Mutt (Rabbit) Monday (Thursday)

Look, if I took pics of the mutts for the past few Mondays (if I were even here) they would all be the same: hot dogs lying on porch. Occasionally they will lumber briefly off the porch to see if it's any cooler in the yard, but it never is.

So. I will give you rabbits instead. Ridiculous, mammoth, Godzilla-like rabbits that have nearly outgrown their hutch.

They actually do a lot of lying around, being hot, too.

These may be the most spoiled bunnies on the planet, because not only do they get daily afternoon bowls of ice cubes to help them cool down in the 95+ heat, they actually have AC.

It's a simple box fan that we "installed" just outside the cage, but I think it really makes a difference for them. I felt really guilty 2 weeks ago when we left them for my sister's wedding and the temps were over 100. I think the fan is a good guilt-suppressant, and I think Durham agrees with me.

I know when I'm not looking, they press their faces up against it and do their best Phil Collins impressions.

Bring It On Summer, Part 3

Okay, okay, what is actually SUCCEEDING in our summer garden? Other than our hugely successful pea harvest and respectable carrot, onion, and potato harvests, our attention is now focused mostly on the contents of Quads 3 & 4.

In between weeds, we have lots of winter squash and beans coming up. Beyond that towards the upper right corner we have tomatoes, garlic, summer squash, okra, and peppers.

I can't wait for these little peps to get big!

That said, there are plenty of surprises going on. Back up in Quad 1, where just about everything is kaput, I am surprised at the red malabar "spinach."

It's not a true spinach, but it is very similar in taste and nutrition. It took FOREVER to germinate, which makes sense because this is definitely a hot weather plant. Yum!

Bill apparently looked up the seed pods coming out all over our neglected radishes, and apparently they are edible, like beans:

I've mentioned the onions flowering, which is a shame because they can't be stored as long. However, they are pretty:

The biggest surprise has been in the strawberry patch. We left for my sister's wedding and it looked like a normal patch of strawberry plants, but when we came up, we found this:

An entire corner completely taken over by cantaloupe! Now, it's not a mystery how these plants located themselves here, as this is where they were planted last year. It's just crazy how well the plants reseeded and stuck around through the winter. I debated moving them over to where I've planted more cantaloupe, but decided against it because they are so mature and thriving. I'm just directing them away from the strawberry plants.

Bring It On Summer, Part 2

Summer brings not only harvest, but also death.

This is what just a few days of not watering will do to my lovely flowers. They all look like this. I'm glad I got pictures while they were pretty.

Also, the peas are pooped.

I'm not sad to see them die, though, because we got a great harvest from them and I'm a little sick of spending every single evening shelling peas. When we're back from our next vacation jaunt, we'll mow these down and turn the roots under. They are busy fixing nitrogen in the soil right now, so this area will be prime for replanting other foods for the fall. I'm envisioning an entire quad of cauliflower.

Another casualty, so-to-speak, of the heat is the lettuces:

They have officially gone to seed, though they look rather pretty like this. I have to admit that while the romaine was the first to bolt, the red flame lettuce took it's time. I will definitely plant more of that.

What IS still thriving, you ask? Um, can you say WEEDS?

Yeah. See any actual vegetables in that thicket? I almost wish I could turn the bunnies loose in here and let them eat everything down, but I know they'd either go straight for the carrots or the hole in the fence.

I know this was a pretty bleak post, but there are lots of successes still to be had. Yeah...I decided to make this more than 2 parts, so stay tuned.

Bring It On Summer (Part 1)

In order to make up for my lack of blogging, I've come up with a 2-part post (maybe more) to catch you up on the garden activities of late.

Part 1 is about our recent harvests. We've steadily been picking snow peas and shelling peas for just about a month. Snow peas have petered out and shelling peas probably only have 1 more small picking session left. Want to see how we've done this year?

We started picking peas every night before dinner (recall this post) and Bill and I would shell or destring as necessary, blanch, and tray freeze batches of them after Joe went to bed.

Now to compare, last year we harvested exactly these many shelling peas from the garden:

That is approximately HALF of 1/2 cup of peas. Yes, 1/4 cup of peas. Barely a Joe-sized fistful.

We did a little better this year:

Two full gallons, and we're not quite finished yet, though the 100+ temps have mostly halted pea production for good. Now, considering how fast we go through peas--the one vegetable Joe will ALWAYS eat--this will probably last us maybe a month, if I'm lucky. But it still feels nice to have homegrown veggies in the freezer. And speaking of freezer...

This, my friends, is an entire freezer shelf full of snow peas, packaged by the pound and quarter-pound. We hauled in a grand total of 9lbs of snow peas from ONE 25-foot row. This doesn't include what we ate fresh from the garden, either. I think if we had done another row and hadn't gone on vacation in the middle of the harvest, we might have been able to freeze enough to last until winter. Crazy.

While we're in the freezer, might as well show you the first of the carrot harvest:

Just a pint-sized bag of carrot coins, but more than we got last year by a long shot. There are still tons of carrots out in the garden waiting to be picked, but this is what we got while thinning them out.

Next up are taters & onions:

Not a lot of potatoes, considering I dug up 6 plants to get these. The plants were nowhere near mature, but we're in the midst of a full-on war with the potato beetles, and it was either dig or nothing. These I'll mash up and throw on top of a shepherd's pie this weekend.

The onions above are much more exciting. These represent a tiny fraction of what is still waiting out in the garden, and they are nice, large bulbs. Some I will cure and store in the root cellar/storm shelter and some I will chop up and freeze.

All of this is a fairly upbeat and optimistic view of what's going on out there, but trust me, the whole picture ain't pretty. I've mentioned the extreme heat and vacation; both of these resulted in almost all of my flowers dying, hot-weather weeds dominating the garden, and no more lettuce. Those pics are to come in the next part.

I Told You

Yes, it's only been 10 days since our last blizzard, but this is the forecast for today:

Nearly 90 degrees. What did I tell you about Oklahoma weather? Of course, I thought we'd be well into late April before we saw temps that high, but apparently late March is just as good a time as any. My trees and shrubs are loving the warmth and are leafing out all over the place, but I am a bit worried about my crops of peas, lettuce, and spinach.

Last night I set up my first attempt at an irrigation system, aka a leaky hose:

I had a bit of an issue with powdery mildew last year on my peas due to watering from above and getting the foliage too wet, so hopefully watering on the ground will help with that. I obviously need to buy more hose length for the rest of the garden. The super high temps are only supposed to last for a few days and then we'll be back into the 70s, but summer will be burning down the house before we know it.