Melon and Watermelon

This morning I picked the cucumbers and zucchini.  I also did a lot of weeding.  I watered the geraniums and some of the front lawn.  We then drove to Fillmore for a few groceries.

We took the cucumbers and zucchini to the post office to share the harvest.

The Crenshaw melons are starting to set fruit.  I pruned some of the tomato plants.

The grapes are ready for drying.  I picked a lot of them and then pulled them off the cluster.  I set up the drying rack in the garage greenhouse and some short 2x4's under each end to keep it off the bench.  Hopefully they will make some good raisins.  I did it on the patio last year.  I put the grape cluster on the rack and after they dried some I pulled of the grapes.  I think it is easier to pull off the grapes before drying.

This evening I picked nearly a bucketful to tomatoes.  The deer come in and eat the ripe ones. 

At the west end of a row of potatoes some of the vines are dried. I dug on.  I cut the end of the largest one.  

Please LIKE, SHARE and LEAVE A COMMENT! We want to hear from yo0u!

Rest of Potatoes

I watered the plants in house five.   I started pretty early in the garden.

I planted the last of the potatoes.  Last week we bought five pounds of potatoes.  I cut them into pieces.  I planted the row and used every one of the potatoes.  Towards the end of the row, they were pretty close together.  I then run water down the row.  I did it again a little later.

I brought over the hose and turned on the water.  

The strawberry bed has a few plants that survived the winter.  The morning glory is beginning to grow.  I put the soft cat food cans of the weed and pressed it into the ground.  I am hoping that it will kill the morning glory.

I watered this small pine tree.  I also run water down each row in the south garden.  I hoped to run the tiller down each row to kill the weeds.  I also shoveled out other weeds.

I cut a nice batch of asparagus this evening.  Good eating tomorrow.

Please LIKE, SHARE and LEAVE A COMMENT! We want to hear from you!

Sat., Sun., Mon., & Tuesday

Not much done on the above days.  Only thin Sunday was a couple of pictures.   My laptop doesn't seem to work properly.  Tuesday afternoon I took it to Fillmore to have and spyware removed.   After I got back to Holden, I stopped at the home of Cloyce and Pat Smith to get some of pictures of their. bailed straw garden.  They were working in the garden and yard.

I got a couple of photos Cloyce in their garden.  Pat did not want to be in the picture.

I got another photo as Cloyce was leaving the garden.

A month or so ago I planted the English cucumbers.  The didn't grow much until the days got a little longer.   Now there are three cucumbers on one plant and the top one is blooming and it looks like it will form our first cucumbers.

Monday afternoon, I dug weeds out of the strawberry batch.  I used the shovel for most of them.  I then used a forked digger tool to dig weeds that were close to the strawberry plants.  I did that on hands and knees.  If I can keep pit the weeds and keep the plants watered there should be some good straw berries.  Also, I have slugs and snails to contend with.

Monday evening we planted and watered the potatoes.   I could not stop the till so I used the two rows that were already there.  I made the rows deeper and broke some of the clods.   Then Carol drop tomato cutting in the trench.   I pressed in the soil and watered and fertilized them.  We planted one full row and part of another one.

Carol is putting in the potatoes.  

I covered them up.

I pulled this wild lettuce weed out of the potted red fountain grass.  Earlier, like maybe a month ago I pulled it up but only got a top portion of the root.  The photo show how it grew multiple stems.  Thought it to be interesting.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Dug Potatoes

After breakfast Carol and I began the potato dig.  There were two rows to dig.  The ground was a little muddy and the vines were dried up.  The first potatoes were Yukon  God.  Most of them were a good size.

 This tub had a mix of potatoes.  There were some purple ones,  some russets, and some Pontiacs.

We filled the yellow bucket first and post in the bucket are Yukon Gold.

The above photo is of a potato where one side is spoiled.

Her is one that shows a large spoiled part.  Have no idea what caused it.

The above tree has been outside all summer.  With the threat of frost Sunday night I brought it into the house.  It would stand up by itself so I put the back of a chair against it which held it from falling over.

We drove to Fillmore for a few groceries and a furnace filter.  We got them an then came back home.  While I was in Fillmore I was to have my vision tester and have a medical report signed by Dr. Gross.  I forgot.  I went back and made several trips from the DMV and the doctor's office.  I stopped at the hospital to see Charlene Tuttle.  She was asleep so I didn't disturb her.

I worked most of the afternoon in house one.  There are two rows of tomatoes on the right.  I removed the tomatoes from the first row and a few on the second row.  I hope to finish that tomorrow.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Potatoes are Dug, But Midgets

I picked some tomatoes this morning and took them to the post office.  Over half were gone by evening.

I gathered all of the acorns from the Gambel Oak that is growing near the road.  There are over  acorns.  They are scheduled put in a zip bag with some potting soil and then in the fridge until next spring.  I check on them every month.

Carol started to cut up the onions.  I got the dehydrator ready.  We cut enough onions in to small pieces to fill the dehydrator.

We finished digging the potatoes.  We started Monday and finished today.  Most of them are small, but did find a few bigger ones.

When we finished digging the potatoes, the garden looked like this. The whole thing looked like it was spaded.

It has been a long time since I built something in the shop.  Today I made a stool.  It is about fourteen inches square and fifteen inches high.  I will use it in the garage to reach the things on the top shelves. It took me a couple of hours to make it.  I made a few mistakes.  Will do better on the next one.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Stll Diging Before Their Frozen In

I was walking on the west side past hen house.  I had let the chicken out earlier this morning.  there was a black cat in the chicken run that looked like Socks.  I could not see a tail.  It then made its way out by going under the fence.  The photo does not show the small hole.

West of house five there has been a pretty flower bed growing all summer.  The frost a couple of nights ago froze the annuals.  At the left of the picture are the perennials.

More Saffron flowers are blooming.  I cut the flowers of and took them into the house and remove the stamens.  My little dish has a bunch of them.

We dug some potatoes this morning and some more this afternoon.  Yukon gold is pictured below.  We dug some of these yesterday and dug the rest today.  The potato vines died and dried up several months ago.  The ground is somewhat dry and it had to dig them with a shovel.  I tried a pitchfork and that wasn't any easier.  I have another shovel that is heavy and I don't use it much.  But it worked well with the potatoes.  the blade more pointed and narrow than the other shovels.  I helped a whole bunch.

 We dug all of the Red Lasoda potatoes today.  They are a potato that stores well and does well in hot dry areas.

We also dug the All Blue potato.  they were not very big and tuber is the same color as the soil making it hard to see them.  I didn't get a picture.


I pulled the stake out of the ground using the shovel to dig a little and then hooking to the corner of the stake and pushing the shovel handle down I levered it up.

I coiled up the hose in a figure eight pattern that was used in the melon garden  to prepare for next year.  I can pull the hose back on the garden without and kinks.

On Monday I planted red beets by droping a seed in each cell.  I my plant was to remove the Styrofoam after the beets were going up through the cell.  I moved the Styrofoam today and the covered the seeds with    ?????             and put the Styrofoam back on top of the seeds.  The seeds will not be washed away.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Carving the Pumpkin

We dug over half or our potatoes yesterday.  The ground was too hard.  The sprinkle run on them for a couple of hours.  This afternoon Carol and I began to dig.  I dug and she gathered the into buckets.  It was pretty muddy and there were a lot of volunteer carrots.  We also dug themI left them on the lawn for a couple of hours while I cleaned the carrots.  No picture.  Pictured below are all the potatoes that we dug.  They are grade according to size.  The largest are in the top right bucket.  There is more than enough for us.

We bought a pumpkin a couple of weeks ago.  I was going to carve it a couple of days ago, but forgot, and didn't want to start after the sun had gone down.  I went online to get some ideas.  I then looked at pumpkin carvers on utube. I then made a design to work from.

I got some of my wood carving tools together.  The worst part of carving a pumpkin is removing the seed.  I used spoons and a curved scrape used in concave wood projects.  It was almost perfect removing the slimy seeds and fibers.   On the left is the scraper; next is a little gouge used for carving the whiskers.  The longer one is a small gouge used for carving around all of the openings.  One right is a saw type tool.