August 2 — The Big Weed Fight
Already? This has been a speedy summer with lots of time away from the garden. I’ve been using more newspaper mulch and weed barrier to my advantage. I’ve fooled around with this for a long time. For the past two years, I’ve subscribed to a major business paper daily. I have an impressive newsprint collection!
That collection permits me to be much more extravagant with my paper protection than when I was depending on the weekly advertising editions. Those advertisers have proven to be unprofitable for local papers. The papers have stopped sending the ‘bonus’ copies.
I put entire sections down in the garden, slightly overlapping. Weeds that were already active were pulled and used as weights to keep my papers from blowing away.
August 3, 2019 Beginning Harvest
Today was a big day. Shopping in the morning because we needed to get feed for the livestock too. Cooking for First Sunday potluck at church tomorrow. I’ve made a game of meeting the theme with my go-to cold dishes! This month is Southern cooking. I found a vintage jello, southern deviled egg recipe and Texas sheet cake. I like the sheet cake recipe better than the one I’ve been using for over 40 years! Chocolate cinnamon, but different procedure.
The tomatoes that had been picked needed attention, so before the day was over, I cooked them up for pasta sauce. They pretty much take care of themselves. It was nice to get to the end of the day with things cleaned up. Lots accomplished on a Saturday.
August 07, 2019
Another batch of pasta sauce today. Eight pints in the second batch. The tomatoes have been wonderful this year. Pretty to look at and tasty to eat. Richard has not been a huge tomato fan in the past. He is eating them this year…till he got hives. We’ve had to redirect his side dishes away from the fresh tomatoes!
Started the rhubarb seeds freshly arrived from Baker Creek Seeds.
August 09, 2019
Potted some heirloom daisies, a gift from a friend. We’ll be glad to have daisies from old friends in our garden! Special plants carry more meaning. All containers and tomato patches received a good feeding. The menu included blood meal with Epsom salt and fine water to finish! HOT and HUMID weather. Early showers and a trip to town for weekly shopping.
At bedtime, we found a stray pup settling in with the cats! She is a cutie. But we would prefer to have only one dog. We live very near a highway.
If her people don’t step up (and we doubt they will) some friends have said they would like to have her at their house.
[…] Pup report! The people who made her into such a sweet dog abandoned her on the gravel road. We enjoyed her company for two weeks before she was able to move to a new forever home. We are not set up to take more dogs because of the highway and the resident dog. This little gal is STONE DEAF, putting her at greater risk with the highway. […]