As the garden grows...........

.....so does the weeds. Geez, and seems like the weeds out grow anything you plant and want to grow. Rodger has spent evenings this week doing all the hoe work getting the weeds out from between the plants then when all that is done he runs the tiller. But we can be very thankful this year that he has been able to mostly stay ahead of weeds and bugs. He did inform me that we have several bean bugs and good golly, I cant afford to lose these dang beans. They are the old heirloom variety Ky Wonder Pole Bean from a friend in central Ky. Not to mention I for sure need lots to can. We have had several good showers of rain the past week or so. That fact did delay me getting to spray the tomatoes with a fungicide (copper and wettable sulfur) to prevent blight. I need to can many tomatoes this year as well. Well lets just say the cellar is gettin kinda bare. We still eatin regular but ya know, I just feel better with a fully stocked cellar and pantry. We just pray for the blessing of a good garden this year. I did manage to get the fungicide spray on the fruit trees and all the grape vines last week and it had several days before the rain. I just hope that helped to head off some of the cedar apple rust on a few of the apple trees. The peach trees are just loaded with little peaches this year too. I am just drooling in wait for fresh peaches. And from our own trees. I might have to buy a few bushels of apples for the freezer this year because my apple trees are still a bit too young to produce enough for our needs.

I braved the 95 degree temps Monday and pulled my beets from the bed in the back yard. I had enough to make 10 pints of beet pickles so I was a happy little camper. That will be enough to last me another 2 or 3 years. No one here will eat pickled beets but me and if I eat them I want a whole pint jar and eat em all at once. The carrots that are in the same bed as the beets were look great. The tops are still nice and green on them so that says the carrots are still growing under ground. They have been planted since mid-March the same as the beets were. Some of the beets were the Cylindra beets, more long than big around and dang did they get big.

This is before I pulled the beets, you can see the tops of the carrots on the back side. In front of the beets are leeks and some little tiny celery plants. I am about to give up on raising celery. Just dont grow well here.

The Cylindra beets. This is 3 of em and one Detroit dark red on a standard width counter for size comparison. They did well.

I had a small dish pan full not including the long ones that are on the counter. Total 10 pints canned. I do have some more that will be ready later in the season.

This little girl is growing like a bad weed. Her first visit to the vet at 6 weeks old she weighed a big 6 lb 2 oz. At her 9 week visit she weighed 13 lb 7 oz. I sure hope she is getting enough to eat. She was a lil befuddled here when she wanted to smell of one of my young Buff Orphington pullet and it pecked her nose. I bet she is thinkin, "one day I will grow up and bite you on the nose". She is a good little girl. It amazes me at the natural instinct animals have at a young age. I was giving the chickens some left over bread that was stale and just gave her a roll to see if she might like it. She ate part of it and it broke in 2 pieces. She then proceeded to bury the remaining 2 pieces. In our back year we have a lot of small holes from moles and such. During all the rainy weather one of the holes caved in (not real deep) and she found it. Now every time she is out with me she will go to that hole and sniff and dig it a little deeper. One day she is gonna dig something very unhappy out of there I am sure. Depends on what critter she digs out, she might be on her own. Especially if its a snake of some sort hiding in there. Cause momma dont do snakes.

Always something to keep busy with around here. And time will get away from ya in a hurry. It is long past time to clean out the freezers and get ready to put new stuff in. Not to mention organizing the cellar, taking inventory and emptying out things that are far past their prime. I know I will be emptying out a lot of green beans if we have a good crop this year. I have green beans canned that we just dont care for the taste or texture of. I sure hate doing that due to the waste of lids, time and effort but dang it if they dont taste good they dont do us any good anyway. Maybe I can work on that tomorrow. On second thought, No I cant. I need to tie the tomatoes up again that we got staked a couple weeks ago. They have already out grown the first tie on them. Then maybe while I am at it I can spray the fungicide. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan for tomorrow.

Not much else happening here on the farm. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

stella