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

                                               "It's Like A Heat Wave!"
                                                                         Martha & The Vandellas

Hello again!  Well, after a calm and mild spring, summer arrived last week ushering in an East Coast "heat wave". Daily temperatures have been in the high 80's and low 90's which is a significant change from just a few weeks ago.  The good news is that the humidity has remained relatively low making it a bit more bearable. That may not seem so bad to readers in the American southwest where temperatures are scorching hot. But, of course, the high temperatures here have put a good deal of stress on the garden as mid-day heat quickly dries out the soil.  Ideally, then, we put out the soaker hoses and sprinklers in the morning hours before the sun begins to reach it's peak. (The soaker hoses are particulary useful with the zucchini plants whose  large leaves tend to shed water away from the plant center.)  This allows the plants to soak up much of the water before the sun has a chance to cook it off. If morning watering isn't possible, a good alternative is late afternoon/early evening before the sun sets. Nightime watering is not recommended due to the possibility of fostering fungi and other problems.

  Mini Hollyhocks

 

All of our vegetables and flowers are doing well. We have been very fortunate not to have suffered any meaningful invasions of aphids, stink bugs, beetles or the like. We harvested our first cucumbers, zucchinis, raspberries, tomatoes, and green beans in the past week. The harvest of veggies will last much of the summer for the tomatoes, zukes and cukes, but not the raspberries which will soon be done for the year and green beans which will do well with a new planting when this batch is spent.

                                                         Cucumbers!

The cucumbers and butternut are coming along nicely, as is the corn.  We can probably pick corn end of July, but the butternut, a "winter" vegetable will not be ready until Fall.

                                                     A baby Spaghetti Squash!

I remember, from my long ago childhood, that Maryland folks used an expression to describe the progress that the corn crop was making. They often referred to corn being "knee high by the Fourth of July". Time and agricultural advances have made that reference a bit outdated. Our corn is a bit over four feet tall today (June 26). Corn on the cob by the end of July?

                                            A few feet of our corn "crop"

And, in case you're interested, our strawberry harvest yielded 13 pounds of berries while the sugar snap peas came to 4 pounds. 

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

Chuck

 

                          Mother Nature's Got The Watering Can Out Again!

We've had a pretty wet week here in Lancaster, PA.  There have been off-and-on showers regularly with some sun in between. Yesterday (June 18) was the wildest, however. The rain came in torrents driven by high winds for well over an hour in the afternoon.  While we didn't suffer any garden or home damage, there were trees down in the neighborhood, some on top of cars, as well as some street flooding. But, we're not complaining!  We're saving money on our water bill and for that we're grateful.
                                 

Japanese Beetle

                                
Our roses are in full bloom, which can only mean that Japanese Beetles will arrive soon. In addition to roses, Japanese Beetles will also feast on the leaves of many garden plants. There are several things we do to try to thwart these pests.  We keep the bird feeders filled to attract as many birds as possible. After sampling the entree of seed, birds will often make beetles their dessert. We thanks the birds for their help!   You can try capturing as many as possible by hand and dump them into bucket of water containing dish detergent.  Or, you can also use a spray bottle of water, a mild dish detergent, and a nice dose of hot liquid (or dry, well ground) red pepper. Caution: wear rubber gloves if you do this and DON'T rub your eyes or skin until you remove the gloves! I'm sure there are other home beetle remedies, but these are the ones I've used. Finally, you can also purchase organic neem oil at local garden centers and other stores to control beetles.

                             Japanese Beetles Love These and Your Veggies!

One final caution on Japanese Beetles: Do not purchase commercial beetle lures/traps to control this problem in your home garden. The lures attract not only the current beetles you may have, but also will attract many more beetles from all of the properties around yours. And they do not all just rush into your traps. They stop for plenty of feeding before the may happen to be attracted directly to the trap.

Our garden is coming along well. The strawberries are just about finished and the peas are done. The green beans are in bloom with some small beans beginning to appear. A few stalks of our corn show in the picture, as well.

                                       Part of Rows of Green Beans & Corn

The cucumbers are full of blooms and the first few are ready to be picked.

                                           The First Cucumbers Are Ready!

And of course the zucchinis have grown immensely and we've picked a few of those in the past several days. As you can see, they are outgrowing the boxes already!

And, finally, I'd like to say "Hello!" to two of our new readers. Jaime is a Lancaster County friend just starting out in gardening and he has introduced his friend Lidiya to our blog. Lidiya is a resident of Bulgaria!  Lidiya's family has been gardening in their home town for many years. Welcome Jaime and Lidiya!

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

Comments?  Contact me at chuckscards42@hotmail.com

                                              


                              Spring Has Ended But We Welcome Summer!

The spring season has ended with our harvest of sugar snap peas and, believe it or not, rose petals. That's right, rose petals!  We pretty much harvest anything we grow in our yard if it can be used. Last Wednesday, the roses had fully bloomed and had begun to fade. Rain was in the forecast for Thursday so we brought them inside. In a short time, we had separated the petals, which were just about to fall of, and laid them out on cookie sheets. We then put them into the oven at 250 degrees for about ten minutes. After they cooled, Lois applied a "fixer" from the craft store and has turned them into a scented potpourri. (Hey, I just grow stuff. She's the one who knows what to do with it all!)

                                                    Dried Rose Petals

The sugar snap peas were a wonderful success. We've been having them with meals and the overflow has been vacuum sealed and frozen for future use.  We've also begun freezing the overflow of strawberries. The last of them will be picked in the next week or so.  We've also picked some of the cherries, the first small zucchinis, and even an early cucumber!

                                                       Garden Goodies!

Our crops in containers are continuing to do well. The container shown below has calendula flowers and two herbs - basil and tarragon. Using containers really helps us maximize the vegetable garden area in our confined urban "backyard". Placing them in the main garden would condemn them to being swallowed up by large spreading plants like butternut squash and zucchini.

                                              Tarragon, Calendula, and Basil

Of course, with the coming of summer warmth, it's time to be vigilant, too. The first of the garden pests have made their debut. The slippery, slimy guys who slither out from under rocks, boards or any other ground level hiding places after dark are the slugs. In just an evening, a few of these creatures can decimate your young, tender plants. Organic controls, pellets with a high iron content, can be purchased at garden centers. Unfortunately for the slugs they have a big appetite for a thing that will kill them.

You may also want to try your own slug control utilizing small cans such as empty tuna or cat food containers and a six pack of the cheapest beer you can find. Simply fill the tins with beer and press it lightly into the soil of areas experiencing slug damage. The slugs will be attracted to the beer and the they will drink themselves to death. A caution: a container with dead slugs in it is not a pretty sight! I'll spare you by not posting a picture of that consequence!

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

 Comments?  email me at chuckscards42@hotmail.com

                                          Cold Snaps and Hot Flashes

It's been a bit of a strange spring. We had a cold snap with temperatures in the 30's when we covered the plants for several nights in late April and then a hot spell with temperatures in the low 90's in early June. That required extra watering. The weather in March and April appears to have had an effect on our perennials. In 2012, we picked our first asparagus on March 23. In 2013, our first picking came on April 11. The strawberries seem to have been affected as well. In 2012, first strawberries were picked on May 18. In 2013, the first strawberries were picked on May 29.  The cold in mid to late April also kept us from planting seed for green beans and other plants. Mother Nature has a great sense of humor and always keeps things interesting!

Everything seems to be doing well at this point. We've been picking approximately a pound of strawberries daily with June 1 being a banner day with two pounds picked.

Delicious!

 

 The sugar snap peas are just maturing. First small picking on June 3 came to just 3 ounces. As you might guess, it takes a LOT of sugar snaps to make a pound.

 

                                      Sugar snap peas - first 3 ounce picking

 

The green beans, various squash and the butternut, and the many more veggies are looking strong. Cherries are beginning to ripen and the raspberries and blackberries will be ready by the end of the month.

                                The doorway to our garden is 8 feet to the left

 

We also finished winter cleanup in the "courtyard", the area where we hang out on warm evenings.  As you can see by the structure, the area was once a two car garage that we mentioned in an earlier post. The amazing thing about this area, and our neighborhood in general, is the very peaceful quiet we enjoy in this spot. You would never know that we live in a city of 56,000 people. The only sound heard here in the evening is that of the birds singing one last song before heading back to their nests.

 

                                          Portion of the front of "courtyard"

 

And, yes MJWN, I have an ivy wall too! It's just not as creative as yours. But it's a good way to avoid 80 square feet of painting every few years!

 

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

 

Comments?  Go to chuckscards42@hotmail.com