Welcome July

Well, we made it to tomato season and we're on our last jar of salsa that I made last year. This year, I planted more plants because I want to make one more batch to make it last a little bit longer and be able to give some away also. I also wanted to freeze some pasta sauce.

But if gardening went like this every year, I probably wouldn't be a gardener! My tomatoes are having a terrible summer. I have less than half the amount needed for one batch of salsa. I went to the farmer's market yesterday and bought the rest of the tomatoes needed for one batch of salsa. I'll give my plants a chance to grow some more, but I'm probably heading back to the farmer's market for the rest of the salsa, too.

My peppers are doing pretty good, though. At least I didn't have to buy those!

Today's Picks

We have entered the season again. Many of my blog posts will be gardening related. I will try to take pictures of the kids, too. : )

2 small Roma tomatoes, several Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes, 4 heads of garlic (whoo-hoo - that's 100% because I planted 4 cloves last fall as a test crop!!!), and 3 eggs. I caught Blue Beard on the nest this afternoon, so unless she moved to a different box after I saw her, she laid the egg on the far left. It's kinda olive green. That means (I assume) the other Egger laid the blue-green one and I don't know who's laying brown. Haven't seen any others in the boxes.

Sunday Morning Harvest

Look what I found this morning!!!! I had one more cherry tomato but I dropped it & a chicken pecked it before I could pick it up. Just yesterday, Grana asked me if I'd gotten any eggs yet. I told her, "Any day now..."

So this is my first chicken egg!!! Here it is compared to a store-bought, large egg. So I'd guess it's about medium grade and it's blue-green, so it must have come from one of the Easter egger hens. We're just believing that Blue Beard laid the egg, because she's our favorite.

Elizabeth asked when it was going to hatch. I told her this one is not going to hatch, because we're going to eat it. She replied, "I don't want to eat that egg!"

This Week in the Garden

Right now my tomatoes look terrible, but there is still lots of fruit waiting to turn red.

This is why my tomatoes look so bad. I found, picked off, and fed to the chickens at least 6 of these nasty things this week... each day larger than the ones I found the day before!

I spend a good amount of time each day out there looking for them because I've chosen to be pesticide free. I need to look up what the eggs look like. I've squashed a bunch of eggs this season but apparently I missed some!

Assorted peppers are doing well. Anaheim, poblano, jalapeno... respectively.

Finally grew a marigold from seed. Never got that to happen before.

Baby Cucumber:

Pinto & Black Beans:
Corn. I didn't know if this bed would be worth growing in because there's not really any soil in it. I guess we'll have to wait & see how the corn turns out.

Elizabeth with her gourd:

I suppose in the next week, I need to make sure my children have clothes on, have hair brushed, and then take some pictures of them!

David is in charge of letting the chickens out each day. He has discovered that roosters like to fight. heh heh...

Outside Stuff

Wow, I really haven't taken many pictures lately. This was last weekend. See how nice the grass looks?

Rocky, Penny & Red racing across the yard.

I had some more hollyhocks bloom - a white and another pink. They're pretty much done now after this week's heat.

Thistle & butterfly below. Maybe it's a Tawny Emperor? I don't know, but they're very common. I once thought maybe they were Hackberry Emperor, but my photo doesn't have dots on the upper wing. Haven't been able to capture any of the really pretty butterflies, but I've seen some flitting around that look kinda like a Tiger Swallowtail, some Monarch looking ones, and some others.

The standing cypress that wasn't even supposed to bloom this year because it's a biennial:

Here's another peak into our country life. Elizabeth is on the back porch playing with a raccoon skull.

And here's the garden today in the peak of the heat. Everything's pretty wilty even though I watered this morning. It perked back up some this evening as the day cooled off. You can also see how the grass is quickly turning brown in this heat.

Cherry tomatoes were starting to turn to red... my mouth is watering thinking about them...

TOMATOES!!!

Did I win???

Garden Report

By far, the most exciting thing going on in the garden right now is Elizabeth's gourd vines! The leaves are bigger than her head!

When I gave the kids the chance to choose whatever they wanted out of the seed catalog, Elizabeth choose birdhouses... gourds, that is. This particular catalog only had a mix of seeds that included birdhouse gourds, so I don't know if this is one or not. There are 2 more coming up on the other end of the trellis that are not so large leafed, so I'm guessing they're something else. David selected loofa sponges. The rolly polly bugs ate his first sprouts and so far we haven't gotten any more to sprout. : (

Yummy cherry tomatoes are starting to fill in!!! I can hardly wait to gobble down their sweet yumminess!!! I think we'll have to get some fresh mozzarella and make caprice again.

The Swiss chard is beautiful... and huge! Any idea what to do with it? I planted it for my husband the last 2 years because he said he'd eat it...

Don't know what bug that it, but it's not good. I killed it. I saw some on other stems where it looked like it had cut the stem off. Any idea what it is? I also squished 5 caterpillars this evening on the peppermint plant. I'm glad it lured them away from the tomatoes!

We are quickly on our way to a tomato jungle again this year!

Anaheims also growing for hubby. They may be ready to pick soon.

My beautiful hollyhock & larkspur. Can you see the cat in there?

This Week in the Garden

Iris continued blooming.
I'm gonna move them next fall.

My Martha Gonzales Rose is covered
in beautiful blooms!

I got a new pepper plant that had a stow-away!

In case you don't recognize it,
that's a ladybug larvae!
And here it was the next day:


Romas are growing!!!

Chard is growing!!!

Marigolds are blooming!

Pill bugs are destroying!!!! Boo!!!!
Everything I've direct seeded in the garden
has been attacked!
I've had to re-start the pinto beans, black beans,
Elizabeth's birdhouse gourds, and David's loofahs
...in peat pots this time.

Built a tee-pee for some pole beans.
Thanks, Grandpa, for the bamboo!

Finally found the guinea nest!
She laid another today!

More iris.

I took pictures with some of my chickens:

This is one of my favorite girls.
She's an Egger.

I took more pictures yesterday, but haven't had time to get them up yet.