Jennifer, I think you are completely wrong about your post, but I understand how you feel because I feel the same way. I don't really know anything about vegetables, or flowers. and most of my post contain something about my wildlife garden, which is mostly off topic, but that is where I spend most of my time. I can ride while I work over there, and riding is what I do best.

I personally would like to see more post from everyone. I read them all, and like then all, but seldom "like them", but now I think that I should in order to show support for the poster.

I worked in the north garden some yesterday evening, trying to weed around my Arabat squash. I have let the two gardens at the house get in such bad shape that they may never recover. I have just got to spend more time in them because that is where I get most of my produce, but the manual work required to keep them up is really tough for me to do. I pretty much do all the work in the north and south garden on my hands and knees, or from a low stool.

We really have a good crop of squash bugs, and the good spray is hard to fine, it may have been taken off the market. I am so slow that I seldom able to kill an adult squash bug.

I planted too many beets. I have people telling me that they would like some of, what ever, and then dont show up to pick it. When this happens I have to throw the stuff away of till if in.

I read and love all the posts. It’s different and we don’t have a Dawn. But we do have loss of great people. And this is not fb so we don’t always comment or like times even though we appreciate all the posts.

My elephant garlic bloomed and I was waiting patiently for seeds.weeks…………………………………grasshoppers took them out.

Lots of great people lots not loss

I sat here and went to sleep while responding to Jennifer's post, which I do a lot.

I just got back from the podiatrist just before lunch. It looks like I will be getting new shoes and inserts, or at least hope I can get new inserts. It sounds crazy, but they really with the foot pain.

Daughter took me to Fayetteville Wed, and going to take me to Little Rock this Wed.. My heart is still miss behaving. I am getting the impression that I might be better off to just live with it as long as I can, I have been having this problem for 35 years. but it has gotten much worse, the doctors back then did not know how to fix my heart either.

Last winter, I ordered Cherokee Purple and Mortgage Lifter seed from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I've never had much luck with heirlooms, but because Southern said their Mortgage Lifter was their " flagship " tomato, I took a chance.

Well, I have two Mortgage Lifter plants. They're over 6 foot tall and have not produced one fruit. They barely bloom . Right next to them, I have two Cherokee Purple that have produced a lot of tomatoes. Hard to figure.

Kim, I have not had a lot of luck at collecting onion or garlic seeds. I think Elephant garlic is a member of the Leek family, and it seems to me that to wait till the seed is in good shape, the Elephant garlic has to stay in the ground so long that the bulbs are past prime. I have some hanging now that have seed heads on them, but I am not sure the seeds are mature. My neighbor would leave his Elephant garlic in the ground all year long, and only harvest when he needed it. I have never tried it because I always wanted to plant something else in that spot, but he let his grow wild. It was everywhere.

Lynn, I have lost my touch at growing tomatoes. I think that one of my problems is not caring for them like I use to. Tomatoes seem to want to be watered on time and like a lot of attention. Which reminds me I still have a lot of clean up work to do in the south garden. I need to weed and add mulch. The flood was a major set back for me in all my gardens, they all lost a lot of top soil.

Mine was in a pot that I also planted beans in. I pulled the garlic and they are big heads with little tiny cloves at the bottom. Can I plant this tiny ones?

Kim, I save and plant the small balls that sprout off the bottom also. They don't regrow as well as the cloves, but they will make another plant. Most often the small corms will make a single bulb the first year planted, looks much like an onion, then make a large bulb with cloves the next year. The corms will dry out and become pretty hard, I have read that some people soak them before replanting them, I don't.

HJ/Jennifer, dont give up. I enjoy your posts. I dont post often because i dont feel I fit in since I’ve never really met anyone, but i feel a kinship with several of you. Actually I’m more like Larry, older, and do a lot of similar things - except I dont work as hard as he does

Houzz is difficult for me to manuever. I liked the old Garden Web.

i have the worst garden this year. All new raised beds, great soil, plants are beautiful and blooming, but nothing is Producing except green beans. Absolutely frustrating! Between temperature, too much rain, and WAY TOO MUCH WIND my garden is a flop. There will never be another Dawn , we all miss her / she wouldn’t want us to give up

I just miss Dawn, I guess. And how it used to be. I realize we stay connected through FB too....and other ways. This forum is sentimental to me. I had done a bit of gardening before 2014, but very little and the internet led me here. Farmgardenerok mentioned not meeting us in real life, I feel like there's others in the same boat BUT I still want to hear from them too. Online friends are still friends even if we never meet in person.

(and sorry about your hard gardening year, Farmgardenerok. The wind this spring was so harmful and relentless!)

I'm not one of those people who need to be validated all the time....that's not it at all. It's sorta like Amy said about having the energy to type up long posts. My time is limited too and spending an hour typing up a post is time-consuming. Something I do not mind doing at all ....but if the things I talk about are uninteresting, it's sort of a waste of my time. That's what I was getting at.

I love reading about Moni's bike rides, Larry's wildlife garden, Lynn's tomatoes, and everyone's new projects and adventures.

It would be a good idea for me to get an online journal or something similar. Many years ago, I had LiveJournal. I went to look for my old account and it appears Russians bought it. So...better not engage with that any longer. lol.

I really miss Dawn also, I have a warped mind, and I Dawn was the only one that could come up with a quick response to the " Bull" I would toss out, I cant help it, I am just full of it.

I enjoy every bodies post. I don't know much about any of the flowers and spices, but I still like to hear about them. Jennifer I also love to hear about your chickens, and the work you and Rick do. I relate to a lot of what Rick does. I think that Rick is the only one that uses a tiller. I had rather not use a tiller, but there is no way I could turn as much dirt as I do by hand, even if I were young and strong.

Farmgardener, I do not do much work, I would like to, but my old body is just worn out.

I pulled and washed a 5 gal. bucked of beets this morning for Madge to pickle, but she only used about 1/5th of them. I will take the rest down to neighbor and see if he wants them. Daughter and grand daughter have gotten all they want and I still have half of them left in the garden. I hate to waste them, but I need them gone so I can get the ground ready for something else. If I cant find a home for the beets, I will till them into the soil

I have enough sweet potato slips for another row in the garden, and I think it is getting a little late to be planting sweet potatoes. I think this will put me up over 100 plants at the house and around 115 plants in the wildlife garden. I think I still have sweet potatoes and squash/pumpkins from last year. Neighbor and I went wild this year, I think we have over 300 hills of melons, squash, and pumpkins, plus countless hills of cucumbers, but we are going to lose a lot of it because of the hot dry weather, we just cant run enough water to keep everything going.

Amy made a statement about y'all being ok for squash bugs this year, because I would have all of them over here. She may be correct, because we really do have a mess of them.

Nancy, the flowers in the wildlife garden are starting to bloom, so I may be getting your butterflies also. The deer are trying to help you out, they are eating the sunflowers that are not protected by the electric fence. If it get much dryer, wont be anything protected bu the electric fence, it doesn't work well if the ground is extremely dry, and if the deer are really hungry they will jump it anyway.

Larry, once upon a time the guy from Duck Creek said you can plant sweet potatoes up to the 4th of July. Wish I was close enough to get those beets!

I have no idea what that journal is Jennifer, but yeah, don't argue with Russians.

Sorry about your garden Farmgardener, I hate maneuvering in Houzz, too. It is especially incompatible with one of my tablets.

Lynn, I think Mortgage Lifter was selected for maybe a slightly different climate. Or it's happy. Dawn said tomatoes didn't set fruit unless the thought they might die, since the purpose of fruit was reproduction. See I'm surprised you have Cherokee Purple, because they're hit or miss for me. I grew mortgage lifter once and was not impressed.

Larry, we worry about your health!

Kim there isn't a sad icon in Houzz. Grasshoppers suck.

No gardening today (as had been my plan.) Go get blood drawn, eat, vote.....

Amy, thanks for your concern, but I dont want anybody worrying about my health, I have had a good life, and it is still going. I was born and have lived within 25 miles of where I am now, went to school here, and most of my class is already gone, but I was the slow one, I will catch up with the others one of these days.

I wish you were here to take the beets also. I took a 5 gal. bucket full down to the neighbor to sell of feed to the hogs.

I also planted another 26 sweet potato slips.

This looks like it may be a tough summer for gardening, but I feel I need to keep the winter squash and sweet potatoes watered because they store for such a long time. I also plan on planting turnips, mustard, rape, and kale later this summer. At this point I want to play around with a living mulch more, so far I am happy with the clover I planted around the tomatoes. The worst thing I have had to work around is keeping the weeds out of the clover, but once I get them killed out it should be much easier to keep them out.

"I relate to a lot of what Rick does. I think that Rick is the only one that uses a tiller. I had rather not use a tiller, but there is no way I could turn as much dirt as I do by hand, even if I were young and strong."

I couldn't live without a tiller . Both of them . The big front end tiller and the Mantis as much ground as I try to cover. I need the big tiller to break up the ground to start with and I need the mantis to cultivate in between rows. I was born and raised on row cropping. Got to keep the middles cleaned out for as long as possible or the grass and weeds will take it over.

The wet spells in the spring is a problem for me cause it delays getting things planted on time , stunts what I do have planted if it's flooding rains and keeps me from tilling out the weeds sprouting in the middles (and right in the row too). If it gets out of hand too much then I get to swing the hoe like a golf club the whole rest of the summer on into the fall whacking the 3 ft tall grass down. Might have it all done by Thanksgiving if I'm lucky.

Rick

I am glad that I am going to the Dr. tomorrow, neighbor just called and said he was going to plant another 68 rows of produce tomorrow, he would work me to death if I were here. He has my seeds and my planter to use, but he still has a hard day ahead of him.

Amy, I do believe that is true about tomatoes and fruit set. I can speak from experience. The beautiful, full and lush plants often do not make as much fruit as my scraggly looking, barely hanging on plants. If they're too healthy, they don't feel the need to make offspring (they're not feeling their mortality).

Live Journal was a long time ago before MySpace and FB...and certainly before TikTok and Instagram. It was a place to "journal" and put pictures. You could share with friends, go public or private. People could comment if posts weren't private. There were groups. I liked it because you could decorate your journal--sorta like with My Space.

HJ, check out tomatojunction.com or garden.org if you're looking for a place to journal about your garden. They're both forums similar to this one. But I love the ability to create a journal & track my own garden, plus read others' accounts. Not that I actually HAVE a journal, I put a single post on one site but never updated it.

While I used computers at work and played solitaire at lunch and got addicted to eBay for a while, I was not involved in my space (kids were). Chatted with birders on AOL. Anyway, eventually my son went to work for HP at the airport. He got a discount on their products and bought me a discontinued tablet. I used it when my hips were bad. That's when I got on Facebook. It was mostly to keep up with family. I have resisted tic toc, twitter and all the others my kids love, including mostly, you tube. But I sure love streaming TV and movies without commercials. can't stand to watch regular TV any more. Found this group Googling how to grow things in Oklahoma. Dawn or George always came up.

Dawn would water sparingly trying to stress her plants and cause them to put on fruit. I've watered my garden one time this year. Had the drip system turned on for an hour last week. Her signal to water was sticking her finger into the soil. I use a garden trowel.

I've had problems with heirlooms in the past, either not producing fruit or producing very little. I've grown Cherokee Purple a couple of times and only gotten a couple of tomatoes. I was really happy with these this year and then the Mortgage Lifters right next to them totally failed.

Last year, we canned over 40 pints of salsa from 10 plants. And gave a lot of tomatoes away. We canned 6 pints last weekend and I really doubt we get over 20. And I planted 27 plants. I got a list of things that could be the cause as I made a lot of changes. Its been a learning experience and I'm going back to my old ways.

I made a bunch of changes trying to improve on the boring tired old way I'd been doing things, and did not realize that I'd been doing great and needed to leave well enough alone.

These are " This Day " pics from 2019

Rick, there's no way I could put in a winter cover crop and do no-till gardening. Not just to plant the winter seed, but to be able to turn the plants back in come January.

I've been planting a deer food plot seed mix of austrian pea and oats. I'm gonna drop the oats and add rye this year. The oats grow in clumps and ... wow , are they hard to break up and till. Especially if we don't get temps below 10* that kills them out. A weed eater won't cut em and I can't mow em, unless they're dead.

But tilling all that organic matter back in the soil is really good for my garden. I did not do that last year and regret it.

I use to have good luck using Elbon rye for a cover crop. I had a better garden back then. I have tried no till, but I could not make it work as well as I wanted. I am now trying a spot in the garden using Ladino clover as a living mulch, I have no idea how that is going to work. It seems to be a lot harden for me to come up with the organic matter that I need. I am just not able to do the things I use to do.

Jennifer, it looks good, your plants are so large and healthy. My plants have a lot of yellow on them. The flood washed away a lot of the mulch and top soil, the plants are still there, but if is hard to keep the soil damp, we are only to water every other day, and it hard to water with a hose-end sprinkler and keep everything looking good. I would like to live in an area that had a lot of top soil.

My clover mulch may have a good side that I had not thought about. After the flood I took the electric fence down so I could get the tractor and mower in. I did not check the garden yesterday morning before leaving for Little Rock, but I did check late yesterday evening. It looked like something had been eating the clover. It was getting late and I did not no much looking after that, but my guess is that the deer in the garden and thought that the clover looked better than anything else. I will check closer today, I still have a lot of repairs to do in the gardens.

Jennifer that looks good.

Jen/Hazel

don't take this so serious. Participate when you can/want.. and it's ok, if you don't for a while here and there.

I garden a lot, but it is mostly digging out Bermuda... beside that tiny bit of sowing I did this year. It seems to be a tough year all the way around.

Bright side at my garden... so far, no insect damage, nor squirrel damage. But then I haven't planted much, specially what I had problems with the squirrels before.

After posting gorgeous pictures of the elderberries in bloom, I don't seem to have any berries. Goes right back to my statement of not seeing the bees.

But, I have one borage plant and it is just about covered with tiny bees. Guess I have to plant some more in other places. :)

I put my soaker hoses in my garden beds yesterday, and am transplanting a couple of sweet potatoes, to put them where they get more moisture.

Other than that, still weeding as well as cutting of growth from the bushes... where I haven't dug the roots out yet. Some day, I hope to have that latter part finished. Jenn, I have to return to this part of my post, to say: just post when and what you want to share... we are reading even if we don't "like". :)

Lynn I got to get you in my friend list on FB I guess. I ride often, sometimes a long distance. This was the longest since I bought the e-bike. Lynn I had to get back to you too. There is NO way to put a finger in my soil/clay... it won't go. Even the hori hori knife is hard to push in, most places, except where it has been watered within the last week.

Amy, the only way I can mention most folks in my reply is by reading a post, comment about it in my email program (yes, that is what I use) and then copy and paste all the replies I made to houzz. :)

Larry your posts are not off topic... you post about your gardening style and more. Totally fine. :) I am still able to get easily off the ground... and do all my weeding sitting spread legged on the ground. I just scoot around, the area I am working on, and get up and move to another area as I need to empty my weed holding container. Gosh Larry, I wish you didn't live so far away.... because I would come and get those beets, and pickle them.

Kim I am sorry about the grasshoppers eating your garlic/seeds I mean, just eating your stuff. I wish you had more birds that may prey on them hoppers instead. Ha ha, I read lots of great people... didn't see "loss". :) I had the mortgage lifter last year. It took forever to get tomatos on it. It did plenty later on. Hang in there, wait it out.

Hey, farmgardenerok, you are right... there will never be another Dawn. I also feel like my garden is the worst since I moved in here... but still, I am increasing the Bermuda free area.

All, it has been hard to take the time and read here. The weather has been nice, and I spent more time outside. I felt to hot at noon today, and came in to fix lunch. Never went back out.

I am so ready to be living on my own here again... but the house my daughter made an offer on, turns out to be in a soil and water contaminated area. Back to square one.

Moni

Lynn, I am so glad you posted about Dawn stressing her plants to make them produce. I had forgotten that! Once I commented that my okra was beautiful but not producing. She asked if I kept it watered? I said of course, almost daily. She said stop that! I did for just a few days and they started making - thinking I need to try that with my whole garden this year. I have beautiful plants, lots of blooms, and many bees. Just no squash or tomatoes, plenty of peppers, green beans, a few cucumbers just recently and okra just starting.

It is still hot and dry here. I am still watering the things I need, but will be cutting back, I plan on adding more mulch also. This is going to be a tough gardening year for me.

Moni, I got a chuckle out of your weeding style. The only time I sit down flat is when I get in the bath tub, then pray that I can climb back out. I dont work extremely hard on bermuda, if I see it is going to be a big problem, I get the glyphosate and spray it, if I can keep if from entering the garden from the outer edges I pretty well stay bermuda free within the garden.

farmgardenerok, its amazing how much water is in the soil that we would think to be dry. These plants don't need near as much water as we think they do.

Moni, I don't do FB, I guess I'm a real oddity, but its just not my thing. And you have an e-bike ............ahhhhh , well, the fellas at the bike shop tried to sell me one, I told them " that's cheating " hahahaha .

My family doctor rides an e-bike, he thought they might be good for me. But he's the one that got me started on a bicycle. I was a walker. I would do four miles almost daily until I blew out a meniscus tendon in my knee. I asked him how I was gonna burn calories with a bum knee, and he told me to get a bicycle. And that was in 2015 and it was the best advise I''ve ever gotten.

https://gradentalunfarm.net/pages/growing-a-three-sisters-plot

Rick

Rick, thanks for the link, it brings up some things that I need to try. I tried no till, but it still seemed that I need to add more organic matter. Three sisters I have not tried. I thought that I had my garden up in good enough shape to try no till again, then we had a flood that wash a lot of my top soil and mulch away. I am tying to start over, but It is still not near as bad as when I first started here 16 years ago, and I have more equipment to work the soil, but I doubt that I have another 16 years of work left in me.

I have been on trash patrol this morning. I try to keep the bar ditch clean, and mow what I can, but a good bit of it is too steep, and I am afraid I will turn the mower over, I do some times slide side ways down the bank, which I really dont like, plus I have a fear that the mower engine may not lubricate properly at that steep of an angle.

When on trash patrol I am surprised at all the junk I find along the hwy, people are nasty.

Moni, I had to read the few above post again. I had to read about the E-BIKE. We have a lot of bike riders peddle by here, some of them may be e-bikes. I dont understand why they pick this hwy, there is no shoulder, and it is crocked, and has a lot of traffic, I had no idea that there were that many bike riders that were suicidal.

Well, I have rested long enough, weeding time now. And, Moni, I wont be sitting flat on the dirt, the first bit of weeding I plan on doing with the tiller, then the fine close weeding will be done with me on my hands and knees, using a Japanese weeder.

Is it fall or summer.?

This big guy weighs almost 13 lbs.

Then, the melon. Anyone know how easily watermelon and cantaloupe cross? Both tyoes were planted behind the shop last year. And a random gherkin as well.

Okay. I just read that cantaloupe and watermelon do NOT cross. Something looks different about these fruit though....

Jen, I'm going to come back in a minute and edit this post with pictures. I want to show you the dwarf tomato that you gave me. It's making fruit. I put it in the hoop house with 3 eggplants.

THEN, a couple of weeks ago, I found another tomato amongst some flowers that still needed to be planted. I think it's from you as well. It was stunted and sad. I put it in the hoop house too. It looks pretty healthy. Do you remember what you brought me? I'll share a pic of it too.

This is the one that's been in the hoop house for a couple of months.

This is the one I just discovered a couple of weeks ago.

One of the eggplants.

HJ, I think it was sweet scarlet & gartenperle. The hoop house one looks similar to my gartenperle. The sweet scarlet I have growing are short, stocky plants with thick leaves. That second one doesn't look right to me, but if you had it buried it could be. I'll try to remember to get a pic later when I go back out.

Started thinning out the blackberry brambles this morning. It's a tangled mess of blackberry, weeds, and poison ivy, so I suited up. Jeans, oversized tshirt, arm sleeves, & gloves. Then came in & scrubbed down just in case my precautions didn't work. Guess if I break out in a couple days I'll know I got careless. Now I need to harvest the berries from the vines I cut. My hope is 1) I can reach more of the berries further in the mess, and 2) help improve future harvests.

Oh, Jen. Suiting up in this heat. Errr. Better than poison ivy breakout, though.

What are you going to do with your blackberries? I haven't gone out yet to harvest the wild ones. I did get a decent amount from the thornless ones that were planted. Hoping they'll improve each year.

You're exactly right about the tomato varieties. I remember now. After looking at internet pictures of Sweet Scarlet, I'm pretty sure that it what it is. It might make some nice fall tomatoes IF I can keep it alive during the extreme heat we're about to experience. And I remember the names now that you said them.

I am happy to say that all plants ALL PLANTS are now planted. Nothing left.

Except now it's time to think about the fall garden and starting seed.

But, Y'all. The weather person said that they're expecting the next 3 weeks to be at 100 or above. David Payne said that it's been several years since we've had a heat wave like the one about to hit us.

At this point, we'll all need to decide what we're going to try to save.

And...how will this affect the fall garden. Maybe it will be over after the 3 weeks and won't carry on and on and on.

For my tomato patch , this coming heat wave is the coup de grace, the knockout blow. I'm already taking plants out, I got rid of the Mortgage Lifters this morning .

I've still got the cucumbers to hang on to , however. I'm hoping they do OK. How do they handle heat ?

Jen, you are a lot tougher than I am. If I had a blackberry patch to clean up, and a nice fancy tractor, I would hop in that air conditioned cab, dropped the bucket down to ground level, and pushed my way through. I cleaned up about 2 acres of berry vines with a tractor about half the size of your's.

Jennifer, you need a new weather man, nobody wants the kind of weather your weatherman is peddling.

I got a good bit of the north garden cleaned up. I had planned to use the tiller as much as possible, but I saw some baby frogs ( toads ) out there, and wound up doing the cleaning on my hands and knees so I would not harm the frogs.

I plan on saving my sweet potatoes, some of the Arabat squash, a few peppers, and hopefully some cow peas, my tomatoes seldom make it till frost anyway. If we go to the next stage of water rationing we wont be saving anything.

This heat is unbearable. I got up at 6 emptied the house gave it good scrub ready for my windows going in. Went outside emptied shed so I could find window buried in the back. Got the window with much effort. Started moving bins on pallets to make room for giant rabbit cage. Will it was much bigger than I knew. Friends arrived and after 2 hours struggling with one man two women we got this beast set in place. Two 1 year old girls. May breed them later for sale. May just harvest manure for gardens. Windows had to wait. We got too hot and yuk feeling.

Larry, the space is only about 4 or 5ft wide & in between two buildings. Using the tractor isn't really feasible. I got maybe 3ft in before I got hot & tired. I noticed I was getting poked by thorns a lot more & being careless about the poison ivy, so I called it a day. Just came in from picking the blackberries off the canes I cut & it only filled a cereal bowl. And I'm in mourning for the hundred or so unripe ones that perished.

HJ, so far all I'm doing with them is eating them. There hasn't been enough to do anything with them, though I was hoping to get enough to try making blackberry cobbler. But now I'm off to research how to propagate blackbery cuttings, I need a lot more plants!

I'm so far behind with you all, I'll never catch up. I posted this in last week's instead of this. . . so will just go ahead and post it here. And now back to read up on the past week's.

Elderberry bushes in bloom are so pretty! I have two out front but at the corner of the yard, so we don't ever really see them.

I am SO sorry about your uncle--and all the grief in every way for everyone.

The grasshoppers are on their way to two wins in two years. Bad deal. However, I'll count my wins--a yard full of butterflies, too, at this point. Blueberries, blackberries, peppers, a couple tomatoes, garlic and onions. Kind of a strange harvest!

I don't know if I'll ever get my laptop debugged so I can sign on GW on it. For now my indoor big computer's the only access. Well. . . cell, but I don't use the cellphone for this stuff. And I'm out on the deck from morning til I fall asleep in the evening, for the most part.

It was quite nice here yesterday and the day before, Larry--it would have been great gardening weather, but the lake is finally down low enough so that we can launch the boat, and the high was just below 80 for most of the time were were out there--morning--beautiful weather. Fishing no good. Zip, nada.

Jennifer, your garden looks just beautiful, as did your kraut! I'm going to wind mine down--easy stuff like the strawberries, onions, garlic and asparagus.

We really need to get together one of these days, Rebecca, here or there with the others. My beets didn't turn out either. ONE. One great beet. lol

Crazy busy here. Been working at the school garden--and right now John and I are working up an inventory--he started it and I've been filling in the blanks. I laughed--Rick, I hate morning glories, too. John has been very conscientious about getting them out of the beds--BUT. we have this 8' tall fence all around the property. . . I've been planning to get the fence obscured along one long side by elderberries, blackberries, clematis virginiana, coral honeysuckle, and crossvine. And then John had the great idea of moving the morning glories into pots with bottoms removed and setting them against the fence. If there's one place we're fine with them, it's there. Fun idea, actually.

And that's about it from here. Take care, all.

Since I get so busy taking pictures of all the butterflies and getting them catalogued, I decided I needed the new best cell phone for the camera. I ordered it Thursday for a 1 day delivery by 4:30 pm. We were going to dinner but waited until 4:30 pm, then left. At 5, Fed Ex sent an email saying the delivery was delayed and the phone would be delivered Tuesday July 5. Steam was rolling out my ears. Rotten corporations that don't have to be accountable. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused, MA!!

Take a look at our muskmelons and our HOLY Basil! LOL.

Jen, the vines you cut down will shoot up new plants, or you can bend a cane over and bury part of it, you can also root prune and cause new canes. The canes that come up this year should produce next year. I think some of the newer berries will produce on the same year canes, but I have never had any of them. One of the mistakes I use to make with my berries was letting the canes get too tall before I would top it to make it produce more branches. I would grow mine along a wire. The less you have for them to grow into makes it easier to clean out the old canes. I would pile up the old canes and grind them up with the lawn mower.

Nice, Nancy!

Larry, do you ever accidentally leave small (or large) sweet potatoes in your garden, which are then tilled in later? I'm only asking because Rick mentioned something the other day. The area we had sweet potatoes last year is now home to some of the overflow tomatoes. Those tomatoes are insanely full and big and beautiful. He thought that maybe the missed sweet potatoes are fertilizing the tomatoes. I've also been amending that bed with chicken poo for a few years. Anyway...just wondering.

Jen, let us know what you find out about propagating blackberries!

Kim, that is a great set up for the bunnies! I love that it's in the shade. I sure do worry about all the animals who have little to no shade.

My Mom gifted us with a firepit kit so we picked it up today. I doubt we'll be building it anytime soon. No one wants to sit by a firepit right now anyways.

I bought a "July 4" wreath at Hobby Lobby. They are beginning to get Christmas stuff out. Of course they have fall stuff already.

I canned 8 jars of diced tomatoes. Had 9, but didn't want to run the water bath a second time. Pretty sure one of my recipes for the week calls for a can (jar in my case) of diced tomatoes, so those went into the refrigerator to be used this week.

Watching the weather now. Ugh.

The pickles that were in the crock went into jars and then into the refrigerator. This batch is delicious. I had dill and garlic from the garden--so fresh. You know how they always say to put grape leaves into your ferments? I don't have grape leaves....but read that the tannins in black tea also help keep the pickles crisp. Tried it.

We had a ridiculous chore of raking wood chips back into a pile. Long story that I won't bore anyone with....but, it was hot. Even this morning. Tom mowed and I used by new battery operated weed eater.

Now....it's time to water. Glad I did the back garden this morning.

Oh, I ate the cantaloupe in the pic above and it was good.

Okay....gotta do it. Gotta go outside and get this done.

Jennifer, I always miss some sweet potatoes, I cant say that it makes a lot of difference. I would think that you would have to miss an awful lot for it to improve the soil that much, my best guess would be the chicken poo in the soil is the reason your plants look so nice.

I am going to make room for 8 more pepper plants tomorrow, neighbor is going to plant some turnips and peas. Its dry as a bone here, and no rain in sight.

I need to mow, but I am going to just let the lawn look shaggy, I think it insulates the soil a little, and the lawn is better off in the long run. While I was on my hands and knees today weeding the north garden, I noticed that the bare dirt was so hot that I could barely hold my hand on it. I will try to put out mulch in a day or two.

Lynn, I meant to ask what type of cucumbers you're growing.

I'm growing a persian cuke this year and it's doing SO well.

The harlequin bugs have moved over to it from the kale. I'm smashing them daily, but I'm also harvesting cukes daily.

Been super slow with the garden this week. The entire household has been wiped out with a bug. I've been staring at the back of my eyelids so much, I started naming the little veins/blood vessels.

Still no rain and it doesn't look good next week. Hot, hot and more hot. What in the world is going on? Sure could have used some precip during this cool off.

I was able to get a blushing cherokee purple in the house, so i'm ready for that juicy burger. The toms are starting to show fungal spots on lower leaves. The Beit Alpha cukes are doing well, so we threw out a couple of cantaloupe too. Cucumber bettles will prob show up now, lol.

Our household is messed up also. my heart is still messing up. I have been to 3 different kind of heart specialist, each one seems to have a different idea on what to do. Last week my daughter took me to Little Rock, and Fayetteville the week before. I was told to wear a heart monitor for 30 days. The heart monitor is a glue on device that I keep screwing up while I am work out in the garden, it seems to come apart when I am sweating and crawling around in the garden on my hands and knees.

We got a call to come back to Little Rock the 15th for a 3 day stay in the hosp. Little Rock is 265 miles away. I told Madge that it is too hard to go back so soon. Madge is to get her arm fixed in Aug.. Her Dr. says she will have a 3 month recovery time. My daughter cant keep taking off work to take me to the doctor every week or two, and I doubt that the Dr. will want me driving.

We got a message on the phone device that goes with the monitor this morning, to box up the equipment and send it back to the doctor. I guess I have the Dr. hacked off because I did not want to go back to the hosp the 15 Th. and stay 3 days. I am told that I have to have the test in Little Rock because they are the only ones around here that can do the test, I think it is just an "out of network" thing, because there is nothing about Little Rock that is that special.

To make things more depressing, I just got word that another class mate died this morning. I should be counting my blessings, while others are dying, I am griping about not having enough time to play in the dirt.

I guess if I can get the doctor in a better mood. I will be heading to Little rock on the 14Th.

Well I need to go till up a spot to plant a few things.

H/J , I did not see this, I'm growing pickling cucumbers. I have five varieties ....

I got some plants at Marcums that are " Bush Pickle " and they're producing now.

Then I planted four variety from seed I found at Lowes and Home Depot .......

National Pickle

Picklebush

Bushy

Sumpter

The Natl Pickle and the Bushy are just now putting on small cucumbers.

The Picklebush and Sumpter are " organic " , whatever that means, but they've been growing a lot slower.

I picked this just this evening, all but one is Bush Pickle They do a real good job of hiding, they're really hard to see down in the bottom of the plant. I'm not sure about what color they need to be to harvest ?

And the pic has a couple of Beefmaster tomato, that I think are " catfaced " , which that variety is really bad about.

Lynn, the harvest is very nice. I think all cucumbers have the habit of hiding. The two cucumber plants I had at the house died, so I go to the wildlife garden, or to neighbor's produce stand to get my cucumbers now. I like my cucumbers smaller than than he picks, so that means to keep mama happy I need to pick my own, which means I have to hunt for them down in the vines.

The tomatoes you pictured are a battle at our house, Madge likes large tomatoes, I like smaller ones. I like to be able to eat the whole tomato at one meal, which means I like a tomato with good taste and about the size of a tennis ball, or a little smaller. Madge likes a slice of a tomato to cover a slice of bread. It seems to me that the smaller tomatoes are more uniform in their size also.