Garden Blogger's Death Day....and a Conundrum

SHOOT, Shoot, SHOOT!!!!! I forgot to take pictures of the garbage bags full of the beans and tomatoes I pulled. The zipper peas are about to come out of the garden this next weekend as well. The black ants have found them and for some reason, they suck the juices from the stem of the plant and then the pod turns a yucky yellow like an old bruise and dies. Oh well. They were fun to try. I'll try to make a point of taking a picture of that carnage when I rip it out this weekend. The peas in the other corner yard are about to go as well. There isn't any sun there in the fall and winter and now we've gotten down to 2.5 hours of sun. I'll pull those plants while I'm at it.

Sooooo!!! Here's the conundrum.....when do I pull those sweet potatoes? I'm not deluded that I'll get a harvest like EG. I've tried to dig down and haven't found anything worth while, but I'm getting antsy. The low temps for the next week are still in the 40's and the highs in the low 70's. Should I call it a day and do it this weekend or wait another week? Oh the decisions, the decisions!

Onions go in!

I mentioned yesterday that the beans and yellow pear tomato came out of the side yard. I was so excited to see a long squiggly worm come out of the ground along with the tomato roots. I've never seen worms around here, so this was exciting. I only hope I find a lot more when I till up the beds in the corner yard and other corner yard.

After all the debris was gone, I stuck in some onion plants and watered them in. They've lasted in this one place for 24 hours, which is good for around here now that the monstrous, mythological, veggie eating, abomination has laid claim to the garden. Of course, now that I say this, the plants won't last much longer, but I'm hopeful.
I can't keep up with the acorns falling in the corner yard. I'm thinking I'll have to get out my little rake and rake them all to one part of the bed and then scoop them out. The oak, my nemesis, is dropping buckets of acorns a day. There's one branch that's just about overhanging the house. I'm hoping that this winter we'll shave off that branch. Yes, it may give me 30 min. of more sun and maybe only a half a bucket of acorns next year, but since our recent bout with black ants (did I ever tell you about it?), I've heard that we need to remove all overhanging branches. I'm telling you, three years ago when we bought this house, that tree was far from us. Those branches have grown incredibly large, incredibly fast. I don't know why, but I always thought oaks were slow growers.

For Daphne's harvest Monday, no pictures to report, but I have pulled 7 tomatoes and a handful of banana peppers this past week. There's not enough tomatoes to can, so it looks like tomatoes will be going in everything for the next week!

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Just When You'd Think They'd Gone For Good

They show up to help me pollinate those cucumbers. I haven't seen a bee out there in the garden since early July. I caught this last week in between the rains. Today I saw two out there going back and forth. They seem to really prefer the male flowers. I'm hoping they visited one or two female ones throughout the morning.
Today I spent about 30 minutes picking out the acorns from the garden. I didn't get them all, by any means, but you can see the soil again. Note to self: grow lettuce in the spring. The acorns rip them to shreds. I then ripped out the yellow pear tomato and the beans on the side yard. The yellow pear still had some green tomatoes on it, but had fallen over again in yesterday's rains. I love that tomato, but growing indeterminates just seems to hard when you aren't set up for it. I'm in limbo whether or not to grow them next year. If I do, it will be on an impulse....like this year. :)

The beans all had some fierce rust and were infested with aphids and whiteflies. I got two more good meals out of them, four in all, and honestly, I'm happy I decided to put in a second crop of those pole beans. Next year, I'll do them a little earlier.

In their space, I put some red and white onion plants. I'm really hoping they bulb. I've never had onions bulb up before, so I'm anxious. I would have loved some yellow ones, but I couldn't find them. Any good uses for white onions? I've really only used the yellow.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun....

...please shine down on me.

Sun is a beautiful thing, but we're in for another round today and tomorrow. I know this has all been on the national news, but if you're interested in it, here's a link where you can really see the damage. Entire two story houses are under water and there's even a picture on there of an entire elementary school under water on Atl's west side. They've gotten over 20 inches of rain over there. Hit on any one of the galleries and you can see the flood pictures.

We spend so much time worrying about fire. We completely ignore the power of water. It's an incredible force, to be sure.

I did, however, just go outside and pick 1.6 lbs of UNBITTER cucumbers! Woohoo for a second harvest. Thanks, EG for recomending it.

Post II For the Day....Now We've Got it Right.

They've already closed schools for tomorrow (see post below). It's plenty of time to forewarn families and I can't blame them for doing so, even if it's just for rain. Apparently, the bus lots are flooded, buses are damaged and mudslides have taken out some roads to schools and major arteries in the area. There are some parts of town that have gotten 15+ inches of rain and more is expected. It's ludicrous. The back yard is flooding, but they just showed a picture on the news of the top of somebody's wooden 6ft fence just barely sticking out of flood waters.

I'm rather happy about this since the boy's come down with a fever today and now I don't have to worry about getting a substitute. I do wish, however, that I had my essays due last Thursday instead of this Thursday so I'd have something to grade. :)

Told 'Ya There Would Be Problems.

On my way to school this morning around 6:10 AM, I heard on the radio that several school systems in the state were closed due to flooding. Well, we knew there would be something that happened. The particular county in which I teach, which wasn't closed, had recordings of 7-9 inches since Thursday.

That is, we weren't closed. We were delayed. Something which I discovered pulling into the parking lot at 6:35 AM. The parents who had already dropped of their kids or kids who had already driven to school, found this out as well. The delay was for 90 minutes initially which was doable. We just put the kids (200 or so of them) in the commons area (cafeteria) and let them hang out. Then the word came we were delayed for two hours....and then at 8:30AM we find out that school has been canceled. What did we do with the kids? That's a story I don't care to repeat. The decision on how to handle that was not a good one and quite frankly I hope the school board gets overloaded with phone calls. To cancel school so late in the morning when you've got kids milling around already whose parents have already left for work. Hopefully, the lower grades, whose schools hadn't started yet anyway, were able to get the word to parents beforehand.

It was just a nightmare, but with roads washed out all over the county and the schools themselves flooded through, I don't see what other decision they could make, but they should have made it sooner than they did.

So now I'm home, in the rain, wondering if the system will have us make up this day or just take a snow day for it. I'm wondering also if they'll cancel tomorrow or relocate schools to local churches since the rain is still coming in and the bridges can't be rebuilt or schools dried out in a day with the additional rain still to come.

I triple dog dare those cucumbers to go bitter, now.

Hard Hats Required

I don't think the pictures are very clear, but the oak hanging over the garden is laden with acorns.
I go out every day and pick up as many as I can out of the soil, but you have to wear some sort of head covering. Even a plain hat goes a long way in deflecting the blows these things administer on their way down.

My girlfriend and I actually witnessed one of those squirrels come across the screened porch and onto the deck. Today I came home and the chard in a pot had been completely dug out. It's so funny they do this only now when there are a ton of acorns lying around for food. Again, I'm hopeful that it's a seasonal thing.

I did have to pull out the lettuce I had planted. The rain and acorns had ripped them to shreds. I think lettuce will be a spring crop for me. CURSE YOU, veggie gods. You've won. ;)

I dug around in the sweet potatoes to catch a grasshopper and I actually found a fist wide tuber. At least I know I'll get one of those. I'll harvest them later next month. I'm hopefully cautious about what I'll find.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.