Victory Garden

My friends that own the land where I garden told me tonight that I had a beautiful Victory Garden and invited me back next year.  Grandpa would have been pleased.  I finished the harvest tonight, dug the carrots, potatoes, and onions and picked the rest of the tomatoes, peppers, and zinnias.  Harold will take the Garden Salsa peppers to work tomorrow to try and give them away.  They are so hot that I can't get anyone at my work to take them.  One of my friends used one in salsa and then had to use 3 times as many tomatoes to dilute it so she could eat it.  I'm going to mix the onions and the bell peppers in with the tomatoes and can the whole mess together tomorrow night.  I don't think that I will bother with potatoes again, the seed potatoes probably cost $3 or $4 and I ended up with a little less than a bushel.  I can buy potatoes here for about $3 a 20 lb bag so I don't think it really paid off to grow them, and they taste the same....  I have at least a bushel of beautiful carrots tonight and have been eating them all summer.  It turns out that two 20' rows of carrots is a lot.   And tomatoes!  I have another 2 bushel tonight, that makes about 5 bushel from my 34 plants of big tomatoes (I inadvertantly planted 5 cherry tomatoes too and could have fed a small army off those 5 plants).  I learned my lesson about heirlooms though, next year, back to the hybrids.  I can't taste any difference, any of my tomatoes from the garden tasted much, much better than from any store (and I know that I have eaten more tomatoes this summer than maybe in my whole life) but the heirlooms rotted like crazy and they are pink (not a good thing according to H).  I didn't mind that most of the varieties ripened over a long time period, and a lot of them are still green on the vines, but based on the rot, I'm going to Big Boy and Early Girl next year.  We'll see if it makes a difference.  I also picked the rest of the zinnias tonight.  I will miss them, they are the best variety and the one that I started from seed, so we will definitely have those next year.  I stopped and told him tonight that I was done, so I expect my garden will be plowed over by the weekend.  Though the garden has been a really good time, I bought Michigan apples today (Galas-wonderful) so it is officially fall now.  I'm going bittersweet hunting tomorrow.        

Rock River

This is one of the best pictures of my husband and I that has ever been taken.  Chrissy took it while we were sitting on the stone breakwall at Rock River.  We had a really good time, Pat and Terry were with us on Sat and Sunday, which was a lot of fun, and Don's friend came over for a couple days too.  We had intended to move Chris into her apartment in Houghton on Monday, but Don got a call saying that he had a telephone interview for an intern job on Tuesday and then we couldn't get to Houghton until Wednesday.  That meant we couldn't use the boat until Thursday, but fortunately the weather was spectacular and we fished all day on Thursday and Friday.  Chrissy and I also found time to bind our quilts on the way up, and I appliqued 2 more blocks of the CWBQ, so it was a lovely vacation.   I am so glad that Star Light, Star Bright is done.  I have enough wonky log cabin blocks done in the batiks to make another quilt and now that this one is done, I want to put it the other one together too.  This one, of course, is personalized, but the other one I'll probably do as a charity quilt or give away or something.  Or maybe I'll do wonky log cabin houses, that might be fun.  I'll see.  The last photo is of my annual garden in the front of the house.  The shorter marigolds don't seem to like the heat, they have almost stopped blooming, even though I have been deadheading like crazy.  The zinnias and petunias however, are doing great.  I put more zinnias in the house today.  I so much enjoy having the color in the kitchen.  I haven't been over to the veggie garden yet.  I gave every ripe tomato to R last week and I'm a bit afraid that every other tomato in the garden is now ripe and must be immediately dealt with.  Between those, and the peaches on the counter, and the pears in the fridge, I need to be putting stuff in the freezer, and instead, of course, I'm going to Maryland this weekend.  Good grief.     

veggie garden

This is very cool. I have a veggie garden. These are the tomatoes; 4 Roma, 4 Big Boy, 4 Mortgage Lifter, 2 Oxheart, 1 Supersteak, 8 Brandywine and 8 German Pink tomato. The Brandywine, Mortgage Lifter, Oxheart and German Pink are heirlooms. We'll see if they taste better than the Big Boy or Supersteak hybrids. The heirlooms are supposed to get 12 feet tall. I'm going to let them run on the ground (in the 5' wide aisles) and D says that I will need a machete to get down the rows by the middle of July. We'll see. The garden is over on Morrish Road, not too far away, but I do have to drive in order to water and weed. The farm owner has a big tank on a wagon and lets me water from the tank. I went over last night and put Miracle Grow and water on all the plants. I have to go back this weekend with the little tiller and start the weeding process. I put in a row of big red sweet onions, a row of potatoes, a row of 2 different kinds of bush beans, a row of snap peas, and a row of radishes, carrots, and spinach. There are 2 rows of Straight 8 cucumbers, and green and red bell peppers, and some Garden Salsa pepper plants. I also planted 2 rows of tall marigolds and a row of zinnias that I started in the florida room from seed. I didn't want to, but I had to stop planting. H was giving me the evil eye. He says that we can't eat that many tomatoes, but I want to can or freeze them this year so I need a lot. I took photos tonight of the cucumbers, beans, and radishes, as well as C looking really excited about being in a garden. She told me that she would go with me, but she wasn't getting dirty and that we had to stop for Dairy Queen. I'm not sure that I am going to be able to afford the "help" but I'm going to get her to help me weed this weekend.

I pulled a few weeds tonight, but mostly I just took photos, admired my plants, and left before the skeeters arrived for the evening. I have missed having a garden, and to have an annual garden and a veggie garden too this year is an incredible luxury. I know, I should be careful what I wish for....

I am totally disgusted with myself for putting the 5 yards of compost on the beds at the house. The compost was full of weed seeds and I have at least 20-30 weed seedlings per square foot that I have to pull by hand in the annual bed, the perennial beds, the herb garden, the raspberry patch, and even in the pots of cherry tomatoes on the deck. Good grief, the compost was supposed to help mitigate weeds, not promote them. I have learned my lesson, next year it will be mulch again.