Even though those little ones may not have enough time before the frost, these plants set fruit a couple months back.  They are almost ready to harvest.  That bottom one is the right color, and its plant is dead.  And the two upper ones are still a little green, and their plants are still alive, so I’m guessing they can hang in there another month.  

 

Aren’t they beautiful?  We love butternut squash.  

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Look how cute these butternuts are.  I’m not sure they will have enough time to get big and ripen before the frost, they need about 90 days.  Hmmm, that would be Thanksgiving.  Well, maybe…

 

I planted them on the north side of the tomato cages, so they don’t block the sun.  But the tomatoes are finished, so they can climb the cages freely, and hog all the sun they want.

 

Anyway, I just love watching them grow.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Look how beautiful this is.  It is called Malabar spinach.  It’s not a true spinach, but a vigorous vine with edible leaves that taste like spinach.  The best part is that it grows in hot weather, where spinach likes cool weather.

 

I’ve never planted it before, but we are trying it this year.  And so far, it’s doing great.  It has climbed to the top of the trellis, and started moving sideways.  We’ve already picked a bunch of leaves, and it is still pretty.  I love those red stems.  

So with this plant we can have spinach up til the frost.  Yay!!!

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

 

These hot cherry peppers crack me up.  They don’t hang down like normal peppers, they stick up.

 

Anyway, I don’t like to eat them, or even touch them, but Jon does, so we plant them every year.  Besides, they are cute.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

My friend was telling me about a trip she made to WalMart to buy two small pieces of fabric:  1/4 yard each.  The yard goods person only wrote down the price per yard for the fabric.  When she got to the cashier (a young person) he couldn’t figure out how to do the math.  Whaaat?  It took several other cashiers to figure it out.  Wow!!!

 

We were lamenting the lack of skills in young people nowadays:  namely math and social skills, but also homemaking skills like canning, sewing, and fixing things.  

 

I think it is all WalMart’s fault for luring us into buying cheap stuff, and then just throwing it away and buying new, cheap stuff.  Made me think of this meme.  Not sure they’re the same thing, but kinda…

 

I love our homesteading skills, as limited as they are.  We love growing and cooking our own food, canning it, and fixing things when they break.  We can also manage a little math and good conversations.  

 

 

HAPPY SUMMER!!!

 

This one didn’t try to get away.  It was busy with a ladybug, but still posed for its photo.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Here is another “noxious weed.”  Noxious to some, beloved to others.  It is Passiflora, Passion flower.

 

I keep this weed pulled out all spring, but when the tomatoes are finished, I let them climb the cages.  And look at these gorgeous flowers.  The vines and leaves aren’t big enough to choke out the butternuts;  they share the space pretty well.  

 

I have to let them grow some, because they are host plants for Fritillary butterflies.  The caterpillars eat the leaves down to nothing, and then without food they overwinter in the larval stage.  They start feeding again when the passiflora comes back.  I always look for the caterpillars before I weed out the passiflora.

 

But the truth is:  if we don’t keep them under control, they will take over the garden, and probably the world.  

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

 

 

Now here is a real love/hate story.  

 

Aren’t these flowers glorious?  Yes they are, growing out of the way on a trellis outside the garden.  I love seeing them in bloom like this (especially in somebody else’s garden.)

 

Last year I let the morning glories grow up over our tomato cages, and they dropped thousands of seeds.  We have been weeding out morning glories from the garden since March!!!  Can’t let them take over again.

 

But I do love seeing this fabulous display.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Normally we don’t grow pickling cucumbers, but my friend does, and she is swimming in cucumbers right now.  So I offered to pick and take home some cucumbers.  I traded her for dill seeds.

 

This is about three days worth of cucumbers, meaning that it took those vines about three days to grow cukes this big.  It probably takes longer, but they only get picked about every three days, so that’s my gauge.  

 

We made 17 pints of dill spears with this bucket of cucumbers.  We started picking at 9:00, got busy washing, cutting and canning and were finished by 1:30.  And now we have a new skill, and a bunch of great pickles.  

 

What a fun way to spend a summer day.

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

 

Our friends have about a bazillion raspberries this year, and we offered to help pick them.  WOW!!!  What a treat!!  A treat for us because we get to bring home the ones we pick, and a treat for them, to not to have to pick them (that day.)

 

I never knew that I liked raspberries until I got to pick them myself.  That was last year.  I think I ate more raspberries in one day than I had eaten in the whole of my life.

 

Well, this year when we offered to pick, Nancy threatened to weigh us before we went in and again when we came out.  That was Momma’s joke about me picking strawberries when I was little:  After they weighed our buckets, they weighed ME before, and then again after “picking.”  I have always loved picking strawberries.

 

But picking raspberries is different:  you don’t have to bend over and look under the leaves, you get to stand up and pluck the berries off their hulls.  They separate from the hulls easily when they are ripe, and when they are too ripe they turn to mush in your fingers and you have to eat them.  

 

We picked about 2 quarts, not counting the ones we ate.  And as you can see from the picture, there are another zillion that will ripen over the next month.  A whole month of raspberries!!!!  We now call August “the month of Raspberry.”

 

 

HAPPY GARDENERS!!!