A few images from the garden....first, nasturtiums. Nasties are a bit of work in that you need to continue to dead head the older leaves constantly. I have found that the baskets tend to go through two different growth phases. The first growth which takes place inside a greenhouse, produces large leaves and the first shoots and flowers. After around six weeks or so, the older leaves die off, and then comes a rush of newer vines with smaller leaves-but just covered with flowers. Did you know that the blossoms are edible? Yes, they are a colorful addition to the summer plate and are slightly peppery. They also have a nice aroma and are usually covered with bees too. It's a good plant to have near a vegetable garden as it draws insects that will help with pollination.

Second is one of my all time favorites....a rather scarce pansy variety known as "Antique Shades" They may be old fashioned, but their muted colors still draw the eyes as easily as their more flashy cousins. With a relatively large bloom and bushy gowth habit, they are wonderful for garden containers-especially bowls. Like the nasturtiums, these are grown from seeds (they do not winter over here in Alaska) and are fairly difficult to germinate. I am happy if I get a 60% germination rate, and some years it is half that. The colors range from the pale peach pictured above, to a deep rose.

The last photo is of my raspberry patch. The location was one we picked in a hurry when I was gifted with these wonderful canes, and it seems to have been the "happy place" for them. They get plenty of sun in that spot, yet have a little shelter from the strong northeast winter winds. Last year I was sure I had a bumper crop, due to the amount of berries picked. Boy was I wrong! This year, the branches were loaded with blossoms and the bees were having a feast there. You could hear the bees buzzing from six or eight feet away-dozens working them for weeks on end. Now we have reached the point of unripe fruits which have weighed down the branches nearly to the ground in a couple spots. I have a hunch we'll be picking these every other day for a good long while, once they begin to ripen :)

Our summer that isn't

After our scorching temperatures in May, the weather patterns have conspired to give us week after week of cloudy and cool days. Even in mid June, I had morning temps around 40, very cold even for Southcentral. About every ten days or so, we get a day, day and a half of mostly sunny skies and that's all we get.

Because of this, many hay farmers-especially to the west at Pt MacKenzie, have been unable to successfully put up horse quality hay. Farmers around Palmer have been more fortunate due to those reliable Valley winds and a bit of good luck due to geography and a little something called "weather shadow". That's a weather phenomenon where moisture from arriving lows get held on one side of a mountain range or another. In any case, those very few Palmer farms that got their hay up, have probably already sold out. I prefer to purchase hay from a particular farm up north, and while the cooler cloudy days have produced an incredible crop, the weather just has not cooperated to get it harvested. I got a round bale to tide me over and my two are happily enjoying nonstop nibbling for the time being.

All the clouds and rain have had mixed effects on the garden too, of course. I have lots of lettuce and other greens for example, but the green beans (loaded with buds too)and zucchini are very slow-not enough heat and sun for them. In fact, most veggies are running a couple weeks behind normal. In the greenhouse, I have plenty of green tomatoes, but nothing ripe as yet. We've been eating cucumbers for a while now, but even they need more heat and sun to really produce. The corn is showing silks on some stalks but there too, not as many as in other years-the shoots are there, just not up and full yet.

Last night I noticed that I have one baby pumpkin forming (yay!!) but the other winter squashes are just basically sitting there, not growing. From here on out, I will be planting all winter type squash under row cover, no exceptions. It's all a learning curve and I must remember that. Like the old saying goes: There are lean years, and there are bean years ;) Hopefully this will turn out to be a bean year!

Chicken wrangling

Nothing like chicken wrangling! This morning I found my smallest chick has somehow or other gotten out. She was happily rooting through the manure piles in the adjacent horse pen and chasing insects.

Yes, yes, I know it's good for them. And yes I don't really like having my chickens penned in the first place. The alternative would be to completely fence in my garden area (and several other beds too, plus block off the doors to my greenhouse) and somehow get netting over all of it. Which would have to be tall enough that a person could work in there too. There is just no feasible way to do this.

So I dropped the dog lead, asking him to stay, and attempted to herd the errant bird towards the gate. She was having nothing doing, of course, and allow me to state that chicks can be quick, very quick! I gave up after a few minutes, and returned to the house. She was caught by my son using our largest fishing net, and put back inside. Then we spent a few minutes attempting to figure out where she'd gotten out. Near as I can figure, she must have launched herself from the roof of the nest boxes mounted inside the chicken coop and right up and over the netting. We hastily made repairs and then we were off and running for the day. Bet you all know what I'll be doing over the weekend, right? Ayep, battening down the netting! Chickens are not that dumb, I don't think, lol

Yesterday evening we had some sun (yay!) and then today we have partly cloudy skies (yay yay!!) so this should help kick the garden and green house into gear. I may even have a cucumber to eat this weekend-over a foot long, I have been waiting for it to plump up. The lettuces have really taken off with this type of weather, so there is plenty to eat. My raspberries are just astounding this year. I have never seen so many buds and fruits (most still green of course) and you can readily hear the buzz of bees from six or eight feet away. Last night I saw easily three or four dozen, busily working the blossoms there.

Thanks to my talented SIL, I no longer have bees nests inside my greenhouse! Yippee! My SIL was a beekeeper in years past, so she knows behavior and habits pretty well. Anyhow, while I winced and ducked, she squashed the small nests for me. Two were empty and one had one single bee in it. We disposed of the papery remains, and so far, no new construction going on. She informed me that bees are typically absent during the daylight hours and its much safer to take the nests down when they are very small. The method won't work on a large nest, or when its cold and/or raining hard.

This upcoming three day weekend will mean extra time to get outside chores done. For example, weeding the vegetables. I have a bumper crop erupting from the holes in the black plastic mulch, so that is first on the list. The chickens will be thrilled to have the greens, I am sure-I've been giving them chick weed from around the lettuce, and they sure squabble over it :) The hardest part will be trying to figure out what is a beet, and what isn't....the carrots are pretty easy but the beets? I had to wait until they were a bit bigger first!

I have some baby zucchini coming along, the cabbage leaves have started to lay down, the cauliflower is about ready to head up, and the broccoli is getting taller every day. So despite this long string of cloudy and rainy skies, the garden is growing!

To dear mehh

To the individual with the signature "mehh", who responded to a two year old post of mine yesterday (and who identified herself, no less) I have this to say:

You, my dear, are a potty mouth. As evidenced by your trash talk, it proves that the fruit did not fall far from your family tree. Thank heavens, there is quite enough of you to go around.

Allow me to acquaint you with the facts concerning the incident. I'll wait while you look up the big words, okay?

Ready?

Ok, here we go. The horse was boarded with me originally after the purchase. The horse was not "rescued" from AC by the owner. It was purchased from a private party locally. Horse arrived about a CS 3.5 (Please dear, do look up Henneke Condition Scoring and learn about it, it is a valuable tool for all horse owners) and proceeded to gain weight easily. Horse remained in my care for over a year, and left slightly overweight, sound, and blooming with good health. What reasons the owner had to leaving are not mine to question-an owner may do as they chose with their horses.



From my place she arrived at your family's "facility". Six months later, this is what I saw with my own eyes at AC:






Now, for educational purposes, here is the same horse just a couple of days ago:




Now, do tell everyone just how it is, that a robust, healthy horse can go from plump to skin and bones in your care? What defense can you possibly imagine would be effective? You claim you "fed grain three times a day".....I'd venture an opinion there, but the photos speak for themselves.


Explain for us, your mother dinning the owner for board, after the horse was impounded by AC. Instead of fessing up and letting the owner know she was in trouble, your mother lied, and lied, and then tried yet more lies with the AC officers. Do you think she has paid any of the many fines assessed by the court over the years?

And too, you did know that court matters are public record? And that anyone can look up anything about anyone?

But you know this quite well, don't you? After all, your mother has around 70 records in the local court. How is that eviction going for you, anyway?

Now, look again at the pictures.....notice a difference there?

And so it goes

We're in full summer mode here, even if the weather is not very summer like. We've had quite the stretch of cool and cloudy days, punctuated with plenty of sprinkles. Sure cuts down on the watering the lawn and vegetable garden, but tends to bring me down with day after day of gloomy skies. I am sure we'll have a return to warmer temps and sun, eventually.

This year, we are tackling the firewood chore earlier than usual. The idea is to get it all cut, split and stacked before the silvers start running, lol To that end, my hard working husband has a large pile of logs already cut-and we've gotten the woodshed partly filled already. Tonight the plan is to split and stack as much as we can. After that, there is a pretty big pile of very gnarly looking stuff that has a fairly large diameter...I am pretty sure that once it's cut, I won't be able to even pick them up to get them on the splitter!

The garden is perking along, the only disappointments being the carrots and beets. I just have to plant those some other place because they just don't germinate or grow well there. I have plenty of bean plants up, and most everything is starting to get some size on it, thank heavens. A couple weeks ago, my son and I created a small bed out of some leftover material, and stuffed some greens in it-it's really taking off there and I am pleasantly surprised. Over the weekend, I realized I had about two flats' worth of miscellaneous veggies to do something with. Pretty danged small of course, from being in the flats so long. On a whim, I ran off to Home Depot and picked up some bagged mix. We put down a few inches of old horse manure and then topped it with the mix and stuffed way too many plants in there. If they live, great-if not, oh well. I couldn't bear to throw it all out, so anything that grows can be fed to the chickens. The new spot is where I intend to move some raspberries to next year anyway.

In the greenhouse, I have baby fruits-peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We just need some sun and warmth to really get it going. My one specialty basket of nasturtiums in there is doing very well-I can't wait until it gets a little bigger with more blooms so I can take a photo to share-very unique plant. Last weekend I finally got the greenhouse arranged and tidied up, which was a bit of a project in itself. Things tend to get pretty jumbled when you are potting up and planting like crazy :) Also over the weekend, I noted three honey bees actually inside the greenhouse, I was thrilled. And not so thrilled to find a wasps' nest there too. Not sure what to do about that, I think I'll leave that for my wonderful hub to deal with!

In between the gardening, we managed to get some red salmon in the freezer (yay!) and hub made some delicious smoked salmon to enjoy. He is very very good at making smoked fish, everyone loves it and it's gobbled up like candy. We tried making dog treats using the trimming from the fish (thin belly strips and etc) and it was a total failure. We'll try again I'm sure, but that was a big disappointment.

My replacement layers are getting some real size to them, my gosh they are getting big. Last night when I arrived home I found all the chickens out and about had a heart attack-you can't imagine how much damage chickens can do to a vegetable garden until you see it for yourself. I was fortunate they had not ranged far from the pen, yes indeed. It was a real Kaystone Kops episode, getting them penned back up-it took my son and I nearly a full hour. We did figure out where they'd made their escape and got that repaired easily enough. Silly birds, always something. The Yokohama hen has gone broody and we've given up trying to stop her-if she choses to sit on a few eggs and hatch a couple of chicks, so be it.

This week I hope to contact a few hay farmers, see how the crop is shaping up. Since we've had no rain at all in May here locally, I figure it's going to be a pretty late first cutting. Now the real question is, will my hay last until then? I am sure lots of local horse people are in the boat as I am, lol

It's slid into June already!

The last two weeks have been a blur of busy, and then some!

Let's see, the new greenhouse was dismantled and is at home-in piles on pallets. We finally got a quote about moving the wood frame green house and that was way over our budget. So, on to plan B or C or whatever. My primary purpose immediately became: Get gardening anyway!

First, I had to get moved into the greenhouse. Which meant moving a whole bunch of stuff out that we stored in there over the winter. Once that was done it was transferring all the plants down there, and continuing with hardening off the outside things. I cut way back on the number of plants compared to last year, as it was pretty overwhelming, lol From 28 tomatoes to just a dozen. From 18 peppers to a dozen. And so forth. Everything is looking very healthy and I have buds or flowers on many plants already-yay! Heck even the green beans in the planters are trying to come up, imagine that :)

I managed to get my pumpkins into the ground last week-fully three weeks ahead of last year. The garden got rototilled, thanks to a very generous neighbor and he did a stellar job of it too. It was some kind of work, but the garden is planted, yay! More beans, less cabbage this time, haha. My neice came over and helped too, could not have done it without her help over the past weekend.

Last night, with yet more help from a neighbor and two extra boys, I finally got my chickens corraled up for the summer. The adults are not very happy with their jail, oh my. The baby chicks are no longer small-they are darn near the size of my Yokohama hen. And boy can they eat! They have food and water 24/7, even if that means I loose some to waste. The added bonus is that I will now be able to find the blasted eggs! We have found several stashes of eggs around the property and have had to toss them all out of course. Silly hens, I have that laying box for a reason, lol

So the lawn is looking pretty decent, and I am full on into summer mode. Water baskets and bowls at the house in the morning, water everything else after work, and using the tractor sprinkler every other evening.

Yep, summer is here! Complete with sunburns, skeeter bites, and assorted bees, wasps, and hornets ;)

Long time coming

I keep thinking I should post another entry here on the blog...and instead, I get diverted onto something more pressing :)


It's been one heck of a spring so far!

When I left off, I was just gearing up to start the spring planting. Since then, over a hundred flats have been seeded, germinated, and subsequently delivered. I still have a few flats coming along, and then I will be able to dismantle the growing apparatus in the garage-maybe this weekend.

Inbetween the planting, I went on vacation. Yes, a real vacation! Took my son, and we went to California-we did Sea World, Disneyland, California Adventure Park and Universal Studios. We had an absolutely wonderful time, the weather was wonderful. Joey spent four days with his grandparents-getting to know his cousin Maykayla-and my sister and I scooted over to Vegas for some fun. Boy do I have some stories about Vegas, haha! I think the best part was seeing Terry Fator. If you ever have the opportunity to see his show-do it, you won't regret it. I laughed so much I about lost my voice, heehee

As usual, my sis came home about even or a little ahead, and I came home broke ;) That's okay, I had a ball walking through all those casino's I had only seen on television and movies. I bet I walked 35 or 40 miles on that vacation, easy. Never would have been able to do that, without my MIL's help in locating a shoe store in Riverside called San Antonio Shoes. Expensive but worth every penny when you can walk all day without your feet hurting! My sis took me to several stores she knew about-including Ross Dress for Less. I was a really overwhelmed after shopping our pitiful selections here in the Valley for umpteen years, lol

The food in Vegas is hit or miss. Gone are the super cheap buffets, and we discovered the food is much better in downtown Vegas (where the Fremont Experience and several casino's are located-well off the Strip) and slot machines much nicer. Next time, I think I would rather stay downtown. The Strip was packed with young adults that week, due to spring break and March Madness, it was just crazy full of basketball fans and rowdy folks partying hard and harder-just an amazing place.

Once home I returned the usual spring stuff. Breakup and all, lol Today should be the last day I have eight chicks in the garage-they are six weeks old now and well feathered-my replacement layers are Buff Orpington's which I got as day old chicks from the local hatchery.

The biggest news concerns the greenhouse. We'd been talking about this project for quite a while and heaven knows I have put a lot of effort into the research-but an opportunity presented itself locally....and we now own a new (to us) larger greenhouse! Yes, it had to be taken down and moved but that's done and it lays in piles down below. Adding this structure means we have to move just about everything, no kidding. First, we need to build new raised beds (asap!) and get my garden soils moved. This opens up the area for the wood frame greenhouse-which needs to be emptied and then moved (somehow!) up the hill and onto that flat spot. Once that is done, we can think about the dirt work necessary for the newer greenhouse. The only major thing that will need to be done (besides putting it back up of course) is running the gas line down there. I have plenty of power at the barn to run both houses so that is a plus.

Between the vacation and the new greenhouse and what needs doing, I am going to be pretty broke for a while-but it will all be worth it. I can't wait to get started :)