Finished the Stool

Yesterday, I started a stool so I could sit and do some of the greenhouse chores.  The gluing went well except for the final glue. The last rail did not fit.  It was about 1/4 inch too low.  You can see that from the blue arrow on the upper right hand corner.

With a little pressure in the right places I was able to get it right.  All the joints are glued and screwed.  It is about twenty-one inches tall and the seat is 13 1/2 inches square.  I tried it out and it is too high.  I brought it back to the garage and cut 1 1/2 inches from each leg.  It is pretty handy.

I watered the south west garden.  While I was waiting for the water to run down each row, I hoed up the new weed that germinated because of the heavy rain from a couple of weeks ago.

There was a watermelon vine in a spot where I did not plant it.  It was from a seed from a watermelon there from last year.  It is doing well with out much water.

 This plant started to bloom again.  The above pictures is at the top and the picture below is from large pups.

There were a bunch of plants that were full of weeds.  Mainly purslane and spurge.  I removed all of them.

I picked to large tomatoes.  The one on the left is called Delicious.  The one on the right is Rainbow, it think.

 I tested the stool in house six.  I could sit on the stool and reach the weeds.

I pulled weeds sitting on the stool.  When finished with all that I could reach, I picked the stool and move it to a new location. I am hoping to prevent the weeds from going to seed.  Hence lessor weeds next year.

I did a lot of pruning tomatoes in houses one and six.


Comments and questions are welcome.

The Stirrup Hoe is Lost no More

I did the watering and other morning chores.  While watering I found the stirrup hoe.  It was in house two laying flat next two the 2x6 on the west end of the raised bed.  There is a plant which I water at least once a day and watered the middle of the handle at the same time.

I transplanted another tray of red beets.   I transplanted the first half of the beets from the other side of the raised bed.  I have a hard time kneeling.  I made six holes with the dibbler, then I removed some of the beet plugs from their tray, then put the plugs in the hole.  I moved to the other side and made thirty holes.  I removed all the plugs from the tray.  I could then quickly put a plug in each hole.  When finished I watered them.  I finished before it got too hot in house two.

I did a lot of pruning in house one.  Some of the vines numerous branches.  Many of them were over five feet long.  I picked some nice gladiator tomatoes.  We drove to Fillmore for some groceries.  We stopped at Cluff's for a take home lunch.  I gave them the tomatoes with the intent that they might order some.  They said thanks and we came home.

I pulled some of the older red beets.  I washed them and made a group of five beets.

I wrapped them in  plastic wrap and put them in the garage fridge.  I wonder if the will keep fresh for three days.

I harvested two more beets.  One is wrapped and the other is not wrapped.  They are pretty much the same size.  Both of these are in the fridge.  I will see how they look each day.  When we harvest we may not have to wrap them.  Especially if they go to market on the following day.

The wind is blowing in the right direction for cutting down some of the trees.  That is from the south west.  I don't want any falling across the neighbor's fence.   Two stumps are left in the above photo.

The picture above is of a few other trees.  One tree is leaning to the south.  I was afraid to cut it down. The chain come off the bare.  It took me some time to get it fixed and back to cutting.

This small Utah Juniper has been growing here for five or six years.  I caught in the sunlight.  It has about six inches of new growth.  It is under a plum tree and must have been planted by a bird.

A cucumber blossom with a small fly on the right petal.  There is a tiny ant between the two bottom petals.  It is a little bit of a dark spot at the cleavage.  I wondered how that tiny ant made it way up them stem two the flower.

We harvested more dill.

The grapes continue to dry.  Over half of them are dry.

I have been setting on a lawn chair to do weeding and attaching the trellis string to the bottom of the tomato plants.  The chair is a little to low too get up and too large to fit between the rows.  I began making a stool which will be about twenty inches high.   The photo show the four legs and one rail.  The other rails are made.  They are made with eight inch 2x4's.   The legs are made out of two twenty inch 2x4's ripped in half.   I expect it will take about an hour to finish it in the morning


Comments and questions are welcome.

Lost My Stirrup Hoe

Watered, checked out the garden.  There are quite a few baby snap beans.  Picked two buckets of tomatoes for Anne next door.  The Gladiator tomato is really producing .  I wasted over and our looking for my stirrup hoe.  I still haven't found it.

There are two drip lines that go from left to right.  There were ten cucumber plants that did not get transplanted.  I did that this morning.  Only a trained eye can see the plants.  That is why I marked them.  The top of the plant is under the cross.   The bottom of the plants are barely below the bottom drip line.  When the roots are established a little, I will train them to the trellis.

 I use a tool, a forked stick,  to hang the tomahook and twine.  I have two of the but can't find them.  Above is the tomahook and the tool.  I made a bevel edge on both ends.  I thought it would be perfect.  It just sled through.  I took it back to the garage where my tools are.

 I put a notch in the end, and sanded it with two different sandpaper grits.  It s smooth and won't catch onto the twine.  It works much better than the other two.

Here is where I finished hanging the tomato plants,  The tomatoes are on the right where you see the driplines.  One the far left are the eggplants and cucumber plants.

For lunch I had a hamburger with tomatoes and lettuce.

Our watermelons really have a problem.  The bottom side seems to grow fast than the top side, which makes the melon lopsided.

I filled this 2 1/2 gallon sprayer went after the weeds in three of the greenhouses.  I couldn't find my hoe and thought that this might be a faster way two get the weeds.

 I was walking through the yard and saw this bumble bee.  I took the picture  as it was flying.  The wings are barely visible.

The bee landed on the adjacent zinnia.

Sampson, our cat was resting where I keep my yard tools.  It looks like the tines of the pitch fork has Sampson stuck to the ground.

Frank Williams and his friend, Sheldon, were here early this afternoon.  They each filled up three or four grocery bags with tomatoes.  They were her for less than an hour.  Frank brought a bag of fertilizer.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Broken Nail Gun

Yesterday, I bought a 5/8 inch hose repair kit.

 The part that connects the hose to the hose bib was leaking badly.  I bought one that was 5/8 inch width.  I cut off the leaking when I turned on the water.  I cut it off this morning and the new one would not fit.  I discovered today that it was 3/4 inch part.  I found a cheap one in my supply of pipe fittings.   It is pictured above.  It works better than the old one.  

I hooked up the nail gun to my new compressor and it would not work.  I watched a You Tube video that explained how to fix it.  I took the off the piston cover.  It looked okay.  I wiped it off and put it back together.  Still didn't work.

The grapes continue to dry.

I spent some time pruning tomato plants in house one and six.  I found a couple of small beans growing.

That's all


Comments and questions are welcome.

Mowing Surprise

I did the watering and then went to Fillmore, mainly for gasoline, for some groceries and a stop at Ropers.  We got the gas, the groceries, Ropers, and came home.  By now it was time for lunch.  I had a hot dog and bun.

I bought this two gallon compressor at Ropers.  The lawn mower tires need to be filled.  I took it out of the box and read the directions.  I had to put a few small componats  together.  I got it all ready and turned it on.  It sounded pretty good. I had lunch and checked it about forty-five later and it was still running.  I thought it should take about three minutes.  I took off the hose on the left side.  It then took about four minutes to get compression.  It lasted while I drained the lawnmower oil.

I put one and one half quarts of oil in the lawnmower.  I then put a couple gallon of gas in the tank.   I tried to start it, but a dead battery.  I hooked the battery charge to the battery.  I pushed the quick charge button.  It said wait ninety minutes.  I did and it started up.  I mowed the front lawn, the east lawn and part of the back lawn before the engine begin to act up.  I dumped the grass catcher twice.

 I got some webbing at Ropers to replace the rotted webbing on my back-pack sprayer.  I sprayed  weed between our yard and the street.  Also a lot of weeds in the garden.

We had a hug rain storm a week ago Saturday.  A lot of weeds germinated.  The photo above shows the grass beginning to grow.  I sprayed it.

The watermelons are not doing to well.  Many of them are deformed; like the pollination was not complete.

 The grapes are drying nicely.  I am turning the fan off at night, and back on in the morning.

 I finally picked this tomato.   It really had a nice taste.  Variety 17.

It is 3 5/16 inches long.

I cut it in half to expose the seeds.  I will be harvesting seeds for next year.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Cousin Party.

I did the watering in the garden this morning.   Carol made frog-eye salad.  We finished that up this morning.  I then did the watering in house two and three.

I picked a few grapes and instead of eating them I put them on the lower end of the screen closest to the fan.  They are bright green.

They are easy to see in the above photo.  I pulled them loose form their stems.  I will have to do that to all of them.  I thought that it might be faster to do it before they dry.

There are about a dozen seedless cucumbers that have not been transplanted.  I transplanted four of them in house six on the hoop were I want to put beans.

I haven't had fertilizer for nearly two weeks.  I got five quarts of organic fertilizer into the barrel.  I hope that it will help some.

The earlier picture was taken this morning.  The above picture was taken tonight after we got home.

The rest of the picture are from the cousin party.  One family spoke as if they were our ancestors.  It was very interesting.

Comments and questions are welcome.