garden food

We planted some onions last year and they are now ready to eat. Yay! I love onions, scallions, and the like. I put some in my beloved's dinner tonight as well as on my salad.

see? you can even see the dirt!

Green Meadows farm

Today we visited Green Meadows farm. We went with Nate's sister and her 2 kids. We had a good time catching ducks (like this one) and chickens, and petting pigs and cows and bison and sheep, and all kinds of stuff. It's the perfect time of year to go, since it's cool enough out and not as many people are attending, due to the time of year. Green Meadows is a petting farm, not really a working farm as such, nevertheless, still fun to go and visit. The ducks, nor the chickens, were too keen on being caught and held, but I managed to catch one of each for the kids to hold. The girl did great with them, the boy seemed scared and unsure. Quite different than what I was expecting. Still, they had a good time. 

winter garden

We're getting quite a bit of cabbage and lettuce this time of year. I can hardly believe all that's coming up. I can't wait to start on the spring garden. We're going for compost here in a couple weeks and will be sowing our seeds of love (so to speak) shortly thereafter. I still don't want to plant much until end of this month as we still may get another freeze. After today's weather (78 degrees) I have to wonder...

new garden and yard plans

Moses hiding

Nate loves going to the HD, (imagine that), and while we were there we talked about what to plant in this years garden, and also what to replace with what in the front yard. The frost this year has killed back a LOT of plants that are now very brown in the front yard, but I refuse to replant until March. I have a feeling we're going to get another frost before March, so I don't want to risk killing what I've just planted. 

We're going to try carrots and radishes, among a couple other things, in the garden this year. Lettuce has done very well, so we'll do that, naturally, and our onions are still growing in the garden. They are doing quite well, I must say and I'm surprised. I guess I really shouldn't be since they are bulb plants and would do well since they are in the ground. 

Moses will miss his hiding place as we'll be putting the camper shell back on Nate's truck here soon. We need to get more compost first before we put it back on. Much easier to shovel and rake when the top is off. He looked so cute this morning I had to take a picture! 

yay for rain!

summer rain

We are getting some much needed rain here this morning, thank god. We need it. There was a small brush fire nearby recently (a couple miles away) but that is close enough. Winter isn't usually our rainy season. Everything is dry and brown since we have no rain. We didn't get much rain over the summer either, so brush fires are something we'll have to deal with. I am glad that it hasn't gotten so close to us. We do have a green space just east of us, between our neighborhood and the one on the other side of it, which is only some 500 yards away. I keep my eye on it. 

The plants like the rain and now we have more water for our rain barrels. Another winter project is putting up some more gutters to route more rain to the barrels instead of just the ground. We have a list of outside projects to do before April, when it starts to get really hot. I told Nate, this year, I am NOT working outside in July. I'll be glad to help outside up until 10a, and after 6p in the evening, but other than that, it is just too damn hot and uncomfortable to work in the garden. We'll get it done. 

covering the garden boxes

The bugs have been so bad here that Nate bought this very thin fabric to cover the boxes. He's ingenious at putting things together, and he came up with an idea of using pvc pipe as an arch over the boxes, and using this fabric to protect the plants. So far, it has worked well on the one box that we have covered right now. It is just so damn hot and humid that it's not fun putting this together. Either at 6am or after 6pm is when it's best to be outside. I can't wait for November. 

what're you lookin' at?

We have some plants for the fall: broccoli, cabbage, and we're going to try some lettuce again, in these covered boxes. I am hoping for the best. The herbs have done very well uncovered in this weather, so we may leave those smaller boxes as is for now. 

sweat rag and water bottle are de riguer around here.

Happy Labor Day

Take a break everyone! enjoy the day off! here is to all who labor, sweat, toil, and stress for a living. Congratulations on an extra day off. Do whatever you like today, enjoy the day. Because tomorrow will be here too soon. 

My beloved was working in the garden putting this cover over the plants. The bugs have been brutal this year, and the one container that already has this on it has been very successful. I told him to stop for today and take a break. It's too damn hot too. It's supposed to feel like 100 today. A great day to stay inside. (pay no attention to the butt crack.)

Moses

Moses has been growing by leaps and bounds lately, and I'm not talking physically. He has overcome his fear of the kitchen (go figure, since there is food there) and all the noises that go along with it. He has become comfortable enough around us that he sometimes gets underfoot and we end up stepping on him. (quite by accident of course!) He loves to sit in the front yard under the trees and tall shrubs and look for lizards. He even came across a frog one day. He saw it hop away and I told him "you probably shouldn't lick that" and sure enough as soon as I said that, he pulled back and shook his head, like 'that tastes awful!'

another way I know he's comfortable here is by how he relaxes around us. I don't think he has any bones. 

He's over a year old now and we've had him for 10 months. He is my little boy, my cute little orange kitten!

summer harvest is over

yep, all the tomatoes we had are done growing, the watermelons have died off, the corn was eaten by something but us, and our basil is on its way back. (I ate a lot of that. good stuff!) so now we are going to till up the beds we have left and get ready for planting our fall harvest. We'll keep one box for herbs, Nate has his beans growing, and we are going to make some covers for the boxes as the kittens have been having fun wreaking havoc in the garden beds, so we are trying to come up with a way to keep them out of there, as opposed to keeping them in the house all day.

this is a mouse from months ago. the rat she caught was twice the size of this rodent. 

speaking of being in the house, we came home today to a dead rat in the living room. yeah. kinda yucky since it was missing half of its head. that we found down the hall. At least they are helping keep the yard rodent free. fierce kittens we have.

Wolfie

she looks so serious here

Finally RAIN!

Yay! we finally had some big rain today! When I first moved here to Florida, I had never seen such big rain! It seems to take up the whole sky when it rains here! and it's not like a little drizzle for days either. It rains A LOT in a relatively short amount of time, and then it's gone. The thunder and lightning sure make for a big show and can be very scary sometimes. The yard and the plants are very grateful for the rain. As am I. It helps to cool us all down, which we desperately need. It was in the 90's again today. The white tent looking thing in the garden has sweet potatoes growing in it. Nate decided he had had enough with all the damn bugs and made a cover for one of our planters, and they look pretty good in there. They are coming along nicely and don't look burnt or have leaves full of holes. that's one thing about Florida, too many weird funky damn bugs and not enough cold to kill them off. 

sorry looking corn

I don't know what happened to the corn, but it looks pretty sorry. I'm not sure if it's the heat, the soil, or bugs, or a combination of all 3, but they didn't even come close. Nate is sorely disappointed. He was looking forward to corn, as he likes it so much. I take consolation in the fact that we got so many tomatoes.

I keep telling him it's our first garden, and we really did plant too late in the season, so we should be happy with what we got. I'm excited about the fall vegetables! I'm not used to having a garden in the fall. In Ohio, by now, the plants have gone through their life cycle and we are preparing to till up the garden to put it to bed for the winter.

staving off the rain....

So far we have staved off the rain today. I was hoping for some, for the plants sake, but I was also doing laundry and hanging it outside, and I didn't want to do the clothes grab if it started to rain suddenly.

Today I finished the last of my homework for my degree. It feels good to be done, but it still hasn't totally hit me yet that I have a degree. It'll take some time. I have been enjoying the 'weekend off' of homework, so to speak. I got up early today and rode my bike to yoga class. It helps keep me centered, and it so good for the body. The ride home was good too, as it was overcast and there was just enough breeze to make it easy to ride home, and a pleasure to have the breeze.

The tomatoes are still producing and we have a few for salad for dinner tonight. The heat has taken a toll on most of the rest of the plants, not to mention us and the animals as well. We're all very tired. Tomorrow we sleep in!

Tomorrow is do-nothing-stay-in-my-pajamas-and-don't-leave-the-house-until-I-need-to-take-Scotty-to-the-park day. I'm very much looking forward to it. Of course, I'll check on the vegetables when I get up, as it's still kind of cool then. Tolerable, I should say.

I found this flower on one of our plants, and for the life of me, I can't remember which one. That's what I get for hesitating in storing these photos. All I can say is, it's pretty.

the FINAL final

I took my Major Field Test in Business this evening. I printed out the results. Come to find out...

I'm average.

My delusions of grandeur are officially squashed.

I'll sleep better tonight without the pressure.

we have a watermelon!

I could hardly believe it when Nate showed it to me! The weather has been unbearably HOT (feels like 102F today) and most things are withering brown and dying. I was wondering how a watermelon would grow on a vine, but it is! I am so ecstatic! I am hoping this one comes to fruition so we can have some for later this year. Watermelons take a LONG time to grow, and this is a baby one. We'll keep an eye on it to see how it progresses. 

Our tomatoes are growing really well. Almost everyday we have at least a few yellow pear tomatoes and one big red tomato.

even the hanging tomato planter is producing!