke the one plant, I came upon this bright idea.  Well time will tell if it is a bright idea.  Put a rock in the bag to help weight it so the seeds will fall to the bottom of the bag and write the seed name inside.

Here is the plant in the bag.  The binder clip is on and the rock is in the bag and sitting on the brick.

The lettuce is starting to flower and will be ready to bag soon.

The Blue Hubbard squash plant is huge.  It has a few flowers near the base of the plant.

Here are the Snow Peas going to seed in front of the Blue Hubbard.  I usually just let the pods dry and start to crack open, then collect them.  Today I decided to put a bag around this plant too.

Here are some dried pods with seeds showing in some of them.  I just dropped them into the bag around the plant.

I had to use a big grocery bag for this plant.

Do you remember in an earlier post where I talked about the cabbage plants needing to have the tule put around each plant to protect them, but I hadn't gotten it done?  I just put screens over the wood frames on the raised bed.  Well the wind keeps blowing the screen off of the bed and this is what I found today.  A cluster of eggs.

One cluster of eggs is no problem.  I'll just go get some Duct tape.  Well I didn't find Duct tape, but I found this blue plastic tape.  That will work to stick the eggs to just fine.

Well I got that bunch of eggs, then found a darker bunch of eggs and a worm.  GROSS!

WELL IT IS ABOUT TO GET MUCH WORSE.  I MEAN REALLY GROSS!

 They are on almost every cabbage.

 Disgusting!  Tape will not be enough now.

I broke off a leaf trying to get them wiped off with a paper towel.  They are in the cracks where the only way to get them out is by breaking the leaf when you try to move it.

I pulled this one off on purpose. Don't finish reading if you have a weak stomach.  I took the paper towels and wiped and wiped and wiped.  The eggs just smashed and smeared.  I felt like I was cleaning up after a baby who had a diaper that leaked and went in every little fat roll.  It seems to just smear and spread and you can't get it all.  After a pile of gross paper towels I did what I could never do to a baby.

I squirted the cabbages with the hose until all the eggs and grossness were gone.

I put bigger screens on the cabbage and rocks to hold them down in the wind.  I hope this stays in place and keeps the bugs away.

Now for a little better story.  Here are the garlic.

 This garlic is the saddest crop of garlic that has ever grown I think.

 I pulled everything that was left.  There is probably just enough to replant for next years crop.

 These four are just a single round ball each.

Cabbage Heads, Spinach Seeds, Garlic, and Potatoes

Five of the six cabbages, I got from my neighbor that started them from seed, are doing great.

Here are two of them.  I planted onions around them, but that isn't keeping the cabbage loopers away.  You can see all the holes in the leaves.  I have been going to put tule around them for 2 weeks and still haven't done it.  Tule is like netting, but has smaller holes, is softer, and used for bridal wear.

For now it just came into my brain that I could cover them with the window screens.  I don't care if the onion tops are bent over.  I hate onions!

Here is the spinach that has gone to seed.  I think it is ready to have a paper bag placed over the seeds to save them.  The lettuce behind it will be going to seed soon.  I am out of seeds from both of these plants, so I let a lot of them go to seed.

The garlic is dying without going to flower.  I noted before that it was going great in the winter and then when we got the hot winter spell it started dying.  The ones I have dug are double bulbs/cloves.  You can see them HERE.  I think I will pull these up and plant lettuce and spinach here.  I will have to go buy some seeds this time.

Here is a garlic from last year that must not have grown and came up this year instead.  Can you see the bulge near the top of the plant?  That is the flower developing.  After it comes out and starts to open I will break it off, so that it puts the energy into the garlic bulb and not the flower.  If it is broken off too soon it will come back.

             

This years garlic is weird.  The red spot in the center of the left picture is something popping out of the stock.  The picture on the right has a bulge at the base of the stock.