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6 Comments

  1. Not much new here. Summer seems so different without a garden; however God is supplying all the free veggies we can eat!

    Wood is still being cut, hauled and split. I continue working on a quilt, the fur throws (found that I had yet another old fur coat tucked away), and making a bedside rug to warm toes in winter. And than there is massive mending. Not exciting stuff, but essential for getting through winter warm and cozy!

    We have been very successful in increasing our physical endurance for the family! It’s a good thing, especially as middle age is upon some of us!

  2. Our spring planted garden is just about done. The okra is still producing more than we can eat. Our beans, corn, peas etc. have all been canned. Working on shelling and properly storing all the dried bean, pea, and various other seeds we save to be planted next year. We’ve had enough rain this year to make a good crop, but not so much as to rot our seeds while still on the plants that we pick to save as dried seed to plant next year. Took some calves to local auction today. Hay equipment is all ready to start baling second cutting of hay. Need a couple weeks without rain to harvest hay. Cleaned out hay barn and stored all of last years surplus hay outside under plastic to make room for our next cutting. I save lots of hay each year since the last bad drought we had. Our pencil cob corn and pop corn is almost dry enough to pick. The pencil cob is an heirloom variety that makes excellent corn meal. All of our cows are really fat due to all the rain and abundant grass we have this year. I have my eye on a fat young bull calf to butcher when the weather turns cooler. Our Muscovy ducks have produced about 30 young ducks this year. Hope to butcher a few drakes when the weather turns cooler. Those duck breasts sliced across the grain and flowered and fried taste almost identical to white tailed deer back strap.
    I hope to bush hog the garden next week and disc to plant our fall garden. Turnips, mustard, kale, spinach, sweet corn, purple hull peas and several kinds of onions.

  3. There are many variables in gardening in general and tomatoes are no different. However, here are some ideas that might help. I don’t know if you’re dealing with determinates or indeterminates. I have thus far grown indeterminate tomatoes, which grow to be 10 feet high and have to be staked. They produce all summer here, if I plant them in the shade. Determinate tomatoes have long since produced and died back here. Next year, I plan to plant some determinates for early tomatoes, so we aren’t waiting half the year before getting some. But the indeterminates live through the he summer if we plant them in the shade.

    For keeping down weeds and grass, look into the mulch method, with straw or hay. It doesn’t work perfectly, but it is a good solution in some ways. It builds up the soil, and can be filled in, instead of needing to be removed. Don’t use wood chips. They seep too much nitrogen from the plants. Hay or straw is good. You can use newspaper or paper feed sacks under the straw/hay to mulch out weeds. The tomatoes we plant in the garden get planted on raised rows, since we live in a very wet area. Since you’re in a dry area, maybe you could do ok with planting them flat, which would be far easier to mulch, and wouldn’t dry out as bad.

  4. My bugout vehicle project is coming along. The 1986 M1009 CUCV I acquired back in March is slowly being turned it back into a daily driver. On a different note, I got lucky a few weeks ago and found the top, bottom and lid to an early version Big Berkey at GoodWill for twelve dollars and was able to hit a sale on Berkey’s website. So I went ahead and ordered filters as well as a replacement spigot but the one with the sight glass. The old spigot was pretty calcified and in desperate need of new gaskets. I have been wanting a Big Berkey for some time now and it was in the plans to make my own from five gallon buckets now I can shelve that project for a much later date. The next few days I have off I am going to be going through my Get Home Bag and my Bug Out/INCH Bag as it is that time of year for me. Reviewing, evaluating, recycling and replacing the contents. After awhile you forget what you have packed and where. So it is also a refresher.

  5. Hugh,
    Your slime could be Iron reducing bacterial slime. We get this in toilets, hot water heaters, and Big Berkey’s in the mid Atlantic area from some wells. Your conditions are certainly different, but is it a common cause of slime buildup. Chlorox doesn’t really remove it, it is a manual process, but the chlorine can help to prevent buildup ahead of time. Jim

  6. So far, my experiment using squash to shade our west-facing kitchen is a mixed success. The leaves are enormous, covering much of the west wall and a quarter of the roof. Blessed shade…cool kitchen. However, only two fruit have set. At least two that I have seen.

    We have a summer kitchen (small woodburning setup out back for cooking greens, canning, and other heat-intensive processes) that keep us from generating heat in the kitchen. Now, that is working great. Been doing it for two decades. And yes, the cooking pots for the summer kitchen are covered with soot.

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