I Know, I Know…

I’m late on my good day/bad day squash report.  I went out of town last Friday and didn’t get back until yesterday evening.  Bro asked me to dig up a mess of potatoes so he could cook up green beans and potatoes to take to the church tomorrow because a friend of my cousin had passed away and the funeral will be tomorrow… so I got out this morning and headed out with my camera.

The first stop was to the former playhouse where we keep the garden tools.  I opened the door and I was immediately hit behind my ear by a wasp, a yellow jacket.  It still is feeling like someone hit me with a needle full of cayenne pepper but I got the wasp spray and got my revenge and because I needed to get potatoes and take photos I grabbed my cultivator and got down to business.

First off, the potatoes…

You know me… I have to give you something for a size comparison so after I washed some of the dirt off they were ready for their photo op.  My Crocs are about the equivalent of a women’s size nine shoe.

  This shot I wanted to put in to show you how beautifully thin skinned these red potatoes are and all that was done was a light wash to get the dirt off.  Makes my mouth water just looking at these.

Now to the good day/bad day squash…

Good day squash is on the left and bad day squash is on the right.

From north looking to south now so you can see the littlest bad day squash and the bigger bad day squash on the left and the good day on the right.

This is the littlest bad day squash.  It’s hanging in there but it is way smaller than all the rest but I must tell you that even though it is tiny the leaves are looking healthy.

This is the bigger of the bad day squash.  You can see a couple of photos back how much bigger the good day squash is now.

Here is the first bloom on the good day squash.  The leaves are huge and the plants, the four good day squash that came up, are so healthy looking.  The broken stem there on the right was done when the storms came rolling through Monday night. 

Just a few more general garden shots now…

  The two rows in the middle, the left one is alternating okra and black eyed peas.  The right one is okra.  To the right of them are some squash and zucchini that were plants already when we planted them.  We’ve gotten several messes of yellow squash and while the zuchs were planted later and we haven’t gotten any off them yet there are a bunch of blooms and young zuchs going now.

We are going to be begging people to take tomatoes if they keep on like they are going.  We planted 15 plants of several varieties and the plants are full and big, almost growing together, and they have a bunch of blooms on them.

Here’s another shot where I tried to just shoot looking down between the rows.

Another view of the tomato jungle looking from north to the south.

This is the backyard garden. The plants in front are the broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower that are all on their way out.

Here is one of the cabbage that is still growing.  You kind of get the idea of size with Spud, the Jack Russell, standing there checking for mice.

This is the potato bed that I raided for potatoes earlier.  We also planted potatoes in the bigger front garden but we planted them about three weeks after we put these in and so these are the plants we’ve been raiding for the past week or two.

And to wind up this post I have to put in a picture of the yellow daylily that you can see at the back of the above photo.  It is one of the daylillies that I transported from the garden in Noble and I’m so glad to see them starting to bloom.

This is one of my favorites.  I love the clear buttery yellow and this daylily is just that… no golden yellow hues to it, just the very clean clear yellow.

This concludes the second good day/bad day squash report.  I’ll try not to be so long for the next post.  I had to put off the mimosa blooms and the bad hair post because I needed to show the good day/bad day squash report so I will try to get it posted in the next couple of days.

By the way, does anyone have a good home fix for wasp stings?  I still have this awful pain in my head…

Garden Stroll And More…

A couple of days ago I asked if you wanted to visit the garden with me… if you don’t want to do that you may want to go to the next blog on your reading list because I’ve been in the gardens with the camera.

Broccoli… I don’t have to worry about ‘W'.’ coming to dinner because we have grown some gorgeous and tasty broccoli this year.  Personally I could eat it just about every night, steamed with some butter… no sauce needed. 

Yeah I gotta get my boot in there for size and as you can see we have had a battle with squash bugs but this baby head of cauliflower grew into this…

When Bro, Cuz and me went to buy some plants this spring we got the broccoli, cauliflower and two kinds of cabbage, the green and the purple, at a farm store in Chandler, OK,  about 15 miles from where we lived.  I’ve been sooo excited with how they are all coming on because though I tried last summer where we lived we had rabbits that ate very well and I didn’t even get a taste.

My beautiful cauliflower looked big until I found these three squash hiding under the big squash leaves and, no, these are not the good day/bad day squash.  We were given 3 straight neck yellow squash plants and three crook neck yellow squash plants so these came on earlier than we expected. The green cabbages I planted in the back yard garden and have started forming the heads despite the chewed up leaves.

The purple cabbage I planted in the front garden along with half of the broccoli plants.  They, too, have started forming their heads and their leaves are chewed on but not quite as bad as the plants in the back garden.

I got down in the dirt to get this low down view of all the squash blossoms on one of the crooked neck squash plants.  See what I do to keep it real for all of you!

I love seeing how these bloom change into something that is so good to eat in so many ways.  But you all know how all the stages of growing just fascinate me.

OKRA!  Yes, Rick, you can tell your sweet bride that the good Lord willing and the weather is kind to us, no more hail please, there will be okra flying northwest along about August.

This row has okra and black eyed peas planted alternately.  The premise is the black eyed peas will climb along the okra stalks.  So I guess this will be my little experiment.

Since I have so much garden photos to show you and I don’t want to bore you to death I’ll close for now but I do want you to know that my cousin and I both use this old timey cultivator because we can get between the rows easily and break up the ground enough to try to keep ahead of the grass and weeds.  I will try to catch a photo or two of it actually in use.

Next post, besides more garden stuff, I’ll show you the mimosa trees in bloom and we will talk about a bad hair day…

Intrigued?

Even The Internet Is So Done…

I think it is a conspiracy.  I want to do a corn report and I’m already late… Now I’m having “internet communication” problems.  Windows cannot communicate with primary DNS server (75.105.128.61).  Bullshit… Windows Vista can’t communicate with anyone or anything, I’m thinking.  I’m going to write this s.o.p. (silly old post) anyhow.  Because it’s coming down to the end of the season and my corn is about ready to pick.  I think…

Good day on the right…

Bad day corn… Little ear but there is an ear.  If this stalk hadn’t been knocked over it would be up about my waist.  And there is an ear and the stalk is still growing.  The other two bad day corn bit the dust.

This is the biggest of the good day corn and the first to produce an ear.  I think that the ear is about ready to pick.  The ears aren’t very big, but I attribute that to being put into the ground about a month late for our area.  Next year I’m going to plant corn again because it has been so interesting to me, and hopefully, to all of you on this experiment about planting with the signs.

 I keep reiterating that it takes so little to entertain me…

This is that poor little bad day corn that is still growing that got knocked over by the wind and yet hung in there and is producing an ear despite it’s travails.  I was in the mood for a bigger word, one of those fun words to say and sad in the things it describes… travails.  Try saying it a bit slower and rolling the rrrrrr…  sounds kind of  Shakespearian… But I digress, sort of.  This is, after all is said and done, a ‘c.o.r.n’. report.

This is the littlest of the good day corn.  It is a short little thing but it’s still ‘gittn’ ‘er done’.

How about a couple of non-corn shots…

Black eyed peas are still coming on… And a surprise, even for me…

Okra!  I got the okra plants in late and I wasn’t sure I was going to get any home grown okra this year… And I still may not, but at least I got the photo of  one okra pod and I will use this picture to remind me to get it planted earlier next year.  But at least I can I show you all one photo.  Now I’ll try to get pictures of the flower because they are really beautiful… I guess I could post pictures from last year, but that wouldn’t be keeping it real.

And you all deserve everyone keeping it real.

Corn Report Time…

And, no, I’m not talking about the kind on toes.  Thankfully, I hear you saying.  I’ve posted what seems like a bunch of posts on broke ribs and busted up knees and I’m tired of posting about mangled old body parts.

With that being clarified… I do have one quick thing to tell you before we go on to another stellar corn post…Tipper, over at Blind Pig And The Acorn, posted about every one who participated in the good corn day/ bad corn day test.  She also writes about cooking, canning, freezing and enjoying the things she grows. She also will share with you Pap and Paul’s music.  Good ole’ picking and singing and traditional Appalachian music.  Tipper is working real hard at keeping the old traditions alive and she is a really good read, too. 

Onward and upward…

Good day corn is on the right.  I left the sprinkler in there for a size reference.

Good day corn.. 50 inches plus 3 inches for the tape case = 53 inches.

Same song, second verse with the bad day corn…

25 inches plus 3 inches for the case = 28 inches.  A bit more than half the size for the good day corn.

Tasseling on the good day corn.

And some more.  Five of the six good day corn plants are tasseling out.

The one bad day corn, while much shorter is looking like the good day corn looked last Sunday.

The other two bad day corn plants.  I don’t know if they are going to make at all.

So all you folks out there in the blogsphere… this is the end of the corn report for this week.  I’ll have a green bean, blackeyed peas and tomato report coming up this week.  And maybe a yarn or two, a flower report, a dog report but no body part reports.

I hope.

I’m As Corny As Kansas In August…

My corn may not be as high as an elephant’s eye, but the good day corn is up to my waist and I’m not a short gal.

You notice that the corn bed remains relatively free of grass.

This is the good day corn.

Bad day corn.  Of the 10 seeds I planted in each row,  I have 3 in the bad day row.

I have 6 that came up on the good corn day.  Although I could manage to get by without saying it if you look at the other good corn day you will see a little short runt corn stalk trying to hang in there, so I’m not pulling it up. I’ll just consider it a part of the test, too.

The black eyed peas are loaded.

Now, I’ll show you what I’ve been doing the last couple of days besides spelling Carol on the mower…

Yes, ma’am.  I’ve been weeding or maybe I should call it grassin’.

I had a lot of tough thinking to do and when that happens I dig.  And I weed. This area is next.  This is where I’ve got daylilies and iris planted.  It’s been neglected because of trying to tend the garden.

There’s my stool and my gloves… waiting on me.  I figure it will take me two days because the temperature is heading back towards the triple digits, 99 F.  tomorrow and 101 F. is predicted for Tuesday.

So what do you all have going on to start your week off?