Well, it's been another month, and things are continuing to grow!
I finally overcame my fears and ventured into the garden. Luckily the grass was growing in the STRAW, not in the GROUND, so came out fairly easily, although with SO MUCH of it, it was still time consuming to pull. I decided to limit what I grow this year, and plant things in hills instead of rows so I didn't have to clear as much. JP and I put cardboard and then landscape fabric down over the rest of the garden to try to kill anything else attempting to grow there. Unfortunately, despite all this AND the liberal use of compost, my seeds are not germinating very well. I do have everything growing that I planted indoors.
The asparagus did even poorer this year than last, so I transplanted the rhubarb out of the asparagus bed BACK into the garden (moved it from a raised bed in the garden into the asparagus bed several years ago.) We mowed down the asparagus that had seeded and will flatten the bed and continue to mow it with the remainder of the grounds. It was too intensive of a project to attempt to start it over (see this post about how we did it.)
Meanwhile, the strawberries have ended. We had a really good harvest this year, although we ate the majority of them fresh. I did get several pints frozen for later. Now the blueberries have come on strong! I already have 6 gallons frozen for later, and another gallon in the kitchen, waiting to be washed and picked through.
The peeps, who are now 6 weeks old, are fully feathered and look like miniature chickens. Unfortunately, we seem to have hatched a LOT of roosters - at least 7 that I'm pretty sure of, and possibly a couple more!
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| This cute little hen was the one and only brown peep. |
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| This little guy has the most unusual coloring out of anyone. |
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| I'm pretty sure this one is a rooster, and possibly full blooded Buff Orpington. |
We ended up losing our young rooster a couple of days after the hen. At least we had him long enough to get the fertilized eggs! The hens really picked up their egg laying when the rooster arrived, and except for one super hot day last week, I am routinely getting 5-7 eggs daily. I had a plethora of eggs last week - over 10 dozen in the fridge, so over the weekend I made a lot of eggy things. I made 3 quiches on Friday, using 1 1/2 dozen eggs, plus hardboiled and pickled 1 dozen. I also took an 18 egg carton to my parents. On Saturday I made a batch of lemon curd, and also a batch of blueberry lemon curd (which disappointingly just tastes like purple lemon curd), using a dozen egg yolks altogether. I then baked an angel food cake with the 12 egg whites. I am down to 6 dozen in the fridge!
The grass has been growing like crazy as well, but we've had so many super hot and/or rainy days, that we haven't been able to get it mowed until this past weekend. I tried to use the lawn sweeper to collect the clippings for on the garden, but it wasn't working right. I think my Dad and I got it fixed this morning, so I am heading out to finish up that project before it rains again.
In the meantime, J and her friend headed up to Connecticut with some other potters for 10 days. They participated in a wood fired kiln up there, camping on the farm where the kiln was on some of the hottest days of the year so far! They were interviewed for the local public radio station while there. They seemed to have a wonderful time.
L is getting ready to head to the beach with some buddies in a week, but is currently working full time with the summer work program (that she has been a part of for the past 6 years) at the library.
I need to get outside, it is beginning to look cloudy...
