I've picked a few more zukes since Friday's first harvest, got a few more on the vines, 1 got pretty big yesterday so I'm leaving it until tomorrow since DS is coming home late tonight and he likes it grilled. Picklebush cukes seem to be growing pointed on the ends - the 1 I left to fill out got kind of big, I think I'm going to slice these all up and make bread and butter pickles for my dad, I don't have any left from last year. It has been a very disappointing year, I've been to market twice since it started a month ago and haven't had much to bring except for jams and jellies (and tomato plants, strawberries 1 week, haven't gone with blueberries since we had a heat wave right after I picked a lot and market is in a parking lot, forecast was 99 degrees that day so I just froze them). Veggies are really slow, though the oregano that overwintered is in flower, the basil (seeded this year) is finally getting big enough to cut (I should have planted more), the dill looks great, and the volunteer cilantro has bolted and is starting to form seeds (yeah!!). I haven't checked the beans or tomatoes out back since I watered them Sunday - beans were flowering but no beans yet, some fruit set on tomatoes but even the cherries aren't full-sized yet, they're going to take a while to ripen. The blackberries were starting to really turn color, I might have wild blackberries before an veggies (other than these squash and cukes)!

You don't want a very high temp. to smoke the peppers or you'll burn them. Somewhere between 150-200 degrees. You don't run the smoke all the time either or you'll get a really bitter tasting pod,especially if your using Mesquite for wood chunks. I use Scrub oak and hickory most of the time.I like the sweetness of hickory and the dry smokey oak taste combination. One of my smokers has hangers for skewers in it.I like to thread my pods and hang them from the skewers in my verticle smoker to dry them.hanging they dry really fast and I can fit a ton of them in there as opposed to racks stacked in the smoker.I don't have to rotate or stir the pods around like I did when I was using tin foil covered grills in my barrel smoker. I sent you a PM from this site a couple days ago.Tim couldn't get my E Mail fixed on my puter yet.He was in a hurry and didn't have much time. Don't know if you got it. Yellowtail is my favorite smoked fish.Excellent stuff. Smoked thick pieces of beef jerky are good too but they somehow dissapear too fast. Smoked Turkey and Ham day is comming up soon too. When Chuck is on sale buy a whole 20lb chunk.Poke holes in it all over the place at different depths and put garlic,green onion and a slice of hot pepper in the holes. Rub it down with a hot pepper rub and let it sit in a plastic garbage bag in the fridge for a couple days (to soak everything up) then cold smoke it(200%-250% smoker temp.) for about a day or so (depending on fat content etc.up to 30 hrs.)till it reaches about 180 inside. Outside will be well done and it'll be like you do prime rib-gets rarer as you cut it. Put a throw away aluminum pan under the meat to catch the juices so you can cool them in the fridge to take the fat off easier. Cut it with beef boulion or it will be too smokey tasting and have too much of the rub in it from the meat, reheat it for AU JUICE.Or add flower for gravey. You can add a dash of onion and garlic powder but usually the spice rub from the meat seasoned it enough. ou can shred the meat and mix in the sauce for pulled beef sandwiches on a hard roll(soaked with hot juice,covered with a slice of cheese too) or burritos,tostadas etc.

Morning!! Margo, it's not as bad to take care of as people think. I think because its bigger, its pretty self sufficient. I do need to get in it every month or so and weed. My water plants reproduce so quickly they would cover the whole top if I didn't. What's nice is I put all the pulled ones in a wheelbarrow and bring them down to the veggie garden. Pile them up and let them dry. I about a week they are bone dry. So dry they crumble! I use them for fertilizer. I don't know if its the pond water, fish waste or what but those plants work almost like miracle grow ;) Shirley, we have a Master Gardener's plant swap usually every year here around Mother's Day. I say usually, cause this year we didn't have one? I was so busy at the time, never asked why, and till you just mentioned it forgot all about it :) My fair swap has been growing a little every year by 1 or 2 people. :) A lot of the same people come every year once they get hooked. The like the variety of different things I bring every year. What's awesome is that it all comes from the gw. :) The seed swaps in the fall produce nice little babies for my swap. This year I tried a bunch of Dianthus.... I have Ipswitch, Black Adder, Yellow something I can't remember, Black Magic, Fire Witch...as you can see I got most of these from the Halloween swap last year :) I also have some different Althea's that I can't remember right now, lol. The turtle is officially done. He's not a fancy turtle, but, he does look cute. ;) The kids are so excited I hope he wins. Taylor was looking through the entry list for ecology classes. She's entering photography, art (painting and sculpture), sewing, flower arranging (gee, wonder where she's gonna get those?), and house plant arrangement. I have 1 house plant in my house. Taylor's zebra plant. This thing has produced 8 babies! She took my tea cup planter and planted them around in it. She then used one of my old spoons and stuck it in. Made a tea bag tag to tie to the spoon, " Taylor's Tea" It came out so cute! Billy is entering art. He made the most beautiful pastel drawing of a fish this year in kindergarten. It won an honorable mention at the school art show. I framed it. He's also entering the house plant arrangement too. We didn't have any house plants for him, but, we did have some hen's and chicks. So yesterday we got a pair of his old sneakers, washed them, and filled them with hen's and chicks. They are so cute!! Little blue sketchers!! So adorable!! My neighbor saw them when she was walking her dog and asked if they were going to be at the plant swap...lol! I have to get a photo of them. Have a great day!! vina Here's a weird one...found this double gaillardia. It looks like a science experiment gone wrong, lol.

We survived a similar situation last winter.... spent two months in the 12' living quarters space of our horse trailer parked out on our new driveway. Me, the 6'7" husband, a 90lb German Shepherd and a cat... .it was cozy! As far as the storage, this is what we did. There are no climate controlled storage units within 100 miles so we had to make do. All wood pieces and furniture, books, paper and fabric things went inside the new house. We had several rooms downstairs that we piled up the furniture in stacking some things with cardboard between them. We piled it all neatly and away from the walls so that the electrician could still work and workers could get through the rooms to the bathrooms etc. The ceiling fans and central light fixtures were installed prior to the move and the ceilings were all finished so there was never any need to get to the center of the room again. Then we draped off and covered everything with plastic sheeting. We did the same thing in our master bedroom only it was mostly wardrobe boxes. The mechanical room was a similar situation and so was our storage room and another walk in closet. Anything that a mouse, water or weather couldn't hurt went outside. If you pack carefully, this is more than you might think. We rented a storage unit in town, got the one pod that was available delivered to the construction site and also had part of our garage at the new house available. All of our artwork, prints etc were packed in art boxes and went to the home of some good friends who gave over an extra bedroom to them until we could get them again. Every single box was numbered and labeled so that movers knew whether it went to the pod, garage or house. I used a program called Evernote to keep track of what was inside each box and where each box should be located. My husband made sure that our contents were covered by our insurance... he used to be an insurance agent so knew to look into this. I believe that we had to have some sort of residence other than our RV, so we "rented" the guest house of other friends for a dollar so that if something happened we legally had a residence. Whatever you do if you store things at your new residence or in a pod on the property, make sure that it's all covered by your insurance in case of fire, robbery etc. As far as the building inspectors, we really didn't care. It was going to be our GC who would be in hot water with them and we were a little peeved that the house was about 4 months past our longest expected time for completion. It took us 2 years! The inspectors really didn't care as long as they could get to all of the light switches, receptacles etc. Our rental landlords were awesome, but we'd told them that the house would be finished in October and they'd advertised the rental and had new tenants lined up almost immediately. We had about 6 weeks to be prepared for the move so it wasn't as bad as it sounds and we truly didn't blame our landlord. New tenants are hard to find and it didn't make any sense to ignore a new year lease just to keep us around for 8 more weeks. Good luck! With planning, you can swing it!