A hot, hot harvest day and a new enemy.

 

   

Hot, hot day on the farm. It was 95 degrees today and tomorrow it’s gonna be 97 but with a heat index that makes it feel like 110°. That makes it no fun to be in the garden. Add about 80% Humidity to that temp and that equals a very difficult harvest. Luckily Mindy spent a half hour collecting the veggies.

The small grape or (cherry) tomatoes are getting ripe but the other types are still pretty green.

The peppers are starting to really pop! You can see a green pepper and a Thai hot pepper in the above picture along with spinach, lettuce, dill, basil, cucumbers, and grape/cherry tomatoes.

There’s a couple of jack rabbits that are just destroying the garden. They’re taking down broccoli, cucumbers, pumpkins and now I gotta take them out. I think I’ll set some traps this week and relocate the little guys to somewhere else. Far, far away from here.

There’s also a video of Jake chasing one rabbit off here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFnq-U6ppHA

Here’s a couple stills of the varmint.

   

Read Full Post »

What’s the Big Dill?

 

Cucumbers are just blowing up. Mindy collected these this afternoon. We collected about a dozen yesterday as well. They love this heat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I cut some for bread and butter chips and mixed with sugar, apple cider vinegar and spices.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The finished product….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I made some Dill Pickles, Mindy’s favorite. I like the Bread and Butter. The dill pickle recipe is on the recipe tab. I’ll post the B & B recipe as soon as I can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Fresh Dill from the garden and the pickle spears soaking in vinegar and spices.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, I found this spider eating a grasshopper the other day. Any idea what type of spider this is? Click on the pic to see a larger version cause I could swear it has a Mickey Mouse logo on it’s body.

Read Full Post »

The veggies are getting bigger each day!

Cherry Tomatoes are turning red the Beefsteaks have a bit longer to ripen.

Supersonic and Romas are popping too

.

  

Basil and Apples growing on the tree

   
Cabbage is balling up and dill is looking tasty.

Sweet Corn is growing really fast.

Read Full Post »

A very pink evening

 
Peppers are starting to flower and I got celery in the ground.

 
Broccoli got in and tomatoes are loving this heat.

 
Brother Doug helped me plant, carrots, onions, basil, oregano, dill, thyme,  parsley, spinach and lettuce from seed. We cover them in straw to create a warm, wet environment to germinate the seeds faster. It also cuts down on weeds by blocking the out.

 

The sky turned a really crazy pink tonight so I ran outside to capture some photos. The sun painted the garden a haze of pink and the sky rumbled with thunder.

 
Just crazy cool and an eerie calm before the thunderstorms.

 
Fence and latch in the pink glow. I like the latch pic best of all.

Read Full Post »