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  • From: "Lynda" <lurine AT com-pair.net>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Summer happenings
  • Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 06:53:24 -0800

Been picking a ton of Black Cap raspberries. The red raspberries are just now setting fruit. My Marionberries are flowering and some have set fruit. Strawberries *were* doing good until we got the 2 weeks straight of torrential rains. Now they are just sitting there and looking beedraggled. No fruit on any of the trees. They had all (apples, peaches, pears, apricots, plums, almonds) set fruit when we got the rain and it knocked all the little fruit right off the trees! The grapes survived, which surprised me, so we'll have lots of table grapes. Went down to the river to look at our favorite blackberry picking area and it is LOADED! So we'll have lots of blackberry pies and lots of jam to fill the gap left by the strawberry plants.

The veggies are coming along. We're still getting lots of peas. They never seem to make it to the freezer. Everyone seems to think that the 3 rows of peas are a buffet and every single time someone goes outside they walk through the rows eating peas.

The stupid chickens got the beets. I "thought" we had all the holes plugged after the beet incident and blessed if the one the youngest calls Penny wasn't in there again yesterday. Now, she isn't one of the problem chickens, the Buff Orphingtons and the black hen are the problems. So this morning I'm going out to watch and see how she gets into the garden.

The peppers are doing well. I thought for sure the rains would pound them into the ground to the point they'd never come back. Most of the tomatoes are doing well. The chickens also got into the Sweet Millions and the Rockys. They are looking a tad disreputable <g> Already have tomatoes on a whole bunch of the plants. I'm really hoping for a load of the Green Grapes so that I can save some seeds. You can't get the old type Green Grapes anymore, or at least I can't find any seeds and neither can my neighbor who does most of our seedling raising until we can get a hoophouse up.

The zucs are already loaded with fruit. The watermelon, cantalope, lemon cucumbers, pickling cucumbers and pumpkins are all doing well. The beans are deceased. The rains got them too. The season here is too short to start any again and the heat is too much for young plants. We've already been up in the triple digits. And what amazes me is that I'm still getting lettuce. It just keeps plodding along.

Youngest got her two lambs for the fair. Daisy and Chloe. Daisy is a triplet and Chloe is a half-sister to last year's ewe lamb. She's having to really stuff the groceries to Daisy. Chloe has already made weight and sure putting her into a holding pattern. There are two types of lambs -- market lamb and "fine" lamb. Last year's judge liked the "fine" or "pretty" lambs. No one knows who the judge will be this year, so she bought one of each (Daisy is a "pretty" lamb, Chloe is a market lamb). It sure would be nice if the judges would figure out that a *market* lamb class is about *market* lambs. I know that when we owned our butcher shop I wouldn't have bought any of the "pretty" lambs. They don't have as good a dressing ratio and they don't have enough twist to produce a good leg of lamb. Also, they aren't usually as long in the loin or as meaty through the loin. The loin and leg are your money makers and that's what you want in a *market* lamb. ~~sigh~~ The joys of kidlets and fairs <g> Only two more years of fairs. I can't wait!

Well, I'm off to pull a turkey out of the freezer. DH has the smoking bug again. Next week he's going out to bring in a couple of dead Gray pine (excellent heat) and three dead Doug Fir. We've also got a couple of really old oak that have started to hollow out and he's getting them down and out front to age. This year he's thinking of renting a splitter from the guys in town. With everyone pitching in (there are 5 of us now living on the property), we should be able to split 4 or 5, or even more cords in a day. Might take a month of Sundays to get it all stacked but we'll have it split!

Lynda
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." Aldous Huxley

----- Original Message -----
Robert Walton wrote:

Garden is giving. Been eating good and putting up some stuff. Still
no tomatoes. I think they take longer when they are not staked, but
the vines are good and full of green tomatoes. My onions are great
this year. I swear by growing them from seed, the only ones that are
not great are the ones from sets. I'm just eating them green.

Melons look good, have some more green beans that will be in soon. I
also finally planted some soybeans, so if they do ok will be eating
endame. I like that. It's good frozen. Beets were mostly a bust, but
I have a few. Carrots were mostly a bust, but they always are.
Lettuce did not do well for me this year.





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