This and That

 I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July.  We had zero plans.  The humidity was so bad, it could choke a person, and then it rained.  However, by dinner time the rain had cooled down the heat and thinned the air, so we grilled out with a few kids and played cards.

Today the air quality is said to be bad.  More rain is on the way.

Whats been happening?  Well, it's been hot.  Very hot.  

Delivery days happened.  There were personal deliveries to those who had "stuff" in our garage, a trip to the thrift store for donations I purged, and more.  We have more planned deliveries for other items.

I'm now contemplating a book purge on another bookshelf.  The photo only shows a portion of one shelf on the bookshelf (gulp).

On the repair front, weather stripping needs replaced in a few doors.  The weed whacker needed a new part (now fixed), and a few windows needed new locks installed.

On the garden front, we have harvested a few more bits.

Three garden salsa hot peppers, and one zucchini.  I made fresh salsa with the hot peppers, and boy are they hot!  They are a much more potent heat than jalapenos.  It will clear your sinuses.

A few days ago, I started saving our coffee grounds.  I am sprinkling them along the green/wax bean rows in my last ditch effort to save them.  One, they add nitrogen to the soil, and two, it deters some rodents and pests.  I'm hoping it works.  I guess we'll find out soon enough.

We have purchased some inexpensive plastic garden fencing on a roll to install around the green beans this weekend.  We joked that our green beans cost us $$$ this year to grow.  It will work for the season, until we recover our previous fence expensive, and buy more fencing for the entire other garden.

We are really hoping for more rain today, because I need to thin out the radishes (soil has been pretty dry due to the heat), and we have 3 trees growing in beds of various locations that need dug out (birds and squirrels are the worst planters).  One tree is a walnut tree, and their roots are like cement.

Speaking of rodents, I finally got my husband to get all the supplies we need to build two tree baffles.  If they do as they should, we'll make one more for the peach tree.  Yes, they will be green, because we could not find white buckets, other than Menards (and they were twice the price).  At least it's better than hot orange, ha ha!  Pictures to come later hopefully.  The supplies were much less expensive to do it this way, vs. sheet metal or baffles.

On the kitchen front, I tried a new recipe.  Only because it sounded delicous.  You mix greek yogurt with peanut butter and place scoops on waxed paper.  You freeze it, then coat it with melted dark chocolate.  I don't have a photo to share, but it was very good, however, the yogurt/peanut butter mixture did not freeze in the 20 minutes the recipe said it would.  I waited an hour, and still not frozen.  It took a very long time, so I have plans to do it differently, and in mini-muffin pan liners next time.  It's a sweet, high protein, cold snack for a hot day.

The kids didn't need eggs, so I once again boiled some, and made egg salad. It's great for a quick meal on a hot day, and you can top it with home grown microgreens.

As for the zucchini, I may use it to make a zucchini-jalapeno frittata.  Possibly with some Canadian bacon on the side, bacon or other breakfast meat.

This and That  © July 2024 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

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