Carrot harvest

I harvested my carrots a few days ago... all four of them. Okay, so I ate the fifth one weeks ago. I don't know what happened to the rest. Anyway, here are my carrots, next to a gallon bucket.

Yeah, they were BIG! See how those three fit in the bucket?

This strange creature had 13 legs! And numerous tops. I don't know why. The others had several tops, too.

I couldn't even fit that crazy monster in my 5-gallon storage bucket, so I had to break all the legs off and put them in the fridge. Here's the top minus its legs.

Have you ever grown a carrot like that?!

Carrots, anyone?

I dug my carrots on Sunday, because it got up to 60° and finally was somewhat pleasant outside. I'd been wishing I'd dug them earlier, before the precip and cold temps had set in, but now I'm glad I waited. The conditions were perfect for digging... moist enough to make digging easy, yet the carrots aren't muddy. Yay!

I did get "a few"... with the moist spring we had, I think every single seed grew! And this is minus the ones we've already eaten:

They're just nice-sized, too... a few smaller ones, but nothing humongous... mostly 'just right'.

The wind was coming up and the temp was going down by the time I got out there, though, so I didn't even take the time to take the tops off (it was Sunday, after all), so for the time being they're in a box in the garage, tops and all. We'll see how long I can procrastinate.......

Garden produce

I thought I'd give you a peek at my garden, although I took these photos over a week ago, and with the heat we've been having, things have really matured fast, so it doesn't quite look like this anymore. :)

The tomatoes had just started ripening nicely:

Several weeks of dry weather followed by the big rain we got, though, caused a lot of them to crack, even while green:

They're ripening really fast now, and I've picked a lot of them.

Here are the whole plants, over 6 feet tall in their super-duper tomato cages. All the moisture we had in the early part of the summer, however, caused a rather big leaf spot problem, as you can see at the bottoms of the plants, and it's gotten considerably worse in the last week:

My cantaloupe/muskmelons have done well, considering I only have 2 plants. There are about a dozen of them out there. We've already started eating this one... it got huge, and it's yummy!

My one butternut squash plant has produced well, too:

I have tons of green bell peppers from my 4 plants. Two of them are supposed to produce red peppers. I've forgotten which ones are which, so I'll just have to wait and see! However, if I wait long enough, they'll all turn red, anyway.

With the wet spring we had, I think every carrot seed grew. I'll have an abundant crop there! The onions have bent over and started to dry down:

Here's something in the wildflower bed that I didn't plant!

It's a Rainbow! I usually find her out there in the mornings. She still hides out from the other cats a lot. :(

She's bigger than a muskmelon. :)

"Fall"ness?

This is how it looked around here this morning.

C'mon... I know you love it! Look closer!

Below is my garden. Nothing left out there but carrots. They always taste better after a freeze, which is why I haven't dug them yet.

And the view from my sewing room window. Poor flowers.

The white stuff can still make for pretty pics, though!

Take a look at the wind action along with the white stuff. All day yesterday, last night, and today we've had winds of 30+ mph, sometimes gusting over 50 mph. Our barometric pressure has been at a record low, which I guess is the cause of the strong winds.

Things should start looking up. All of today's white stuff has already melted this afternoon, and though we could get a little more overnight, with those winds continuing, the sun is supposed to come out tomorrow, and it looks like gradual improvement from there.

Today was probably just a taste of things to come... a warning, perhaps, to get ready!

What's the difference?

Muskmelons or cantaloupe?

Anyway, they will very soon be ripe, and I can't wait!

A head start

My garden started without me this year! I haven't planted a thing or even tilled yet. But a few days ago I discovered this:

Yep, an onion!

Two onions, in fact!

And a couple dandelions. They always get a head start on me.

More orangey goodness

Cantaloupe this time... Iroquoise, in fact. The only kind I've consistently had really good luck raising. This is my first for this season... about a month late, due to having been planted late and then having the cool summer. But thanks to no early frost, this one made it and there are many more that are close to ripening.

Grandpa and I ate half of it for dinner... lunch?... well NOON yesterday, anyway. :-) And it was as delicious as it looks!

Yep, it was bigger than that last watermelon!

Watermelon update

My New Queen watermelons, though few in number (due, I discovered too late, to something going along and eating all the blossoms off the vines... gopher? woodchuck? rabbit?), have been DELICIOUS! Think crisp, juicy, and sweet!

I ate this one... yes, the whole thing... for lunch today. :-) It was tiny and had lain in the garden so long, as I waited for it to grow more which it didn't do, that I didn't really think it'd be any good. But it was yummy!

Note in this first photo that this is not a full-size dinner plate.

Here's a better idea of its size!

Yep, I highly recommend this kind of watermelon. They're early to ripen, which is nice, and look at that rind... hardly anything there!

And of course to Jess I'd recommend them for the color. ;-)

It's really orange!

Here's our first New Queen watermelon, picked yesterday. It's so hard to tell when a watermelon is ripe. I even did a Google search to find out. Here is some pretty good information. This melon seemed to fit the criteria, as far as I could tell. But after cutting into it and tasting it, I'd say I should have waited maybe a few more days. It just wasn't as sweet as I think it should've been, and though there were dark brown seeds, there were many that were full size but still mostly white. Also, the center of the melon is a little pale yet. So, I'll try to do better on the next one. At least you get to see the orange color!

Can't wait!

Do you see what I see?

Look over here.

Here's a closeup.

Mmmmm! Watermelons! But not just any watermelons... these are New Queen melons. I raised some a few years ago, and they were the best watermelons I've ever eaten! They don't get very big... maybe 10 inches or so, if I remember right. And their flesh is orange! They get very sweet and crisp. Yum! I can't wait for them to get ripe!

I should have a pretty good crop of them, too.

They mature early, which is a good thing, since my garden got planted so late. Hopefully the heat in the forecast will bring them along nicely. I'll try to remember to take a pic of the inside for you. Then your mouth can water, too. :-)

My new tool

It's a CobraHead Weeder and Cultivator.

It's like a little mini hoe. It's awesome! You can weed in the rows and get right up next to the veggie plants to get the weeds. And for big weeds it's great because you can hook it down in the dirt behind the weed and pull while you tug on the weed with your other hand, and it really helps get those weeds and roots out of there instead of breaking the weed off and leaving the roots behind. I finally completed weeding my entire (30 ft.?) row of asparagus, thanks to this great tool, and that was no little job, considering the weeds were solid in there and some of them were over a foot tall. Yay to the CobraHead!!

Almost the end

With a forecast for a widespread frost last night, I went out and picked most everything that was left in the garden. All that remains besides a few green tomatoes that I don't care about (anybody want 'em to fry???) are the carrots and a couple of beets. Here's what I ended up picking... a pretty good cartful.

In the pail are beans. They look a little overripe, don't they? :-) Actually, I'm saving them for seed for next year. I've done that for many years, and it works well.

Update: The green tomatoes have been claimed, thanks to the blog! I love it! :-) They will not be fried, though, but will go into sweet pickle relish instead.

It's also almost the end of the bird bathing season. This brave house finch did take a bath yesterday. He was hesitant, though. First he had a few drinks, then sat there and debated for awhile, finally stepping into the water... and just stood there. I guess he was getting adjusted to the chilly water. He did do a little spashing, and here he is after the bath, still looking a little ruffled.

My overgrown garden

You may have noticed I've been a little lax in posting lately. (At least I FELT like I have been.) I've been under the weather with one heckuva cold (or something) the last couple weeks and just haven't felt much like blogging, much less have any inspiration of what to take pics of. And because of not feeling well, I also didn't have Courtney for over a week (who was also under the same "weather" for awhile), so I'm also out of pics/videos of her (till tomorrow). And then there's been the Olympics on TV every night, so that's taken up some of my usual computer time. And I can't see the TV from the computer. Enough excuses? Anyway, I started to feel alive again yesterday, and though I'm not 100% yet, I believe I'll survive. ;-)

Due to the abundant rains we've had this summer, my garden has really gotten overgrown! It's been hard to even get into it to pick anything. Front and center here is what is supposed to be 'bush' acorn squash. That's some "bush", if you ask me! It's completely covering a row of green beans on one side and moving well into the wildflowers on the other. Later this afternoon I must go out and cut the vines off the beans... I do NOT want that many squash! And as you can see from the second photo, they're still blossoming profusely, and the little honey bee inside the right blossom is doing its job, too.

On the other end of the garden are my 2 hills of cantaloupe. They were totally covering all that bare space between the 2 rows of onions, until I ruthlessly ripped out the excess vines a couple nights ago. The melons are VERY thick in there... easily the most I've ever had. I can't wait for them to ripen, though... they're soooo yummy!

My tomato vines are also very thick, and it's hard to even see the fruit under them. But here's a peek.

My green peppers are producing abundantly, too, but were too covered for a good photo. And even though I only planted less than a 2-foot row of beets, I'll have more than enough there, too. Needless to say, it's been a good year for gardening.

Oh yeah, the weeds have done well, too. In the last few days, I've hauled out two 5-gallon buckets of "beloved" purslane. (I should've taken a pic before I started pulling!) But at least it was easy to pull, with the ground being wet, and with so much shading from the tall vegetable plants, it also stood upright, rather than flattening out on the ground like it usually does. So I've gotten most of it pretty easily.

P.S. I realize I don't have a little poll to vote on this week, either. My sluggish brain couldn't think of anything fun to poll about, plus I've been testing out some other blogger "gadgets" which I may put up for awhile instead. I guess you'll have to wait and see what develops there. ;-)