Finishing Touches

Everywhere I look in the house we have counters full of food from the garden. We need a bigger kitchen.
There was this concrete door sill that was between the backroom and kitchen. We kept a rug over it all this time and yesterday we finally did something about it. We used floor paint and painted wood grain into the wet base paint.
The space in between the door way isn't even that bad now.
The floor to the bathroom needed the divider too, so we purchased a $5.00 metal piece for that.

I have about 15 more things to do and I think we can say we are finished with the Mo House. They are are little things like above that we have just been living with..

Today in the Garden

We have about 14 watermelons still growing on the vine and we have been enjoying eating them as well. I think we will save the seeds from this years crop too. They grow well and produce finished fruit in 85-95 days.
We have a variety of peppers we are harvesting daily.

The one cucumber plant is still producing cukes. We just planted six new plants as seeds.

Now that we have trimmed back the foliage we are seeing the tomatoes turning color.

The summer strawberries are coming in. We do not get as many as the spring produces but it's a nice treat to have them in July.

The Three buddies growing in stockings. (That just sounds weird) It's actually two now as I cut one off this morning. I didn't let it grow to 18lbs like the first one. It still came in at 12lbs. I was thinking how many pies will all these Tennessee Sweet Potatoes make and how many pies can I eat a day?

A shot of the garden looking over the fence to the east.

Melon Petit Gris de Rennes

This morning I went to the garden and saw a melon that had turned colors. I brought my bride out to show her and now we had a problem. We didn't know when you pick the melon. So we looked it up and found out when you see the stem cracking around the base and you move it a little, the melon should just fall off. Well you know we did just that and the melon did just that.
We left it in the house an hour or so. It smelled so wonderful. It weighed two & half pounds. We sliced it open and ate it all in one sitting. We found out a couple of things today about the
" Melon Petit Gris de Rennes."
First of all, I read that if a person can grow this melon they are a Master Gardener. I know that isn't true because we grew this one and four more are on the vine. Second of all, the grocery store melons have a green line in between the skin and edible part of the fruit. Ours doesn't because we do not have to pick it early for market. We get to pick and eat at just the right time. Last, I spotted this melon when it was little bigger than a golf ball on June 26th, so I think it takes about 29 - 34 days after the flower fruits for this kind of melon to mature.
Here is a pumpkin pie. Well maybe not yet but that's where this pumpkin we harvested is off to.
Boo Boo admiring the table flowers this morning. He likes watermelon and Petit Gris de Rennes as well.

Lunch Today

What we had today for lunch and this mornings harvest from the garden. We have had about 20 cucumbers this year from the one ten cent seed pack. The fact that we were able to nurse a cucumber plant along and not have the cuke beetles beat us is amazing to me. The store here charges 1.29 for each organic cucumber and the same with the green peppers. We have had three watermelons from the garden now. The little Serrano peppers are coming in now too! What I am really looking forward to is more sweet corn. I have always bought it from the road side or grocery store. When it is picked a few minutes before boiling however it is like candy as the starches haven't had time to develop. I think I will never again buy sweet corn that wasn't picked within a few minutes of boiling. We did purchase sweet corn at the farmers market a few weeks ago. It was picked the night before we got it. I think the corn was good but I bet it was awesome the night before.

What came from the garden today.

The other day we cut that monster Tennessee Sweet Potato. I was wondering why we were not getting any female flower and only male flowers on this plant. We also were only getting one giant fruit. So we cut the monster and now I am glad to say we have at least 8 fruits growing on the 30 plus foot vine, plus female and male flowers. Who knew that a single female could keep all those male flowers to herself? Well we cleared her dance card didn't we.
Part of today's haul from the garden.
The French Melons are starting to scab over. We are so close to completion.

Three Tennessee Sweet Potatoes growing on this 3' run.

I was squishing cucumber beetles, grass hoppers and Japanese beetles between my fingers about an hour ago and I saw one corn cob ready to eat. We started the water boiling and dropped it in for seven minutes. My bride put a little butter on it and we sat saying mmmmm mmmm good. Boo Boo heard us and wanted what we had so bad. Since it was our first cob I was cheap and gave him only one kernel.

Boo Boo vs Watermelon

This evening we harvested the first watermelon of the season. It is only 5lbs. We have it in the fridge so it is going to be dessert tonight. I was hoping for the melon to get 10-15lbs but my bride found one split open from the rain we had. So now I will have to go through the patch and harvest all the ones with the yellow bottoms before they crack open too.

Boo Boo vs Tennessee Sweet Potato

Today we harvested the first of our Tennessee Sweet Potatoes. It was 18.25lbs, which weighed in more than Boo Boo. He thinks all melons, pumpkins and the like are new toys for him to play with so we let him be in the picture of our first fruit from the vine.

Close Ups

Sweet Corn is almost ready. I was reading the best way to eat Sweet Corn is to boil the water then go and cut the corn off and run as fast as you can to the boiling water. Seven Minutes later you put it into your mouth.
We have several different peppers growing. I think this is maybe a banana pepper that will turn colors shortly.
The tomatoes are coming in now.

The cucumbers are doing well. Last year we didn't make it this far, but I have been going out to the garden several times a day with my dust buster/bug sucker.

We have four good size French Melons, which I hope ripen soon as I am tired of holding my breath.

The Garden Today

I love the fact that I cannot get the garden in one shot anymore. I also love the fact that the back room isn't red white with peeling paint and rotten wood everywhere.
This morning this sunflower almost seemed to be singing.
The Tennessee Sweet Potato got so big I had to cut it out of the stocking. Now we have used stockings like hammocks for it. I have read that this thing will grow to 15lbs but I think we are there already.

I have been pinching the watermelon flowers off since we have more than I know growing on the vine. They are at least 10-12 inches long and that much or more around. I have tried to count them but I come up with a different number every time. How many watermelons do you see in the photograph below? It's why it is so hard to count them.

Two cucumbers picked just this morning. I only killed 3 cuke beetles this morning. Which means we made it through the first infestation of the season. Two more to go . I will be amazed if we make it all season long. The cucumbers we planted are just regular 10 cent seeds. I do not even know the name of the variety. Last year we harvested one cucumber before the plant died because of the beetles. We did order County Fair Cucumber seeds, which will arrive in a week or so. I am going to build a new compost bed for them to grow in and we will be making pickles out of them. They say they will not be bothered by the cuke beetles and all the flowers are female. So we can net the whole plant and not have any bugs get them. You can't save the seeds however so we will have to order the seeds again next year. Every place online was sold out, but one.

I am amazed they grow

Last weekend we purchased a Japanese Beetle trap. They were doing some damage to the grape vine, apple trees and raspberries. I hung it up and instantly they swarmed it.
The trap has something to do with sex scent for them. Here is a close up of a beetle orgy, shortly before they die. Before the trap I had to use the dust buster to vacuum them up every few hours.
Yesterday I piled straw on top of the potatoes. I hope I did it right. I am told the harvest will be much greater. If I didn't do it right let me know, I would appreciate it so much.
Here are a few shots this afternoon in the garden. I am amazed everything is growing. The watermelon are doing great. At least a dozen 6-7 inches like this one and several dozen more smaller.
The corn is beautiful.

Today I spotted the first of a few cucumbers that are growing. Last year we got two before the cuke beetles killed the plant. I am holding my breath about all these plants because they have been hard for us to grow to completion.

One of four french melons alive. Maybe three weeks from harvest. I am told this is the most difficult plant to harvest organically. We have not lost one yet and maybe we might even get more. I would be thrilled to get one off the vine and find out if the two years of trial and effort is worth it.

This is the Tennessee Sweet potato growing in a nylon stocking to support it on the fence. The Squash Vine Borer has visited us and we lost one pumpkin plant.

The Vine Borer will lay it's eggs on the trunk of the plant. When they hatch they go into the hollow vine and starve out the plant making all the fruit turn to mush. Several gardens in the neighborhood have been attacked and all the squash is sitting there mushy and dead. The gardeners must take the plant out and throw it in the garbage as the compost pile will not kill the vine borers inside. To combat them we have used the dust buster on the adults that fly around the garden, put Cinnamon on the bases of the plants and I wipe the bases down everyday to kill and eggs that have been laid. This is one of several cooking pumpkins on a nylon sling we hope to bring to the table for pumpkin pie. Again, I am holding my breath as it is not an easy feat for us to win the battle against the bugs.

Finally the Pink Hydrangea Doublicious in full glory. We only have one bloom but I hope this little plant and the other two take good root this year and we have plenty of blooms next year.

Thyme on my hands

There is never enough time to do everything but this morning my bride found a way to get some more thyme on her hands.
This was out back (above) in October of 2008. I thought it was really nice compared to what we had when we first started cleaning the place up. Below is todays picture.
I see so many more things to do and I suppose there will never be enough time to do them all but it's fun to watch transformations take place. I guess if we had a normal house that was nice to begin with we wouldn't appreciate every battle we win. Not that I would want to do this process again mind you. If we did find 20 or 40 acres with a nice 50 year garden growing and just needed some care because the owners had aged and couldn't maintain it anymore and the house was run down for the same reason, we might be tempted. Buying a house that was used as a rental for 30 years however there is no way we would even consider it. Right now there is a slum lord that is losing 40 properties to the bank. You can buy a house for as low as $8000 if you want to do the adventure we have done the last two years. We went and looked in the windows of one that was selling for $15000 on our walk the other day. Everything I know about building, I wouldn't touch it if you gave it to me. It sold two days ago for much less than $15k I am sure. Across the street are five minted out Victorians that would sell at 150- 225 thousand. I think maybe they got together to buy it and have it torn down. At least that is what I hope.