The Sweet Side of a Hot July

The Blackberries are coming, the BlackBerries are coming! 

Yes, the tart sweetness of wild blackberries. Free, but at a cost to life and limb. Hands get beat up, shredded and turn a very dark color. Must wear heavy pants, thick soled shoes, and long-sleeve shirts out in the hot sun for the battle with the thorns. Must also be prepared to do battle with the yellow jackets and other insects competing for the sweetest berries. There is NO easy way to pick these black glistening jewels. Each and every berry must be earned with some blood, a lot of sweat, and sometimes, a few tears. 

We have a ten-foot tall wall of blackberries running approximately 300 yards between our property and a neighbor. One must use a walking stick to slowly traverse to the wall of berries so as not to fall in a gopher hole, or into a sticker bush along the way. 

When the berries are ripe, we can make jams, jellies and pies, or simply freeze the berries for sprinkling on top of a bowl of ice cream. They are great in smoothies, too. 

The first bowl of Ripe Berries 2018

Mostly Green Berries on those Thorny Branches

Blackberries are Worth the Battle

Too Flipp'n Hot In July

Today was way too hot for a lot of thing.  99F and way hotter than anticipated.  It burned the leaves on my tomato plants. In fact, on one of the plants, it even singed the stalk. I have taken them out of the direct sunlight and put them in the shade of the tree to protect them for the next few days.  We have already trimmed off the most damaged leaves to hopefully prevent disease. None of the fruit looks damaged. But time will tell.

The hot sun also burned a few of the corn leaves.  They don't look too bad, but too many days like this and I don't know what I will do. The tassels on the corn are popping up.

Other plants appear fine.  I shaded the bell peppers a few weeks ago because the fruit can easily blister even on days that it is not super hot.

I planted some lettuce a week ago, and it is coming up. I have it in a location that does not receive full sun. Cucumbers are doing well. I need to thin out my carrots.  Always a work in progress.

But as some plants are just starting to show progress, others are done. Garlic is being cured in the garage. I harvested the oregano yesterday when I noticed that one of the plants had bolted.  I knew I needed to act fast to save it.

One of the basil plants is ready to harvest. The rest are still pretty small but growing well.

I pulled half of my onions because they were done, albeit very small. Every year is different when it comes to gardens, that's for certain.

Below are the photos of many of the plants as of mid July.

Fresh Harvest of Oregano	This is the 2nd Cutting this Year
Young Dill	Mature Basil Ready for Harvest
First Cherry Tomato - Leaves are burnt	Corn Keep Growing
Corn Tasseling	Another Tassel
First Bush Bean	Lots of Beans on the Bush
Too Many Bell Peppers

July Garden Journal

The corn is growing quickly as you can tell in this latest photo.

July 3 - Corn Patch

We dug out the potatoes. We planted more Red Chieftan this year. The other potatoes are Cascade White and were developed for growing in the Pacific NW. They are smaller than we had hoped for. We  have not grown them before so we are not certain about flavor and texture.  They are supposed to be great for frying purposes. In the past, we have tried Fingerlings and Yukon Golds. The little fingerlings were great, but difficult to work with. The Yukon Golds were a great size, but the texture was funky. The Red, we like to quarter up and roast in a buttered pan. They are always great.  We only ended up with enough to last for a couple months. We don't have a fruit cellar, so we can't really store much over the winter. Since it does not get exceptionally cold here, cellars don't work all that great, to begin with.

Red Chieftans and White Cascades

Tomatoes are picking up, finally.  We have at least one tomato on each plant. The early yield plant, the July 4th, has had fruit on it for a couple of weeks now. The Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes are in memory of my mom. That was her favorite. There are a half dozen fruit on that one. The Mortgage Lifter (a later yield) has one tiny tomato on it. I tried to be creative and take photos from the bottom up. HA!

July 4 - Nice size for Early Yield	Different Angle of July 4
One of the Sweet OneHundred	Sweet 100s should be getting red soon
The first of the Mortgage Lifters	Better Photo of the tiny Mortgage Lifter

Some of the basil is growing well while others seem a little on the slow side. Not certain why. The first green bean (bush) that came up is blooming. The oregano is ready to harvest, and the poor little cucumber is slowly growing even though I have added blood meal to perk it up.

Radish & Basil	Green Bean Bush is Flowering
Time to Harvest Oregano	Slow Growing Cucumber

No Sooner Said. . .

We got our first egg from the Rhode Island Reds. Pretty good size, in truth. That means that they will get larger over time and practice.

The Welsummers are NOT happy that I accidentally left a thistle in their run.  They knocked down everything around it, but, yah, I don't blame them.  I will get out there tonight and get that sticker out so that it doesn't continue to be a hazard for them.  They will, on occasion, lay an egg in the fresh grass as though it is a pile of hay in the nesting box. Sillies.

New Egg was laid next to the fake egg.  I have the circle on the fake egg so that the kids won't carry it in thinking it is a real chicken egg. The comparison photo is a bit blurry. Sorry 'bout that. 

Photos of the RIRs also include the new feeder.  That little black knob that sticks out at the bottom of the opening becomes a weight that pulls the opening closed if a rodent gets on it to get into the feed. The RIR are very curious birds.  Much more so than the Welsummers which are a bit stand-offish. 

1 year Welsummers
Please Remove This!	The Grass is Cooler than the Nesting Box
First Rhode Island Red Egg & Marked Fake Egg	Rhode Island between 2 Welsummer Eggs
Hen, Water & New Feeder	Safety Knob
Rhode Island Red in New Pen
Whatchcadoin?	Another RIR Close Up

20 Week Marks Maturity for Rhode Island Reds

While different breeds of chickens mature at different rates, the Rhode Island Reds are showing their maturity with right red combs and broader hips.  I don't have photos today and it is a cloud filled day, so the photos typically don't turn out well on overcast days. I will get some photos soon.  The pullets have been moved into the smaller coop (the one designed for three large hens) and are adapting to the new space.  They had a lot of space while in the hoop coop because, of course, that was originally designed for two turkeys. 

So the Rhodie's space is now about one-third of what they originally were maturing in. I will also take photos of the new feeder that D purchased that is designed to keep mice and rats out of the feed. His intent is to pick up another one if this one works.  The rats and mice are thick in our fields, so it is always a battle to not feed them. The feeder is designed to close down when ever a mouse/rat pulls on the lever to get into the feed. I have a mini-cam that I will also be putting out into the run to see if this thing is actually working. 

He purchased it last winter, but the Welsummers were not smart enough to figure out how to get their food out. He decided to wait for the Rhodie's to mature to the right height to see if they would figure it out.  And they did, within minutes of it being set up.  Go figure? 

This was the coop that we discovered had been leaking last winter.  We got the leak handled, but it did in the flooring. That has been replaced with painted particle board. We bleached down the walls, installed the floor and aired it all out for the new flock. We will paint the outsides of it soon, in preparation for winter.  We have new shade screens for both runs since the weather has been harsh on the one we picked up several years ago. We also need to create some new wind screen boards this summer before the fall east winds kick in. With all the rain that we get, the wood rots and gives out after a couple of years, even when it is painted/stained. 

We had a bit of a scare.  When I was carrying one of the pullets to their new digs, I stepped in a hole and my legs went out from under me. I fell forward, almost crushing the poor chicken. It all happened so quickly, I didn't have time to react to let her go and we both went down together. She is fine and I'm healing.  

Since the RIRs have hit "maturity" time, I have hay and a fake egg in the nesting box to help spur them into laying now. 

Garden is better than last year.  We have several bell peppers already, about four tomatoes on one early plant, the potatoes are ready for the dig out, the corn is about knee high, the onions are starting to grow, the first of the three bean plants is flowering, oregano, basil and dill, plus the carrots and radishes are growing quickly.  The garlic is basically ready for the dig up, although they are smaller than I had hoped, but, they survived the winter, so that's a plus.  I did notice some aphids on one plant, so that's likely to be the next battle. If we can have a relatively unhumid summer, we should have a pretty good crop of the plants in the ground. I am hesitant to mention it, for fear of jinxing anything, but I have not seen any slugs!  Usually, by this time of year, we have massive slugs moving around. On the other hand, we have tons of snakes this year, and it may be that they are eating those slugs for lunch. Hope so.  I would much rather have snakes than slugs in my garden, any day of the week. 

Third Week of June Garden Perk Ups

The first week of June brought terrible temps and cloud cover.  I really doubted that the corn would catch up, but it has. There is Hope!  Last week, once all the corn stalks popped up, I added organic blood meal around each stalk, and this week, I added steer manure. I think we are back on track with growth. 

Potatoes, I truly thought would be done by now.  However, as you can see, the leaves are still bright green and simply not ready to dig out. 

Last weekend, on Father's Day, we had a thunderstorm that knocked over one of the bell pepper plants.  We have it staked up now, and I note that there is a nice sized bell pepper on it. We have taken them out of the green house due to the fact that it is getting too hot for them in there and they will blister/burn. 

Strawberries are just about done.  I keep them contained in a bucket on the deck to keep critters out (mostly).  

I planted two cucumber plants, one each per bucket, and they are starting to look like real plants.  I put the buckets side by side for pollination purposes when they start flowering. This keeps the slugs out. 

Tomato plants are still in the green house for warmth purposes.  The earliest one is called July 4th, and it has two cute little tomatoes.  Even the cherry sized tomato plant is without tomatoes at this point. So yes, we may actually have some standard-size red tomatoes in July this year! Very Unusual for the Pacific NW!

Have cut the scapes off the garlic and they will be dug up the first week of July. 

The Rhode Island Pullets are almost 19 weeks of age.  Getting pretty close to laying time for them. We need to replace the flooring in the coop with the nesting box so that they can start practicing with that, or they will end up laying them all over the place, which isn't very good when the rainy weather hits. 

Corn first week of June	Corn third week of June
Potato leaves still Green	Bell Pepper this week
Strawberries winding down	Cucumber starting up
July 4th Tomato Plant

First week of June Gardening Blues

It's the first week of June and, like last year, it has turned off colder than usual. Lots of rain and humidity. Hoping for the best, for the corn. It's hard to keep the soil at "growing temps" when it cools off like this.  It will do what it can do and we will live with it. 

My replant of corn from last week is coming up along with the plants that were already sprouting up last week, so, if it warms up this summer, we should have a nice "micro" crop. I planted 28.  In some spots, there are two that came up. (I always plant at least two to try to ensure that one comes up.)  Usually one pops up, occasionally 2 pop up and some times none pops up.... I soak the seeds over night to try to spur growth, but some seeds just don't grow. Corn is difficult to grow in our region, so when it happens, it is BLISS! 😋  Hey, the basil actually sprouted this year.  Didn't happen last year.  Keeping my fingers crossed that they keep growing. Time to fertilize too.  Corn and Onions need a lot of fertilizer to grow quickly. 

I need to start weeding both gardens.  I need to replant some bush beans too. Potatoes are still flowering which is a good sign!  Typically, the more flowering we see, the more potatoes we get. We don't pull them until the flowering is all done and the leaves start dying. I think we will be getting potatoes early this year!!!

Picking and pickling my mini radish crop this weekend. YUM - love pickled radishes on my burgers! 

We sold our three older Welsummers this morning.  I never ask for "going rate" and I never have a problem selling them to a good home.  I'm disappointed, however, when people try to talk me down to a lower amount, considering I am already asking 50% less than the local rate. But, rather than get upset and throw verbal darts, I just don't reply at all.  They are sold to a nice family that I know will love them as much as we have. I handed over plenty of fresh eggs to seal the deal. 

Next projects are to finish the east wall of the greenhouse to help control humidity and temps, put a new floor in the smaller coop so that we can get the pullets moved, and then work on the hoop coop to shore it back up and put in a larger door.  The plastic zip ties are giving out so it is time to replace those before our fall meat chickens arrive. 

Just a typical first week of June with rain, albeit colder then we would like. Hopefully, this will clear quickly and we can head into summer with a great mini crop this year. I don't want a repeat of last year!

Baby Corn Stalks	The Replants are Sprouting (see circle)
Harpo is Missing the Sun