Tag Archives: corn

2020 Garden Update & Shelibean’s Good Attitude

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Sheli’s photo expresses how life has been going around my home… And I’m guessing it may be the way life is going for some other folks homes as well.
I wish you all the best of health and happiness. Big hugs to you all!
~*~
We got most of our garden planted over the past few weeks. We’ve still got a few things to go. It helps, to add cheer to our life, walking to the garden and seeing the plants growing with a promise of veggies to come… or a promise of watching deer and bunnies feasting on our plants. 😉
Happy gardening!

 

The Corn Critter

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The other day, while sitting on the back porch enjoying the first cooler temperatures of the season in a month, my husband says, “There’s something moving a corn-stalk in the garden.” We watched the jiggling corn-stalk for a moment then he grabbed the binoculars and I grabbed my camera. We went out into the yard got a good angle on the garden and this is what we saw. Thank goodness for a zoom lens.Isn’t it adorable?
Every year we see signs of raccoons in our corn, but this cutie critter is the first time we actually seen a one in our corn. We got a good chuckle at seeing it. I’m glad I got a few photos of it too. It’s my first raccoon photos ever.

Since the corn wasn’t as tasty this year, we decided to leave the bulk of it in the garden for the critters. Later on, after the stalks turn brown and dry out, we’ll pick any corn ears left. We’ll shell the corn and scatter it on the ground for the critters that forage and eats the hard corn kernels.

Wishing you all a week full of smiles.

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Redwork Update, 1st corn harvest, surprise squash

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I finally chose a fabric for the borders of my redwork block. I ordered it and it should be here in a couple weeks. The fabric company I ordered from has good prices, but they are slower with shipping than I’m used too. I hope the fabric is the right weight to work well with my blocks. The weight of fabric is one of the hardest parts about shopping online. Oh well, I’ll know soon enough.
As close as I can figure, I’ve got 2 more redwork blocks to go. I’m enjoying making them, but I’ll be glad when they’re all finished and ready to be made into a quilt top. Here’s an edited photo of the blocks I’ve finished so far since I returned to doing my redwork project.

My husband harvested 4 ears of peaches and cream corn for our supper Sunday evening. It was really good, but it wasn’t as sweet and tasty as in previous years. We wonder if might have something to do with the dry Summer we’ve had.

While harvesting squash the other day, my husband discovered that we have a light color acorn squash growing. Since we planted only dark green Early Acorn squash seeds, the light color one on a separate vine is quite a surprise. I think it may be called a golden acorn squash. I hope it gets the chance to mature before the evil squash vine borers kills the vine. Surprise veggies put an extra bit of fun in gardening.

Wishing you all have a fun week.

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Black Swallowtail Butterfly Egg, 1st tomato & bell pepper, squash and corn

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We made a fennel bed Black Swallowtail Butterfly nursery. I planted parsley and carrots in it because they also like to use it for a nursery too. We put it out near the woods and hopefully far enough from our backporch that the caterpillars will go to the woods to chrysalis.
We’ve anxiously waited for the butterflies to use the fennel bed and we worried that they hadn’t yet.
However Friday I checked the bed and I’m happy to say that there are several Black Swallowtail Butterfly eggs scattered about on the fennel. ~happy dance~We harvested our first tomato and first bell pepper out of the garden. For us, it’s fun harvesting our veggies. We harvested a dozen yellow squash too.Our corn is standing strong and silking beautifully. Hopefully, we’ll have a nice harvest of peaches and cream corn this year.The rains have been a blessing, but I’m glad the forecast is clear for the next few days.

Here’s wishing you all a great rest of the weekend.

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Potato Bucket Done, Corn Harvest & a Tomato

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My potato plant was looking poorly and began to turn yellow, so I decided it was time to see if it was productive. I’m happy to report the my potato bucket produced one little potato. Unfortunately, it is too small to eat.  I left the little potato in the garden for any critter that might want a snack.
I don’t think my potato bucket experiment has been a total failure. It solved my curiosity and it produced several blog posts. 😉
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A short time ago, a storm came through and flattened our beautiful corn. About half the crop struggled to stand back up. Some critters feasted on some of the corn. Even though the corn probably needed another few days of ripening, we thought it best to harvest it or we wouldn’t get any to eat.
On the 4th of July we harvested, shucked, blanched, cut-off-the-cob, vacuum packaged and froze 17 bags of corn.
We’re very happy to have the corn frozen and available for many meals to come.
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At last another tomato is finally ripening. It’s so pretty snuggled down in the lush green leaves of the tomato vine. It should be ready soon.

Originally, I kind of wondered if our garden was too small, but it’s proven to be a good size for us. We’ve enjoyed tending our little garden and the veggies are a mighty tasty reward.

Wishing you all a happy harvest!

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Gardening, Potato Buckets & Roses

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Our squash and cucumbers are producing well. Maybe a bit too well.
Our onions have grown well too. The onion patch is almost ready for a complete harvest.
Despite the critters, our beans are trying to produce. Luckily, we had enough for a small cooking of them.
We’re happy to have our first tomatoes, even though they need to sit a few days to completely ripen.
Yep, we are quickly becoming squash poor…  😀
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Our corn is tasseling and getting silky ears. I can hardly wait for the first sweet harvest and cooking.
Our garden is at that special point where it’s not pretty and clean anymore. But it’s producing and that’s the important thing.
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We went ahead and dumped the wilty potato plant bucket out. The plant was rotten down in the bucket. I guess there was something about it that made it fail to thrive.The potato plant in the bucket that we have left is gorgeous. It’s healthy and green and has little buds ready to bloom. Hopefully it’s well on the way to growing a potato or two.
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Recently, we bought a couple of rose bushes.
We haven’t had any in years and thought it might be fun to have some.
Plus they might attract a few more butterflies.…
The ‘yellow hybrid tea rose’ is attracting japanese beetles and insects, but the red ‘knock out’ rose is bug free. I reckon the yellow rose must be sweeter than the red one. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen a few japanese beetles in our corn. But now that we have the roses, the corn is beetle free. Honestly, we’re glad the japanese beetles are attracted to the rose and leaving our corn alone. I use the old stomp & squish method to control the japanese beetles. Hopefully, I won’t have to resort to pesticides.~*~
There’s never a dull moment with gardening. It’s a lot of work, but it’s enjoyable work and the rewards are a beautiful bounty.

I hope you all have a pest free week full of beauty and goodness.

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1st squash harvest – potato bucket update

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We got our first harvest of squash yesterday. We harvested some other veggies to go along with the squash for a stir fry.

My squash plants are big and beautiful at the moment. The corn is growing tall and strong. The beans, well, they’re pretty much just rabbit food as you can kind of tell from the plants in front of the squash.All-in-all, everything in the garden is growing well except for the beans.My potato buckets are looking really good. I’m not putting anymore soil in the buckets. I think they’re full enough. I have high hopes of at least one potato bucket producing at least one potato. I hope they bloom soon…

Wishing you all happy days for the rest of the week!

 

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Potato bucket, Gardening & fan nest

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One of my potato plants grew tall enough to add more soil to the bucket. I may have went a bit over board with the soil. As you can see, I kept the plant a couple inches tall and buried the leaves, so maybe it’ll be okay. It’ll make me happy if I actually luck up and grow an edible potato or two in the buckets.
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The garden is growing and doing well.
Except for our beans. The bunnies are eating the tops out of them. We figure the beans may still mature and produce as long as the plants have some leaves and are healthy. Our squash is loaded with babies. It won’t be long until we have a nice fresh mess of straightneck squash.The cucumber vines are growing nicely and has a few blooms. We grow cucumbers for salads and to snack on. These few plants will produce enough for us for the summer.The corn looks good and is growing strong. We hope we’ll have enough corn to freeze several bags for the winter.We’re happy with our little garden. It doesn’t require much attention (yet). We like having the more compact smaller garden.

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It’s that special time of year for birds to nest. A couple of birds tried to build nests in our fans again on the back porch. My husband cleaned out the twigs and fluff. Thankfully there wasn’t an egg in the nesting. We now keep the fans running on low during the day to deter the birds from trying to build nests again.
~*~
I hope your plants and flowers are thriving and growing well.
Have a great week!

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edited in 5-22-2017-2:45pm:
Well I didn’t have to worry about adding too much soil after all because the potato plant took care of it.

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