Game on...

Garden ladder to nowhere...with a cuke vine finally climbing it...

" Togetherness..."

Can't wait to sample the cauliflower...among other things!!

Go ahead...might as well finish it up!

We had a surprise awaiting us in the garden Saturday morning...SOMETHING helped itself to one of our melons! I left him a little surprise down there last night...we'll see if he falls for it! I'll keep you posted!

On the positive side...we harvested more veggies as you can see...hopefully the tomatoes will be ready soon...getting impatient!

Sunday morning harvest...

We were able to spend about an hour this morning poking around the garden, pulling some weeds, admiring the veggies and even picking some too! We harvested our first ears of corn, and cooked it up tonight for dinner..it was so tender and sooo good! Got more beans, beets, squash, zuchinni, carrots, onions AND some brocolli! We'll be eating good this week!

I'm also happy to say the transplanted tomatoes seem to be coming along well, and the cucumbers are starting to come to life, they have been kind of slow to grow this season, not sure why! Our melon's are growing like crazy and the vines are spreading like wild fire! If they all make it, we'll have way too many for ourselves, so we'll be giving some away to friends and family.

R Dean

Garden story...

Tonight after dinner, we meandered down to the garden as we do every night, eager to see what new treasures awaited us. Unfortunately, the replanted tomatoes aren't looking too good, but we still have hope that they will survive and produce! The good news, we harvested another yellow squash, a bunch of beans, mostly wax, some more lettuce and three more zuchinni's! Very rewarding! We finally have a cucumber coming along as well, so hopefully the next few days of warm weather will really get the garden cooking!

And finally, the most interesting garden story...JD was pulling weeds around the lettuce and noticed a pile of mulch. After moving it around with her gloves, to her surprise it was a nest of what appeared to be a litter of five mice that appeared to be a day or two old. Needless to say, she was very "surprised"! I played good hubby and removed them right away! :-)

R Dean

Thinnin' the maters'

Our NEW tomato patch!!

Hey everyone..well, as I post this, we are sitting at 84 degrees outside, feels like 92 degrees and with a dew point of 74 degrees according to http://www.weather.com/.

For you weather geeks out there..it's hot and humid!! I have to say, that we are thankful we have air condition! I'm happy to say TODAY is the first day we turned it on! JD thought we should turn it on early and we did, she was right, good idea, it is very nice in our "shades drawn" little piece of heaven! The girls are sacked out and the boys are too! They just enjoyed a bucket of ice cubes, so they are set for another hour or so.

Around 8:30am today, we went down to the garden with our main objective..thinning out our tomatoes. JD ignored the thick foliage inhabited by the infamous "Thamnophis sirtalis" and the "Opheodrys vernalis" and quickly pulled out a half dozen plants, tossing them to me for transplantation. Hopefully both the thinned out plants AND the transplants will continue to flourish! We'll keep you posted!! :-)

R Dean and JD ;-)

Sunday morning scorcher...

Mornin' folks...it's forecasted to be a scorcher today! We're supposed to get into the low 90's with the heat index in the mid to high 90's, which is going provide the perfect ingredients for storms tonight, so hold on! As I post this, the temperature is 69 degrees with a dew point of 66 degrees, so that alone describes how thick the air feels.

I know, that isn't really too bad, considering what the South and Southwest can deliver this time of the year, so I shouldn't complain. In the Midwest, particularly in WI, we have become spoiled with our mild summer time weather which usually stays under 90 all summer long.

Anyway, we'll be getting things done early and kicking back in the afternoon, trying to stay cool.

I wanted to share some garden news. We got our first three summer squash last night, yeah! A couple more zuchinni's, green and wax beans and a few more pear tomatoes. My concern lies with our larger tomato plants. They are flourishing, but not showing any signs of real production. Perhaps we have too many plants too close together? JD and I are going to try and thin them out this morning.

Have a great day and as always..Peace!

R Dean

Fresh beans and dinner too!

Basket of beans!

Almost ready!

For dinner tonight, JD prepared a wonderful zucchini au gratin casserole. It was sooooo delicious!
After dinner, we walked the puppies and the big dogs, then headed down to the garden where we picked a bunch of beans, mostly green but some wax beans too! Also, harvested a couple more zucchini's along with a couple beets, they keep coming! We're very thankful the garden is providing us with fresh veggies! It's so rewarding to grow your own food!

Sunday garden chronical

More yellow pear and chocolate cherry tomatoes!

Beets and Greens

Beans are looking promising!

Beets and more Zucchini's

We were pleasantly surprised to find more zucchini's today, along with our first harvest of beets! JD cooked the beets and the greens, the greens tasted like spinach..very good! The garden was pretty dry so it is getting some much needed water tonight. We're looking forward to our beans, they should be ready to harvest within the next week or so, along with some cucumbers.

Please take a look at the one zucchini in the middle, is that perhaps a different type of zucchini or did it just not get enough sun? It has a light green color to it, in contrast to the typical deep, dark green color the others have. If anyone has an idea, please let us know.

R Dean

The zucchini's are here, the zucchini's are here..

To grill...

From garden...

Tonight, we marinated and grilled our first zucchini of the season, and it was so good! I'm so thankful that we have a garden and can grow some of our own food. I hope that over the next few years we can become 100% self-sufficient when it comes to our food needs because it is so rewarding and reassuring to know that it comes from our garden where there was zero pesticides used, only Mother Natures TLC.