Category: house

Turns out it’s been a minute since I updated on the garden. I got the mowing done and Brooke did some weeding, so figured now was a good time. Overall, it’s been a “good” summer for the garden, but not its most spectacular year. We’ve had produce all year, but despite getting a pretty reasonable amount of rain, strangely, the product coming out of it has been kinda limited.

First of all, zucchini and cucumbers did pretty well! We’ve gotten enough zucchini: there’s only a few things we like to do with zucchini, anyway, so we got what we wanted out of it (gotta get some fried zucchini in, like, once a summer…). The cucumbers we ate on as they appeared, and Brooke tried pickling them, but they shriveled up more than we were expecting in the canning jars. Not really sure what happened there, but maybe they’ll be good??? She sliced and pickled some, as well, and those seem to have turned out better.

What you’re seeing above is mostly sweet potatoes, which we’ll dig up in a month or two. Given how much foliage is on there, surely they turned out alright!

The kale and the green beans are done, as well as the corn. We ended up with almost 20 cans of green beans, but again, it was kind of a “down year” for them. Usually, Brooke will can 20 jars of them and we’ll eat on the rest, and give some away, but we didn’t really have excess this year, for whatever reason. She got some dried beans, as well, and the soup beans are trailing up the corn stalks, so we’ll get that harvest over the next month. Those always do well, and this year’s no different.

The tomatoes are another thing. None of the paste tomatoes really took off, and while we got a few good slicers, a lot of the are more of the heirloom-type tomato that ended up going well. As usual, cherry tomatoes (two varieties this year) always are very productive, but those aren’t as good for making tomato sauce (though Brooke throws them in, anyway….you just don’t get much from a small tomato…).

The pepper plants are doing pretty well, though. The red ones above are kind of a sweet jalapeño, so we’ve tossed those onto nachos all summer. They aren’t very hot: mostly sweet with a slight “kick.” Also pictured above, the heirloom tomatoes and a zucchini (again, like, one a week? “Enough” of them…).

We’ve also got bell peppers like these doing pretty well. Nothing too fancy. Our bell peppers are usually kind of “gamey,” for lack of a better word, so they aren’t as good to eat sliced for lunch, for example, but they’ll still go in mixtures of other things well. Grilled kielbasa, peppers, and potatoes have been a summer favorite of ours this year.

Pretty good harvest of “rattlesnake” beans this year! Last year, we didn’t get all that many, but the pods this time around are pretty substantial. Still not enough to have for a meal, but fun to throw into something this winter.

The bees are doing their thing, too! Calvin’s been really helpful with the hives this summer. The “north hive” has two supers on it, and a week ago when Brooke and Calvin got in there, the top super didn’t have much, but the bottom was full, yet uncapped. Today, it was 93 F, so they were “bearding” quite a bit.

The “south hive” is also doing okay…we think? We got a package to establish the hive months ago, and we think the bees killed their queen. They slowly kept building, but never really left, so we tried to “re-queen” with one we ordered to see if it would work. Brooke got in a month ago and couldn’t find much evidence of the queen we had put in, but when she and Calvin got in last week, they found some younger bees in there (still didn’t see a queen, but they didn’t want to disturb it any more than they already were). There’s hope for that one, but we won’t get any honey out of it this year. The northern hive will do the heavy lifting this time around!

And last, but not least, Brooke’s “cut flower” bed. We put some bricks to help block it off from the rest of the yard and it’s really taken off this year! The zinnias have been going all summer long, and in the past few weeks, the mix of sunflower varieties has been fun to watch grow. They’re rather annoying to mow/trim around, frankly, since they’re tall enough that they bend into the rest of the yard, but that’s a minor complaint. It’s been nice having fresh flowers around the house all the time!

No promises on when the next post will be about the garden, but it’s clearly waning into its twilight. Probably one more as a wrap-up, of sorts, but now that school has started, the garden will become an afterthought. Until next year!

As the date above implies, I took these pictures awhile back, but given that I was still working on vacation posts, I waited to put this one together. Ah well.

Overall, the garden’s looking pretty good! These pictures are taken from after we did some weeding of the middle of each plot and the edging, as well as mowing the lawn, so things were looking good at the time. Since I took these, the plants have just gotten larger!

The kale is starting to slow down, but Brooke dehydrated and powdered about a pint of it this past week. We’re still working on it, and Calvin’s going out and grabbing leaves occasionally for Barnaby. There’s quite a bit out there, yet, and as of now, it hasn’t “gone to seed,” so we probably have a few more weeks left.

It helps that we had 5″ of rain last week. I only had to water the garden a bit in mid-May, but since then, we’ve had some consistent rain that has helped maintain the leafy stuff longer than we’d normally get.

Brooke’s also been picking some green beans this past week, though we haven’t gotten a ton of them yet. If anything, it’s been rather disappointing, only a few handfuls thus far. She noted that one of the rows she planted appears to not actually be green beans, but some other kind of flat-pod variety? She’s probably going to plant some more next to the sweet potato plants, in another plot, to extend the growing season and get us some more.

The pepper and tomato plants are bigger now, though we don’t have a ton going on there as of the past few days. There are a few good-sized green “slicer” varieties, but nothing that’s been ready to pick. The cherry tomatoes look pretty close to being ready to pick, so within the next week or so, we’ll probably start working on them.

A few days ago, I had still only seen some flowers on these. Again, we probably planted too many of these in close succession, but at the time, we figured a few of them would probably die off and we wouldn’t need to worry about it. Apparently we were wrong?

This is the plot that looks the most different from the pictures taken on June 24 and what they look like today. Those zucchini plants are gigantic and flowering, so we’ll have some zucchini as soon as this week. The sweet potatoes are also quite a bit bigger than that. Just beyond them, there’s dry grass clippings trying (poorly….) to limit growth of weeds, and that’s where Brooke’s probably going to plant some more green beans.

The potatoes look pretty good! I’m still unclear on whether the carrots are doing much in these bags, but the leaves on the potatoes portend good things to come. Brooke was thinking that they’re probably close to done, already, so we may be digging those up in the next week or so, as well!

Aaaaaaaaaaand, the bees… The middle hive died, likely with the bees within not accepting the queen they were given. The northern hive looked good enough last time Brooke got in there that she added a super, and last time she looked, it seemed as though the super was getting pretty full, so we think <fingers crossed> we’re actually going to get some honey from it this summer!

The southern hive, on the other hand, still had bees, but when Brooke looked, she couldn’t find much evidence of brood. She ordered a queen (and a few “attendants”) for around $50 that were shipped via USPS to us, and she added the queen to that hive. If the existing bees “accept” her, then hopefully that hive will turn around, though given the state of it, the likelihood we’ll get much honey from that hive is minimal.

Still, if this works, it’ll give us more confidence to try similar things in the future, adding new queens to existing hives in an effort to revitalize them.

The “herb garden” is doing its thing, especially with bee balm that’s attracting mostly bumble bees. The chives continue to come back (year after year) and the basil that Brooke planted is doing its thing.

You can see a stalk of lettuce growing upwards in the background. It’s really the only plant we’ve had successfully take off this year, so that’s the one we’ve been relying on for ham and turkey sandwiches. Still, always nice to go outside and pick something fresh before adding it to lunch!

And last, but not least, Brooke’s “fresh cut” flower bed. We’re still fighting with the weeds growing in this raised bed, but it’s been a bit more manageable with the bricks we added to separate it from the rest of the yard. The zinnias are lovely and Brooke’s been getting bouquets each week. She also planted some sunflowers in the beds – they aren’t ready yet, but they’re getting taller every day.

Pretty typical of our “mid-summer” garden status, with the exception of the green beans. The weeding is in full swing because of all the rain we’ve had, but that’s a good problem to have!

I wanted to get a Garden Update in before heading out on vacation in a few days, as the yard looks good and the garden is mostly void of weeds (though there absolutely are some…). It’s in pretty good shape so far, and hopefully we keep getting rain while we’re gone!

Speaking of which, in the past few weeks, we’ve had at least 15″ of rain, I’d hazard to guess? We had about 8″ a few weeks ago, but each week since, we’ve had a steady 1-2″ fall here and there, usually in at least 0.5″ increments. This is a far cry from last year, where we barely had any rain to speak of. I did water the garden late last week, but even while we were gone over this past weekend, we had 1.5″ fall randomly. Off to a good start!

Brooke planted kale and spinach over a month ago, and obviously the kale is doing well. The spinach has come in and is doing fine, but only a few of the seeds actually sprouted, yielding a somewhat random looking row. Still, we should have plenty by the time we return from our vacation.

The bean plants are mostly up, as well. A mix of green beans and black beans, we usually end up with a pretty solid number of pods, so we expect those plants to be quite a bit larger by the time we return.

Our family friend, Rich, yet again came through and supplied us with tomato plants, most of which came up looking great. One or two unfortunately didn’t make it, so Brooke “borrowed” a few plants from a co-worker who didn’t need them and supplemented our supply. We still have a few jugs covering the plants, but most of them have been removed because they’re plenty big.

The pepper plants all look great, too! We expect a few of those to die off, as we tend to have “hit or miss” luck with bell peppers. They’re pretty tightly packed in there right now, so if they all survive, I’m curious as to how they’ll handle the proximity to one another. Usually, we separate them out quite a bit. Not this time! Living dangerously.

Aunt Marie also came through with a ton of sweet potato plants, pictured in the upper right portion. The mounds in the foreground are a mix of zucchini and cucumbers. The zucchini seem like they always produce, but the cucumbers are more “hit and miss,” so again, curious to see how that will go.

This plot also features corn and soup beans around the edges, but those were planted relatively recently and aren’t up yet. We haven’t planted sweet corn since……Iowa? Maybe? It’s been a long time! The goal is to train the soup beans to coil around the cornstalks, but we’ll see if we even get that far.

Brooke planted carrots and potatoes in the above ground bags, but only the potatoes are doing anything. There are a few, solitary, carrots growing in there, but frankly, those are cheap enough that I’m not going to be all that broken hearted if we don’t get anything. We haven’t tried growing legit potatoes in a long time, either, so we’re intrigued to see how that turns out!

The strawberry yield this year has been…..fine? As in, we’ve gotten bowls like that shown below, but they came in quite a bit earlier than usual (on account of spring starting in, like, late-February this year?), and many of them were smaller, and somewhat “mushier” than we’ve had in the past. Whether that’s the weather or the age of the plants, who can say.

Still, we definitely got some solid bowl-fuls of them like this one. If I were going to guess, I’d say we got at least 4 or 5 of these amounts during their main productive period? Brooke made some strawberry ice cream with one batch of them that turned out really well! Apparently getting strawberries in the right consistency for ice cream isn’t a trivial matter, but you’ll have to ask Brooke about how she did it. I just ate it, and it was good. 🙂

Lastly, the cherries. Ahhhhhh, the cherry tree. The tree itself looks good! (…unlike the almond, peach, and pear trees….all of which are gone now…) We had a lot of flowers on there earlier, but there was a pretty good frost around that same time, so we think a lot of the cherries were taken out back then, leaving us only a handful to make it to now.

Luckily, the remaining cherries were ready to pick just before heading out for vacation. Here’s our sad little bucket of them, but bear in mind that we actually had twice this amount on the tree: it’s just that Brooke and Calvin ate the other half as they were picking them!

It’s Brooke’s birthday, though, so it’s cool. She earned it. 🙂

We’ve been pretty lucky with the weather these past few weeks, with warm, dry day…though there hasn’t really been much rain, leading to concerns of brush fires getting out of control. Luckily, we got some rain last week and it wasn’t all that windy yesterday, so we ventured outside to get some yard work done in preparation for the 2024 garden.

We picked up a Milwaukee Brush Cutter attachment for the weed trimmer so that I can hopefully keep the plants behind the swing set under control, though some of the trees sprouting were more than 1″ in diameter, meaning we needed to cut those manually. There were a few trees back there whose stumps were never dug up, so every few years, we need to go through and clear them out again to make room for the flowers. Occasionally, Brooke has burned that patch, too, but we should have done that last Fall, or earlier than now so it wasn’t so green. Still, it looks a lot better back there and Calvin got in on the fun.

Speaking of which, awhile back we picked up a hand-held reciprocating saw to complement our other varieties. This one is a bit easier to handle, so Calvin was able to use it. He did a pretty good job, though I don’t think he’s quite big enough for the full-size version, let alone a chainsaw…

After the burning was done, I borrowed our neighbor’s tiller to turn over the garden plots. This is probably the easiest experience with tilling that I’ve had, and I’m not sure why. There weren’t many grasses in there, so the tiller didn’t get clogged up, and the ground was relatively soft after having some rain, so maybe that was it? Brooke noted that the burning didn’t take all that long, either, when sometimes she’s out there all day trying to coax it along. Maybe we had just enough wind to fan the flames, but I think she had all three plots burned within 2 hours of starting. That soil is still looking great!

Brooke also moved some strawberries around. She planted a few new starts, but mostly spent time moving them from outside our brick boundary to back inside, as they tend to like to spread anywhere they can. We also picked up some manure bags to spread around. We’ll probably do that with the tomatoes, too, but it’s a bit early to be putting them in…

Last, but not least, we added a new member to the garden plot party. We bought these bricks rather than making them, mostly because this section is up next to the garage, so it doesn’t have to match what’s going on in the garden completely. Here, Brooke planted some flowers mostly so she could cut them and bring them inside. Some of them worked last year, but we never added the brick border, so it ended up doing mostly nothing. This time, it should be a bit easier for me to know where the flowers are so I don’t mow over anything, and it’ll look a bit nicer, too.

Yesterday’s high was around 67 F and today barely hit 45 F, with a gnarly wind chill, too. We’re still swinging wildly between “warm and beautiful” and “cold and yucky,” though this next week looks to have plenty of sunshine, albeit with cooler temperatures. It was good to have a nice weather day fall on a Saturday where we could take advantage of it and enjoy it! Looking forward to more beautiful days to come!

It’s been a bit since I last updated this. The garden has done very well for us this year! The fruit trees had a bit of a “down year,” aside from the cherry tree (the jury is still out on the apple trees). The regular garden stuff, though, has done remarkably well.

The tomatoes started turning red in earnest at the end of July. We didn’t end up with any paste tomatoes, but we have a variety of “slicer” varieties, many that worked really well for BLTs. The cherry tomatoes produced well, too, but since Meg wasn’t really here for most of July, I wasn’t going out to pick them as often as I normally would.

We picked a few at the start, but in the last few weeks, we’ve ended up with at least three 5-gallon buckets full of them. We got our fill of BLT slicers, and the rest have been processed to be frozen for sauce over the next few months.

We’ve probably got at least 7 bags like this filled so far? We have another bucket outside full of tomatoes yet to be processed, so at this rate, we are going to run out of freezer space. I don’t think we’ve had a tomato haul like this for a few Summers, so this has been a welcome change!

The zucchini plant died a few weeks ago, but we certainly had our fill of those, too. At least 10-15 big ones, many of which we ended up giving away because, frankly, no one likes zucchini that much…

The pepper plants are doing well, but we’re only just starting to have them ready for us. They have been drooping quite a bit when we haven’t had much rain, but thankfully, while we were on vacation last week, we ended up with 3-4 inches, so that’s helped keep them going.

The anaheim peppers are doing really well! We’ve got a few plants, but many of the individual peppers are 8-10 inches long, so we ended up with quite a few that we’ll be able to process.

Honestly, no idea what these are. A lighter-colored variety that we think is going to be a hot variety? Brooke’s hoping to dehydrate chop these up to make chili powder, so we’ll have to see just how hot they are. She picked a hot bell pepper variety (I don’t think it was this one?) and it had me sweating, but that doesn’t take too much…

Still, a good year for peppers, too! Last year was a pretty good year, so I suppose we’re just on track for another solid one.

Brooke’s been picking soup beans already, though I feel like she’s usually doing that well into November. Since we got a decent amount of rain in the past few weeks, she’s had to slow down to let them dry out a bit. It’s too soon to know how this haul is, but we’re pretty consistent about soup beans, so it’ll probably be plenty…

The kale and barley are….still doing their thing. We haven’t picked kale in over a month, but it still looks pretty good? At this rate, hopefully it’ll last into the winter so we can keep on picking it. The barley is still there….and we probably won’t get much out of it…but hey, it’s growing…I guess….

Last, but not least, Brooke picked some potatoes! They’re…pretty tiny. The leafy parts died off, so Brooke dumped them out to see what we had and…they’re probably edible? She’s letting the other bag keep developing a bit in case they’re still growing. The sweet potato plants look bigger, so we’ll find out in a few weeks whether they fared better.

Probably only one or two more posts for 2023’s garden! I think it has done well for us, but school starts Tuesday, so our processing and weeding is going to slow down even further than it already has.

The garden’s in full-swing! First, I should note that we’re in relatively severe drought conditions here in Missouri, though we got a little rain over the past few days. There are storm chances still this week, but a lot of it is “pop up” kinds of systems, rather than good, sustained, rains. Thus, I’ve been watering the garden every few days. I mowed today, but honestly, I can only see where I’ve mowed near the garden, as that’s the only grass actually growing…

First, we’ve got some zucchini! This is the biggest one, though there are others coming on. We’ll give this one a few days, but we’re well on our way to getting some of these to dehydrate and chop up for smoothies later this year. Maybe we’ll have one fried zucchini (as that’s usually enough), but the kids aren’t huge fans and we’d probably just end up wasting it.

The tomatoes are doing well! We’ve got one (or two?) cherry tomato plant, so those are just now starting to turn, but a lot of the big “slicer” plants are doing well. Brooke’s tied them up a few times so far, so with watering help, they’re still growing pretty well.

Given how much sun we’ve been getting, I wouldn’t be surprised if these start turning within a few weeks! There are a lot of big-ish ones like this on the various plants, but this was probably the highest concentration of them.

And some cute cherry tomatoes! Meg’s going to be gone for a lot of July, so she isn’t going to get to eat a lot of these, I’m afraid, but hey, it’ll save us a few trips to Aldi for them…

The pepper plants…well….look like our typical pepper plants. Last year’s crop did shockingly well, so perhaps I’m a bit spoiled, but I was hoping for a bit better out of them. It’s still a little early, I guess, but the plants are still relatively small and I haven’t seen many (any?) flowers on them. Perhaps it’s because they’re mostly under the tree so they get more shade, or maybe it’s the lack of rain…but either way, they’re still pretty tiny.

The beans are doing alright, though! Brooke had to re-plant a few seeds to fill in some gaps. She picked an ice cream bucket of them today, so I think we’re bouncing back after a somewhat “down year” in 2022!

The leafy greens, we’ve mostly let go, at this point. I think Brooke’s going to pick some and dehydrate them for smoothies this Fall, so it won’t all go to waste. Strangely, they haven’t really gone to seed all that much, so I think they’re still mostly growing? Probably about time to dig up those carrots and see if anything’s actually down there, too….

And last, but not least, the potato bags. The sweet potatoes are looking pretty good (the middle, green one). The regular potatoes, though, those leaves just don’t look all that good to me, so I’m not sure how those are going. The onions look alright, too, so hopefully all is not lost from this little experiment.

The peaches are starting to turn, but I didn’t take a picture because they’re sooooo little due to lack of rain. We also haven’t seen japanese beetles this year, either, but maybe that’s because of the lack of rain and lack of peaches to feed on. Blessing in disguise, perhaps? Hopefully we end up getting something!

On second thought, I never posted pictures of cherries, so here goes!

We were actually in town during the main cherry haul, so we actually got a pretty decent amount! Plenty for Calvin to go out and eat a handful, and also enough for a cherry pie, so that worked out well! Our strawberries also did pretty well, though they’re getting smaller with each year, so it’s probably about time to re-plant some new ones!

The garden has really only just started, but since I took the time to weed the paver blocks around each plot yesterday, I figured now was a good time to take a few pictures!

We’ve had plenty of sunshine for the past few weeks, but rain has been very, very limited. We had a bit over 1.5″ a few weeks ago, spread over a few days, but other than that, I’ve had to supplement with the sprinkler a few times already in order to move things along.

The tomatoes are looking good, at least! A family friend started a lot of seeds over the winter and more of them “took” than he was planning for, so we inherited 14 plants, most of which are doing pretty well. Brooke also put zucchini in the mounds on front-left, but while a few of those plants are up, others were decimated by squirrels, so she may end up re-planting a few. The pepper plants are in the back-left, and only one of those is doing anything. Brooke picked up a few more plants yesterday that she’ll plug in soon.

The first plot that was planted included a few varieties of kale, some spinach, and some carrots, the latter of which was also spread around by squirrels (ug…). The kale and spinach are all doing well, though, and Brooke already processed and dehydrated some of it. We should get another month out of them, likely, before it gets too hot.

The bean plans are moving right along, but feel a bit slower to get going than I was expecting, especially the “soup beans” (furthest back). Our green bean haul was smaller than usual last year, so hopefully we recover a bit this time around. It’s a bit early to say, though, how this year is going to go – it’s only May!

The new thing Brooke is trying this year is these “potato bags.” I think she saw this idea on social media, or a targeted ad, or something….but the thought is that potatoes are annoying to have to dig up, so why not plant them in something that can be dumped out, instead? She’s got regular potatoes in the right hand bags, then onions in the left hand ones. The middle (green) one is where the sweet potatoes are going to go once she gets them planted.

When Brooke planted these, she put some straw in, as well as some compost, and some topsoil. It took a bit to get the mix the way she wanted it, but given how the plants are growing, it looks like she got it right!

A month ago, I wasn’t sure how the strawberries were going to do this year. We’ve had the plants for a few years now, and we haven’t really done anything to reinvigorate the plot, aside from directing “runners” back into the plot as best as we can. Well….

….I guess it’s going fine? We’ve probably picked two ice cream buckets-worth (you know, a universal, agreed-upon unit of produce measurement) of berries over the past few weeks. In years’ past, we haven’t always been here in early June, due to vacation/travel, but this time, we should be able to get a good sense of how much we’re actually getting. The berries are great, of course, and they went very well on angel food cake yesterday!

The next big thing will be cherries, though! Taking a page off the strawberries, again, we aren’t always here in early June, so we don’t always get the full harvest of cherries before the birds get them (though we don’t have as much of a problem with birds as my parents did years ago on our cherry tree). Again, like the strawberries, I don’t think I’m seeing as many cherries on there as I have in years past, but maybe I’ll be surprised!

Onward into June! We’re just getting started!

This season has been sooooooo dry, so in some ways we’ve been ahead in getting some gardening and landscaping done, but in other ways, we’re a bit behind. I finally tilled up a few garden plots today because Brooke was only able to burn one of the other plots a few weeks ago, maybe a month later than she normally would. It’s been so windy that it’s been difficult to pick a good day to clear brush from the Fall and Winter.

Part of what slowed us down was the rye Brooke planted in the western garden plot. She planted it as a cover crop last Fall and, by the time I got back from Albuquerque, it was at least 8 in. tall, so on Good Friday, I went and turned it over manually. The tiller wasn’t going to go through all the rye, so we had two options: either mow over it, then turn it over; or turn it over with the grass and wait for it to die off.

Well, it took 3 weeks for it to dry up to the point where I thought the tiller might work, and thankfully, it worked out to “fluff up” the soil relatively well.

Brooke seems to think she’ll be able to plant beans there sometime this week or next weekend, so as long as it doesn’t harden up, it should be good to go. The bigger plot is going to house tomatoes and peppers, so even though the tiller didn’t seem to turn it as well, planting tomatoes will require a shovel anyway, so it’s probably fine.

We’ll have to see how the western plot ends up toward the end of Summer. Not sure the rye cover crop was “worth it,” but perhaps I’ll be surprised.

In the northern plot, Brooke planted spinach, kale (seen in a tiny row above), and carrots. The kale is up, but only after Brooke started watering it. Cats have been out there digging in the dirt, so some of her seeds surely got dispersed to where they shouldn’t be. She planted these seeds about 3 weeks ago, so she wasn’t entirely sure they were going to take at all, but apparently it was the abject lack of rain, because watering the plot twice was enough to get them to finally sprout. We’ll have to keep watering them this week, as the forecast still only shows the occasional 40% chance of precipitation once or twice this coming week.

Brooke put some lettuce in the planter near our garden patio. It stays shaded nearly all Summer, so as long as we keep it watered, we should be able to keep fresh lettuce alive for a good portion of the Summer.

Last, but not least, we still have some buds in our strawberry patch. It doesn’t look as good as I’d like, but perhaps it still has some growing to do? Brooke tried “fluffing” it up a few weeks ago, pulling some of the straw off, but it still seems like we need to add some plants in there. We’ve had a few frosts this past week, and it appears that the flowers have survived well enough. We had plenty of buds on the pear, apple, and peach trees, so I think they largely avoided frost damage. At least this year, we’ll be here in early June, so we may get to see the strawberries and cherries come to fruition (see what I did there?).

Normally, this time of year, the garden would be running a bit low on productivity, but this year, it sure seems like we’ve got a long(ish) way to go! It sure looks good, too, despite the notable lack of rain this Summer. I haven’t had to water for a few weeks, and the temperatures have been a bit milder recently.

The sweet potatoes are growing well (not really pictured, but just off to the right of this image), but the main story is the bottle gourds…which are apparently a thing?? Brooke picked up these seeds mostly on a whim and they’ve taken over the garden, and there are quite a few gourds growing (three in the image above – we’ve got almost 10, maybe?). I’m still not sure what, exactly, we’re going to do with them. I suppose we could carve one up like a pumpkin for Halloween?

In this shot, we’re still seeing a lot of bottle gourd plant matter (all those big leaves), but we’ve also got some zinnias! It sure took them a long time to get going this year, but Brooke’s had enough to pick here and there to bring into the house. I think she’s still planning on starting a new flower plot next year, so maybe the zinnias will move out there, but for now, randomly interspersed among the gourd plants, we’re still getting something out of them.

The sorghum are still doing their thing, of course. The tassels are mostly brown at the top, but it looks like they have grown secondary stalks, which is something we didn’t expect. The secondary ones are still green, so it may take a bit before we can do anything about them. When Brooke’s ready, we’ll use her new electric wood chipper to process them and see if we can get more than a teaspoon of molasses.

The beans are still coming along, too (pictured a few shots below). Brooke’s working on soup beans, and that will probably continue for the rest of the month. She ended up picking some green beans yesterday, despite the fact that we’d normally be done with them a month ago. She’s canned 9 pints of green beans so far, and she likely got enough for another 3 or 4 more. It wasn’t looking good earlier in the Summer, and we definitely don’t have as many beans as we normally would, but at least we’re recovering a bit compared to previous years!

The tomatoes needed some TLC, so last week, we removed as much of the greenery as we could while still leaving the green tomatoes on. We finally got a few “slicers” to ripen, but we still don’t have as good a haul of those as we have in the past few years. On the other hand, we’ve got a ton of romas this year, so we should be in good shape in the tomato sauce department.

The bell peppers, though…they’re a whole other thing. We haven’t had this good a pepper year since we lived in Iowa, and these last few Summers, I’ve questioned whether it’s even worth planting them because we get only a few peppers, sometimes one or two per plant. Well this year, we’ve got buckets full of them, to the point where the plants are so overloaded that they’re falling over (as seen above).

Those are some nice looking peppers, right?? And we’ve got multiple fridge crispers with more in them. And we’ve been giving peppers away because we’ve got so many. It’s. Nuts.

We’ve still got quite a few romas on the vine, as well as cherry tomatoes, but we’re about out of “big beef”-style ‘maters, sadly. Those are the ones I’d rather have, of course, but so long as we’re getting a lot of the others (and we are), it isn’t a total loss.

The peach haul this year was very disappointing, but the apple trees are actually doing pretty well! We won’t have enough to get a ton of cider out of them from our cider press, but they’ll definitely supplement whatever other apples we get from Peter’s. We’ve also picked some pears, but we aren’t sure they’re quite ready yet. Some are rotting on the tree, while the ones we preemptively pick don’t seem to be ripe. We’ll just keep trying, I suppose!

Last, but not least, the tobacco plant! It’s gigantic, and the flowers at the top are kinda pretty! The leaves started to turn yellow toward the bottom, suggesting that they were ready to be picked.

The leaves have been at a good size for weeks now, but only recently did we think it was time to try and dry a few. Not that we know what we’re doing, but you can see how the edges of the leaves are lightening up relative to the rest of the green centers.

And so, we’ve got some hanging up in the garage attic! It will be plenty warm up there, and hopefully humid enough to dry the leaves without overdrying (which is a concern). The whole point of the leaves are for them to produce smoke when lit, which means they need to be at least somewhat moist. Whether this particular setup actually ends up being the right one or not remains to be seen.

There’s probably a month left before we shut it all down for 2022! We’ve gotten plenty of produce this year, despite the fact that the proportions of fruits and veggies were different than we usually get. It keeps things interesting from year to year, I suppose!