Flibbertigibbets!

The gardening season has peaked here in Lancaster, PA and  it's been an excellent year for us. Planted in late April, the vegetables are winding down now but continue to produce.  Our freezer is well stocked with a variety of vegetables...green beans, zucchini and tomatoes leading the way in addition to the snap peas, and other spring vegetables.  The corn was excellent but we had room for only 15 plants. We took care of that pretty quickly...and it was delicious! The first picking of carrots was a big hit with Lois..she loves them! We'll be getting another picking of them next week.

                                 Peppers, tomatoes, carrots & zucchinis July 26

 

   Tomatoes peaked last week. We turned this 6 pounds into sauce

 

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Some of the tomatoes we've bagged, sealed and frozen recently.

 

Spaghetti Squash

 

The weather has been very kind to us and all local gardeners and Lancaster farmers.   High temperatures have been in the mid-80's and we've had showers from time-time.

 

No Flibbertigibbet Photo Available

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We've also been very fortunate that we've had practically no garden problems this season. In years past we've been afflicted with flibbertigibbets, those unseen garden gremlins that create havoc at night digging in the soil, chewing on leaves, and other horrors. They've been known since the early 1500's. William Shakespeare mentions them in King Lear in 1605 as those miscreants responsible for damaging the "white wheat". I've looked for them after dark, but never seem to be able to spot one. I'll just have to keep trying. What's just as incredible is that we've had no insect problems.  I've seen exactly one Japanese beetle and one squash bug ALL season!  Can that possibly happen again next year??  We sure hope so! 

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope to see you again next week!

Chuck

                                             Lots of Weather & A Cat Tale

The past week has had a wide variety of summer temperatures with a high of 100 f  on the 16th and then backing down slowly to the mid 80's f. by Sunday.  Although the county had a number of showers and storms, most skirted around the City of Lancaster except for this past Tuesday. As a result, nearly daily watering has been a necessity. 

We picked our first corn (we only have 15 plants) on the 19th, 5 nice ears weighing 3 pounds. The tomatoes have come to a peak this week. They've amounted to a total of 19 pounds as of today.  We've been eating the corn regularly, but a large portion of the tomatoes have become sauce which we've frozen in vacuum sealed bags.  As the tomatoes end in a few weeks, we will be preparing the area for some fall plantings in mid-August. And, of course, the cucumbers and zucchini have been a fruitful as ever.  All in all, the total harvest for the week came to thirty-one pounds for which we are very grateful!

And going back to the corn for a moment, we recently had a few ears of corn on the kitchen table. Our little female cat, Jingle, decided to get on a chair and check out the corn.  I was just a few feet away when she began to nibble at the corn silk. For reasons unknown to me, I immediately thought this might not be a good idea. I took the corn away and put it out of her reach. Later, out of sheer curiosity, I searched cats/corn silk on our computer. As it turns out, corn silk is quite harmful to cats. It tends to not digest well and gets lodged in their intestinal tract. The painful results can be deadly to the cat. Just a little something for gardening cat owners to be aware of.

                                     Jingle - Alive, well & napping as usual!


Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you next week!

Chuck





31 pound week

                                     Triple "H" With Intermittent Showers

Well, summer has definitely arrived here in Lancaster, PA.  This past week's weather featured a steady dose of "hazy, hot and humid".  We've had daily clouds and showers, with some heavy downpours and some just drizzle. And while the garden area benefited from the soaking, the containers and baskets still needed a nearly daily watering. Then, beginning yesterday, we've been in the mid to high nineties so it's no longer "nearly" daily, but a "must" for the watering.

                                  A  Summer Sunset Over Our Urban Garden

The garden continues to produce. The first planting of green beans is finished with a healthy total of seven pounds of fresh beans.  We've been having them regularly with meals and the balance has been sealed frozen in vacuum packages with each weighing 6 to 8 ounces - enough for single servings for just the two of us. We've also put in a second planting of beans.

                                                 1 1/2 Pounds of Green Beans

We've also been bringing in cucumbers and squash - 10 lbs of cukes and 17 lbs of squash as of late last week. The first picking of carrots came to 3 lbs. The raspberries finished their first season with just over 4 lbs. A smaller second picking of berries will come in late August.

The overflow of cucumbers and squash has led us to offer the extras in a box on the front stairs to the porch. Neighbors or just passers-by have been taking them very quickly which makes us happy!

                                        Some of the Overflow for Neighbors

Lois is a master at finding recipes for using the squash! One of our favorites is "Poor Man's Crab Cakes" (also called Zucchini Crab Cakes).  We've been having some with meals and freezing the rest. We will probably put enough in the freezer to have them weekly for most of the winter.

                                                Poor Man's Crab Cakes

You can get the recipe for them online. There are several variations. The one we like best uses just one egg with the ingredients, rather than the two egg versions.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again next week!

Chuck

 

monsoon

                                                 Monsoons & Mold

Well, we can't say that we haven't gotten our fair share of rain along the east coast over the past 10 days! It's pretty much resembled the famous drenching monsoon rains that occur in the fall of the year in southern Asia. And now, of course, we have entered a heatwave period which requires daily garden watering. The expression "feast or famine" seems to fit.

One of the common outcomes of so much rain is the appearance of mold growth in the garden.  The white mold shown in the picture below is the type of mold we recently found along the edge of the lumber in an area where we have butternut squash growing. Molds aren't necessarily pretty, but neither are they harmful. In fact, molds like this one actually do a very nice job of breaking down your rough compost into a soft and attractive soil amendment.

                                   A white mold similar to one in our garden

The end of June and early July have been very good in the garden  in spite of the  rainy spell we've had. We've been regularly picking green beans, tomatoes, zucchini and  cucumbers.

 

                                              1 1/2 Pounds Green Beans

 

We picked the first raspberries June 28 and continue to pick more every 2 or 3 days.

 

 

The corn is coming along nicely and should be ripe by the end of July. The old Maryland expression regarding corn - "Knee high by the Fourth of July" - is a bit outdated these days. Our corn was about four feet high by the 4th of July. And, although they remain underground and unseen, the carrots seem to be doing very well if the carrot tops are any indication. All-in-all, we brought in over 26 pounds of veggies in the ten day period.

 

 

In addition to the veggies, we also have lots of flowers, mainly petunias. They have required "deadheading" every few days. On one particular day, always being one to automatically "quantify" nearly anything (yes, I am crazy!), we picked off over 400 spent petunia blossoms throughout the garden area!

 

And one final "quantification" - Raspberries at our local markets are priced at $5 for a six ounce box. At that rate, the raspberries we've picked to date have a value of $45.00!

Garden Goldmine!

 

How hot is it today?  Ask this squirrel - she had to take a rest break just 2 feet away from the feeder!

Hope to see you all again soon!

Chuck