On 5/23/2015 6:59 PM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote:



Looks like rain again.
I'd envy you the rain, if I did that sort of thing ;-) Rain all
around us but not a drop for the garden. The White Hole Effect in
action, I suppose.
This time of year, I garden in the morning and in the late
afternoon hours. By about 11AM, I have to get my old self into the
shade! Afternoons, by this time of year (it _is_ nearly June, right?
wow), are just too hot and the sun too bright and intense for gardening
to be much of a pleasure. Unfortunately, here lately, I've been
spending the late afternoons mowing instead of gardening. First time
this year. We always wait 'til the earliest wildflowers are ready to
broadcast seed. Others, I simply mow around.

We've been doing the same except that we have been overcast for most of
a week so were out today doing due diligence. We managed to get the yard
mowed (very small property) and the weed whacker got it's job mostly
done too.

Been picking "late" (March) English peas and snap beans for a
while, now. I pick them daily early in the day as soon as they're dry
enough to handle. Half of the March "little marvel" peas and of
"provider" green beans, AWA a few peanuts, headed for the compost
yesterday. The peas had totally run their course. They just can't
handle late May temps and even if they continue to produce into the hot
season, the sweetness and flavor suffer. The beans were still producing
a bit but had gone all chlorotic and the few peanuts in that bed were
just beginning to peg. I'll add more compost, etc. maybe adjust the pH
in the bed and plant more beans (and maybe peanuts) while there's still
time or, maybe, more okra; or maybe, more cowpeas. A fella's freezer
can't have too much okra or too much "peas". Currently picking beans
and more heat-tolerant peas from another bed, have beans coming along in
yet another.

We planted sugar peas last fall and had a total crop failure, summer
came back in mid-winter and they just died off. Green peas are one of
our favorites so it hurt some. Our next door neighbors went home to
Russia at the end of January and left us a complete case of commercial
green peas plus a bunch of other canned foods and frozen meat. Hit the
green beans with some bloom producer this afternoon and am hoping for
sunshine soon too.

Gonna be overrun with yellow squash. Shoot, I _am_ overrun with
yellow squash. Had lousy results last year and because I used the same
seed stock this year planted "extra". Of course, now the "extra" has
become "holy cow". There's a limit to how much squash stuff two geezers
want to move around in their freezer. Thank goodness, I've avoided the
zucchini trap. Easily done, since neither wife nor I considers zucchini
to be actual food, you know(?), so I don't fool with it.

We're getting one or two yellow squash a week, just right for our needs.
We like zucchini and do many dishes with them. Zucchini fritters are
very nice plus put up lots of shredded zucchini for use in breads,
casseroles, etc. There's just two geezers here too and a geezer dawg,
she likes zuke fritters too.

The onions that survived The Raccoon Raid of 2014 are all up and
air-drying on the front porch; the garlic steams ahead. We've been
using the onions as "spring" onions since early March but I pulled them
all during the first week of this month, since they are of suitable size
for our kitchen use.

We've got so much scallions, onion and garlic chives, chopped and vac
bagged in the freezer and some Texas 1015Y onions coming on that we
didn't even have to buy any over the winter. Very handy when you need
some for a dish and it is right there in a bag.
No raccoons around here, very few varmints if you don't count the nutria
rat family that lives in the retention pond behind us. Some nice size
turtles in there too. Have been thinking of sliding out there one
evening with my 1200 fps air rifle and getting some grub. Big sign there
says no firearms but air rifles don't count I guess.