I have nothing deer hunting related to add.. but this is what is taking up most of our time nowadays. (now that fish shooting is winding down) There are some deer antlers in one of the photos. We made the garden a wee bit bigger this year. It's over 50,000 sq ft. (so that's lots and lots of weeding) First batch of pictures from July 16th. (most everything went in late because of all the rain we had in May and June) Looking to the N.E.. Japanese pumpkins (kabocha) and our current fish interment area (see the white 33 gallon drum? There's a trench there for the scaly corpses.) That's field corn in the back. Looking north. Little sweet corn sprouts and more kabocha. Standing in the same spot but looking mostly west. Lots of mature sweet corn off in the distance. I moved over and now am looking at the N.W. corner. More sprouting sweetcorn and some argonaut squash off in the corner. Little cotton plants. Rain and rabbits made the rows a bit broke up. Looking back to the south. View holding up the camera in the mature sweet corn. There are 12 rows... each row is 350 ft long. We donated over 600 ears of sweet corn to the local food pantry. Here are the 4-H'ers that helped pick and bag it. We then tried our best to give corn to our neighbors.... friends... chickens. We gave away another 50 dozen. I froze dozens of ears and we bagged up and froze 27 lbs of sweet corn kernels. There's way more in the garden still... but heck, I hardly eat corn. :D
Nice garden, but I can imagine how much work it is to keep up. "Hard Work Keeps Ya Young" is what my Grandaddy use to say. Regards.
more.. bwahahahaa Pictures from last Friday (July 23rd). Everythings growing well. Weeds included. N.E. Corner. North. (can see the sweet corn better) N.W. (hey the burn pile is growing too!) Little kabochas are growing. Corner with the argonaut squash and other rows of sweet corn. Cotton is enjoying the heat. View to the south again. Okra is taking forever. Second try at cukes (rain killed off the first planting). Tomatoes and zucchini. (note; I planted the two 'maters in the foreground in April. They got nearly killed by frost twice. One, a cherry tomato, is over 6' tall and doing good. The other, no idea on variety, is fairly sickly.... but it is trying) I planted bunches of peppers and eggplants that I started from seeds. In one night rabbits took out 43 of the plants. We have taken out ~30 rabbits so far. (yes, I have a permit) That's a lot of freakin rabbits. I see there are at least two still hanging around too. Here are the eggplants and peppers that haven't been eaten. ...and speaking of eggs.... Here are my golden comets at 15 weeks and two days. First egg! oh, and there are actually a bunch of things I didn't take pictures of... if you can believe that. but two more pics. Ha! Yard long beans. (more like 12" beans) Rabbits love these. Free nitrogen! (I tried many times to catch a lightning bolt on the camera before I finally got lucky) okay... I'm done with garden pictures for at least a week.
Not sure "impressive" quite expresses it enough! That's awesome! Way to donate to neighbors and the food pantry, too. Lots of hard work, and you're doing something that's been long forgotten and/or not experienced by many today. Very cool.
I thought i heard the fish breathing a little easier(Do fish Breath?). I know how much time that does take, we used to have a small garden. So are you going to take up knitting when the cotton harvest begins? That I want to see.
Nice garden Christine and by the size I can tell a lot of work. Ours is much smaller but it gives way more than Mrs. CI and I can use or give away. Things grow like crazy here in the islands and we have already harvested tomatoes, peas, yellow beans, green beans, hot peppers, green peppers, turnip, zucchini, summer squash, lettuce, new potatoes, black berries, raspberries and mull berries. Cantaloupe, watermelon and winter squash are all coming along nicely. I don’t choose to grow corn since I try to keep the garden small and it is a pain to deal with the stocks after harvest and fight with the corn borers. I have apple, pear, cherry and peach trees to keep me busy up to bow season.
Now that's a garden!! I thought mine was big, not compared to yours It Isn't!! Well done Christine, well done!!
Very Nice Christine! You have your work cut out for ya! Our maters in the garden died in the heat we had, the the cherry variety is thriving up by the house. Between you and my wife, you could feed a couple states! lol
There's something about growing enough food to give a bunch of it away that's strangely satisfying. I do need to learn to can stuff. Normally I just freeze stuff. Having a freezer croak last month and take my veggies (and wild salmon, halibut and venison!!) with it was very sad. If anyone sees a cheap pressure canner, let me know! John... I'm going to learn to spin with the cotton. I think I meet the definition of a 'spinster' already... but I might as well go all the way. LOL.
That is amazing....and what a good heart you guys have! Side note, Isaiah has a neighbor that we've seen a few times lately. The first time we saw her, we both looked at each other and said, "Christine!!" You have a twin out there!
I grew up on a veg farm from age 8-14 i was a migrant farm hand (so my parents thought) bending over cutting beans at first light oh how i hate a garden. Hey thanks for the memories!
My mom owned a restaurant when I was a kid. I spent pretty much my whole summers working there when I was 11, 12 and 13. The thought of working at a restaurant now fills me with dread so I know what you mean. Pictures from today (8/9): Sweet corn is tasseling Kabocha have filled in. Cotton plants are blooming now but it's still iffy on whether I'll get any cotton from them. The weird stunted okra. Leaves are huge, stems are huge, but it's short and not fruiting. >:-O Cherry tomato is still going nuts. Other tomato looks even worse than it did before, but it's tomatoes are awesome. Butternut blossom. Big! No more sweet corn here. Baby kabochas. (will be dark green when mature) Baby sunshine kabocha. (will be orange when mature)
