Garden and wildlife....

We've been out of data for a little while, and the daily habit of checking e-mail and reading blogs got sidelined, but yes, I'm still here! The garden production is ramping up, and it is a daily task joy to pick and process. A friend has been hospitalized after a fall, and I've been trying to process some of her garden produce for her as well. Having also started the job of scraping and painting the verandah, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed! I'm way behind on reading my favourite blogs, and corresponding with friends! Any way, here are a few things happening in my neck of the woods.

I got my garlic dug up and it is drying up in the barn, on suspended old screen doors. Some of the cloves are fist sized.

wheelbarrow full

 

About a week later, I pulled the onions, as they were all laying down. They are now tied in bunches of 5, and hung up in the barn to cure. At planting time, I thought the sets were very small, but the bulbs they have produced are inspiring!

227, give or take a few

My pepper patch is doing really well now. We had a cold and wet weekend at the first of August, but now the heat is on, the long, sweet red peppers are turning red, and the green guys seem to get bigger overnight. I just need the tomatoes to catch up so I can get going on a batch or two of our favourite salsa and chili sauce.

Pic taken before they started turning red

I place large rocks in amongst the plants to absorb, then radiate heat back at night. 

I have two different eggplants, one is producing a dark oval shaped fruit, and the other is producing a long, somewhat thin, mauve coloured fruit.

Eggie

 

The squash and pumpkin vines are crawling out of the garden, and making so many new fruit that I've cut off the ends of the vines, hoping they will put their energy into enlarging the existing fruit instead of making more! I planted two hills of pie pumpkins and 4 hills of Little Gem, a red kuri squash, and in places the vines are crossing each other. The square white things are plastic lids I put under each fruit to keep it off the ground.

Best buds

I've started picking cucumbers, Straight 8's for eating, and have almost enough small picklers for the first batch of Bread and Butter pickles. The dill is tall and blooming, and hopefully will be ready for a batch or two of dill pickles as well. My inter-planted  marigolds and nasturtiums are taking off, and my morning glory trellis is daily producing more and more blooms.

Gorgeous orange

 

The double row of gladiola up the middle of the field garden are sending up spikes of buds, so soon they will be blooming and quarreled over by the resident humming birds. 

There are some big, ripening beefsteak tomatoes that I check on everyday, so anxious for that first, ripe, juicy fruit. The tomato plants are all loaded, thanks to the ridiculous amounts of rain this summer. I added up all my measurements from the garden calendar, and the total exceeds 17 inches; 9.5 inches in June, and 8.25 inches in July. We have had just over a quarter of an inch so far in August. We pumped the big water tank full in May, and it still sits there, just down a bit from the only watering I had to do around planting time, late May and early June!

The red guys are hiding, low and at the back

The trail cameras are not showing us many deer this summer, but perhaps that is explained by what seems to be a surfeit of coyotes and wolves. We are also seeing more bears on camera. One sow appears to have a yearling with her, as well as this year's cub. Along one of our trails through the old growing up fields, an apple tree struggles to stay alive where it is being shaded out. We have a video of a bear reaching up and pulling down the branches to get at some very green fruit. This pic was taken off of the video.

vertical bear

The bush is quieter, as the bird chorus has diminished, but the cicadas and crickets are filling that void now.