On 7/18/2017 7:46 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
On 7/18/2017 7:16 PM, George Shirley wrote:
Okra is coming to maturity so fast we can hardly keep up with it.
Looks like we will run out of space in both freezers rapidly. Wash it,
cut off the bottom, slice into rounds, put on cookie sheets, freeze
for an hour at 0 degrees. Take it out, put it in vacuum bags, seal,
put a date on it, back in the freezer. Looks like a lot of deep fried
okra and/or gumbo.

Tomatoes are about played out due to the heat, the little marble toms
are okay as they're big bushes are shading the fruit. The plum and
other tomatoes aren't that lucky.

We're hitting 90+ degrees daily now. Weather folk are saying we have
really good chances for rain for the next ten days but we can only hope.

Nothing else going on garden wise but we can hope for a decent winter
garden some day not to far away. No figs, one pear, maybe get some
kumquat come fall. Got to pull up the Old Maids flowers from around
the pear tree. Finally got through to dear wife that pretty flowers
growing around my fruit trees means no goodies to grow the fruit
coming up from the roots.

Local free newspaper throws one for each house on our area but no one
picks them up. We starting picking them all up and then run them
through the paper shredder and then into the composter. At least they
aren't a eyesore anymore and the shredding helps them ferment and turn
into decent compost when all the kitchen stuff goes in and the dead
plants in the garden.

Hoping this fall that we will be able to take all the homemade "dirt"
in the raised beds and mix in a lot more composted cow manure plus all
the stuff from the composter. I intend to rent a small cement mixer
and use that to mix up all the goodies and then back into the beds.
Beats trying to rock a tarp back and forth with our old arms and
shoulders to get a good mix. Need to add another bale of peat moss too.

George

Cement mixer ! Geez , I've been wearing myself out turning that
compost pile with a shovel . I bought a HF mixer to mix concrete for the
cellar slab and mortar for the block walls , now it just sits awaiting
the next masonry-type project . Not any more !

--

Snag

If you weren't so far away Snag I would try to borrow it. I've actually
found one on line that someone wants to sell cheap. Guy says the
electric plug is blown but I can fix that easily. Going over to look at
it tomorrow at mid-day. If the guy is smart he washed it out after every
use, if he isn't he might as well throw it in the dump. You ever try to
beat the cement out of one of those things with a hammer?