Garden Begginings of July

 July 1st was fantastic weather here.  I was literally in the garden the entire day.

I came in about dinner time, to start making breakfast for the next day.  I was at my limit of energy, so it was a big batch of scrambled eggs, with some Canadian bacon and blueberry sausages.  There may be pancakes later this week.  There may be radish hashbrowns depending on if they are ready soon (planted late this year).

Kitchen time is so much better, now that I have a new kitchen faucet. It's had problems with water pressure, and getting hot water (build up most likely) for awhile now, and the hose recently broke.  

We are heating up this week now.  We are to be back to the 90's today.

Our peach tree.  Despite it looking half dead (as it has the last few years), it's still hanging on.  The apple trees are full of apples again.  Tree baffles are on the to-do list.  We plan on making our own, but every year we forget due to other projects.  I'm hoping we can get supplies this week.

Potatoes were hilled.

Canteloupe blossoms are on.

Harvested:

Jalapenos are on, and the Garden Salsa hot peppers are about ready, but the tomatoes are far behind (and a lot less than last year).

Boiled eggs from the chickens, and made egg salad with a bunching onion from the herb garden.

By the way, if you are out of mayo, or do not have eggs to make homemade mayo, Greek plain yogurt works for egg salad.  It's not my favorite, but it works, and adds more protein.

Planted:

I planted (late) 9 "fooled you" hot peppers, and have more to plant.  Since the rabbits got all but one of the tomatoes in the other garden, we have room to add them.  I am planting them, because my husband bought them by mistake, thinking he was buying another hot pepper.  I planted them next to our hottest peppers, so we'll see if they will fool us or not.  They are a mild pepper.

I also planted a lot of marigold seeds just before the last rainfall.  We'll see if they come up. 

The mystery berry is indeed wineberry.  They are tiny.  

Sort of hard to see in that photo, but what the rabbits left of the green beans.  We are working on rigging some sort of "fence" to keep them out, but I am weeding like crazy first.  It's a hot mess after all that rain, but everything else is looking good.

Gophers are a struggle around here.  They were the ones eating down the hot peppers early in the season.  They are much different than rabbits in behavior.  If one is outside, they take off running, as soon as they hear the slightest sound.  Rabbits on the other hand, will just sit there and keep eating, as if I'm no threat at all.  As if they are saying, "hey lady, thanks for the delicious food."   Life in the country.  City folks are having gardening issues with them too.

A fence is the only answer, and I think we were "lucky" all these past years.  However, the rabbits ate some of my flowers this year too.  First time for that in all the years living here.

The squash bugs are here much earlier this year, so I have taken care of that, as I saw eggs on the pie pumpkin leaves the other day, and a few actual bugs under one zucchini plant.

The lack of rain has brought in ants. We live in an old farm house.   Again, I have soaked cotton balls in a 50/50 mix of borax and sugar (made into a paste with water.  I place the soaked cotton balls onto a small piece of waxed paper to keep it from sticking to the counter top.  The next day, there are no ants.

Solution for flies getting inside the house.  I was told that a mix of peppermint essential oil and clove on a cotton ball/round, and swipping the areas of the window will keep them out.  So far, it's worked like a charm for us.

Garden Begginings of July  © July 2024 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart