tomato stitches, you know you're a hick when, and harvest shots

  
1. Here are pictures of one of the self-suturing tomatoes. Still amazes me. And, btw, how RED is that? =)

Perfect, tiny stitches. Honestly, biology NEVER ceases to amaze me.

2. You know you're a hayseed when...

... you are cleaning out the chicken coop, and to prop the door open, you use a corn cob.

All I need now is to knock out a front tooth to complete the picture. =)

3. Outdoor-oven-baked veggies

It will be well over 100 degrees today. Happy fall (-down-dead-from-the-heat)! Chicken pool day, for sure.

Poor garden is getting cooked:

3 days ago I DEEP watered it and yesterday dying leaves appeared on the tomato plants.

Yay.

Watered again yesterday (some) and will water again today (the rest and maybe start again). 100 dF yesterday plus single digit humidity = water magically disappears.

Here's the 3 sisters plot (corn, squash, beans) this a.m. with (sun-beaten) tomatoes in the foreground:

Clearly the squash is making a break for it, crawling up the fence. Once it gets out of the fence, though, thirsty deer snarf it right up, so it's never gonna happen.

SOME day the corn will be ready... the (few) beans are already drying.

Here's the watermelons with my (not so) dainty sneaker for scale.

Still not ready (tap tap tap go my toes), but a good number of the little guys. And they're so cute!

4. Aphidphreakout

Yesterday I had a kind of uncool moment in the corn plot.

I saw an ear that had all this black on it, so looked closer, expecting a pigment or soot issue, and it was aphids. LOTS of black aphids. EEK! Gross.

Well, see, there WAS a ladybug there, so I should have just left and let him/her stuff his/her face, but was sufficiently freaked that I grabbed the ear, the ladybug flew away, and I hosed it down to get them all off NOW.

Should have waited. oop.

5. Today's harvest:

my favorite shot

mmm... leaves....(snarf, snarf)

I also could have harvested a bunch of jalapeno peppers and some basil, but don't know what to do with them, yet (including the pile of peppers in the fridge), so I'll wait.

6. Fall/winter garden happenings


So far have only planted broccoli--tiny cotyledons have poked their heads up, lately being brutally beaten by the crazy hot sun. Poor things.

I just hope they survive today (the hottest predicted day) and make it through to this weekend, when it should be less oven-like.

I really need to Today I pledge to go through my seeds and select 1-3 things to plant in the very near future. I have one very small plot prepped and ready to go, and I may yank a few squash soon to stuff that plot with root-plants.

The rotation order I follow is PLMR. P is potatoes (which I don't grow, but also is for tomatoes, peppers, any nightshades), L is legumes/brassica, M is miscellaneous (which includes squash and melons), and R is roots.


In the mean time, I just want to keep my chickens and plants alive through this last BLAST of summer.

How's your summer/fall transition going?

=) xobiobabbler