Down on the Farm.... Part 4 (Mother Nature is tempermental!)

This summer has been like no other I remember having.... WET!
Most summers we hear the newscasters telling us
that we are in the midst of a drought.
No so this year!

This picture shows a common scene
from my window this summer.
And it doesn't really capture the ferocity
of the storms.
Driving winds, pounding... drenching rain.
It all adds up to my poor garden
taking a beating!

This is my corn field. Notice the stalks...
How they are not standing up straight?
That's what happened at the end of July.
Our first storm... what must have been
a tropical storm... came through with a vengeance!

The wind blew over our corn stalks and tomato cages.
Fortunately, the stalks did not break.
But the ground was soft due to all the rain
so it was an easy feat to blow the stalks over
because the roots just lifted out of the soft ground.

This is my neighbor's corn field right behind their shed.
For some reason their corn field fared worse than mine.
All of their stalks were blown over almost to the ground!

But as the days went by with no rain
and the sun dried out he soil...
these corn stalks stood back up
and continued to grow nice and tall.
My neighbor's corn is standing tall again too.
I guess corn stalks are pretty resilient.
Now I have ears growing on the stalks!
Look at that beautiful silk growing!

This mess is my potato field.
The pounding rain must have made the tall
stems too heavy so they fell over.
Unlike the corn stalks, these stems stayed
laying on the ground.
Despite the fact that my tomato plants
have blown over due to the winds...

I do have plenty of fruit on each plant.
But all this rain is ruining my crop!
Blossom End Rot is running rampant
through my tomatoes!

Blossom End Rot is caused by not enough calcium
reaching the fruit, which is essential for the fruit to mature.
Whether there is not enough calcium in the soil,
or the plant is just unable
to bring the calcium up through the stems
enough for it to reach the fruit, the end result
is that you get brown, leathery spots on the bottom
of your tomatoes


Brown spots begin to appear on the blossom end
of the fruit (opposite from the stem).
The brown spot grows until it can literally
take over the bottom half of the fruit!


From above it looks like the fruit is growing fine
but turn it over and your fruit is rotting away!
It's very heartbreaking to see the fruits
of your labor being destroyed like this.
Frustrating too!



But what I don't understand is why it's
only affecting my tomato plants and
not my zucchini. Blossom End Rot affects
all types of squash, peppers and watermelon too,
but it hasn't affected any of my squash... so far.

Above is a baby pumpkin! Isn't he cute?
Pumpkins are a type of squash, just like zucchini is.
Neither my zucchini or my pumpkins have
been affected by Blossom End Rot.

This is a larger pumpkin growing in my garden
the yellow area is the blossom end.
But that's not rotten, it's just not getting sunlight
because of all the grass and weeds around it.
The fruit (the pumpkin) looks beautiful and is
growing rapidly and turning colors just like
it is suppose to.

So does this mean that I do not have
a calcium deficiency in my soil?
That maybe the tomato plants
just aren't strong enough to carry
the calcium up the stems through
to the fruiting tomatoes?

There are a few things on the market to help
stop Blossom End Rot, or at least help stop it
from infecting the rest of the fruit on your plant.

But most of the websites and people
I have talked to about this say that you
should water your plants uniformly!
This is very important for tomatoes.
Don't let the soil dry out before you water again.
Keep an even moisture level in your soil.

Don't fertilize your plants too early either,
like we did. This causes the plant
to grow too quickly and it doesn't
have a chance to develop a good root system.
Thereby not being able to pull the calcium
in your soil up to the fruit.

So most likely it isn't that I have a calcium
deficiency in my soil...
It's that we used Miracle Grow too soon
on the tomato plants, which made them
grow too rapidly, and now the roots
are not deep or developed enough
to pull the calcium up to the fruit.

Along with that, we haven't been
watering regularly.
We've thought that with all this rain
we've been getting two or three times
a week, that it was enough.
But in between those rain storms
it's been hot and sunny.
The soil has dried out (remember how my corn
stalks began to stand back up) which while
being good for my leaning corn stalks, it wasn't
so good for my tomatoes.

Good luck with your garden
And please....
Wish me good luck with mine!

Thanks,
TRW

The Best Vampire in Town

A while ago I posted a little story about
there being a New Vampire In Town...
namely Bill Compton of HBO's True Blood
which is based off of the Sookie Stackhouse
(Southern Vampire Series) novels by Charlaine Harris.
Well... I posted that before I read the books.

There are 9 complete novels and several short stories
about Sookie and the goings on in Bon Temps, LA.
If you've followed the show or read the books
you know how exciting and crazy it can get
for the townspeople, especially Sookie Stackhouse.

Well people, I've switched my allegiance!
Yes, Vampire Bill was a nice diversion
from Mick St. John.
He was an older... more mysterious
and sexy vampire.
But there is someone on True Blood
who is much more interesting,
much more dangerous and much more sexy!

His Name?
Well, a picture is worth a thousand words right?
Meet the thousand year-old Vampire, Eric Northman:

This is from True Blood's first season.
He is shown here sitting on his throne in Fangtasia (his bar)
Eric's part was kinda small and in the background.
I believe the actor, Alexander Skarsgard, described
his role in season one as "a glorified extra".

This is Eric's new look for season two.

His longs locks had to be cut off by Pam
after a mishap including blood and hair dye. lol.
They still haven't explained how a vampire
can change his looks... but frankly...
who cares when this is the end result?

Eric Northman is the sheriff of Area 5.
He 6' 4" of powerful, confident, arrogant, pure Vampire.
Essentially, all the vampires in his area must do as he says.
Bill constantly tries to stand up to Eric
at least where Sookie is concerned
(you got to give him credit for that, at least)
but he is continually put in his place
by the powerful Eric.
Oh, and as if Bill and Eric didn't
have enough to clash egos about...
Eric... wants... Sookie.
Sookie has agreed to help Eric whenever he wants
(much to Bill's dismay)
as long as he didn't kill anyone.

THIS... is the "BEST Vampire in Town"
Eric Northman:
1000 year old Viking Vampire
TALL
MUSCULAR
CONFIDENT
DANGEROUS
LETHAL
SEXY
COCKY
and...
LOYAL

Read the books to find out more about him.
Then tune in on Sunday nights at 9:00 Eastern Time
on HBO to watch him in action.
I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Oh and if you're thinking
"why should I watch True Blood
if I've already read the books?"
Alan Ball has decided to take license with the story-lines
and he's also messed with the characters a bit
(something I really don't like since I love
Charlaine's characters the way she wrote them!)

I'm just sayin'

TRW

Shaping up

I promised that I would show you my flowers when they are all planted, didn't I? Well, don't say that I don't deliver on my promises! lol
It was a lot of hard work and took up most of our so called vacation. But it was worth it!

This is an urn with the variegated ivy and petunias.
It's placed next to the bridge
that isgoing over our pond.
New rocks helped to brighten up this area too.

This is the view as you are walking over the bridge.
The new flowers are to the left of the bench.

This little water lily was hiding under a lilypad.
I pulled it out of the way to snap this photo.

Here are the Impatients we planted around the pond.
New mulch made the colors pop,
but I think the dark color of the mulch also
made it too hot for the delicate flowers.

Remember my gorgeous purple marine
that smelled like licorice?
Well, the sun all but dried them out!
They do still give off that fragrance though.
And they come back with a lot of water.

One day while watering these flowers
I saw someting hovering out of the corner
of my eye. Thinking it was the dragonfly
I just saw over the pond, I didn't pay it much mind...
Until I almost walked right into it.
It was a hummingbird!
The first I've seen that close and
especially in my own backyard.
I haven't even put up the feeder yet!
That was so cool!

Here are my flower boxes.
I was going to move them to the front of the deck
but the people who lived here before us
bolted the top railing right over the wire
basket that these boxes sit in!
So they are staying put unless we
decide to someday re-do the deck.


I couldn't resist taking a close up of this
gorgeous red flower.

Well, there ya have it.
My flowers are in and the weeds
are already peeking through the mulch.
Gardening work just never ends!

Take it easy out there!
TRW

Down on the Farm, Part 3...And we have Veggies!

I must admit when we started our garden,
I was very excited to plant all of our seeds
and watch them grow. It was great to see the corn stalks
breaking the ground. But I was nervous that critters would get
into the garden and eat all of our precious, tender plants!
And that worry was not unfounded.
Some of our corn stalks were trampled by something
and have not come up.
But only a couple. We planted more than enough.

So, as the rain poured on and
the sun shone down on my plants,
I hoped and prayed that all of this wouldn't be in vain.
Well, it wasn't!

This is a squash blossom.
More specifically, it's a zucchini blossom.
If you look at the lower right side of the flower,
you'll see a zucchini growing!

We have 7 zucchini plants in all
and all but one have zucchini growing already!

Here you can see how the zucchini
grows from the end of the blossom.
The blossom then shrivels up and dies.

Here is my lonely row of Zucchini plants.
See all the yellow flowers?
If all of those flowers produce a zucchini...
I'm going to have zucchini up to my eyeballs!
Anyone know some good recipes?


Yummy.
Aren't they beautiful?
I just picked these two beauties
while I was taking my photos.
Guess what's for dinner?

As for the other plants, we have tomatoes too.
Awww, isn't he sweet?
Sure he's a green, but he's just a little guy yet.
Just wait, this little green tomato
should grow up to be a huge
red Jersey Beefsteak tomatoThe bees have been doing their part too!
They've been busy pollinating our garden
and doing a good job at it!
In the photo above, a fat guy buzzes around
a tomato blossom... just under the rim
of the cage.. to the left of the photo.
I watched him go from tomato plant to tomato plant.
His fat fuzzy body will collect all the yellow pollen
and deposit it onto the other plants he lands on...
like the squash blossom and the potato flowers.



This is the flower that is growing from my potato plants.
It's a very delicate looking flower of pale lavender.
I never even knew that potato plants got flowers! lol
I'm such a novice at this!
But it looks like everything is paying off.

Here are my potato plants. Two rows of six plants.
To the left are the corn rows.
They're getting pretty high.
The tomato and zucchini plants are
at the top of the photo, behind the potato plants.

See how tall the corn is now?
Do you remember running through
corn fields when you were a kid?
I do.
And I look at the corn fields
around me and they are planted
so close together with no possible
way to walk between the plants!
I don't understand why the directions
say to plant them 2 feet apart
if the commercial growers plant
them approximately 3 inches apart!
It's enough to make you go "Hmmmmm."

I was out early when the dew
was still on everything.
I saw how the dew drops
just gently lay on the leaves
and just had to snap a photo.
I also saw this awesome spider web
on the tomato cage all glistening with dew.
But my stupid camera battery
decided to choose that very moment
to die on me!
By the time I got the battery charged,
the dew had all dried up from the sun.
Damn, that would have been a great photo!

The pumpkin plants are spreading vines
like crazy and the leaves are huge!
I'll take pictures of those next time.
I'm waiting for some blossoms.
I have no idea what they'll look like either.
lol

I have some tiny carrot fringe
growing randomly in the approximate
area where we planted them.
I'm not too confident that
they will produce carrots.
That section has become overrun with weeds,
and we haven't been too good at weeding.
We'll just have to wait and see.

Now, someone please...
send me some recipes for zucchini!

Later, TRW

Down on the Farm part 2

WE HAVE GROWTH!

Well, it's been 4 weeks now since Mountain Man and I planted our vegetable garden
Things are a sproutin'! So I guess we did something right.

Here are the tomato plants.
We lost a couple of them.
Not sure if it was due to just a poor plant or the enormous amount of rain
we got right after planting. Seriously, I was afraid all of the seeds would have washed away, that's how much rain we got.

BUT, it was all worth it because we have blossoms!
This is the first tomato blossom I spotted.
There are a couple on another plant too so I know we'll at least
have SOME tomatoes if not 24 plants worth of them.

Next to the tomato plants, we have zucchini squash.
These were the first to break ground and I had to pull out one or two plants from each mound to make room for the more healthier plants. This was done according to package instructions.
I hated to pull out those plants (it's called thinning) because there was nothing wrong with them. I actually contemplated transplanting them to another section,
but decided I was being silly and didn't do it.

This is a close up of one zucchini squash plant.
I'm waiting for the squash blossom. I heard they are beautiful and the zucchini will grow right from it. I've never seen this so I'm excited to witness it.

This, although very similar to the zucchini, is the pumpkin plant.
It's also a squash but the large leaves appear pointed at the end... like a heart.
I love pumpkins so I was disappointed that not all of the seeds germinated into seedlings.
I think we dug six or seven holes but only four sprouted pumpkin plants.

And here is the corn.
Although we bought the seeds from our garden center instead of using
the packaged ones from the supermarket, we did use the directions from the package.
It said to plant in 4 short rows of 4-5 plants each.
I also read online that corn should be planted in blocks to help with pollination.
But we couldn't stop with just a small 4 row block of corn!
We love Silver Queen Corn so our block is 7 rows of 7 plants.
Hopefully they'll be our Lucky 7!

And last but not least is the Yukon Gold Potatoes.
I was getting worried about these guys because they were kinda late sprouting up.
I also wasn't sure how to plant them since my seed potatoes' eyes
had already sprouted long stems and I wasn't sure if they were roots
or the stem of the potato plant.
Did they go into the ground sprout up or sprout down?
Well, all I can tell you is that most were planted sprout down
except for the last one... which was the first to come up.
So my advice is to plant sprout up!

Actually, that isn't the last vegetable we planted.
We also planted carrots but so far these have not come up so I have no pictures to show you.
I thought I saw sprouts but the garden has been overrun
with weeds since all the rain we've gotten.
3 solid weeks of rain right after planting all our seeds!
But this past week has been beautiful sunshine with periods of thunderstorms.
I guess God is taking care of watering my garden for me!

I'll try to remember to take pictures as the weeks go on so you can see how successful (fingers are crossed) we've been with this garden.

In addition to the vegetable garden, we've also decided to spruce up around the pond in our backyard. The brick walkway was pulled up and redone.

Isn't it pretty?
We still have to mix the cement and sand to brush in between the cracks.
I wanted a wider gap in between the bricks this time
so we had some bricks left over when we were done putting them back.

We also bought a bunch of pretty flowers to plant around the pond.

This gorgeous purple flower is called Marine.
It smells like licorice!
I was standing on the outside of the fence (taking the pictures of the vegetable garden for this blog) when the breeze carried this delicious aroma to me!
Oh I can't wait until this is in the ground and I can smell it from my pool!

With the Marine, we'll plant these Impatients.
They are mixed colors of pink, purple, white and coral.

Next year I'm taking the advice of a dear friend and planting the seeds that will drop from my abundant amount of 4 O'Clocks, that are in the front of the house, along the fence in my backyard. They will look great there and will compliment these flowers around the pond.

I got these beautiful red New Guinea Imapatients for the flower boxes on my deck.
I thought they would attract hummingbirds since I just bought
a hummingbird feeder to hang there.

So far, these flowers are not planted yet. I'll update this blog when they are to show you the finished landscaping. It's hard work but it's so exciting. I can't wait to see it all done!

HAPPY GARDENING!

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!