The funny thing about planting gardens on time is that the weather just might end up hating you for it. I couldn’t have predicted when we beat the light rain shower that day that the next 2 weeks would be a continuation of the rainy misery we’ve suffered through here in the Midwest. And now that it’s sunny and my plants are all flooded out, the coast has cleared enough to go in and inspect the damage.
From 3 rows of sweet corn, 5 plants made it through the deluge. The cantaloupe came up in a fury, but I’m worried that it will wilt fast under the weather now because it hasn’t been able to leaf enough to shelter itself. Our herbs are starting to pop bravely back through the soil in the basket but they are behind schedule severely. Pumpkins are up and growing, but I didn’t even mean to plant those; they’re just volunteers from last year. Our strawberry plant drowned and subsequently fried, suffering a death rivaled only by the Spanish Inquisition, while even our indoor tomatoes have slowed their growth because there wasn’t any sunlight for them to absorb. The only two plants which came up nicely were the beans (eaten by our overpopulation of groundhogs and deer) and the peas. Hopefully the peas will survive the sunlight and give us a few flowers before they die from the sudden season change.
It’s a sad time out in the gardens, but since there’s extra seeds we’ll give it one more chance I guess. Hopefully it’ll get better and hopefully my guesses are wrong, but this isn’t looking to be a very wet summer. If I was a farmer, I’d really struggle convincing myself to put in all the effort on the slim chance that my harvest comes out right this year. Good luck to all that are out planting right now or making hay.
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
06 June 2011
18 May 2011
Record Lows
This has been a weak of temperature shock to say the least. We really rocked the high 80's last week into the weekend, with enough sunshine to finally dry up the ground in a hurry. My fear of a sudden drought onslaught was disappointed by the rain which began a cold front a mere 10 minutes after the garden was in. This preceded what is now a couple of days with record lows for the month of May. Needless to say this has not been great for plant germination.
Of course, not all of the plants are struggling through this weather. Our indoor plants are doing well, and this includes our future upside down tomatoes which show such phototrophic aptitude that they switch sunlight orientation over the course of a meal when we rotate the dish they're sitting on. Our morning glories have shown their typical determination as well, even surviving an upset of the plant basket by Betsy when she thought she was going to catch a toad. Hopefully our warmer weather little guys will hang in there because I don't want to have to start all over.
Speaking of record lows, Amanda informs me Kasich's approval rating is currently at 38%. And who honestly approves of a guy who has been pulled over for not yielding to an emergency vehicle, publicly called a police officer stupid, rejected an agricultural deal with HSUS which people worked a year on, and who never knew our driver's licenses had changed colors? How far removed is this guy from real life? I have friends in other states who even know our licenses are pink.
Of course, not all of the plants are struggling through this weather. Our indoor plants are doing well, and this includes our future upside down tomatoes which show such phototrophic aptitude that they switch sunlight orientation over the course of a meal when we rotate the dish they're sitting on. Our morning glories have shown their typical determination as well, even surviving an upset of the plant basket by Betsy when she thought she was going to catch a toad. Hopefully our warmer weather little guys will hang in there because I don't want to have to start all over.
Speaking of record lows, Amanda informs me Kasich's approval rating is currently at 38%. And who honestly approves of a guy who has been pulled over for not yielding to an emergency vehicle, publicly called a police officer stupid, rejected an agricultural deal with HSUS which people worked a year on, and who never knew our driver's licenses had changed colors? How far removed is this guy from real life? I have friends in other states who even know our licenses are pink.
17 August 2010
Zuchini, Penguins, Kittens and why I love Windows 7
Amanda and I were out at the house yesterday, and we took the time to see both the new kittens and also to raid some onions from the garden back at the house. If there's 3 things my family did well on this year it was pumpkins, potatoes and onions (which we always grow well, funny...) My part of the garden looks like a prairie grass display that got out of hand but the rest of the garden has held up well to the tough family schedule and we took tomatoes and onions, as well as zuchinis from Josiah's garden.
Since the cousins are on vacation, the duty fell to our extended family to watch Josiah's garden while they were gone. Let me start by saying that Josiah has one heck of an impressive garden. That boy has really gotten into it. And then to top off the fact that he's got sunflowers 8 ft tall, sweet corn maturing in cycles, edible cantaloupe and tomatoes growing in experimental plantings, he's got broccoli coming up just now. It's amazing how well his garden has turned out and props to him for such a good job. Obviously, the fence keeping the critters out and Patricia helping him weed are two bonuses as well, but it's obvious how hard he's worked by the bountiful produce his garden presents. We stole a couple of huge zuchini and took them back to the house where I promptly learned in Amanda's absence how to get a zuchini shredded up for chocolate zuchini bread. I washed and peeled the zuchini, and then cut it into thirds, then quartered those thirds and then they were finally small enough pieces to fit into the manual feed for the food processor which I assembled and safely (or at least without injury) used to shred the zuchini. Be impressed, Mom, because I only knew how to use it from our times of cooking/baking back in elementary school.
We had enough to make 3 loaves and then also freeze some extra. That used up zuchini number one, but the second is still waiting outside for his doom. And man, oh man was that bread good. It made for a perfect dessert to follow the ribeye steak, potatoes and corn on the cob that we made on the grill. I also had my own experiment in baking sunflower seeds, but I have a few minor improvements to make in that department before I'm willing to share them with the world. Thanks to Jacob for unwittingly volunteering his plants yesterday while he was out fishing.
As I said, we also were at the house to see Brandy's new kittens. If you know Brandy, you'll be shocked to see how cute and normal the kittens look in the pictures. I don't have the pictures into my gmail inbox yet but I will post them as soon as they arrive. We have one gray kitten, one all black kitten and 2 black and white kittens. There's absolutely no doubt who the father is - that mangy old Benny.
For my Youtubes of the day, I would like to recommend this penguin video of penguins in a zoo chasing a butterfly. I found it on Taylor's facebook and agree that it is a good way to put a smile on someone's face. If that doesn't, then listen to the pig puppet remind you once again as we honor the approach of flu season (it's always approaching) that H1N1 is a misnomer not related to the porcines at all.
Finally today I'd just like to briefly put into words a few of the reasons that I love Windows 7. I've been using it since last November and haven't looked back since.
1) Have you tried that little button in the right hand bottom corner which displays your desktop? Time saver!
2) I was able to redirect my documents saving so that it didn't use the OS drive like some idiot at Dell had thought would be a good idea. Sure, you could've done that before? The kicker is that I know little about computers but still got it done in 2 minutes.
3) I can run stuff from Macs that my older computer would freak out about. Maybe this isn't 7 but it's the software that came with it.
4) I love how much less it glitches up than Vista. Now I can truly multi-task and actually feel like I'm getting more done. I don't waste time waiting for the system to catch up with itself every 20 seconds.
5) The ability to drag over open document icons and create a visual shadow of it without actually selecting it saves me hours when I'm doing data entry between tables.
Those are my top 5 reasons for today, but I'm sure there will be more to come.
Since the cousins are on vacation, the duty fell to our extended family to watch Josiah's garden while they were gone. Let me start by saying that Josiah has one heck of an impressive garden. That boy has really gotten into it. And then to top off the fact that he's got sunflowers 8 ft tall, sweet corn maturing in cycles, edible cantaloupe and tomatoes growing in experimental plantings, he's got broccoli coming up just now. It's amazing how well his garden has turned out and props to him for such a good job. Obviously, the fence keeping the critters out and Patricia helping him weed are two bonuses as well, but it's obvious how hard he's worked by the bountiful produce his garden presents. We stole a couple of huge zuchini and took them back to the house where I promptly learned in Amanda's absence how to get a zuchini shredded up for chocolate zuchini bread. I washed and peeled the zuchini, and then cut it into thirds, then quartered those thirds and then they were finally small enough pieces to fit into the manual feed for the food processor which I assembled and safely (or at least without injury) used to shred the zuchini. Be impressed, Mom, because I only knew how to use it from our times of cooking/baking back in elementary school.
We had enough to make 3 loaves and then also freeze some extra. That used up zuchini number one, but the second is still waiting outside for his doom. And man, oh man was that bread good. It made for a perfect dessert to follow the ribeye steak, potatoes and corn on the cob that we made on the grill. I also had my own experiment in baking sunflower seeds, but I have a few minor improvements to make in that department before I'm willing to share them with the world. Thanks to Jacob for unwittingly volunteering his plants yesterday while he was out fishing.
As I said, we also were at the house to see Brandy's new kittens. If you know Brandy, you'll be shocked to see how cute and normal the kittens look in the pictures. I don't have the pictures into my gmail inbox yet but I will post them as soon as they arrive. We have one gray kitten, one all black kitten and 2 black and white kittens. There's absolutely no doubt who the father is - that mangy old Benny.
For my Youtubes of the day, I would like to recommend this penguin video of penguins in a zoo chasing a butterfly. I found it on Taylor's facebook and agree that it is a good way to put a smile on someone's face. If that doesn't, then listen to the pig puppet remind you once again as we honor the approach of flu season (it's always approaching) that H1N1 is a misnomer not related to the porcines at all.
Finally today I'd just like to briefly put into words a few of the reasons that I love Windows 7. I've been using it since last November and haven't looked back since.
1) Have you tried that little button in the right hand bottom corner which displays your desktop? Time saver!
2) I was able to redirect my documents saving so that it didn't use the OS drive like some idiot at Dell had thought would be a good idea. Sure, you could've done that before? The kicker is that I know little about computers but still got it done in 2 minutes.
3) I can run stuff from Macs that my older computer would freak out about. Maybe this isn't 7 but it's the software that came with it.
4) I love how much less it glitches up than Vista. Now I can truly multi-task and actually feel like I'm getting more done. I don't waste time waiting for the system to catch up with itself every 20 seconds.
5) The ability to drag over open document icons and create a visual shadow of it without actually selecting it saves me hours when I'm doing data entry between tables.
Those are my top 5 reasons for today, but I'm sure there will be more to come.
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