Tag Archives: tomatoes

Saturday 9-7-2024

Patricia McConnell

We had a busy day yesterday.

Melnor – Ace

We had another blowout on the irrigation system in the front yard. It was the same place it blew out before, right outside the well house. My husband fixed it again, using a bit different technique. I reprogrammed the two units (one for the front and a different style for the back and we tested both manually to make sure they were working and that nothing blew out.) Then we came back out twice later to monitor the actual watering, tweaking the flow in several planters.

I set my alarm to see if the generator actually turned on and did its test at 2pm. It DID, so we’re good on that. :0)

While I was out, I was shocked to see that Mother Nature had turned the ‘ripen’ switch on and I had a BUNCH of ripe tomatoes. I gathered a whole basket full. I’ll see if any more need to come in. It had been a while since I’ve been out there, so several of the tomatoes had gone bad. I’ll need to clean up the plants soon.

First, though, I will start a daily get-out-and-work-in-the-yard session now that it’s finally cooling off some. There is a LOT to do, but I’ll TRY to be smart about it and do a bit each day and not hurt myself. That project starts today.

I did two loads of laundry yesterday, folded things and took the basket upstairs. Today I’m washing sheets. My husband asked me to tell him when I’m ready to put clean sheets on the bed, so I’ll do that.

WonderClosets

This is my new motivation to lose my lard. It was delivered recently. I like my tops to be loose, so I’ll need to lose a bit more before I can wear this. I absolutely LOVE it, so it’s a good motivation for me to keep my mouth shut. :0)

HandmadeHavenbyLinda on Etsy

One of the nurses from our primary doc’s office called yesterday to tell me that our doc has to have a SECOND surgery for the shoulder she broke several months ago snowmobiling with her husband on vacation. The last time we saw her she had her arm in a sling and was going to physical therapy. This is a real bummer.

The nurse asked me if we would agree to see the nurse practitioner at our next scheduled appointment. Since this is a routine appointment, I readily agreed. I asked her to make sure that I was NOT scheduled for the one thyroid blood test that my insurance won’t cover. (I’m disputing that with the company now).

I asked her to tell our doc she’ll be in our thoughts and prayers and thanked the nurse for all the extra work she was having to do to reschedule everyone.

When we go, we’ll be going to the new facility they just moved into, so that will be interesting, too.

I hope today is a nice day for you.

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Thursday 8-29-2024

artiblend.com

I’m a bit embarrassed to tell you that I’m slow on the uptake every once in a while. I just figured out a few minutes ago that Monday is Labor Day. The main reason that this is important to me is –

  1. My dad used to boast that he was born on an appropriate day – Labor Day – in 1919. It was on September 6th that year, but I think fondly of him every Labor Day, mentally picturing him smirking at his ‘achievement.’ Gosh, I miss him.
  2. We usually drive our trash down to the bottom of our driveway on Monday’s mid-morning, for pickup on Tuesday. Since Monday is Labor Day, Monday’s trash will be picked up Tuesday, etc, throughout the week. So I’ve changed my calendar for us to take the trash down TUESDAY for WEDNESDAY pickup – an important event around here. :0)

This is my newest wood burning effort. I’ve just listed him on Etsy.

I’m kind of disappointed. I told you that our tomatoes started ripening and that we were planning on enjoying fresh ripe sliced tomatoes again. My husband says they taste ‘funny,’ and has decided he doesn’t want anymore and won’t eat them. I’m still enjoying them, but can’t plan them as a delicious side for our lunches and dinners now. I guess I’ll end up pulling the plants.

Right now it’s 84 degrees outside with a ‘feels like’ of 96. Since the actual temperature is due to get to 97 degrees this afternoon, it sounds like it’s a great day to stay inside. (Frying like an egg on the sidewalk is not my idea of a good time.) I do think we’re supposed to get a bit cooler as we get to the weekend. YEA!!!

I’m starting two new plaques in my art room. Each will have two pegs. One will be for cats and the other for dogs. It’ll be fun working on them, and my husband says he’ll help me attach the pegs when the wood-burning and painting are finished. :0)

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Sunday 8-25-2024

cannister with attitude-sususummer.com

I LOVE the creativity and humor shown in this piece!

This is the latest wood-burned piece. I’ll list it on HandmadeHavenByLinda on Etsy later today. I attached magnets to the back so that it’s ready to ‘stick’ to the fridge.

I’m slowly making order out of chaos in my art room each day. Yesterday I did three sessions – working on the piece plus going through more ‘stuff’ each time I was up there. It’s slowly looking like ‘someone might have had a problem,’ rather than ‘aftermath of the bomb.’

We enjoyed the first ripe tomatoes in about a month last night at dinner. I was truly amazed to find tomatoes ready to harvest yesterday. I had gone out there to see if the plants needed to be pulled for the season. It was such a nice surprise, and the tomatoes we shared were delicious. We have more waiting to be enjoyed and more on the plants. I’m in Heaven.

garetsvisual-freepik.com

I was a good girl all day yesterday. I fixed us hot dogs for dinner, with my husband having hot dog buns with his and my having Mission Zero-Carb tortillas to hold mine. I turned to put them on the plate and my husband had poured out potato chips for each of us. SIGH. Guess who ate each. and. every. one. P.S. they were delicious.

Today is a keep-on-keepin’-on kind of day. I’ll start a new piece in the art room and continue my efforts to make it look like a real human lives there. I’m finding a group of things that I’ll probably list on my Etsy site to see if someone wants to adopt them. Leftovers for dinner, so I’ll probably be able to make time to do a good session of yoga this afternoon.

Make this day a good one.

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It’s Friday – 7-26-2024

PsychoBitch – John – Pinterest

We’re having nice weather. It’s only 77 degrees F. right now. We may get a bit of rain this evening. NICE.

I’m planning to get outside to see if we have any ripe tomatoes. We have passed going into withdrawal due to the lack of ripe tomatoes now, but I keep hoping some of the many green ones we have will ripen. This has been a weird tomato season for us for sure. I’ll check to see if I can find any suckers to snip and replant. So far, my luck on getting the suckers to take root and grow isn’t stellar. I’m still hopeful something I do will result in at least ONE sucker extending our season.

Yesterday’s errands went really well. I hit the post office first, mailing the thingie certified. It’s been awhile since I had to do this, and wow – have prices skyrocketed! It cost me over $11.00.

Then I saw that our hairdresser was in his salon, so I stopped to give him the plaque I made for him. He hugged me and seemed to be very happy with it. Finally, we went to the vet to get Amber’s rabies vaccination. I went in and handled the payment and the paperwork. The lady at the counter remembered my husband being pulled down in the parking lot by Amber the last time we were there. Two ladies met me in the parking lot. One held Amber’s collar while the other gave Amber the injection. Amber didn’t even realize she had been given a shot! She was totally into trying to lick each of the girls. It was quick and easy. Amber is protected now for another year. I’m SO grateful to have a vet who will help us with our changing needs.

Jet (aka Monster Cat) gave us quite a show yesterday, playing on her tower. She is fascinated by the balls hanging on it that swing at the least provocation. She was reaching out – grabbing a string with a paw, and trying to hold the ball close to her chest. She tried jumping down on one, THEN hanging from the underside of a higher level to reach the ball, THEN considering jumping into the book shelf beside the tower to try to reach it from a different angle. She’s quite relentless when in the mood, and it’s really fun to watch her.

I hope you have a wonderful day that makes you smile.

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Tuesday 7-9-2024

luvesmesomemugs.etsy.com

The rain seems to be tapering off. We never got the ‘heavy rains’ predicted, and we were under a flood watch. I don’t know if we’ll get out today or not. It’s comfortable in here and we’re lazy. :0)

I had a surprising thing happen last night. It was time for our cat, Jet, to go to bed, so I got up from my chair. She was across the room from me, playing with something in the corner. She noticed me get up. I bent over and patted my shins. She started to come toward me. We both continued and she ended up standing right in front of me. I calmly picked her up – trying not to look surprised – and started to leave the living room. My husband gave me a thumbs up – clearly impressed. :0)

Burn Savvy

I had a great time playing in my art room yesterday. I closed myself in and ignored Jet meowing plaintively on the other side of the door as I sat down to experiment with my new wood burning kit. I’m currently trying to learn what the new tips do. I’m delighted that they heat up so quickly. I can change them while they are hot, carefully placing them in the metal tin they came in to cool off. I spread the rest of them out on my drafting table so I can keep track of which ones I want to try. I’m working on a small piece and a larger, plaque-type piece at the moment, but mostly experimenting. I’ve found a few good videos on using this new type of wood burning kit. It’s SO. MUCH. FUN. to be able to learn something new. I feel a whole new world of possibilities is opening up.

First thing this morning I got a beef roast in the crock pot. We’ll have some of that with a side salad for dinner. I hope I’m not being annoying by reporting my weight loss efforts. I’m finally having some steady success, so I want to shout it from the rooftops. Being old, having to push myself to exercise, and having a horse’s appetite, all work against me most of the time. I lost another pound though, this morning, so I’m down 33 pounds. I’m not great at keeping my mouth shut – talking, writing, or eating – so my progress lately is encouraging. My current goal is 35, so the goal now seems doable.

Pixabay

My tomato plants don’t look nearly as great as the image above, but I’m hoping I’ll find some ripe tomatoes when I go out later today. It has been simply too hot for the tomatoes to do well lately. I’m hoping that the rain we have received and the lower temperatures for at least a couple of days will help our green tomatoes ripen. My sucker plants are still on our dining table. I will plan to try to plant them in the garden planter around the middle of this month. Fingers crossed.

I hope that you are safe and cool today.

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4th of July 2024

Jingda Chen-unsplash.com

Happy Independence Day! I hope you have a wonderful day with family and friends.

We’re having a quiet celebration here. Due to the excessive heat warning and then the threat of thunderstorms later this evening and into the overnight, we’ll cook our cheeseburgers inside. We still hope our wonderful neighbors down in the valley behind our house will give us a beautiful show as they make their own festivities.

I just went out to gather ripe tomatoes. We didn’t have many, though the plants themselves are still looking okay. The minute I walked out, sweat started spurting out on my forehead. And that’s at 9am, BEFORE the excessive heat warning that starts around noon and lasts until around 9pm this evening! I’m hoping that if we can get past all the dangerous heat, the tomato plants will be happier and more tomatoes will ripen. The suckers I started inside are still not perky, but they’re still alive at this point. One day at a time on this experiment. I’m hoping to move the survivors to the garden planter mid July.

Although in OUR eyes, our driveway is a delight to behold now – after scraping and shaping and spreading of good gravel that is used on the roads around here, plus the huge trimming of branches that were threatening to grow together across the driveway and make it impossible for us to drive down – some people are still having some traction problems.

Yesterday I drove down to get a package that UPS had ‘delivered’ – putting it on the ground behind the trash can that lives in a spot almost at the bottom. I had noticed someone had trouble the day before, leaving a hole in the driveway gravel where a tire spun. I put the smaller shovel we have in the truck and took a few minutes to pull the gravel back into the hole as best I could, given my strength and the heat. I did a reasonable job.

PBS-Shutterstock

Michael Remillard, of Tangles Hair Studio in Greenwood, performed a miracle once again, transforming this women who looked like a gone-to-seed dandelion into ‘someone-who-had-a-plan.’ We enjoyed visiting and catching up, and it was time for lunch by the time I returned home. I got our mail and dragged the trash can back up to where it lives to the side of the driveway.

This morning my husband was in his recliner in the living room when I came downstairs. He had already been out working in the shop on the drink holder he’s making for me on the lathe. I again thanked him for thinking that this would be a good thing to help protect my cold drinks from Jet, our cat, but more than that – I thanked him for doing a ‘doable’ chunk on the project, which is quite labor-intensive, AND coming in before it got too hot in the shop. I don’t care if it takes him a year to make it. I just don’t want him to risk a heat stroke.

Women’s Health

Shout Out to ML, my SIL, who suggested a squirt bottle of water as added ‘Jet control.’ This, and my rolled-up newspaper, are gentle attention-getters for the cat, and she hasn’t bitten me or sampled a drink on my table in a couple of days now. :0)

I’m down 31.2 pounds as of this morning, so I seem to have found a workable combination for my ‘losing-of-the-lard’ project. Tonight we’ll celebrate the 4th with cheeseburgers – with bun for my husband, chips and baked beans; Mission Net Zero Carb tortillas and no beans or chips for me; deviled eggs and some ripe tomatoes for both of us.

Enjoy your holiday!

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Wednesday 7-3-2024

Kay Oliver-Pinterest

As I sit here at my computer, I’m hot even THINKING of our heat index of up to 112 from around noon until 9pm this evening. I really hope we won’t be this way all summer, though my husband is pleased he hasn’t had to mow the grass.

I’ll get out when I get back from my haircut and a couple of other things to see if we have ripe tomatoes to bring in. The tomato suckers that are sitting on my dining area table are still alive, though really droopy. If they continue to live, I’m scheduled to transplant them to the outdoor planter around July 15th. If I have to start over, it’s well worth the effort, though I’ll try a bit different technique.

Vecteezy

Since we are basically staying inside these days, I’m trying to tackle some cleaning and reorganizing issues. Yesterday I spent about an hour reorganizing a couple of areas in the master bath, getting things put away and cleaned up for the first time in a while. I also vacuumed the tiled areas on the first floor (pantry, kitchen, dining area, two half baths, ‘foyer’ to the living room) and later vacuumed the carpeted areas of the first floor (living room, office, foyer), getting a whole canister full of Amber hair. Honestly, I’m amazed this dog isn’t completely bald with all the hair she sheds. My husband thinks I’m a fanatic about vacuuming, but is amazed/appalled when I show him the trash can after I’ve cleaned out the canister each time I vacuum.

I read this morning where a bunch of people here were without power from around 8pm until about 12:30am yesterday after someone hit an electric pole with their car. All electricity was restored by 6am this morning, thank goodness. The news didn’t say anything about the person who hit the pole, but I hope they are all right. We were lucky that we weren’t affected by the outage.

I hope that you have a wonderful day ahead, and that you enjoy our glorious 4th of July holiday tomorrow. Stay safe and cool.

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Thursday Thoughts 6-6-2024

@GrayMarker99 on X – markgray.artfunnels.com

Johnny “The Tree Man” came yesterday and worked really hard on trying to get the greenery in our driveway under control. He is back this morning with a friend to help him finish. I’m glad they are starting now (8:30) because my weather sources are saying the high will be 93 this afternoon. UGH. I’m hoping they’ll be home, with a cold drink and their feet up by then. I’ll try to get some pics to share later.

I also talked to him about his availability in the winter when we have evergreens sag down in the driveway from both sides, making it impossible for us to get out. (It took my husband and me 4 days one winter after an ice storm to chain saw our way down to the street.) I also talked to him about recreating the ‘fire break’ we had done between the civilized part of our back yard and the heavier wooded area below years ago. It has grown back now. He said he would be willing to do either or both. HOOORAAAAY! :0) Now we just have to save our pennies…

Johnny was talking to his friend about our yard art. Johnny particularly likes the way I painted the propane tank to look like a watermelon.

He asked his friend to take a picture of it. :0) Willie, his friend, particularly like our Guard Dog.

My good long-time friend, Linda, is having a birthday at the end of this month. I make a point now to visit with her at the retirement place when I get my massage there each month, since we don’t do Lunch Bunch anymore. I ordered the turtle above to take to her when I go. It’s solar powered, and she LOVES turtles, so hopefully, she’ll like this. I should get it by the end of next week.

The tomato plants are looking healthy.

First harvest of ripe tomatoes this morning!!!!!

AND – even though it’s obvious that this bed needs weeding, you can see that the elephant ear plant in this planter is starting to unfurl its first leaves. There are two other plants in two other planters also doing well, but not this far along.

Have a great day.

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The Veggie Garden

I was disappointed yesterday to see my lettuce plants had bolted. Some were about 3 feet tall suddenly. It was clear that our season for fresh lettuce is over.

Our spinach is almost over. I’m going to get out again in a few minutes and harvest a bunch of it.

The happy thing for the day is that our tomatoes seem to be happy, and are producing lots of green tomatoes.

One of our favorite things in the world is ripe, fresh tomatoes sliced to eat with our lunches and dinners, not to mention cut up for salads. The only tomatoes I buy at the store anymore is cherry tomatoes, just for some color in our salads.

I love the fact that we can enjoy fresh spinach cut up in our salads.

We can also saute it as a side dish, or freeze it for cooking later.

This is just a bonus picture of my husband’s favorite flower, clematis. It’s blooming right behind the lettuce/spinach veggie planter, so I snapped a quick pic to share.

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Yesterday’s Harvest

Lettuce

Spinach

Head Lettuce

It looks like my lettuce is coming to an end. I’m seeing signs of bolting already, due to the temperature getting up into the 80s most afternoons now. Lettuce is a cool weather crop, and we have about 4 days of spring between too cold to plant with overnight freezes to too hot for lettuce…

I’m going to work in the veggies today, pruning, weeding, tweaking, and I’m hoping to finish the last two brick planters.

We have a stunningly beautiful morning here, and I’m looking forward to working outside for several sessions.

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Yard Work – Garden 5-3-2024

Lettuce and Spinach
Lettuce, Spinach, and Tomatoes
Look closely. There are a couple of green tomatoes beside the top of the stick. I spent a lot of time pinching off suckers, cutting off extraneous branches, adding support to the plants.
Tomatoes
Again, beside the stick are a couple of teeny, tiny, green tomatoes.

I fertilized everything. Looking good so far. We’re really enjoying the spinach and lettuce in salads. I also have a couple of HEADS of lettuce doing well. :0)

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After the Storm 4-29-2024

We had super heavy rain in waves from about 8pm until a bit after 11 last night. We were lucky. We were under a tornado warning – with Greenwood actually mentioned as ‘in the path’ but – other than it becoming ominously quiet at one point – the bad stuff passed by us. I watched the TV coverage until I could see the yellow and red blobs, along with associated tornado rectangles, had passed us. (I need to do a harvest of the lettuce and spinach this afternoon.)

I walked around the yard this morning to see if we had any damage. I found one rose bush branch was broken off, but that was all. The garden is still looking good. They certainly got the watering they probably wanted, and then some, but all looks good so far. (The lettuce plants here are head lettuce, and the heads are forming!) I’ll bring some bungie cords to put around the supports to give the tomato plants more to hang onto.

I’m planning to go out later – weather permitting – and see what needs more support, rearranging (in the case of the tomato branches) and what needs harvesting (lettuce and spinach.)

The clematis bloomed suddenly. The blooms are looking a bit battered after the storm, but I’m hoping they’ll perk up. I’ll bring my husband out later, since these are his favorite.

And this is the first bloom of our Stella de Oro lilies. You can see there are several buds, so I’m hoping we’ll have a nice display.

My sister-in-law sent me some phone apps suggestions that might help me identify my mystery perennials. I added them to my phone, and hope to make the time to see how they work later today. She also sent me a Kindle book on flowers and veggies. Isn’t she wonderful?

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Happy Plants

These pics are from a couple of days ago. All the plants seem happy right now. I really need to harvest lettuce and spinach, but will have to wait until the rain leaves us.

I was excited to see a couple of ‘heads’ of lettuce forming when I looked at things quickly yesterday!

I’m hoping to be able to get up close and personal with my plants tomorrow, doing some harvesting, pruning, and supporting. I also have four planters left to weed and lots of things to cut back…

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Veggie Garden Update 4-21-2024

So far, things are good. Something was eating my spinach and lettuce, so I mixed and sprayed EIGHT on all the veggie plants earlier this week. I love that stuff because it’s safe for humans and our pets, but kills the pests.

Here you can see the holes in the spinach leaves. Hopefully, I’ve now stopped the pests at least for a while.

I’ll probably do some harvesting of spinach and lettuce later today.

Here are 4 tomato plants along with a few more spinach and lettuce plants. I’m see several yellow blossoms on the tomato plants now.

This is the other tomato planter with another 4 plants. I nipped off suckers and cut off branches that touched the ground earlier. I need to make sure all the branches are supported well. This can change from day to day, and growth can happen quite suddenly, so I want to stay on top of things before I can’t manipulate the branches through the cages anymore.

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Garden Harvest 4-18-2024

1st harvest of spinach for the season.
2nd harvest of lettuce of the season.

Things are looking good so far in our garden this year. Yesterday I harvested, cleaned, and packaged spinach and lettuce. I fertilized, then mixed and sprayed EIGHT bug killer to hopefully get rid of whatever is eating the leaves. Finally, I watered.

By the time I came in, even though I hadn’t been out there too long, I was wringing wet – I guess due to the humidity. I took a shower, got a big glass of ice water and did some serious relaxing.

The forecast is for possible severe storms this afternoon and evening – with the threat of large hail – so I’ll cover up the three planters mid afternoon.

The Spruce

Before that today, though, I’ll try to get outside to tend our tomato plants. I’ve read that pinching off – or clipping off – the ‘suckers’ (the little branches that sprout in the middle of the “Y” of two branches) will increase the tomato yield and keep the plant healthier. Also, snipping off any branches or leaves touching the ground, plus any below 12 inches as the plants continue to grow. The plants really grow fast when the temperature, sun, and watering are right, so I’ll need to pay attention to keep up with the 8 plants.

I hope that you’re enjoying some nice weather where you are.

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Veggies, Anyone?

Our veggies are still doing well. I took a gallon bag of lettuce to my hairdresser, Michael, yesterday and he seemed very happy.

I’m going to tend the veggie planters today, weeding, doing any pruning needed, fertilizing, and harvesting some lettuce and spinach.

I’ll get out there this morning because it’s a bit overcast and just almost 70. It’s supposed to get to 88 this afternoon. That may be a record. I hope that it’s not enough fuel for the weather that the rain we’re supposed to get tomorrow afternoon and evening will be severe.

I’ll try to post pics of the harvest later.

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Probably Last Tomato Harvest

I just gathered these, plus a bunch of cherry-tomato-sized tomatoes from the two planters. I think this is probably the last harvest, as the vines are looking tired and the tomatoes are small or spoiled on the vines. I’ll probably start pulling them out and cleaning up today.

Meanwhile, I’ll have a nice gift to take to Michael, our hairdresser, soon, and we have a few left that are hopefully not ‘mealy’ as my husband said of the earlier ones.

This has been a disappointing year for tomatoes. Tomatoes like a warmer temperature that doesn’t fluctuate a bunch, lots of sun – but not the intensity that fries them on the vine, and a steady amount of water. We’ve had none of these things this season, so it’s really amazing we got to enjoy any tomatoes at all.

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It’s Monday 7-24-2023

HANDMADEHAVENBYLINDA ON ETSY –

Mosaic/Wood Picture Frame – Hand-Made, One-of-a-Kind – 8.5 x 6.5 mosaic-on-wood picture frame. This is a one-of-a-kind, free-form mosaic design on a wooden frame that holds a 4″ x 6″ picture. There is a wooden dowel attached to the back that fits into a hole to make the frame free-standing. $32.95 with FREE SHIPPING to the contiguous U.S.

Questions – contact me at lindawlewis1@gmail.com

Link to item on Etsy

______________

The Guardian

YARD WORK –

Thankfully, the weeding of yesterday’s iris planter was the last in the series. There is always something to do, but this was the last of the totally-out-of-control projects. Today I’ll gather what tomatoes I can and make some hard decisions on whether to try to trim up the remaining plants or pull them out.

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BRAIN REBOOT?

EveryPixel.com – depositphotos

I had to get a new watch a few days ago because the band on the watch I had broke and couldn’t be fixed. I got a humongous el-cheapo watch at Walmart. I managed to get it set correctly. It tells me the time, the date, the day, and the seconds. The biggest problem is my brain. I’m used to looking at the old watch. The new one has the date at the top and the time below – directly opposite from what my brain is expecting to see. I have to look at it twice each time to figure out what I’m looking at. I guess this is yet another perk of getting ‘more mature.’ :0)

_______________

POOR START TO THE MORNING –

Healthline

My husband and I have discussed his trying to carry everything at once, rather than make a couple of trips. Needless to say, my suggestions fall on deaf ears.

This morning he was trying to put breakfast stuff away. Suddenly, the box of Cheerios went one way, the box of blackberries went another way, and his bowl bounced on the floor with leftover milk and spoon going in a third direction. I was mainly thankful that he didn’t drop the milk! We spent the next few minutes cleaning up. Our dog, Amber, happily cleaned up the leftover milk and licked the bowl (unbreakable) clean. This is an ongoing discussion – as is his tendency to put things right on the edge of a table, shelf, or counter…. Makes life more ‘interesting;’ THAT’S for sure!

Happy Monday.

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‘Niche’ Planter – Before and After

This is obviously “Before” this morning’s work.

It looks a bit better now, I think. When I got the weeds and Bermuda out, I found that grasshoppers have been gorging on the iris spears. I’ll go back out later with my EIGHT spray and hose the sweet iris plants down.

The NEXT outside project is gathering tomatoes and then cleaning up the two planters. This has been an awful year for veggies. My main square foot garden plants started out well, then got drowned by all the rain, beaten down by hail, and then baked by the sun, over and over again. I’ll need to clean that up later, as well.

The tomatoes LOOKED like they were doing well, but the tomatoes were cherry tomatoes, rather than fulls-sized, and were ‘off’ in flavor. I’ve gathered the few full-sized ones from time to time. My husband pronounced THEM ‘mealy’ and wouldn’t eat but a sparse few here and there, so I lost interest. I’ll see what I can salvage and then clean things out. Some years just aren’t good ones for veggies.

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2nd Tomato Harvest 6-29-2023

Larger ones

Cherry tomato size and a bit larger

Whole harvest with more to come!

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Garden Progress?

We’re starting to get ripe tomatoes! There was one larger ripe one this morning, but the bugs had gotten to it, so I had to pitch it. I gathered some cute little ones for us to eat celebrationally with our lunch today.

“cute” rather than substantial. The vines are pretty loaded. I’ll spray and fertilize the tomato plants Friday and keep my fingers crossed for more beautiful ripe tomatoes.

I checked our head lettuce plants and most are starting to bolt now. :0( The weather just got too warm too fast this year. I’ll salvage what I can and then see if there are any other plants I want to start when we are in town next.

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Garden Update 5-21-2023

The super rainy, colder-than-usual weather has brought very mixed results thus far in my garden. In my survey a few minutes ago, the first thing was that I need to do some serious weeding in my veggie garden.

This is one of the head lettuce plants. It’s doing GREAT. I should be able to harvest very soon and give my friends a nice addition to their salads or sandwiches.

The spinach is looking ‘pale,’ not the deep green I think it should. I’m not sure if fertilizing it at this point would do any good, but I’ll try that. I’m also not sure if the paleness will affect the taste. I’ll see what information I can find.

Here’s the large tomato planter. The plants have exploded and there are lots of yellow blossoms showing. At this point, I’m not sure if I can handle the branches much, and may just need to try to contain them a bit, giving them as much support as I can.

This is the second tomato planter. You can barely see the green metal supports at the top of the plants now. I was going to try to tie the branches to the supports, but they have exploded now, so I’ll just try to do what I can to keep the plant inside the boundaries of the planter.

The bad news is that after several years now, one of the wooden bottoms to the veggie planters has given way. We knew it would happen one day, but it’s sad anyway. I hadn’t planted this planter yet, so we can leave it and decide how we’ll tackle making a new bottom for the planter, save as much of the Mel’s Mix as possible, and rebuild it.

Here is the part of the bottom that completely gave way and fell down.

To round out our tour of the yard, here is one of the healthier weeds I encountered. I’m not sure right now if I’ll pull it or celebrate its health…

And finally, here is some clematis that we have growing in a pot behind the large tomato planter. The picture doesn’t show how glorious the color is. It’s a real explosion of dark purple. Makes my heart happy.

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Veggies, Tomatoes, and Flowers, Oh My!

VEGGIES

The veggies are doing great, except that they really need to have the weeds around them taken out. As soon as I feel 100%, it’s on my list.

TOMATOES

The tomato plants seem to be doing fine, too. I’m scheduled to add the worm castings fertilizer to them Thursday (I’m doing this once a month) I just made it around the yard, taking quick pictures before my energy left, but I’ll look more carefully in the next day or two.

FLOWERS

ROSES

STELLA DE ORO LILIES

Husband’s PERIWINKLES by the shop door

You can’t tell it much in this picture, but the group on the left has a slight pink cast and the ones on the right are plain white.

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How Does My Garden Grow?

These photos are from yesterday. Things are going quite well so far. The plants seem to be thriving, and there are not a whole lot of weeds right now.

If you look closely, there are leaves toward the center of the plant curling up together. The ‘head’ lettuce will form in there.

My spinach leaves are being eaten by ‘something,’ but I can’t find any bugs. I’ll go ahead and spray with Eight to see if I can discourage whatever is chomping down.

The tomato plants are growing a lot each day. We’re trying to get the irrigation system for the flower planters (which includes the tomato planters) to work.

The plants are almost covering the whole surface of the planter now. I only have one plant, though, that has yellow blossoms at this point.

I haven’t planted anything else in the main square foot garden. We’re going one day at a time around here lately, so I haven’t pushed seeing what other plants are available in town.

I’ll be working to see if I can get the two timers in the well house working today. We’ll have a test run later today, though starting Wednesday of next week, we’re supposed to get a LOT of rain.

Do you have a garden this year?

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Garden Love 1 – 4-30-2023 – Tomatoes

Little Pine Learners

The tomatoes seem to be doing fine. We have this square planter with 4 plants and then a 2nd, 8-foot-long brick planter of tomatoes this year.

This is the same planter as above, farther away so you can see how much taller the plants are than the last pics I took.

This is the 8 foot planter. There are 6 plants in this one.

This close up shows we have some blossoms on one plant!

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Checking the Garden 4-19-2023

1st tomato blossom

Spinach and Lettuce

Head Lettuce

Spinach

I’ll try to get out in the next few days and get the weeds under control and the wilted/dead parts pruned, but things are looking good so far.

I think the severe weather is JUST supposed to be wind and rain tomorrow. One can hope.

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Oh, GREAT!

Health Shots

We have a cold front coming through this afternoon, with accompanying strong wind gusts and large hail.

The colorful blogs on the far left are zeroing in on us, the threat lasting from about 2pm to 8pm tonight.

I’m really delighted because I JUST finished putting in an entire flat of head lettuce, another flat of spinach, and 10 beautiful tomato plants. Even regular hail is deadly to new plants, and LARGE hail will be hard to deal with.

My plan is to cover my two planters of tomato plants with sheets. I have support things around the tomato plants, so hopefully those plus the sheets will keep the hail from battering them.

In the square foot garden, I have four of six boxes full of plants. I’m planning to find something to put on top of the sprinkler at the center of each of the boxes and then to put tarps over each box, held down by bungee cords. Not sure of the details of all this.

I’ll go out after lunch and see what I can do. One of the things I read talked about ‘baseball-sized hail.’ If THAT happens, NOTHING will help. I hope whoever said that is wrong, wrong, WRONG!

Fingers crossed.

123RF

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Tomatoes

I found some really nice “Super Girl” tomato plants yesterday. I planted them yesterday afternoon. There are six plants in this brick planter.

Here’s a closer look at some of these.

There are 4 plants in this planter. I’m going to try to keep an eye on these and keep them as tied up as possible. They tend to be calm for awhile and then they ‘spurt’ in growth, seemingly all of a sudden spreading out over everything with the limbs too large to move without breaking them, yet really needing more support. I’ll try to do a better job of getting outside each day or so and giving them as much support as I can this year.

We also got the irrigation system controller installed on the faucet that goes to the garden. It’s set to start at 3pm today. I have a timer set so I can get out there and make sure the sprinklers are working and that the flow of water is good for watering my sweet plants well in the 10 minutes I have the controller set to now.

Later on, we’ll set the irrigation system for the yard. For now, I’ll just water the tomatoes with a hand held hose.

I’ll try to check next week to see what other plants I can add to the main garden.

We’ve started!

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Thursday Thoughts 8-11-2022

inkspiredmusings.blogspot.com-photograph not credited

Good morning! A more ‘regular’ summer day here. A definite relief from the record-breaking intense heat warnings or flooding downpours. Downright boring!!!!! :0)

Kidadl

Since I felt good yesterday afternoon, I started making the Christmas cards my dear friend asked me to make so she could send them to her friends. She liked the ones that I just finished, but she understands that I can’t make the same thing twice, so I’ll try to come up with something similar.

Lawford Mead Primary School

I’m still jubilant that our trash is GONE. I HOPE that one day I can almost take the trash being picked up on trash day for granted, but that certainly is not yet. I’m hoping that this was an awful glitch in the system and that it won’t be repeated anytime soon. Meanwhile, I don’t have to drive down, armed with another leaf bag, prepared to spend half an hour gathering the trash that has been strewn all over the place by animals overnight. Hooray!

40 Aprons

I told my husband that my plan was to make a huge tuna casserole for tonight – enough we can enjoy it tonight and have several individual serving meals for other nights. He liked the idea. :0)

House Beautiful

I checked to see if we had any ripe tomatoes. I told you earlier that the large planter of tomato plants was done. We still have a couple of plants in the ‘niche’ planter tucked in beside the house and porch. There are green tomatoes, but nothing ripe now.

Tenor

Today is DAY 27 of my daily yoga practice.

The Spruce Eats

A shout-out to Susy and Bobby. I hope they enjoyed every bite of their steak breakfast this morning. You’re both in my thoughts.

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Wonderful Wednesday

PBS – Shutterstock

I say, “Wonderful Wednesday” because I’m leaving in less than an hour to get a haircut. I look like a dandelion gone to seed right now and saying that I can’t wait to be ‘healed’ is a vast understatement.

It’s going to be hot today (102 degrees F.) with unknown heat index – SURPRISE! – but we might get RAIN tomorrow, so I have hope.

I’m looking forward to playing in my art room this afternoon. The jury is still out on whether the cards I’m trying to paint will be ‘keepers’ or not, but I’m having a great time experimenting with different ideas and techniques. One of the reasons I start making presents and cards for Christmas so early is that what I’m ABLE to do doesn’t match what I would LIKE to do, and so several false starts are inevitably involved.

Our tomatoes are mostly gone now. I have a few that may ripen, so I check the plants every few days for treasure. I will soon pull up the sweet red onions from the garden to start them drying.

I’m on DAY 19 of my yoga. I’m determined to keep on keepin’ on until this practice becomes as ingrained as brushing my teeth in the morning. This practice, I think, is one of the keys to my health, my ability to do what I want without a lot of pain. I want to live a long time so I can continue to annoy my husband. (53 years and counting…)

I hope you have something fun planned for today, or if not – you have a pleasant, happy Wednesday.

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Thoughts on a Wednesday 7-27-2022

Svenja M

I hope your Wednesday is starting out nicely.

Amber and I are having a recurring ‘discussion’ about whether or not I have dog biscuits in my jeans pocket. Since I usually do, Amber is convinced I’m lying when I tell her I don’t have anything. She is doing a combination of lying down just to the left of my office chair, staring at me, moving every few seconds so I don’t ‘forget’ she’s there. If I make eye contact, she is up and climbing up into my chair with me before I can get out the words, “Get Down!” She has had breakfast, but she thinks she should get cookies on demand. I’ve decided to fill my pocket with dog cookies when I go to refill my coffee cup…

Heat index of 111 today. Wonderful, right? We may get some rain toward the end of the week. I won’t believe it until I see it, but there is hope. I’ll check for tomatoes in a minute, but I think the plants are simply giving up with the heat.

The big planter of tomato plants is almost completely done now. The niche planter (in the corner formed by the back of the house and the deck) is still okay, and produced these two tomatoes. The top side of each has deep grooves, again pointing to water issues, but the plants ARE producing slowly.

No big plans for us today. I couldn’t sleep, so I’m happy we have a quiet day. I did the finishing touches on the last two Christmas presents this morning. As soon as they are dry, the next step is spraying all of them with a protective spray to prevent stains as much as possible. Next, tissue paper, gift bags and the making of handmade Christmas cards – (I have an idea for them) then pack them away until the holiday.

Enjoy your day. Stay safe and cool.

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