October Rain!

A lot of rain here! The trails are soaked. You can't walk without getting covered in mud. It's not very warm, and the colors aren't even close to being pretty yet!

In between the rain days, we've had a chance to get the garden cleaned up. Everything has been picked. It looks so neat and peaceful!!

Happy October garden friends!!

Bird House Gourds

The bird house gourds never did come up. Wondering if it's because we used seeds from last years gourds...

We did end up with two baskets of decorative gourds all shapes and colors. They're gorgeous. Hoping to get a basket to Annette's before the fall season is over!! :)

Pumpkin Rot!

Our pumpkins are rotting on the vine! Wondering if it's the strange weather we've had? All of the extra rain? Cool weather? The pumpkins left look nice, just not very many and they're pretty small.

Speaking of Social Problems...

A lot of things going on in the news lately. :(

If everyone gardened, the world would be a much kinder and gentler place!

Peace Out Gardeners!!

Social Problem!

I had a chance to go into Dave's Daily Garden Blog! He shared a social problem with his peppers -- it is too funny!! Dave says people are avoiding him because they don't want any more of his peppers!! Or any other veggies he's trying to give them!!

Hope Annette and I haven't had the same social problem!!

Random Comments

Our pumpkins and gourds are looking good!!

The goat and pony found the sweet corn patch last week, and we've had fun keeping them out of it!!

I heard on that new Dr. Oz show the other week that dogs actually love carrots! Posting our own silly quiz to see if that's true!

We have had some beautiful weather in our area these past two weeks!! Warm, sunny, and just gorgeous!!

Pickled Cukes and Zucchinni Bread!

Pickle Cukes: boil 2 cups of sugar, 1 cup of water, and 1 cup of vinegar with a dash of salt. Cool, and poured over sliced onions and cukes (from the garden). When the cukes and onions get low, slice more up and ad them to the dish.

Made zucchini bread this week.

Next dish attempt -- pickled beets!!

The girls have been helping us weed and pick vegetables, but this week they ditched us for the go-cart. Had to share some pictures of the mud babes!!

Gourds

One corner of the garden is still a mess. It's where we planted our bird house gourds, and I've been afraid to get in there to weed because we can't see where they are coming up for us! Not sure what's going on there!

Annette and I enjoy crafts. She sews and knits, and I do the gourd crafts. Really hoping they still pop up for us!!

Solving the Problems of the World - One Weed At A Time!

Well, Annette and I got a little bit behind in our weeding! I don't know what happened!! We had such good intentions! I think it was a combination of weather, kids, hubbies, summer, chores... you name it, it probably applied to us!! Annette says that we have put a completely new meaning behind the word "organic" gardening!

Seriously, though, the times we did get together to just weed, we feel we made a huge dent in solving all of the complex issues of the world! One weed at a time!! Now, if only we could just get someone to listen to our solutions!!

The huge, out of control weeds have been taken care of! Now we are back on track and into maintenance mode! Which means that the garden, once again, looks like a garden! We have even been able to enjoy the first pickings of the season! Zucchini, radishes, chard, spinach, cukes, cherry tomatoes, and one green pepper!

Despite the weed issue, and juggling of garden time together, we are having a blast with our summer adventure!! And, honestly, weeding is even fun when you are weeding with a friend. I will confess, one week I think I did more complaining than weeding while Annette seriously tackled the weeds.

Annette has shared some veggies with her neighbors, and I've enjoyed some really great spinach and chard salads!

Happy July!!!

Adorable Fawn!!!

Awwwwwww!

We can't be too upset with the loss of our purple cabbage. My daughter and I saw a doe hanging out in the pasture next to the garden with the cutest, most adorable little fawn!! It is so tiny!!! A shiny brown with bright white spots covering it's back!!!

A nice steady rain here over night and this morning.

Deer and Racoons!

The racoon's have been back into our garage and are making some huge messes! The deer have found and raided our garden!!! They left their cute little hoof prints all over it, and chowed down our one lone cabbage plant. All they left was two little leaves and the clump of packaged dirt square.

Our seed veggies are popping up and looking great! The radishes, green beans, peas, watermelon, corn, and carrots have made their appearance and look nice and healthy!!

Nice

The weekend here was beautiful! Last week's rain has everything popping up nicely!

Dig In Dirt Blogs

Found a great blog for Gardeners! Dig In Dirt is a Garden Directory blog. There are all types of blogs to choose from. Serious, Chatty, Simple, Elaborate, etc.

There was also a weeding idea on Dig In Dirt, suggesting using newspapers for weed control. Not sure how that would really work, but sounded interesting. I have a friend that uses rags in her rows for weed control, a brother-in-law that uses leaves (he collects bagged leaves from city neighborhoods during the fall, stores them in his barn, and puts them on his garden after it's planted).

Kritters

Pasture gate next to the garden was left open. The pony and goat noticed and wandered into the yard. When I noticed them they were in between the garden where Annette was working, and me. I panicked and thought they were going to head straight for the garden and start munching on our little starter plants!! So, instead of getting the grain nice and calmly to lead them back into their pen, I start yelling at my hubby to do something!

The kritters got all worked up and started kicking and bucking and tearing around the yard! Annette confesses later that she was terrified they were going to come her way so she stood in the garden waving her arms! In her words, she wasn't sure if she was helping or just airing out her armpits!

I calmed down, ran for the grain, they got their treat and all ended well!

Rain

A nice steady rain last night did the watering for us this week! About 1/4"!! No signs of deer visitors, although 4 racoons visited the garage and ripped open the dog food!

We still have to plant our sunflowers. We're trying a sunflower circle for the kids. It's supposed to make a nice sunflower fort.

We also tried some companion planting. We put the pole bean tee pees next to the corn and also planted the squash next to the corn. The tip said the squash will help keep the corn roots cool, and the corn will be a good place for the pole beans to climb.

Bucks

TEN bucks in the hay field on the other side of the garden fence. So far everything has survived the wild kritters! We put in some watermelon plants, cucumbers... Hope those bucks don't find them!!

Planting

Husband and son plowed and disked the garden throughout April and May. The bean pole for the girls was up and ready. We were ready to plant!

The kids planted the carrots, beans, and pumpkins. Annette and I put in everything else and ended our day off by sitting in the swing, drinking the last of our dirt covered cups of tea, and admiring our work.

To quote Annette's husband, it looks like a serious garden. And, it only took us 5 hours to plant!!

Seeds and Plants

Friday we bought our seeds and plants at Jolly Junction. We laughed a lot, bought too much, and received more advice than we could retain!!