Copperhead, Oh, My!

There are certain things I really don't like about living in a fairly rural setting. Snakes sail right up there to the top of the list. This little fellow was on a patio wall no more than 4.5 feet from my window. I think he's a copperhead from the markings; although, his head looked liked aged copper. His markings fit. Won't be doing any wading through the weeds in the garden to get the last of the veggies that may be surviving the strangle.

Garden Update

To start off with, here's a pic of the thermometer today. Yesterday was a tetch cooler, and today seems to be backing into the present pattern of triple digits. I am so tired of this I could scream. However, at least we didn't get hit with the storm and derecho winds of a few days ago, thank heavens. So we still have A/C. I'll probably cry when it comes time to pay the bill.

As far as the garden goes, its best crop this year will likely be grass. If I didn't get a thing out of it this year, you couldn't pay me to go out and hoe it in this heat. Likely I'll take the manual lawn mower and mow between the rows.

Here is a pic of the first produce from the garden - a yellow squash that was almost hidden in the grass. In fact, I didn't know it was there until today.

The rest of the pics are of the sad tomatoes - the last time I saw tomatoes this short was years ago when it was a rainy year. The Hutterite Soup Bean plants seem to be weathering this all very well. The pumpkin plant may take over the world.





Oh, and I should add "Happy Fourth of July" everyone!

Sad Tomatoes

Hutterite Soup Beans

The Pumpkin Plant (3 seeds)

Garden Update

Here are the beans as of June 1, 2012.

Here are the peppers as of June 1, 2012

Well, folks, I'm beginning to wonder if it's ever going to rain for more than 5 minutes at a time in west Kentucky again. I've been so excited about my first garden in mumbledy years. It's living, but it's certainly not thriving. I'm having to water every night, and my water bill will be sky high. No savings there. Only, little seems to actually be growing. Except the pumpkin vine.

The beans are growing a little bit. Same with the tomatoes. None of them are growing very well, though. You'd think as hot as it's been and with me watering, they'd be taking off. Maybe it's just been too darned hot. I'm really over August in May.

Cattle panels for beans

Max was in this weekend, and we got the cattle panels up for the beans to grow up. At least he's not having to mow every time he comes up. The grass just isn't growing.

About those cattle panels. I'm of divided mind in my feelings about them. They'll last ages and don't require maintenance. But it took the two of us to put them up. I'd like to be able to plant and maintain the garden by myself. Not that I'll turn help down, especially with weeding. Still, I'd like to be able to plant a row of beans and trellis it without needing help. Stupid thing to worry about I suppose.

16 feet of panel is just too awkward for one old gal to handle. Mmmm, though I can drag them, and maybe if I'd placed them before I planted I could do it.

Peppers 06/10/12

Tomatoes 6/10/12

Daddy used to go to the bottoms and cut his own cane and pole them that way. I don't even know where to go to cut cane. I need to find out, too, because we still have half a row to trellis some way. I watched a gal put up a nice string trellis, and I've got the baling twine to do it that way. I just hate trying to dig out wood sturdy and tall enough for posts, then digging holes and setting them. Sigh. Dad has wood stuck all over this place. However, in his last years, he put so much junk in the place that getting to something turns into a major clean-out project. Trying to get some perfect tomato stake wood was nigh onto impossible because of the junk. I couldn't get close enough to put something to step on to get up high enough to reach the wood. Argh.

Today it's gray and overcast. The weather map doesn't show any activity within a hundred miles from here, though. Maybe this evening some rain will roll in.

Edited to add:  The little white dots you see in the garden are moth balls. So far they've been totally successful, knock on wood, in keeping the rabbits away from the young and tender plants. Now that I've said that, the rabbits will invade en masse.

Also:  Thank you, Uncle Charles, for the squash and cukes green peppers! I didn't discover them until this evening.  I had just walked into the den as you closed your truck door. I did open the door and try to get your attention as you were driving off. You missed Max by just a little bit. He had left just before you were here.

The Garden, Huzzah!

The Whole Garden

Beautiful tilled soil

Yay! I finally got a garden planted. It's my first garden since around 1996.

Our neighbor, Larry, brought his tractor over a couple of weeks ago and broke the ground. Uncle Charles brought his tiller over this morning, and Max tackled that. Unk was good enough to stay and help raking the clods. Max likely would have had a heart attack without the help <ducking and running).  I am deeply thankful to both of them.

After they did their thing, I had to man up and go outside and plant. Pity I can't just wiggle my nose and have it done. Although it started sprinkling, it didn't rain hard enough to stop the planting. So in the garden at this time are:

• 13 tomato plants ( I misplaced one. How does one do that????)
• 3 Ancho Pepper plants
• 2 white eggplants
• 3 purple eggplants
• 3 squash plants
• 1 cucumber plant
• 1 hill of sweet pumpkins
• 1/3 row of Hutterite Peas
• 2/3 row of Ky. Bush Green Beans

I need to fill in the second row of tomato plants. I want a lot! Bring 'em on - sauce, juice and tomatoes here we come. I need to plant a row of okra. I need to fill in with a few more cucumber plants. If I can find them, I want to plant some pimento peppers. I want to get a few more green pepper plants. I also found and ordered some cream pea seeds.

The Hutterite Peas are a pale pea that the Hutterites developed that supposedly makes a fantastic bean soup. I bought it because the place I was ordering from, www.seedsavers.org, didn't have any cream peas. However, today I did a bit of googling and discovered the cream peas we eat in Memphis are also more commonly known as cowpeas. I found the cream or cowpeas at www.victoryseeds.com and placed an order for those seeds, along with the okra seed and some Mortgage Lifter Tomato seeds for next year.

As an aside, I like to order from these two companies because they specialize in heritage seeds and non-hybrid seeds. That means the plants I grow are non-GMO (not genetically modified), and the seeds produced by the plants can be saved for the next season.

This page (click here) has the peas. I got the Sa-Dandy Cowpeas. The cowpeas were developed for our hot southern summer temperatures. In Memphis, all I've ever heard them called are cream peas. They're a small pale creamy pea, about the size of black-eyed peas. However, unlike the black-eyed peas, the cream peas are, well, creamy. They don't have the particular twang BEPs do, nor do they have the large black eye. Actually, now that I think of it, they're more like a pale version of purple hull peas.

Until the seeds come in I'll be trying to get rid of the clods surrounding the garden. Ouch. Eventually I'd love to put a white picket fence around it. Yeah, in 10 years and my dreams.

Oh, yes, and I'm eating Ibuprofen like candy tonight. I used my own redneck seed planter and didn't spend as much time as I thought I'd have to bent over, but planting those transplants couldn't be done with squatting and bending, dammit.