Our first carrots!

Cute little guys aren't they? The little one on the left looks like it could get up and walk away. It turns out carrots need very moist and very loose, loamy soil. Unfortunately, this patch didn't get tilled nearly as deeply as it should have, and we also neglected to run a soaker hose down this row. So in other words, even though we're going to get a boat-load of carrots this year, they'll mostly be stumpy and woody like these two. Oh well, one more item for our live and learn list for next year!

Serves you right!

Remember the lovely hornworms I told you about? I did some more research on them and found out that a type of wasp exists only to lay it's eggs in hornworms. Ecosystems are a funny world. I showed Dan a picture of what an 'infected' hormworm looks like in case he ever sees one. Well... sure enough... we have a hornworm sitting on one of our tomato plants with wasp cocoons just waiting to hatch. Serves him right for noshing on our tomatoes, if you ask me! Anyhoo, the research advised that if not infected, you need to get the worm off pronto, otherwise you provide an all day smorgasbord. However, if it IS infected to leave it alone. What?? Leave it alone? The website proceeded to say that the worm will be immobilized (therefore not doing any more damage to your plant) and you want the wasps to hatch, grow up and go lay eggs in another hornworm, immobilize it, and so on. Hmm... this is a good thing. Interesting. Now we watch for the cocoons to hatch. They haven't as of this morning. We'll keep watching!

Cukes, cukes and more cukes!

Some things in the garden aren't doing as well as we'd hoped. Some are doing ok. Others are doing great! Cucumbers are in the 'great' category. We have no shortage of cukes this year! However, you can only make so many dinner salads and tomato & cucumber salad before you have to start looking for new recipes. That's when pickles popped into Dan's head. He went online and found a couple of recipes. We spent Friday night, our 'date night', making pickles. We had a blast! Turns out it they are beyond easy to make and delicious - better than any pickle you'd find in a store. I can't wait for more cukes to make more pickles!

Does the farm wait?

Today I am finally confident I'm getting a cold. I don't get colds very often, but when I do, they are usually 'doozies'. It's rainy and blah today, so I don't particularly have much to do outside. All of the plants were watered by mother nature. Everything that 'had' to be picked was early this morning.

However, my progressing cold has me thinking - a farm can't wait. It can't wait to be watered, harvested, chickens fed and eggs collected. Nor will it wait for an extended vacation. Or a short vacation for that matter. Once we have sheep or goats, they can't wait to be milked and fed and watered. Fences won't wait to be repaired. The larger the farm gets, the more that won't be able to wait.

Sigh. This doesn't particularly sound fun or relaxing to me. Part of the reason we moved back to the country is because we wanted a slower pace of life. A simpler life. Room to breath. We will be able to breath acreage-wise, but what about workload-wise? I'm not so sure. There's no conclusion to this post - just a thought being typed out. I suppose I will just have to either 'wait it out and see' or adapt. I foresee adapting in my future.

If I could only get to those birds!

Dan calls Buddy 'the BEST cat EVER!'. He is very cute, but sometimes his 'bossiness' is a bit much. "King Biscuit" we call him. This morning though, was one of his cuter days.

Over the weekend, Dan installed a new storm/screen door on the back of the house so we can have a cross-breeze blowing through the house. However, Buddy thinks the door was installed so he can see the chickens even better (as this is now the best vantage point from inside the house).

This morning I went out to take some pics for the blog and when I turned around, Buddy was tirelessly trying to get out to the chickens (aka 'his girlfriends'). He doesn't seem to understand why he can see them and now even hear them(thanks to the screen), but not get to them! Buddy is all the entertainment a person needs.

Grow, Garden, Grow!

Some of our veggies are doing great! Others, not so much. Cukes and tomatoes are growing like crazy, but green beans are just kind of sitting there not doing much of anything. Lettuce is doing pretty well, but aren't getting as big as I thought they would. And even with all our poor corn has been through, it still seems to be healthy and is getting tiny little cobs on it.

Tomato Killers!

Hornworms are EVIL! We never see them on the ground, nor on anything except our tomatoes! Where do they come from? Straight from hell, that's where! One evening we pulled 15 of the fat suckers off our plants. The next morning 2 more. Tonight we pulled 2 more off. Annoying little buggers!

Just a thought...

Ok, so we've learned a lot since Spring arrived. Who knew sticking some plants in the ground could be so labor intensive and scientific? I'd like to know why weeds grow with no assistance at all.... yet flowers and veggies that you give tender loving care are so resistant to grow?!?

Rain & Corn - not necessarily a good combination!

One thing about summer in the Midwest- weather moves in fast and furiously. A huge rainstorm moves in early afternoon. Well, not much to do outside now. We decide to head to town to do some shopping.

Upon arrival home, our once proud, and vertical, corn is now horizontal. You've got to be kidding me! We chuck our cold grocery store goods in the fridge and head out to try and salvage our 9 rows of corn. First we carefully straighten it up and pack soil around it. It's mostly vertical now. It's late and we need to make dinner. After dinner we head back out to 'hill' the corn. This seems to help give it extra support. I'm curious to see how it holds up during the next rainstorm.

But what did we learn? Planting corn 1 1/2 inches deep is not enough to build a strong root system. Next year, we will plant deeper. Oh also, as a reminder for next year... plant rows 4 feet apart so we can get the tiller in between the rows. Good tip!