Sights from around Crooked Acres.
Our first ripe cantaloupe! Better than the ones from the grocery store, according to Fred.
Okra, sliced and about to go into the freezer. Once they were frozen, I poured them into a bag. This winter I’ll lay them on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast at 425 for 10 – 15 minutes.
My counter, such a mess. This picture is to show you that we’re getting tons of Sungold cherry tomatoes. That’s a pint jar in the bowl, for reference. Next year I’m growing ONE row of tomatoes, and I plan for half that row to be comprised of Sungolds. They’re the best cherry tomatoes you’ll ever eat, sweartogod.
Hanging on the refrigerator, between the lid from the box of L’Oreal with which I color my hair and the very long feather from the rooster’s tail (we found it in the chicken yard, didn’t pluck it from him) is a little bundle of catnip. I cut some off the catnip plant in the raised bed garden and hung it on the fridge to dry. Fred came downstairs yesterday morning to find Sugarbutt leaned over the top of the fridge, rubbing his whiskers on the bundle. He’s a total ‘niphead.
I love snarky magnets.
Honestly, this one should say “Excuse the mess, we have cats and can never have ANYTHING nice.”
Scoop! Hands! (If you’re very nice, I’ll repost my post this weekend about the many things you can do with Scoop! Hands!)
Hydrangeas are such drama queens. “GASP! I’m DYING! I’m THIRSTY! Please WATER ME!”
Our garden wagon. It comes in SO handy (it’s bigger than it looks!) and the thing I like best about it is that the back lifts up so you can dump whatever you have in the wagon wherever you want it to go. This comes in especially hand when I’ve used my Scoop! Hands! to pick up the pile of leaves and sticks by the side porch, and want to dump it all on the compost heap.
Autumn Clematis is starting to bloom!
Baby pecans are continuing to grow. I hope we get a good crop this year – it’s been two years since we got a decent crop, and we’re about to run out!
The wisteria’s doing its best to invade the back yard. We’ll keep cutting it back, it’ll keep growing. One day when we’re very old, we’ll give up and the wisteria will cover the house in one short summer, I bet.
Anybody know what those little black things are? Fred thinks maybe aphids. That’s one of our grape vines. Whatever those little black things are, the ants like them – in the morning, there’s a long line of ants crawling up that vine.
The watermelon plants (there are three) in the raised bed/ straw bale, are making a run for the border.
I posted these pictures small so that you big babies out there won’t have to look too closely and can just skip down to the next picture. What we have here is some sort of waspy sort of insect. I was out checking my raised garden, and this was hanging out on the purslane. When I looked closer, he appeared to be eating some sort of grub, and when I got even closer (but not too close, because waspy sort of insects scare me) I could see him holding what looked like a small tomato hornworm. So if you click on any of those pictures, you can go to Flickr and see them larger. Who can tell me what that waspy thing is?
Catnip!
The jalapenos have been coming in like gangbusters. Yesterday I made seven or eight (I don’t remember offhand) pints of sweet pickled jalapenos!
Cori, hanging out on the window sill.
Cilantro (left) and Ciara on the couch.
“What? I’m working on my tan!”
Cori’s spotted the birds.
Ciara always looks so appalled.
This picture makes me laugh.
Cori always makes herself at home.
Ciara, appalled again.
Sweet Miss Clove.
Joe Bob (alternate name: Joseph Robert McGee, when he’s being bad) is such a sweet boy.
Previously
2010: Everybody loves Martin.
2009: Maddy does not approve of this “Twitter” nonsense.
2008: Oh tomatoes, how you PISS ME OFF.
2007: No entry.
2006: Y’all are good for my yellow ego!
2005: Maine recap.
2004: Hawaii recap.
2003: Maine recap.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: The cats are suddenly deciding to take closed doors as a personal affront.
Yikes, big waspy scary bug thing! Have you tried http://www.whatsthatbug.com? They might be able to tell you what it is. I think it’s skeery and am glad you posted teeny pictures!
For some reason, I always forget that that site exists, thanks for the reminder! I just spent five minutes looking at wasp pictures, and I swear my skin has crawled right off my body. SKEERY. I think it’s either a red paper wasp or a relation to one, I may email a picture and ask for help. Then again, I may just try to stop itching as if I’m covered in a million tiny BUGS.
Beautiful pics. They make the food look yummy and I don’t even like cantaloupe, okra or cherry tomatoes.
I bought that “kiss my ass” magnet last weekend in Las Vegas. My icebox is now nearly completely covered in irreverent, sarcastic magnets. It’s taken years to collect them but I can’t imagine having a magnet-free icebox.
Totally don’t need one but I really want a garden wagon like yours. If only they came in red (or Cal-Trans orange!).
I love a good sarcastic magnet!
I wish the wagon had come in yellow, I would have been all over that.
Yeah, they look like aphids. Ants like them because they ooze sticky stuff.
At first, I was all “awww, why does this sweet picture of Ciara make you laugh?” and then my eyes panned up to spot Joe Bob and I think I EEK-ed aloud. And then laughed mightily.
So wasps DO have a useful purpose in life? They eat other nasty insects? Who knew?! Seriously, I thought they existed just to sting us and maybe provide food for birds.
That cantaloupe had my mouth watering! I LOVE those things, though I’m not much for watermelon. Never tried the Sungold cherry tomatoes, but will have to. When late hubby and I lived on our small farm, we grew some yellow tomatoes (can’t recall name) and they were delicious — not acidic like some red tomatoes.
I think I’ll start a collection of “kiss my ass” snarky fridge magnets! I turn 60 (woot!) in December, so I definitely can claim that aging snark!
Cara, if the yellow tomatoes were large they were probably Lemon Boys. If small, maybe yellow pear? Both are grand, but I do think of Lemon Boys as the Drama Queens of tomato plants because ours are fussy about the amount of sun and water they receive–which is why they’re grown in a planter with an umbrella that goes up when it’s too hot for the little dears! Man, that was a really long sentence!
Your garden and its produce are amazing. Here in coastal California, we are having a cooler than normal summer, and our tomatoes are all still green. Pole beans are just coming in, but yellow crookneck and pattypan squash are overwhelming us! Love the sungold cherry tomatoes … can’t wait for ours to ripen.
The picture of Joe Bob and Ciara made me think of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. LOL.
Messy counter my fat old ass! Just a little lived in. I am not a fresh tomato person but you are making me think I need to give them -atleast the cherry ones-another try.
Ciara is the most stunning tiger cat I’ve ever seen. I love her white markings mixed with her grey and black. Such a pretty girl!
Love the snarky magnets too. My favorite one sez Fat People Are Harder To Kidnap.
The local nursery sells cherry tomatoes called “sweet 100s.” They are so sweet and yummy and each plant grows at least 100 fruit… at least it seems like. They rarely make it inside the house because we eat them like candy before they can make it. I will have to see if I can find seeds for them.
I just read about purslane on Suzanne’s site. Have you eaten it yet? It sounds… interesting. We have had it growing in the flowerbeds here and I have been pulling it out and ditching it for years. It is pretty when it first starts but then takes over so quickly.
Ciara has a very steady hand with the eyeliner, no? I’m envy her mad skilz.
And please? Pleasepleasepretty please, put the original Scoop!Hands! post up this week-end! Please? You look pretty today! (My daughter always said this when she was begging for something, and though it didn’t always work, it always cracked me up.)
My brother, age ~4: “Mommy, I love you so much.”
My mom: “Aww, that’s sweet, son, I love you too.”
[fifteen seconds of silence]
My brother: “Okay, NOW can I have some M&Ms?”
Me, age ~42: “Robyn, I love you so much.” …
Three things:
1) I want Ciara*–can you put her on a plane?
2) Ants actually herd aphids. You can (and should) squirt the aphids off with a blast from the hose and then put sticky stuff on the bottom trunk of your plant/tree so the ants can’t bring them back. Aphids suck all the life out of a plant.
3) I need Ciara to come here.
*it’s a good thing I live a couple thousand miles away, because I want at least one out of every single litter you rescue!!
Sweet pickled jalapenos??? Is there such a thing??? Where can I get the recipe?? :0)
One of these days I’m going to go through your site to see how many times the words ‘sweet boy’ follow Joe Bob’s name!
I agree, though, he does look awfully sweet in all his pics!
A good, non-toxic way to get rid of aphids is to spray them with soapy water; just spray them daily using diluted dish soap (not very soapy, just enough to make suds when you shake the bottle). once the Aphids are gone, the ants will also go away.
Great harvest shots! I never thought of roasting okra! I’ve got to try it. I had one tomato plant this year (in a pot). So far, I’ve harvested one tomato. As it was ripening on the vine, a bird took a hunk out of it! I washed it off and ate the rest! I’d been waiting for that tomato for 6 weeks! I see another tiny tomato growing. I’m definitely going to do better next year. I have plans! You and Fred have turned into some great farmers!
Are you sure that is a wilting hydrangea? I am a complete hydrangea fan and I do not recognize the leaves. If it is a hydrangea (love them as I can root them myself, they love shade and bring late summer fall color.) put it in a shady area and water it madly. They are hardy plants that root quickly.
Amy, that’s an Oakleaf Hydrangea that Fred’s father and stepmother gave us. I think it’s been two years since we planted it, and it’s finally starting to do well. The problem is that I often forget it’s even there until it acts all drama queeny (okay, to be fair, we haven’t had any rain in quite a while!) and then I have to carry buckets of water from the back yard to water it. I’d love to have a whole shade garden in that area (it gets zilch for sun), but the closest water spigot is in the back yard. Hmm. Maybe Fred’s winter project should be running a sprinkler to that part of the property!
I must plant okra next spring.. Never had it but sounds good!
The “This picture made me laugh” picture made me laugh too! Too funny. And I’m jealous of the cherry tomatoes–love ’em.
We call those black things “black army” – I’m not sure if they have a proper name.
They normally invade our runner bean plants (is that pole beans to you?).
Ants love them because they suck sap from the stems, so excrete a sticky sugar substance behind them.
We make up a spray bottle with a small amount of dish washing liquid in warm water, it works every time.