Our New Neighbors

We have new neighbors living in our orchard; they were greeted by the "welcome wagon".

Meet the "Deer Family".

Mama, papa, older sister and the twins.

I Spy In The Garden

Elizabeth and I searched the garden this morning and found a small green tomato;

Many cute little cucumbers;

Several ears of corn;

A cute little cantaloupe;

A pumpkin or squash, we aren't sure;

And a watermelon the size of a baseball.

What a nice way to start our day!

A Day of Bargains

Today has been a day of bargains. On Craig's List I found two stoneware crocks for $20;

At the thrift store I found this tall wicker basket, with handles, for $1.30 (I plan on using it to hold my yarn);

And a vintage weaving loom for $2.60.

The hardware inside the box is still sealed in plastic so I guess the loom has never been used.

Evening Work

This evening Pat used the weed eater and cut down the weeds on the outer edge of the garden. While he did this I hoed and pulled weeds. My green beans are looking so nice; I'm getting so anxious to begin picking them.
I ran out of tomato cages so this evening I put up several stakes around the last of my tomato plants.
Each time I plant a garden I always put the vining plants too close together; this year was no different. Some of the watermelon plants have worked their way into the corn patch.

Elizabeth has been having fun finding small watermelons.

It's hard to believe the garden is doing so well after all the problems in the beginning.

Potato Harvest

My potatoes were beginning to look pretty sad with leaves turning brown and the plants falling over. According to the Internet potatoes are ready in 3 to 4 months (my plants were 3 months) but my mom said if you get rain sometimes the potatoes will begin to sprout and grow more potato plants.

Since we have been receiving some really nice rain this year I decided to dig up one of my plants and sure enough the potatoes had begun to sprout.

We didn't get as many potatoes as I had hoped for; they just do not grow well for us.

Last night I began canning the potatoes for using in soups this winter. I decided to see if using a second canner would save time; while the first pressure canner was going I prepared the second pressure canner and had it ready to go by the time the 1st canner was cooling down. I saved a little time but having two canners on the stove took up too much space.

After all the potatoes were canned I ended up with 13 quarts.

My garden now looks bare but I am planning to start a fall garden right where the potatoes were.

I have a nice hill of potato plants I wanted to give my chickens but am too afraid; I have always heard potato plants are poisonous.

However I did give them worms we found while digging the potatoes.

Happy July 4th

Today was perfect for a parade, partly cloudy skies kept us from getting too hot! Tonight we will bar-b-que ribs and pop fireworks.

Happy 4th to everyone!

Garden Mystery Solved!

My mystery plant has turned out to be yellow squash. Today, while out on an errand, I spotted a very nice garden full of yellow squash plants identical to mine. So, how did I end up with squash seeds instead of cucumber seeds?It seem the fault lies in the nursery where I purchased the cucumber seeds; they buy their seed in bulk and repackage them into small zip lock bags. Somehow they wrote the wrong name on the bag.

We do not like squash but I know my chickens will love it!