Camping

Here are some pictures of a recent camping trip our family took.

I hope you enjoy them

the small lake behind our campsite

golden hour the evening we arrived

roast with carrots and fried tators and onions

stillness of the lake

old covered bridge, used to cross the river

view of the lake from on top of the ridge

hiking through the woods

the indian baths

a natural spring

so quiet...

We really enjoyed the time we got to spend together. We camped in our 12 person cabin tent. I was thankful that our site had running water; it made cooking and washing up so much easier. All of our meals were cooked over an open fire and they tasted so good. For breakfast, we had pancakes one morning and eggs and fried bologna another. Lunches were simple; we ate sandwiches. For supper, we had hot dogs and hamburgers our first night, and roast with fried potatoes the following night.

We fished and swam, hiked and explored, and cooled ourselves in the natural springs. The children brought me wild flower bouquets every day; there was never a shortage of flowers to look at. I'm glad I thought to bring something to hold all the flowers.

 I was blessed to be able to see the confidence my children have. I wish I had that kind of confidence when I was their age.

Spring happenings...

 I know it has been a long time since my last post...

And I am really sorry about that.

But sometimes life happens...

Like when the Lord  decides to add another arrow to my husband's quiver. Towards the end of last year, we welcomed our 6th child. Another girl. She was born at home. Unassisted.

Now that that's out of the way...

We were able to get half of our garden planted last weekend.

This is half the garden. 2 rows of popcorn, 1 row of okra, 4 mounds of butternut squash, 2 mounds of spaghetti squash, and 6 tomatoes.

And then the weather dropped.

Bummer. I did heavily mulch the rows and mounds and covered it all with tarps to help trap the heat.

Hopefully the cold temps didn't affect the  germination of  our seeds. We will have to wait and see...

The pumpkin farmer has decided to not plant any pumpkins this year. Last year he planted them and had them running up a trellis. That was our second time growing pumpkins that way, and I don't think we will do it again. You see, here in the deep South, we have these horrible things called squash vine borers. And year after year they have destroyed our pumpkins and summer squashes. When a SVB gets into your squash vines, they kill it. If that squash is growing along the ground, the plant has the ability to put down new roots. That doesn't happen if your squash are growing up a trellis. If a SVB gets in, your plant is shot.

So, what is in our garden this year...

Strawberry popcorn
Star of David Okra
Butternut squash, which is resistant to SVB, annnd tastes like pumpkin
Spaghetti squash
Tomatoes  (I forgot which variety)

And still left to plant...
Kentucky Wonder pole beans
Christmas Lima beans
Pickling cucumbers  (again, I forgot which variety)
And herbs such as basil, thyme, cilantro, lavender, peppermint.

We have rosemary, bee balm and lemon balm left from last year.

I am also going to have a bigger flower garden this year.

And maybe a medicinal garden, as well.

 We're also trying our hand at growing figs in containers. We'll see how that goes...

This is a Texas Everbearing fig

 

We still have so much to do. I've got to get the marigolds in and get the rest of the vegetables sown. And mulch. And finish tripod trellis for the beans.

Good times...

The garden in june

Sorry it's been a while since my last post, but l life happens. And something had to give. And I'm posting from my phone. So... that has its own challenges.

The garden in May did fairly well. We had a problem early in the month with worms on our Mr. Stripey tomatoes. I really thought we were going to loose the both plants.

It was bad. Real bad.

I spent days picking off tiny worms and squishing them. Relentless. I ended up sprinkling the plants with food grade DE. It was my last resort. The DE took care of the worms, but I still had to keep the moths from laying eggs in the first place.

Enter peppermint oil. Moths really can't stand it. You do need to use caution though, as it will repel bees and butterflies, too. I mixed 60 drops in a gallon sprayer and filled it with water. I sprayed the leaves and stems of the plants and payed special attention to the base of the plant where the moths like to lay eggs.

I like to spray in the evening because moths are more active at night. And it's cooler in the evening. And there aren't as many bees out.



We also had a slight problem with fungus on our beans, but neem oil did a good job of keeping it at bay.

Let me take this opportunity to say that we started out with composted dirt, that wasn't broken down completely. So, we've been dealing with nitrogen binding in our plants. We also started with some plants from the store, which, while they were heirlooms, probably were not healthy. And they certainly were not organic.

Bad soil and less than healthy plants, we were behind before we even started. It's been an uphill battle from the beginning. We knew what we were getting ourselves in to, though. We have worked really hard at boosting the nitrogen in our soil with organic  blood meal and high quality organic fertilizer.

Looking back, we should have tilled the ground and took the time to build up the soil with minerals. We were just too eager to get digging in the dirt.

All that to say, don't do what we did. Good dirt = healthy plants. Healthy plants resist pests and fungus and blight. Learn from our mistakes.

We also had a small problem with vine borers in our squash and zucchini. When I noticed frass on the stems, I carefully cut the stem of the plant and dug the nasty creature out. I then covered the cut stem with dirt and hay mulch. I was mindful to water those plants that had been cut. I think we only lost two squash plants out of 5 or 6 that had VB. I also was sure to spray peppermint oil around the base of the squash and zucchini to deter the vine borer moth from laying her eggs.

Now it's June. I was not able to be out in the garden much the first week because of VBS at church.

And boy, can you tell I hadn't been diligent in the garden. Somebody must have told the bugs, too.

And while we have had a good amount of rain, all of the rain has happened in the evening. You know, the time I work in the garden... I worked as much as I could until it down poured.

All I can say is, I really wished I had spent more time in the garden last week.

My Rutgers tomatoes are puny. That's from a lack of nitrogen. Compound that with fungus, and I'll be lucky to get anything off of those six plants.

The Cherokee Purples are facing the same worms that the Mr. Stripeies had last month. I spent 2 hours yesterday picking off worms by hand. Until I got soaked by a torrential downpour.

Again.

This is the first time we have grown bush beans. I wanted beans to can, so that's why we went with the bush variety. So far, they haven't performed as expected. It probably has to do with the horrible dirt they are growing in. I've picked a few worms and white flies off of the beans, but the pests haven't been horrible. They do have rust fungus, but the neem oil should take care of that. We started these from seeds, by the way.

The squash and zucchini are doing well. They'd probably be producing more if our soil was better.

The cucumbers look promising.

And delicious.

I've never grown okra before, so I really don't know what to expect. So far we haven't gotten much. Maybe I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong and try again.  Or maybe I'll dedicate that space to something else.

The radishes are doing fine. The crickets really enjoyed eating the leaves, but the neem oil has been a great deterrent.

Carrots. They're there. We didn't get a  great seed germination rate from the variety that we planted. They look good otherwise. We should have a few to harvest in the next week or so.

The corn has had its problems with lack of nitrogen and other minerals, but it does seem to be doing better. The peppermint oil has been great for keeps the moths from laying in the stalks.

Oh, and then there are my husband's babies, the pumpkins. He has always dreamed of being a pumpkin farmer. He is growing 4 different varieties this season. So far so good. As long as we can stay on top of the VB and pickle worms, he may realize his dream soon enough. Let's hope so.

I want to make all of his pumpkin farmer dreams come true.

We also have a small mound of watermelons. I don't know if we'll get anything from them  Bad dirt.

It's the story of our growing season this year.

So that's the garden in June.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. I haven't killed one flower I planted, yet. Way to go, me. Even my hydrangeas are alive and thriving.

some of the zucchini and squash

okra at the very top/back

cucumbers to the right of the okra

and 2 rows of purple bush beans

the pumpkin farmer's pumpkins

our small corn patch

another shot of the cucumbers

the tomatoes

notice how puny our Rutgers are?

see that trellis in the background? The pumpkin farmer

built that with PVC and nylon twine. He's also got one for his pumpkins.

Just some seeds...

"I payed a dime for a package of seeds;
The clerk tossed them out with a flip.
'We have them assorted to every man's needs.'
He said with a smile on his lip.
'Pansies, poppies, asters, peas,
Ten cents a package, now pick as you please.'
Now seeds are just dimes to a man in a store,
And dimes are the things he needs,
And I've been to buy them in stores before
And thought them merely as seeds,
But it flashed through my mind as I took them this time,
'You've purchased a miracle here for a dime.'
You've a dimes worth of power, which no man can create.
You've a dimes worth of life in your hands.
You've a dimes worth of mystery, destiny, fate,
Which the wisest cannot understand.
In this bright little package - now istn't that odd?
You've a dimes worth of something known only to God."

~ Author Unkown ~