Oh, did I mention we got rhubarb? Rhubarb custard pie this weekend!
Strawberries we put in last summer in the old basil bed are thriving and coming into blossom now. The basil is trying to make a come back but the strawberries are doing so well that they’re pretty well smothering it out, with a bit of help.
Whew, it’s been busy around here! We’ve been running as fast as we can to just try to keep up, and it looks like things aren’t going to slow down for a while.
Out at the farm, about all I’ve been able to do is get the lawn done. Managed to finally get out there yesterday. Thank goodness we got the big zero turn mower. The old Fleet Farm Special would never have been able to handle the mess we had out there, especially around the barns.
Haven’t been able to get anything in the ground yet because of a variety of things, mostly weather and lack of time. I’ve been running up to the clinic about once a week for the last month as they try to figure out what’s wrong. CT scans all came up normal (seeing my internal organs was highly entertaining. So that’s what my liver and kidneys look like!) The physical exams all came up normal. So now they’re going to run a scope up my thingie to look at my bladder and see if there’s anything up there that shouldn’t be there.
It’s just starting to dry out. The renter has got most of his crops in, thank goodness, but we haven’t gotten our stuff in yet because of various delays. Maybe this weekend (he said keeping his fingers crossed). We generally don’t put out bedding plants until Memorial Day weekend anyway because, well, this is Wisconsin, and waking up in the middle of May to find snow on the ground is not unheard of.
We’re getting a trailer big enough to haul the tractor around, which will come in very handy. We want to get it here to the house in town so we can work up some parts of the lawn and pull out some shrubs. We’ll have that early next week!
We’re also looking at that trailer and tractor being an additional source of income. Now that we’ll be able to transport it we can get around with the tractor and big tiller and do people’s gardens. I can cover more area with that rig in 1 hour than a person with a standard tiller can cover in an entire weekend.
Even though it’s sunny now, they’re predicting rain and t-storms for the first three days of this week, so it’s unlikely we’ll get much done out there.
The “to do” list seems to grow faster than the grass is!
The pear tree in the backyard is in full bloom! That tree is absolutely amazing. It should have been dead a half dozen times in the last few years, but not only does it hang in there it’s thriving.
It’s amazing how fast things are coming into bloom now that the weather has gotten a bit warmer. We have flowers popping up all over the place, the chives are coming into blossom already, the strawberries I put in last year are looking very good indeed.
Hopefully the good weather will continue through the weekend. We really need to get out to the farm and get some stuff planted!
The Royal Horticultural Society has a program to help schools get their students involved in gardening. This is a link to a PDF that gives an outline of what the program is about and how it is beneficial to the students. Fantastic idea!
Watermelons come in about 1,200 varieties worldwide, divided according to season and seed production. China is by far the worlds largest grower of watermelon. Growing time is from 70 to 85 days for all varieties and growing season begins when all danger of frost has past. Watermelons can be grown indoors anytime of year but require extra amounts of space and constant temperature between 26°c to 29°c.
Japanese groceries stores had limited space and wanted a more space-efficient watermelon. Many people would have immediately thought there was no way to create a more “space-efficient” watermelon, but some creative Japanese farmers believed they could and made it possible.
Watermelons are mostly water, as the name implies. So, when Japanese farmers attempted to grow watermelons in the square boxes, the fruit took the shape of the boxes. This solved the problem in the grocery stores and made it more cost effective to ship the watermelons.
Okay, I got to try this next summer.
Came across this rough method of testing soil pH. I haven’t tried it yet. Elsewhere in the article it says to take the same about 4 inches down.
This won’t give you a specific reading, but it can give you an idea whether or not it’s acidic or alkaline.
- Vinegar: Take a sample of dry…
The last pepper
We have this amazing microclimate thing going on where the new living room on the house meets up with the pre-existing old house, making a protected “L” shaped south facing corner. The strawberries nearer the house are still growing somehow, and we have a brand new crop of cilantro sprouting up. And this is despite the fact we’ve had night time temperatures down in the mid-20s. Really need to get in there and cover the berry plants, but I’ve been waiting for the weather to get colder. With the strawberries still growing I can’t really cover them yet.
these little guys tucked up alongside the garage are just about the last vestige of color we have right now. They’ll hang on until we get consistently cold nights.
