Plenty of Help This Afternoon

The first thing after breakfast was to plant the corn and peppers.

We planted two rows of the Peaches and Cream sweet corn.  They are the two rows on the right.  The first row I dug holes with a garden trowel.  The ground was hard and dry. Carol handed the transplant plug to me and I put it in the hole and covered it up except for the little shoots sticking up.

I made a new row for the peppers which are on the left.  I strung a line to make it straight and followed that line with the tiller.  I used a hoe to pull the dry soil on the north side.  With a shovel I make holes all the way to the end about eighteen inches apart.  We then run water down the rows.  I gave each plant a teaspoon of fertilizer.

The rest of the morning I worked in house one pruning the tomato plants.  There were a lot that needed pruning.  I hooked the new growth to trellising twine.  I removed the cut branches.  Later in the day on my hands and knees I hoed out the weeds.

Help came.   On the left are children and grandchildren of Frank Williams who is one of the partners in this project.  Diane, another partner, and her two children are on the right. 

They were here for about two hours.  They picked the tomatoes and scallions.  The washed the scallions and banded them into groups of five.  I think that there are over a hundred groups.

I planted another tray of red beets.  The tray above was planted a week ago.  Some are germinating now. 

There is not any native plant much prettier than this one.  Perityle stansburyi 

I run water down the row on each side of this hoop.  The water will germinate the weeds and I can spray them with weed killer.

I put a netting over a hole in the chicken the space where the I thought that a chicken is getting out.

I took this picture a squash plant.  The earwigs are eating it up.

Comments and questions are welcome.  

All Day in House One

We picked the peas before breakfast while it was cooler.

We are about finished at the point.  Carol picked most of them.  Her tote is much fuller than mine.

There sixteen pounds of peas in this tote.

Carol shelled them while was working in house one.  She blanched them, froze them and put them in a zip bag.

 I went up and down every isle pruning and clipping the new top growth to the twine.

The above picture shows all of the pruning in the isle.  There is still some more to do.

Some of the tomato plants died.  Instead of replanting new ones to that their place, I am training branches from plants next to them to take their place.  It is hard to see in the above photo.  In a couple of weeks it will be more noticeable.  

 Above is the fruit of a Howard German tomato.

I don't know the name of this tomato.  It has a nice flavor.  The fruit are about  1.5 inches long.

We grew this one last year. It is a good one.

I think that I took over 200 cutting and put in water for rooting.  When they root they will go into house six.

I plant red beets in the tray.  They are beginning to germinate.  There are 105 cells in this tray.

At the end of the day I hoed weeds.  The above picture is in house two.

 The above picture is from house six.  The weeds in there are really bad.

Comments and questions are welcome.  

Grandson - Great Grandson

This morning we drove to Linden, Utah, where we had the car serviced.  We were there for over two hours.  We then drove to Lehi, Utah, where we visited with our grandson, Holden, and his wife Megan, and their two boys, Ezra and Grant.  The following photos are of them and my wife Carol.

We had lunch at In and Out.  We bought a few things on the way home.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Thermostat Installed

I picked cucumbers from vines in houses one, two, and six.  Last week I made a device to hold the plastic wrap.  I modified it a little bit and then used a utility knife to cut the wrap.

I wrapped the above cucumber that I picked today.  I could do it quickly and a lot easier  than using the kitchen wrap.

 We drove to Fillmore for some groceries and some Blue Lake pole bean seeds.  I planted two seeds in each cell of 1206 tray.  There are 72 cells in each tray.  I planted a little over a tray and a half.

I made the above hoop out of three sixteen foot hog panel.   These are for the beans after the germinate and get the proper size.

 I put a conduet stake one each side of the panel. It will hold panel in place.  The center is about six feet tall.

I tied each panel to the one next to it with tie wire.  The above picture show the wire and the four inch square looks huge.

Last week I ordered a thermostat for house six.  It was here this morning.  I started to install it and had much difficulty.  I asked for some help and came to the conclusions that I wired it wrong.

I was off and on the ladder trying to get it to work.  I wired it up and nothing worked we changed the wiring and it worked.

The above picture is of the north fan.  As the temperature warms up, one fan comes on and as it get hotter the other fan comes on.  When it cools of in the evenings, both fans go off.

Diana and her two girls were here this afternoon.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Cutting and rooting Tomato Branches

This morning Carol started watering the garden.   I finished by watering the rest of the garden.  The peas need to be watched constantly.

I picked strawberries and dug up weeds, mostly wild lettuce.  I would weed a little and then walk over to check the water going down the row of peas.  The back to weeding, etc.  I should have picked strawberries a couple of days ago.  There were a lot that were over ripe and spoiled by insects.

Later in the morning I pruned the tomato branches and stuck them in small water buckets.  I got about 110 cutting.  Over fifty in one bucket and over thirty in two smaller buckets.  The should have roots in about ten days.

I drained the lawnmower oil.  Next I moved all the garden hose off the lawn.  Went back to the mower and added a quart of oil.  I turned on the starter key and the engine started for just a moment and went off.  I cranked and cranked and it still wouldn't start.  Not getting gas.  Finally checked the gas tank.  No gas.  The was gas in the garage and I put it in the lawnmower tank.  It started right up off I went mowing.

I mowed all the edges of the lawn and when I was west of the garage I mowed up a new garden hose.  Seconds after them mower blades were making a lowed noise as if I had hit a rock.  I turned of the mower and raised the deck.  The nut that held the blade in the right position was loose and the two blades were hitting each other.  The shoot from the deck did not line up with the blower.  I worked and worked trying to fix it.  With a 2x4 I raised up the wheels and slid blocks under each wheel.  I was able to get the shoot and blower fan lined up.  Cleared every thing away and finished mowing the lawn.  The grass catcher is not very tight and I had dust blowing all over me. 

I got this 500 piece puzzle from Jac Stephenson Thursday night.  Carol started putting it together Friday and finished it today.

Notice corn yesterday.  It is looking much better today.

This Perityle stansburyi is in full bloom.  Looking pretty.  

Picked cucumber this evening and wrapped them in a plastic wrap.  They are in the fridge that is in the garage.

I was adjusting the water west of my bedroom.  I heard a cat that seemed to be in pain.  It was a yellow cat that we see from time to time that came from 100 west. It was regurgitating.  It was pretty sick.  It was still there this evening.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Weeds are Everywhere.

One of the first things this morning was to turn off the water.  The sprinklers had been running all night and the lawn was well watered.

Yellow jackets have a nest on the ceiling of the front porch.  I got a ladder and a plastic shopping grocery bag.  The nest was in an awkward spot and I could not reach it from the ladder.  I got my ten foot PVC pipe.  I secured the bag at the bottom end of the pipe and reached up with the other end and knocked the nest loose.  The nest fell through the pipe and into the bag.  I smashed the bag on the driveway and put it into the garbage.  A couple of wasp didn't fall through the pipe.

The above picture is the garden in the south west corner of our yard.  With a shovel I cut down all the weeds except morning glory.  I had hoped to have planted our melons and watermelons out there.  Didn't get it done.

I went to house two.  I took a picture of the sweet corn which I planted last week.  It is beginning to germinate.  

I went to work digging and pulling the weeds in the raised beds.  There were a few beds that I pulled up all the plant material that was finished or that was not edible any more.  There was a wire trellis for some peas that had died back.  I took it outside.

 

I picked eleven large cucumbers.  That was a pretty good picking for one day.  

 The above cucumber is a greenhouse cucumber that Robert planted.  It is about five inches long.

Carol took our cucumbers to the post office.  They were about all gone before she left.

I wanted to plant some red beets for weeks now.  I got it today.  There are  cells in this tray.  I put a seed in each cell.

 The cells in the 105 tray dry out so fast in this hot weather.  How am I going to keep the soil moist.  I have some plastic wrap the I've had for years.  I made stand to hold the wrap

 The wrap was wide enough to cover the 1020 webbed tray.

 I used theme clips to hold the wrap on the tray.  Two on each end and two on the sides.

The above picture is tray with the plastic underneath with the clips showing.

Here the tray is upside down with a weight on the top.  That will prevent cats or some small animal to move the tray.

We went to Fillmore for some wire and more plants.  We planted them in front of the house.

Comments and questions are welcome.