Red and yellow

A few shots around the house today.

House painting progress

There is still much to do on the house but this is where it looks today and what it looked like a year ago.

Our Table

May this always be a house with a table so bountiful.

Petit Gris De Rennes

This is a European Melon. It is growing along with our watermelons. We fought the beetles bravely for many weeks, squishing them between our fingers, thinking we would actually be able to grow this heirloom melon. All I ever saw was flowers and beetles eating them. Suddenly tonight while watering the melon bed, I saw what looked like two soft ball size melons growing in our melon patch. Upon closer inspection I was glad to run into the house and get my bride. I proudly told her, like an Indian Chief, "Me big melon grower." I am told that growing a melon to completion is an accomplishment that any gardener ought to be proud of. I will be if they grow to completion. The variety of melon we are growing is of the best French Variety and a favorite of a melon expert and author Bruno Defray. It is rare in the USA.

Black Watermelon

One of the things I do not understand about our watermelon is we have what appears to be two different kind growing from the same vine. We have one that looks like Harvey and then these black ones that are round. Does anyone know what is up with that?

Harvey for Breakfast

Harvey finally became full grown this morning and we invited him for breakfast. Along with eggs, home made salsa from the garden and home made biscuits. I must say I haven't tasted watermelon like this ever from a store.

I flipped the compost yesterday and then put it all back in to cook some more.
Our red peppers are starting to come in.

Last October and today

I love the before and after shots. Perhaps it is the way God feels about a life that has been submitted to Him. The bottom picture is the garden last October, which was an improvement from where we first found it. This morning while looking through the old pictures I found it and had to take a picture to compare the difference. There is so much more to do but we are making progress.

Just a whole bunch of things!

Well first of all, we spent most of the weekend painting the house, which there is plenty left to do. We did get the first coat of paint of the front door and installed a dark brown door handle that matches the brown trim and deck. A door handle can make all the difference in the world. The front door always seemed kind of cheap, but it was the handle that was cheap. Now when the door closes it has that nice solid feeling.
Harvey the Watermelon continues to grow about an inch a day. This picture is two days old, so he looks totally different than this picture here.
Harvey also has several siblings, here is one. You know it's always the first child that gets all the press.
A couple of shots of the garden on August 2nd. (how did it get to be August?)
The melon covers pulled back to allow the bees to do their thing.

Here is the enemy of our garden Sleeping with another enemy of our garden.

Here is the enemy of our garden wishing they were paying more attention to that tall skinny guy with the camera.

We have dozens of peppers, all types and sizes. The bell peppers you see here are from seeds my wife saved last year. A lot of things in the garden come from those seeds she saved last year. The bulk of our garden next year will be from seeds she saved this year. My wife is not only a seed eater but a seed saver too! She's kind of "seedy" but I like "seedy."

This is one of the favorite parts of the garden for me. The compost pile. I can put everything in here and there are millions of hungry critters just waiting to turn it into rich soil for us. Last Spring I put all the old sensitive tax papers, banking statements and such in this box. It works better than a shredder. Two months later we were feeding it to our garden. I think Harvey the watermelon could do our taxes after all that financial information went into the melon patch.

Our table has never been without cut flowers. My wife makes everything so beautiful.

Last but not least, in the kitchen this morning these three cabaleros were thinking of making salsa out of this lone tomato. I didn't want to get involved. I hope the tomato came out of it ok.

All my toys in the yard

I was trying to get as many ladders as I could in the yard as I painted the house today.

Harvey

Harvey the watermelon has grown to 5".

The flowers she plants

We have not really made much of a landscape plan for this place, other than pull out weeds and remove the variety of trash from the property. As we do that we are left with empty ground that we will work on later. My wife however runs around and puts flower seeds in this type of ground which turns into the following flowers.

There is a big old bumble bee on this sun flower if you click on it you can see. Wouldn't it be funny if when you click on it there is this guy that jumps up on your screen and screams, "AHHHHHH!" Go ahead click on it. lol

Look at the melons grow

This is Harvey the watermelon. If you just stand there looking at your garden long enough, food appears. This morning I was doing this and there was this 3" melon growing. It is the first one as far as I can find. So his name is Harvey the watermelon. Now if I can just learn to speak melon I could tell Harvey to encourage all his friends to grow and I will put their baby pictures on the blog too! I am praying that Harvey becomes a nice 40lb watermelon in September. Just imagine an organically grown, pesticide free, sweet melon melting in your mouth. This must be close to the food angels eat.

A New Paint Job

For whatever reason I woke up on Thursday and thought, "I am going to sand down the deck and repaint it." Then Friday morning I took my bride to The Home Depot & she picked out the paint for the entire house. Which is now our current project. It is good because my mind tells me that Summer hasn't even started and it should be about March 15th of 2009 but the days have actually gone a little faster than I expected in this life. I keep thinking I have lots of time left this Summer to paint the house. This is by far the fastest & greatest Summer of my life. Sanding and painting a deck isn't a big deal, or even remodeling a house isn't that new to me. What is new is seeing everything through Kristines eyes and her happiness as these things take place.
I look foward to this week and watching the house change colors. Well that is if it doesn't rain all week. That tends to mess up painting plans.

Melon Cage

We have these little creatures called Cucumber beetles down here that will not only eat your squash, cucumber, pumpkin & watermelon vines but once they bite the vine they inject a bacteria that is unstoppable and will kill the plant. So while we did get a lot of squash and such the plants have died and we replanted melons where the sweet corn was growing. To protect the melons we have made this melon patch cover that I retract a few hours a day for the bees to pollinate the melons. I put a ton of good compost in this bed after the corn so we are hoping we will have too many melons to eat and can give some away.

Straw in the garden

I am always in search of grass for the compost. I would also like to put down wet newspapers in between the garden rows and pile grass upon it. The problem is, there just isn't enough grass for both projects. Then yesterday I found a local nursey selling straw without chemicals on it. So I did two rows today and made a place for the melons to grow out on to. The cucumber beetles are hard on them so nets have been the only solution I have found. Working outside on a day like today last year would have been out of the question, but now 96 degrees isn't so bad.

Garden Produce

The tomatoes are coming in pretty fast now. We have heirloom varieties that are wonderful. I pick some but eat a good part right out there in the garden. I love them when they are warmed by the sun.