Monday, August 31, 2009

Veggies Update

Green Beans
While I was recovering from pneumonia, the green beans came and went. We were able to have German Potato Salad with fresh green beans and new potatoes before I was stricken, but there are no beans in the freezer and dried pods are still on the vine in the garden. I may start a fall crop and hope we have a long fall.

Potatoes
For some reason, growing potatoes gives me a thrill, cutting the tuber in small pieces and getting a bounty from it. I still have some to dig and I hope they are OK with all the rain we have had these last several weeks.

Corn
This is my second year growing corn. Last year I was able to freeze enough to see us through the winter. This year, we had one good meal and two rather pathetic meals from the garden. They germinated sparingly and about half of them grew tall and the other half were stunted.

Tomatoes
Just starting the harvest. I love the heirloom "black" tomatoes. I'm drying most the Roma tomatoes with oil, garlic and herbs.

Peppers
These are just starting to produce. I look forward to a good harvest of red and yellow bell peppers.

Cucumbers
This is my third season growing cucumbers. The first year was good, last year was horrible and this year was amazing. I have canned many pints and quarts of bread-and-butter pickles and still the vines are producing.

Grapes
I have watched many clusters of grapes form on the vines and mature to fat green clusters, tracking their ripeness carefully so I can pick them at the peak pectin stage for grape jelly. Then I went out this weekend and I may have ten grapes (not ten clusters, but grapes). What happened? Luckily, my in-laws have lots and lots to share with me. Oh, and the wild grapes are about ready to pick also.

Teenage Sons

I have a category called teenage sons. I will have to change it to sons, because they are no longer teenagers. I started blogging when they were 13 and now they are 20. The last seven years have gone by quickly (and sometimes slowly).

It's a whole new parenting game, guiding them while letting them stand on their own. They are so eager to fly from the nest, but I want to help them avoid any big crashes. About the time I master this stage of parenting, they will be on to the next stage. But so it went in every previous stage.

CobraHead

I'm a winner! Of course, thanks to the good people at CobraHead, all commenters were winners. I thank Carol at May Dreams Garden (check out her blog) and I thank the CobraHead family (buy their tools).

It has been an unusual summer, and I'm not talking about the weather, which warrants several posts. I started strong. Then the day after my niece's graduation party at our house, I went to my bed with pneumonia and didn't get up for ten days. It has taken a while for me to get any energy back. I'm told that is to be expected, but, having been healthy all my life, I'm impatient to be able to work all day in the gardens at Gene Stratton-Porter and then come home and whip out the housework, dinner and work in my garden.

Which circles me back to the CobraHead. After two months of neglect, I spent the weekend in my garden. I made good use of the CobraHead and it is definitely a wonderful tool. I tackled the ornamental garden along my walk and it sure lifts my spirits to see it looking so nice.

As I was removing errant grass under the hydrangea with the CobraHead yesterday, I noticed the funniest looking worm slithering away. Wait, worms don't slither. It was the smallest brown snake I ever saw, about 4" long and 1/4" across. I lifted it up with the CobraHead and it moved its tiny head back and forth and flicked its little tongue. A cobra wanna be?