Around the Backyard

We have been in a rainy weather pattern that just won't go away!
I've been telling Hubs for weeks now that "Gee, we could sure use some rain!  It's been pretty dry here so far since May."
Well this past weekend the rain started and this front just won't leave.
The meteorologist this morning said we are due for another 7 DAYS or longer of this on again/off again rain.
Lots of flash flooding around here, mostly to the West and South of us, and more will happen until this front leaves.  The ground is saturated now and if we get much more I may loose lots of veggies.
Eek!

The rain let up for about a half an hour so let's take a walk around the backyard today at Chez Sluggy 

I actually took these first three shots on Saturday........

The profusion of morning glories

Many vines are on the bird feeder poles and trying to climb higher.
I don't even bother to plant these anymore......they just grow back every year from the seeds that drop from the previous Fall.

You might be able to make out the pollen grains on this flower.
You'll notice that we have again been invaded by Japanese Beetles this Summer.
They LOVE morning glory foliage evidently, as well as my Japanese Eggplant plants.

Here is a shot looking over the garden from the left corner......

And here is a shot from the right hand corner......

Here's one of my basil plants.  I am trying to stay ahead of the blossoms to pinch them off so I keep getting more leaves.

One of three eggplants almost ready to pick from 2 of my plants.  The other 2 plants got swallowed up by tomato and squash plants and can't get any sun.  I figured only a few squash would survive the Spring and actually grow but I was wrong.  Now everything is so crowded together some shorter plants don't have a chance.

 A few of the yellow squash not quite ready to pick.....

A couple tomatoes looking good.  Notice the leaves of a hidden basil plant to it's left.......

I see you there Mr. Zucchini, trying to blend in and hide from me until you are a massive size. lol

Here's one of my barrels with the lettuce in it.  It's Simpson black seeded lettuce.
Usually by late July the lettuce is done because of the heat but not this year!
I can't seem to kill these three lettuce plants!
Two of them have gotten so large they look like vines!  And they need support to keep them from falling on the ground from the barrel.

My entire green beans crop.
Only ONE of my bean plants survived the chipmunk invasion.
I may get six whole green beans this year, all from this one plant.  I'll let them go to seed and maybe start then indoors next Winter/Spring and see if I can have a better outcome next season.

And in the front we have about 12 tomato plants which are doing fantastically well.  Trying to stay ahead of pinching off some blossoms there too.  The plants get the best sun of the entire yard so these plants are almost five feet tall at this point.
With all this rain these plants are toppling over a bit so we'll need to tie them up some more.

Some Amish paste variety(like a Roma)growing out there too.  I can't wait to try those.

And all this rain(and now the tomato plants falling over)isn't thrilling the Coleus and Petunias.
Once the tomato plants die back they'll get more sun and nutrients.....

And here is what got picked this weekend--
On Saturday.......

And then on Tuesday........

I also picked 2 more ounces of lettuce for the nephew to take home but didn't photograph that or add it into our harvest count yet.

So far I've picked 170.9 ounces of veggies, or 10.68 lbs. from our garden.
Go me.

I just wish the rain would stop for awhile so I can enjoy my yard a bit more.  I really do like being out there near the garden.

What's growing in your yard?

Sluggy

Recently Garden Activity

Here are a few photos from my garden taken in the last week.

One of the first normal sized tomatoes we have.  It's about to turn red and I'll get Hubs to harvest it tonight when he gets home from work.
We have lost at least 4 other tomatoes to a deer who has discovered our garden.......

More telltale evidence of the deer.  Our garden is not deep so he can lean in from the short fence and reach the bean vines on the deck railing and chomp away at them....

The tomato plants are dying back now and the Summer squash plants are getting powdery mold and also dying off but the morning glory vines are still going great guns.

The collard plants are doing better now that other plants are dying back and giving them more sunlight.  The Japanese beetles seem to have fled as well so the new collard leaves aren't being eaten, meaning there may actually be something to harvest of them come the first frost.  ;-)

The front flower bed has been growing like gangbusters!
You can see in this shot that we have tomato plants in that bed.  We didn't plant tomatoes in there this year.....they are all volunteers!  And they actually have tomatoes on the plants now so if the bunnies and the deer don't find them, we may get some to turn red and harvest.

We planted Coleus as well as that are those spikey flowers(can't remember what they are called)in this photo in this bed this past Spring.
We planted those same spikey flowers last year in here as well.
Well we could have saved some money not replanting these spikey flowers this year since they seemed to have reseeded themselves and we have TONS of these spikey flowers all over this bed!
It's very vibrant and colorful out front this year.

The Coleus as well have gotten HUGE in the bed this year.  Some of the leaves on these plants are as big as my head!  That's what lots of sunshine will do for ya......
The Coleus has finally gone to seed out here and I may try to collect seeds this Fall and start my own plants next Winter.

Just a close-up of some plantings.

The first normal sized tomato harvested on Friday...........

My mater and bean face....what I picked 24 Aug. but hadn't shown yet.....lolz

Another big squash I picked last Wednesday.....Hubs picked another smaller squash on Sunday but he didn't take a photo of it for me.....

More green beans last week...........

And yet another handful of beans later in the week.....

The harvest total is a bit off since Hubs hasn't been weighing the produce he picks and I don't have the paper I write the weights on up here with me.  My guess is we are up to 12 lbs.?

I haven't been outside in 3 days due to the foot issue and I really want to get out there and check things out.
Maybe tomorrow.

Sluggy

 

Of Feet, Floors, Flora & Furniture

Not to moan again but I can hardly put weight on my left foot today so I am heading back to bed shortly and taking a pill for the pain as the last one I took this am is wearing off.  First to feed and put out the doggies though.

I got the garden eggplants breaded and cooked this morning, so I just have to throw them together with some mozzarella and sauce later and bake it off and we will have achieved eggplant parmesan.
Rah.

Yesterday our beagle, Cherry, had surgery.  She has had a large fatty tumor on her side by her hind leg and it started impeding her movement last week so we had it taken off.  The vet also removed a much smaller fatty growth on the opposite hip/side and a new growth on her tale at it's base.  The tale tumor concerned the vet(might be cancerous)so we had him send that one off for biopsy.
But Cherry is home and being her old silly self again.......

And there goes another $589 we weren't expecting to shell out this month.  Sigh.

Yesterday was beastly hot here so I was/am glad that the new a/c system is working again....yah!!

I spent a good part of yesterday out on the back deck painting 8 long strips of crown molding.  I was trying to get that finished before Gary the handyman showed up to install it.  I got 2 coats on it all and Gary never showed up....figures. lol

But the floor guys were back yesterday(Tuesday) and they finished laying the new bamboo floor in the dining/living rooms.....

And the finished product.....

Now we have to get new baseboard moldings, paint them and wait for the floor guys to come back to install that(as well as the crown moldings laying on the floor).
I also have to touch up spots on the new paint job where the flooring guys marked up the wall(about 18" from the floor)while laying the floor. ugh.

I also picked a nice mess o' beans yesterday from the garden.....

I added this to the mess o' maters, more beans, broccoli and eggplants I picked last weekend.....

The broccoli has already been made into soup and most of the maters have been peeled and cooked down so I will can them tonight after dinner.  I also need to blanch and freezer a lot of the green beans as well.
The tomato crop this year has been phenomenal!  The plants haven't grown leggy and tall but have been heavy with fruit.  No blight this year and the rainfall has been even enough through the season that we don't have many of those split tomatoes you get when the rainfall is uneven throughout the Summer.  Our neighbor has commented on how much we have grown on the plants and is angling for some freebies since he never does well with his maters.  He's a great guy so we'll have Hubs walk some over to him tonight while I finish up canning/freezing what I need to do.

I spent a chunk of time yesterday while resting from painting the molding and sitting in the a/c house looking at area rugs online.   I have one for the living room but I need to pick up one for the dining room but after viewing about 5,600 rugs my eyes started glazing over.  I didn't see anything that I loved that was a reasonable price but then again, I am not really sure what I want in that space yet.
So the search for the perfect dining room rug continues.....

Speaking of dining rooms......Salvation Army showed up with their truck this morning at 8:20am to take away my oak dining room table/chairs and buffet.  It was time to let it go and move on.  I admit I was sad to see it go(though I did want it gone)as I bought that set in 1988.  The top of that table still didn't have a single scratch on it after 25 years, 3 kids, and a heluva lot of Holiday meals.
The style fit into our first home well but it was never really "my style" and I am anxious to find something that is a better reflection of my tastes.  I hope someone finds many more years of enjoyment with it.

Off to feed pooches now and rest my foot.

Sluggy

This Week on The Dining Table

This is the "Gotta Use Up Stuff From the Garden" Week.

 

Here's what was planned last week--

 

Sunday--BBQ Chicken, broccoli & cheese casserole, tossed salad, corn on the cob
Monday--raw  veggies, crackers, cheese and sausage(Sonya Ann had packed us some snacks and that was dinner)
Tuesday--Chinese food again!
Wednesday--Eating out
Thursday--Eating Out
Friday--something from my freezer TBA
Saturday--something from my freezer TBA

 

Everything above was eaten as was written.  The days where a specific food was not mentioned went like this....
Wednesday--Local Restaurant in AltaVista, VA
Thursday--Truck Stop Diner outside of Harrisburg, PA
Friday--Burgers, Steamed Broccoli(from garden)
Saturday--Leftover Meat Sauce over Rigatoni, Tossed Salad(w/garden cukes and toms)
  

As for food spending last week.....We didn't do ANY grocery shopping while on the trip(some alcohol procurement did happen but that's from the entertainment budget).  We left #2 Son $40 cash(plus $35 from a rebate check we finally cashed, so $40 out of my August food budget) and $10 in McDonald's bucks(the cost of which was accounted for last year).

Then we hit the grocery store on Friday after we got back from the trip and spent $34.48 on $48.11 of regular retail foods.
So my food budget spending from 8/11 to 8/23 was $74.48.
This means I am at $266.81 spent so far in August.  I have $133.19 left in the budget for the next 6 days.

 

Food waste last week.....bad.....real bad!  #2 Son didn't eat ANYTHING that was here that needed to be eaten.  Luckily I did remember to remind him to put some of it into the freezer(the garden tomatoes and the smoked pork I made).  I had to throw out melon, spareribs, a small amount of coleslaw and rice when I got home.  We tried to eat down what was in the fridge before we left but I thought #2 Son would at least eat the ribs.  *sigh*

  

Leftovers going into this week?  Some rigatoni, and lots and lots of BROCCOLI from the garden!
We also have green beans, cukes, eggplant and more tomatoes coming in, so the order of the meals below will depend on what is harvested and when.

Here's this week's meal plan---
 

Sunday--Broccoli/Chicken Quiche
Monday--Broccoli Cheddar Soup, Fresh Baked Bread
Tuesday--BLT Sandwiches(garden tomatoes)
Wednesday--Eggplant prepared some way?, Tossed Salad
Thursday--Broccoli Casserole, Caprese Salad(garden toms)
Friday--Green Bean Stirfry, Roasted Potatoes, Leftover Quiche
Saturday--Leftovers

On the shopping list......hubs picked up half & half and swiss cheese on Sunday morning already, but I still need a small hunk of Velveeta, sandwich bread(at the bakery outlet), fresh mozzarella, potatoes and more salad greens.
There is a sale on bacon this week as well which I'll end up taking advantage of. ;-)
I'm figuring about $50 food spending this week.

That's what's appearing on the kitchen table this week here at Chez Sluggy. 
  

 What's getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Sluggy

Garden Update

One of the 2 types of green beans we planted have finally yielded a small crop.
These are GoldRush variety beans....

No, they are not ailing, they are suppose to be yellow-green in color. lol  I'll be cooking these tonight.

And in the bed out front we picked these over the weekend....

4 good sized squash. 
I grilled 1 last night for dinner(cut into slabs for Hubs and I)but have 3 left.   Tomorrow we'll have a fish fry and I'll fry up some slices of squash too.  It's like fried zucchini but yellow.

And speaking of zucchini(how can you avoid speaking of zucchini in the Summer?!)......here is what I made last week for dinner one night.....

We call it Lemon Chicken but the proper name is "Lena's Chicken".  This recipe comes to me by way of an old friend of my mother's.  The origins past there are unknown.

It's Chicken thighs dredged in flour and lemon pepper mixture(either the no salt variety or a mix of salt/no salt ones), then pan fried until the skin is browned, but not cooked all the way through.
The veggie is a mix of onions and zuke slices with a can of tomatoes(use crushed or whole) in the pan you browned the chicken in(after you pour the leftover oil out).  Put the chicken back in on top of the veggies and put a lid on the pan.  This simmers covered for 45 min. while you fix your rice separately.

Then eat it.  It is a mighty tasty way to get rid of all that zucchini if you are tired of fried zuke and zuke bread.

I need to thin out my Collard Greens soon.  I'll probably do that this weekend and use the thinnings to make a small batch of greens.  The young leaves will be more tender but they won't be as sweet as letting the first frost get to your collards before you pick them.

The tomatoes are quietly doing their growing thing.  The peppers and salad are not.  We are still waiting on the other variety of green beans, the Romano ones, to bloom.
It's been a very weird Summer in the garden.

Sluggy

Garden is In....Better Late Than Never Edition

We finally got the gardens planted about 10 days before the company started arriving last week. It was STILL May but just barely!
I am pretty worthless when it comes to digging and planting.  It's all I can do to harvest.
#1 Son wasn't here long enough to dig up my gardens this year and Hubs had been laid up with medical issues so we are late getting going this season.

I took this photo about a week ago.....

 It's green beans(vining)in the back row and radishes in the front row.
Hubs says the middle row is collards but I am not sure of that.  It's a 20 foot row and he planted it heavily.  I didn't think I had enough collard seed to have this much sprouting!lol

We'll see later on what he actually planted I guess.

No photo of the front yet but it's tomato plants, yellow squash and colorful bell peppers.

And here is what I've got going on the dog run.....

I've tried to get rid of this eyesore on Craigslist but no one seems to have the cash to take it off our hands right now.  Since the male beagle passed away, the female just doesn't want to be out there in the good weather.  So it sits unused taking up real estate in the backyard.
So I have hung gutters on it.

I'm copying my friend Brenda in Maine.....

These are the salad gutters hanging on her shed from a couple years ago.

I can't nail gutters onto my shed(besides, it doesn't get enough sunshine anyway), so I used the dog run and we wired them on.

And the greens are starting to come up now......

We've got a 3rd gutter piece to hang up yet and plant.  What's great about this is I can harvest without killing my back AND it keeps the resident yard rabbits out of my salad!
At least until they learn to scale chain link fencing....

So now we are keeping the dog run.
Might have to expand this gutter thing and hang some on the back end of the run too.

Sluggy