"You want a WHAT?"

Last week when The Grandsons brought me the pumpkin seeds, their mother also handed me several seed packets and asked, "Can we grow some beets?"

I've tried growing beets.  Most of the time, the seeds never even sprout.  Last fall, I planted beet seeds, and they came up and made leaves, but they never made beets under ground.

"We can plant some," I answered.  "Whether they will grow is another matter."

So for the past week, I've been pondering what I could do to the garden soil to encourage a beet.

People have told me to add sand to my soil to improve the drainage.  Others have said that adding sand to the kind of soil we have would turn it into concrete.  The best thing to do would probably be to haul in a whole dump-truck-load of "garden mix" from the local nursery, but I can't do that now, with this season's crops still growing. 

An immediate solution would be to build a raised bed for the beets. 

As I've mentioned, my garden is not actually on my property; it's across the road, behind Nanny's house, where there's full sun for most of the day.  If the property were mine, I'd not think twice about plunking down a semi-permanent structure at the edge of the garden, but, somehow, it just seems wrong to plunk one down in Nanny's yard.

Yesterday, on my way to work, I spied a possible solution.  In someone's front yard was a long, narrow, black plastic trough on a low metal stand, and it had a "For Sale" sign on it.  I think it's supposed to be used for cows, maybe, or pigs.  Filled with good, store-bought soil, it would probably be perfect for growing beets and carrots, and maybe even potatoes.  And it wouldn't kill Nanny's grass, and I could move it out of the way when the crop is harvested.

So I said to The Husband last night at dinner, "Today, I found something I want."

He tried to look interested (like this statement is a shocker for him, eh?).  "What's that?"

"A pig trough.  There's one for sale on the Holly Grove Road.  I want to grow beets in it."

He thought about this for a minute, then asked, "Why don't you just use the horse trough?"

"WHAT horse trough?"

"The one behind the shed."

It seems that there's been a trough behind the garden shed ever since Nanny and Pop-Pop boarded a couple of horses for a guy a few years ago.  The Husband knew it was back there because he makes a pass behind the shed when he mows Nanny's yard.  Having never actually been on the back side of the shed, myself, I had no clue it was back there.  I assumed it left the premises with the horses.

This trough is horse high, and twice as deep as the pig trough.  I won't even have to bend over to tend the vegetables I intend to grow in it.  Wooo-hooooo!

Now, if I can just get some dirt....

Rain!

Woohoooo!  We're getting a gully-washer right this minute!

My tomatoes say thanks.  My green beans say thanks.  My squash say thanks.

My roses, especially, say thanks, because they are in a hot, dry spot, needing water, but the garden hose is piled up very near to the spot where the snake probably lives.  The roses were in trouble.

This rain might bring up the pumpkin seeds that The Grandsons planted Tuesday evening.  It might be a miracle if they sprout. 

They and their mother came up, bearing seed packets, just as I was about to go to the garden.  They asked if it was too late to plant pumpkins.  I reckoned it is never too late to plant, so I tilled up "hills" in the skips in the cucumber and bean rows.

"Pretend you're monsters," (which might not be a big stretch for them) [yes, yes, just kidding], I told them, "and make a claw with your hand."  They did so.  I said, "Now, press your fingertips into the dirt, and plant a seed in each finger-hole."  They did so.  We covered the seeds with soft, loose dirt.

Grandson 1 dusted off his hands and went about his business.

Grandson 2, who had done his planting in the cucumber row, found some cucumbers I'd missed in the earlier picking.  This distracted his mother and me, and we moved on down the cucumber row, double-checking the plants.  By the time we got back to the end of the row where we'd planted the pumpkin seeds, someone - someone with Grandson 2-sized feet - had left footprints in all three pumpkin hills. 

He was at the opposite end of the garden by then.

"COME HERE," I commanded, and when he did, I pointed to the ground and said, "Why did you do this?"

He shrugged.  "I don't know."

I figured that was about as honest an answer as I was going to get.  This child cannot resist soft dirt.

"Well, if the pumpkin seeds can't punch their way out of that hard-packed dirt, we're all going to blame you."

As if he'd give a rip.

Watch those seeds pop right out of the footprints, now that they've had some rain.

Mid-July Report

This afternoon when I came home from work, I was greeted on the front porch by a snake.  Big around as a broom handle, and probably three feet long, solid black/gray.  My best guess, based on the pictures on the web, is that it was a Southern Black Racer.  He might be fast, but not as fast as I was when I high-tailed it into the house via the back door.  He was gone by the time I put my stuff down and went to the front door for another peek.  You know what that means, don't you?  He's still out there...somewhere....  I used the back door again when I went to the garden.

The garden is coming along right well. 

Tonight I picked a plastic grocery bag full of cucumbers, and another bag full of squash and zucchini.  I saw a few squash bugs.  Nanny said she would dust the plants in the morning.  She kept the cucumbers to use for relish.  I'll play the Squash Fairy tomorrow at work.

The purple-hull peas are filling out and starting to turn purple.  I planted only three rows - not enough for this family of pea lovers.  As soon as everybody on the hill gets all the cucumbers they want, I'm going to pull up the vines and plant a late crop of peas in their place.

Did my first serious picking of green beans on Saturday.  Had enough for supper (and some left-overs), and a few to give away. 

The Grandson's tiger eye beans are drying on their vines, just as we want them to do.  They are LOADED with beans.

The chili peppers are making faster than I can pick them.

The tomatoes.  Well....

On the up side, we have several tomatoes that would do to eat today, but will be better in two more days.  (I'm craving that first ripe tomato/mayonnaise sandwich of the season.)  They're still blooming, and there are little tomatoes coming along, but not in the quantities I would like.  I planted about 45 tomato plants.  I should be covered up with tomatoes, but I'm not.  Not yet.

On the down side, I'm battling blight non stop.  The blight is probably what's robbing my tomato plants of their vigor, but I'll be switched if I know what to do about it.  I tried the baking soda/cooking oil blight treatment that I saw on YouTube.  It seemed to slow the blight down a little - about as much as the fungicide does - but it's still there.  I believe it's just in the air.  You might remember that about three years ago, I moved the tomato patch plumb out of the garden, way up the driveway, close to the road, where ne'er a tomato plant had ever grown.  Those plants had the worst case of blight EVER, so I know it's not just in the garden soil from prior years.  I even have blight on my two patio plants, which have never been NEAR the garden.

Tomatoes.    I feed.  I water (with drip hoses).  I treat for diseases and pests.  I rotate, mulch, stake, prune off leaves that touch the ground....  What ELSE is a person supposed to do to get a good tomato crop?

Organic Tomato Blight Control

Look what I found!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxeBz1e2OwU

I'm trying this today.

Happy 4th of July

We went to a cookout at Gus' and Ann's today.  Gus and my late father-in-law are first cousins.  Gus invites all his cousins, and all their young'uns, to a family dinner twice a year:  4th of July, and Thanksgiving.  On the 4th, he serves us barbequed pork shoulder, cooked low and slow, the way any self-respecting Southerner would do it. At Thanksgiving, he gives us Turkey.  The cousins and their young'uns bring the side dishes.  Five generations showed up today.  It's good to visit with the extended family.

Uncle Jack was there, and he said that he'd just picked a 5-gallon bucket of ripe tomatoes this morning.  He's picking green beans and cucumbers.  Made me green with envy.  He invited me over to help him cut cabbage for sauerkraut.  I might take him up on that, if he'll do it when I'm not at work.

I came home and went down to inspect my own pitiful garden.  One of the tomato plants has been stung pretty hard with blight; some of the rest are threatened with it.  This weekend, I will need to rig up the sprayer with fungicide to see if I can thwart it a little.

Night before last, I found a bug on one of the squash plants and had to powder them with Sevin dust.  Together, Nanny and I have picked about 4 gallons of squash this week, two of which are sitting on my kitchen table, needing to be processed.  I intend to make some of that good squash relish that I made last year, but first I'll need to make a run to the grocery store for vinegar and stuff.

The green beans are beginning to make.  The Grandson's tiger eye beans are loaded, but I'm going to let them dry on the vine so he can see how the dried bean thing is done.  Come winter, we'll soak his beans, and cook them, and talk about how we planed them w-a-y back in the spring....

My yard is phloxing. 

Night before last, as The Husband was walking down Nanny's driveway to join me in the garden, he spotted a fawn under the pine trees.  He whistled, and when I looked up from my squash-picking, he motioned for me and showed me the baby.  It was tiny!  We didn't see its mama anywhere.  "Keep a watch out for mama," I said before trotting back to our house for the camera.  The fawn was still there when I got back, and lay there and looked pretty while we took its picture.  After I finished picking the squash, we came back to our house and watched the field beside the driveway.  Sure enough, before long, the doe emerged from the tree line and eased across the field.  She was still 100 feet away from the baby when all of a sudden it bolted from beneath the pine trees and joined her in the field.  She led it back to the woods.  Sweet.  :)

As we walked up the sidewalk to our house, a rabbit ran out of the flower bed.  I took its picture, too.