Hot one today, but beautiful when the breeze is going and the sun goes under the clouds. We did have several thundershowers, so I didn't get a lot accomplished, but I did fill another new bed and planted it with 6 Gardener's Delight and 6 Black Cherry tomato plants. Added the tomato cages to each one and I'll get some straw later in the week hopefully to mulch them with so the soil doesn't splash up on them when it rains. This will hopefully keep them from getting blight long enough for us to harvest the fruit. I've given up on not getting blight until we get a greenhouse to keep the water off them, but the last couple years I've been able to pick leaves off and keep it down enough that at least we had a decent harvest.
I did discover something glorious on my walk through the garden. The peppers I planted are mostly all in bloom and many have tiny peppers starting and so many fruit on each plant. This is by far the best my peppers have ever looked by this time of year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a bumper crop!
July 4, 2017
Slept in as I was up late again. I keep terrible hours when left to my own devices and wife is away until Wednesday night. I puttered around this morning, made some bread, cleaned the kitchen up. I went out to see if there were any more ripe Kent strawberries, and harvested another pound of them. So far, I've harvested 6.7 lbs of strawberries and made a dozen jars of jam. By the looks of it, there will be a lot more to come as well!
It wasn't all good news in the garden today though. I noticed that the cucumber seedlings I put in were looking a bit worse for wear. Sure enough, when I examined, I found a horde of cucumber beetles hanging out on them. I squished as many as I could as this is the only effective organic control I've found for the rotten things. I also used duct tape wrapped inside out around my hand to trap them to squish. When I checked my zucchini and squashes, they were all over those as well, but had so far left my melon seedlings untouched. Cucumber beetles are a pest I seem to have every, single year.
I cut all the boards for the last 5 raised beds to length and stacked them up. I find cutting all the boards first, then assembling the beds one by one is the fastest way to get it done. Whipped through the first two in less than an hour and hopefully the last three will take about the same. I will say, I'm very glad I invested in a nail gun last year as it makes assembling the beds loads faster, plus, well, just way more fun.
I assembled the last 5 beds in about 2 hours and set them in the driveway overnight on their sides.
July 5, 2017
Back on schedule today. Grabbed a coffee and relaxed for an hour this morning, then went out to finish laying landscaping cloth where the new beds are going. I ran out of landscaping cloth after putting it down for three beds, so left the last two to place once I get more cloth. Picked my son up at noon to come down and help me carry the beds and put them in place. Once that was completed and I had driven him home, I filled another bed and planted the leftover pepper plants that I hated to waste. The peppers are growing so well this year, I figured it would pay off to find a place for them. I also planted the lovage I had grown from seed in the corner of that bed.
July 9, 2017
Erin was on vacation for a 4-day weekend so nothing accomplished, really. I did get the lawn mowed finally. The belt had come off the mower again and it took the fella 2 weeks to get it back to me so the hay field was growing again. I also made 2 batches of strawberry jam, which made half a dozen 250 ml jars each. We ended up harvesting 8.35 lbs in total from our two haskap bushes. I froze some for a pie and a batch of jam or two. I dehydrated the rest as an experiment, to see if they were tasty and if that could be a way to store them. They were indeed, quite tasty and will store well I think. They'll be great to toss into oatmeal or cookies.
I wed a few beds today and filled another raised bed. Planted 8 Defiant tomatoes in that bed. They're supposed to be a blight resistant variety, so I thought they'd be worth the try, although the seeds were ridiculously expensive.
July 10, 2017
Headed outside early since we might get thunderstorms this afternoon. Filled another bed just in time as it started to rain. Made for a short day.
July 18, 2017
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| One of my more delicious meals during the 5-day liquid diet. |
Once we were back at the farm, we put down the landscaping cloth and placed the last two beds. Jody then set to filling them and I did some weeding, watering and fertilizing. Since I'm still too weak to walk very much, I used the lawn mower to truck myself and the water/fertilizer back and forth to the orchard to fertilize the fruit trees.
July 19, 2017
Clearly overdid it yesterday. I slept all day today, minus about 2 hours. I did get up for the evening when my wife got home at 5:30 and puttered around the garden, nothing accomplished really but some odd weeding and taking note of what's going on out there.
July 20, 2017
Feeling a little more energetic today, though I still slept a good 12-13 hours. I got up and went out in the afternoon to get some weeding done. I cleaned out 3-4 beds and felt pretty happy with that effort.
July 22, 2017
I didn't get into the garden until later, but got some mulch put down and some more weeding done. I went to Envirem to get another 20 bags of mulch, but thought I could handle it myself this time. This was a mistake as it took me forever to load them, just too weak still. Hopefully next week I'll be feeling better and will be able to get more done.
July 24, 2017
This new medication has me pretty zonked half the time, so I've been really lax about keeping track of what I've been doing. Now that all the beds are in, we set to putting in all the mulch in the paths around the raised beds. I grabbed another 20 bags of mulch today and worked away some more on it. Just a couple paths left to do now and we should be good. Many of the paths were thin enough that the 3' of weed mat overlapped by several inches. I ordered some 1/4" thick wood laths to staple those pieces to the raised beds. Will take a little extra time, but should seal things a bit better and prevent the grass from creeping up from underneath.
July 29, 2017Today I cut a bunch of 3' square pieces of weed mat and mulched 4 of the new fruit trees. I'll have to finish the other two as well as take the cages off the ones I planted last year and redo them with the landscaping cloth underneath.
July 30, 2017
Now that all the installation work is done, I can concentrate on weeding, pest control and a few other projects I've been putting off. Today I weeded the cabbage bed, as the horsetail had taken over as it tends to do. I'm still not sure how I'll beat it or even if I will, but can't give up yet or it will definitely do me in.
Right before dusk I watered the in-ground garden and as many beds as my hose could reach. I'll have to lug the rest by hand tomorrow evening as we aren't expected to get a decent rain for another week.
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