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Our Garden

  Weather means more when you have a garden.There’s
nothing like listening to a shower and  thinking how it is
soaking in around your green beans. – Marcelene Cox

We’ve been harvesting here- onions, potatoes, tomatoes and buckets of cucumbers. We don’t plant corn here in town and usually can make a trade with someone for some or find some pretty cheap. There are usually plenty of little places dotting the countryside with a rickety table set up in the front yard and bags of corn for sale. With the very dry weather we’ve had there aren’t any little rickety tables set up yet. We’ve been satisfying our corn-on-the-cob cravings down at the little farmer’s market here in town. I’m not too fond of the prices though. First time we bought it- $2.99/doz. ears then 4 days later it went up to $3.49/doz. Yikes- that’s big for my food budget! Then Mr. Steady reminded me that it’s still cheaper than eating out. Well, both he and I had a craving for corn-on-the-cob and sausage last night. It was on the menu for tonight but it sounded so good to Mr. Steady last night so- we flip-flopping the meals. No harm. Good news is the price is back down to $2.99/doz. It’s my favorite variety too- Peaches-n-cream- full of buttery chinny goodness.
I’m still giving away gallon size Ziploc bags of salad greens. So far the neighbors aren’t locking their doors when they see me coming! LOL.
Mr. Steady needs to make and give more of his yummy cukes. We feel like we’ve lost a week what with the youth camping trip and my sister getting engaged and planning to be married in 9 weeks and my niece being born . . . .
The cherry tomatoes just started turning last week and Mr. Conductor is the chief harvester there- we have to watch him as he is a very enthusiastic picker but he finds such joy in it. We just harvested our first fist size tomato (forgot which variety Mr. Steady said it was) yesterday and we think a couple more will be ready by the weekend. Maiden and Mr. Steady are looking forward to the coming days of yummy tomato sandwiches. Maiden has made up her own deluxe recipe- toasted bread, plenty of mayo, big fat juice slice of tomato topped with her favoritest of cheeses- Farmers. It is quite good. Very gourmet.
The girls have there own secret fairy garden. A lot of fun and it keeps them busy designing and re-arranging little paths and nooks and such. Sigh, if the camera were working I’d take pictures . . . .  I’m setting aside every spare dollar towards the purchase of a new one. Must be patient and pray.

My garden is a bit blah right now- those mid-season blahs.  Yes, it’s weeded, but parts of plants are dying off (early bloomers and such) and others looking scraggily. The Apple Mint is in bloom so I am vigilant about trimming it (got more than enough right now!). The Bee Balm is done and looking quite sad and forlorn but the day lilies are a delight! The chives that I gave buzz-cuts are sprouting up looking much healthier (gave them a bit of elbow room too by removing some other plants).
Mr. Steady and I think we will tackle the last front bed in another week or so- weed it real good, mark off the new borders and dump in a lot of compost and let it sit (except for stirring) for a month. Then the plan is to transplant some plants in September. I’ve got a line on some hostas (free for the digging) and a small wish list for the garden center. I’ve been blessed in the past with some great plants at rock bottom prices by waiting until the “end of the season” [September/October]. The plants then have the winter to “hibernate” and develop their root systems (instead of spring planting when all the plant’s energy is spent with new growth and blooms).
There is a very sad, sad looking pink flowering rhododendron bush out front that we will move over next to the Seven Sisters heirloom rose bush. I pray that it will make the move. It was once a beautiful bloomer but then an ice storm took out half of it, then my nephew fell off a ladder and it broke his fall (he was only half way up the ladder carrying shingles to the roof and was just fine) and then a large heavy snow (slid right off our metal roof and dumped right on the bush) demolished even more of the bush. It’s now about a quarter of the size it once was and looks pretty pitiful. It was a gift from one of Mr. Steady’s brothers (and family) for my college graduation and so I would really like to keep it.
I also plan on moving some of the Apple Mint as well. I’m not sure if I’ll put it in the bed out front or somewhere else.
In other garden related news- we are missing one of our solar hanging garden lanterns. It’s been missing for weeks now and we suspect someone has taken it. We interrogated talked with the kiddos the day after it came up missing and we believe that none of them took it. Years ago, when we first moved here, we had some trouble with area youth taking and moving things in our yard- including our pumpkins being taken from our porch steps and smashed in the alley behind our carriage house.
In a humorous aside- we thought the same kids were unscrewing the large bulbs in a string of Christmas lights we had in a small pine smack-dab in the middle of our back yard. Which made me M-A-D enough that I got up early one morning and sat in the dark watching and waiting for the culprits to arrive . . . . and found out that a couple of squirrels were unscrewing and carting away the bulbs. Yes, that’s right- a couple of squirrels. I am not joking. That problem was then solved by keeping the lights on all night long- which leads me to the thinking that we then had a couple of squirrels with some heat-burned paws . . . . LOL. We cut down the tree the next year and have never set pumpkins out on our front steps since. And haven’t had much trouble.