September

Posted on October 3, 2020 by glenalmus

The white wood asters and blue stemmed goldenrod in bloom.

Bumper crop of peppers this year and the Moondurang tomatoes are still producing.

Yukon potatoes did well, too. We have them stored down in the basement.

I’m extending the bed off the back patio. Moving columbine and white wood aster from the cracks of the patio brick.

The butternut did well, too. This photo was taken before we had a bit of frost.

The black locust tree and chestnut oak (smaller tree to right and behind) are doing very well. We planted them 4 years ago.

A closer look at the New York ironweed, jewelweed and boneset.

blue cardinal flower in the meadow closer to the road

This little tree frog hitched a ride to the farmers market with me.

We cleaned out the mudroom and shed this month. These photos are of the shed.

The aster and goldenrod down by the creek.

With Darcy’s help we harvested 56 butternut squash. We left many unripe ones in the field. They won’t ripen because we got such an early frost which made the vines die back.

Feeling Like Late Summer

Posted on August 27, 2020 by glenalmus

They don’t look pretty but I can’t complain. We’ve gotten at least 20 lbs. of tomatoes so far. I’ll probably slow roast these as they ripen.

We thought the cucumbers were slowing down. Wrong!

A female monarch on our blue foamflower. I wonder if we will finally see a monarch chrysalis this year. In the past, I’ve only seen males. Males have a black spot on their hindwings.

Peppers

Posted on August 25, 2020 by glenalmus

New York Ironweed growing in our meadow down by the creek.

We had heavy rain again this past Saturday night. It wasn’t as bad as two weeks ago but some of the same places downtown flooded AGAIN!
This photo shows our creek much higher than normal.

August 2020

Posted on August 20, 2020 by glenalmus

We planted this about three years ago down by the spring house. This is the first year it bloomed. Only three blooms that I could see. Hopefully, more next year.

Meadow petunias in our native garden. This plant is starting to spread itself everywhere!

Our native garden was planted in 2017 – three years ago. It is between the house and the garage. This is the way we walk to enter the house via the back door.

We added a row of blocks on either side of the driveway so no one drives off the edge where the conduits are. The other areas are a slope of rocks.

Well it didn’t take long between getting the new driveway and having a gully washer of a storm – about four inches in two hours. Many homes and businesses in the downtown area were ruined. The newspaper reported about $3 million of damage. We just had a bunch of rock moved downstream. We’ve moved some of it. Billy Young stopped by a few nights ago and said they’d move the rest when it dried up. Hmmm, that could be months from now if we continue in this wet weather pattern.

Our second batch of sauerkraut. We have our second batch of sour pickles bubbling on the kitchen counter now.

We’ve been busy with our harvest. Planning to can more tomato sauce this weekend using a mix of our tomatoes and those from the farmers market. We’ve had cool weather this week – 58 degrees last night – so I don’t know how well they will continue to do.

These are elderberries. It’s hard to tell how big they are. These are smaller than a pea. They can be half this size. The rain has kept them plump. I’m making immune boosting syrup with them.

Summer Heat

Posted on July 21, 2020 by glenalmus

This is a photo from earlier this month of the kitchen garden. We had fairly moderate weather until last week when we hit 90 degrees. Yesterday was a scorcher.

And these are photos from a couple of weeks ago of the barn garden. It’s getting harder to walk around in there now that we are in the thick of the growing season.

Sometimes Darcy needs a little quiet time too.

Blazing Star, Wild Quinine, Purple Coneflower and Calendula

Work has begun on our driveway! Just some teaser photos here – parking the cars on the field and Billy Young has brought in a lot of equipment for the work.

Our cucumber plants are in the front yard. We are building up this flower bed with wood chips that will turn into soil in a couple of years. We decided to fill a trench down the middle with compost and plant our cucumber there. I wasn’t sure it would work, but we have already picked 2 cukes!

Smokey and I have been meeting up on the back deck every morning for some loving. I’m allergic so I just stroke him with my one hand and try not to let him rub up against my legs. I largely fail at that. I always wash afterward.

Smokey has not trained Darcy like Frida has. He usually runs away from her whereas Frida will stand her ground.

More about the driveway soon!

Cabbage!

Posted on June 21, 2020 by glenalmus

Starting first with a foggy morning photo of the barn garden. The elderberries are blooming and the onions are ready for fresh picking. We’ll harvest all of them in about a month.

The cabbage is under the row cover in the kitchen garden. It protects them from the cabbage moths.

Making kraut from the two we harvested. Just cabbage, garlic scapes and salt.

This little Northern Red Oak was growing in an awkward spot so we moved it to the backyard. It doubled in size in about a month – a fast grower.

Fall is Finally Here

Posted on October 4, 2019 by glenalmus

I’m sitting at a table with an open window at my back and the breeze is glorious! The first three days of October were around 90 degrees which is crazy. Today is beautiful and we are even expecting some much needed rain on Monday so keeping my fingers crossed.

Dave usually walks Darcy in the morning and we both go in the evening. Dave’s requirement to report to work in northern Virgina two days every other week means it is hard to get his hours in so I’ve been walking Darcy in the morning when I can. She plops herself down when she looks back and sees people coming up behind us which is pretty much always since it is a well loved park we walk in. I literally have to drag her to get her going again. Then the people say “oh, she’s tired” and I let them know she just wants to see them. She runs around the dog park for an hour so I know walking with me isn’t causing her to be tired. I enjoy walking again and can feel it is good for my body.

Letting her have her little break.

The red chokeberry bush

in my nature journal

The paw paw tree leaves start turning color quite early. I harvested quite a few this year. They are best when I just pick them off the ground before they start to rot too much. I gave some away this year. Some people had them before and were happy to have them again. One had never had a paw paw and was surprised she like it.

Our one little pepper plant has given us quite a few large peppers. I expect this is the last of it. I made some sweet red pepper relish with these. The guys ate it on their chicken salad sandwiches last night.

Been Too Long

Posted on September 17, 2019 by glenalmus

Having issues with getting photos in a post and have now figured it out.

A photo from July – Dave and a harvest of green beans, cucumbers and tomatoes. The green beans did well for about a month and that was it. We’ve gotten a tomato here and there. The two plants just didn’t do well. Not sure why. We got so many cucumbers I canned bread and butter pickles and dill pickles. Without fail we have to make tomato sauce so we ended up buying seconds at the farmers market to do so.

Our big news around here since last post is that we adopted a five month old puppy. She is a labrador/hound mix. We were smitten at first sight even though I didn’t really want a big dog.

Her first visit to the vet.

She loves Dave best.

white wood aster

woodland goldenrod

Darcy and the cats have made peace.

Darcy has been with us for six weeks now. I can’t imagine a home without a dog.

Onion Harvest

Posted on July 18, 2019 by glenalmus

I harvested the onions this week. It would have been nice to let them cure a little longer outside, but we are still getting a lot of rain and I was afraid they’d start to rot.