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July 9, 2025
Easy pickings for cucumbers
July 8, 2025
The heat is back with a vengeance as temperature is going up to 94º today. I was able to get the lawn cut, as the grass is growing extremely fast, due to the abundance of rain that is coming along with the heat. I will try and get out and do some harvesting of tomatoes and cucumbers, but weeding will have to wait another day.
July 7, 2025
W decided that if I am going to keep the garden going, I will have to skip walking early in the morning and go out and weed the garden one row at a time. The weeds grow twice as fast as the crops, so I have to stay on top of cleaning out the rows almost on a daily basis. I found the video above of a hard working “younger” woman (70 years old), working the land up in Vermont. I love what advice she had to offer.
July 6, 2025
We are close to another 90º heat spell coming up this week. Maybe it is because the 4th of July and Nancy’s birthday are coming and there is heat from all the celebrating.
The garden is showing what the heat can do for growth and maturity. Tomatoes are now too many to count, along with the cucumbers, as both are producing good crops. I am waiting on green beans to mature, as I see lots of flowering going on. The new broccoli seedlings are also doing quite well, although I have to keep a close eye on those cabbage bugs.
I planted 9 okra seedlings (some already had okra fruit on them. I also planted 4 more tomato plants, a Roma, 1 Delicious and 2 Beefmaster. The Roma also already had some fruit on the seedling. Click on photo to see recent harvests.
July1, 2025
Finally, a break from the hot and humid weather, as a cold front came through with quite a bit of rain. Unlike south of us, we have not had much rain, so this is welcome for the grass and garden. It is my contention that the weather moved a month ahead this year, as April was more like May, May more like June and since the middle of June, we are seeing August type weather.
It is a good thing I have an irrigation system, as lawns are starting to turn brown on properties without water. I have been cutting the grass twice a week, sometimes three times, trying to keep up with the growth. I cut it high to keep the grass green and lush, as well as it helps keep the weeds at bay.
I had to buy a new string trimmer, a replacement for my Ego unit. I have an Ego multi-tool head, so I just added a trimmer head and all is working fine. Ego has some quality control problems, but they continue to improve their products. This new trimmer has a variable speed setup, so I can go slow and easy where needed and fast, when the weeds are tall and tough. I just hope it lasts a bit longer than 3-4 years. At $169 it wasn’t cheap.
I have lots of weeding to do in the strawberry plot, where I only did two rows, so 4 more rows to go. The bean plots are inundated with weeds, and that will also require lots of “down and dirty” work to clean up that area. The good news is that my tomato plots are pretty clean as I have been able to keep up with weeding there, due mainly to having very wide, open lanes between each of the three tomato rows.
It is amazing to me that we are already into July, having been home now for 3 months.
July 8, 2025
The heat is back with a vengeance as temperature is going up to 94º today. I was able to get the lawn cut, as the grass is growing extremely fast, due to the abundance of rain that is coming along with the heat. I will try and get out and do some harvesting of tomatoes and cucumbers, but weeding will have to wait another day.
July 7, 2025
W decided that if I am going to keep the garden going, I will have to skip walking early in the morning and go out and weed the garden one row at a time. The weeds grow twice as fast as the crops, so I have to stay on top of cleaning out the rows almost on a daily basis. I found the video above of a hard working “younger” woman (70 years old), working the land up in Vermont. I love what advice she had to offer.
July 6, 2025
We are close to another 90º heat spell coming up this week. Maybe it is because the 4th of July and Nancy’s birthday are coming and there is heat from all the celebrating.
The garden is showing what the heat can do for growth and maturity. Tomatoes are now too many to count, along with the cucumbers, as both are producing good crops. I am waiting on green beans to mature, as I see lots of flowering going on. The new broccoli seedlings are also doing quite well, although I have to keep a close eye on those cabbage bugs.
I planted 9 okra seedlings (some already had okra fruit on them. I also planted 4 more tomato plants, a Roma, 1 Delicious and 2 Beefmaster. The Roma also already had some fruit on the seedling. Click on photo to see recent harvests.
July1, 2025
Finally, a break from the hot and humid weather, as a cold front came through with quite a bit of rain. Unlike south of us, we have not had much rain, so this is welcome for the grass and garden. It is my contention that the weather moved a month ahead this year, as April was more like May, May more like June and since the middle of June, we are seeing August type weather.
It is a good thing I have an irrigation system, as lawns are starting to turn brown on properties without water. I have been cutting the grass twice a week, sometimes three times, trying to keep up with the growth. I cut it high to keep the grass green and lush, as well as it helps keep the weeds at bay.
I had to buy a new string trimmer, a replacement for my Ego unit. I have an Ego multi-tool head, so I just added a trimmer head and all is working fine. Ego has some quality control problems, but they continue to improve their products. This new trimmer has a variable speed setup, so I can go slow and easy where needed and fast, when the weeds are tall and tough. I just hope it lasts a bit longer than 3-4 years. At $169 it wasn’t cheap.
I have lots of weeding to do in the strawberry plot, where I only did two rows, so 4 more rows to go. The bean plots are inundated with weeds, and that will also require lots of “down and dirty” work to clean up that area. The good news is that my tomato plots are pretty clean as I have been able to keep up with weeding there, due mainly to having very wide, open lanes between each of the three tomato rows.
It is amazing to me that we are already into July, having been home now for 3 months.
Comments from the week of June 22, 2025
The wet weather from last week has turned into the first hot spell of the season this week. Temperatures have risen to just shy of 100º on multiple days, with this Thursday, June 26, being the last “hot” day this week. To keep things flowing along, I have been using the irrigation system every late afternoon to keep the grass green and the veggies content. So far, all has held up well and produce is coming along. The biggest surprise so far has been the productivity of the Yukon Gold potatoes. The harvest has been outstanding, with good sized potatoes being the norm.
After 5 days of temperatures topping out near 100º, we got a slight reprieve on Friday, June 27. I was able to clear out the pea patch and plant some more tomatoes and I also cleaned up the Yukon Gold potato area, planting 9 Ochra seedlings.
Cucumbers and weeds are the big thing now as the all day drizzle on June 27th allowed everything to spurt up. The strawberry field really needs to get cleaned out again, before the weeds totally take over.
Comments from the week of June 16, 2025
Despite the weather becoming a bit cooler and wet (over 8 inches of rain in one week), the garden has been going gangbusters. I have already harvested broccoli, tomatoes, peas, strawberries, blueberries, collards, cukes, pickles and even a potato.
I am pretty excited at how all is growing and I am trying to keep up with the weeding, so the paths are clear and neat. I need to clean out the blueberry area again and then throw down some wood chips to help keep down the weeds. The beans, which are now about a foot tall also need some “up close” weeding done, as I have neglected them since I put netting over them to keep the rabbits (I now have two bunnies coming for snacks) at bay.
In another few days I will have plenty of peas to harvest and some more broccoli to cut, along with taking some more collards to friends. The gooseberries are starting to change color, so they will be ready for picking very soon.
The tomatoes are about 4-5 feet tall, with lots of tomatoes on the vines, most of which are still green, after an early crop of 10 tomatoes that turned red. I also ate my first sweet gold cherry tomato, super delicious.
Finally, I still have a couple of areas that need to be prepped for seedlings, some tomatoes and a number of okra seedlings.
It will be a challenge to keep the weeds at bay, as it seems they grow twice as fast as do the veggies and fruits.
The photos below include an early harvest of cucumber, pickles, peas and early tomatoes. The Yukon Gold potatoes, planted in early April have been harvested and are excellent in size and taste. The Walla Walla sweet onion was started from seed in February and planted into the raised bed in the middle of April. We are also coming to the end of a great crop of gooseberries and blueberries.
May 12, 2025
The garden work keeps right on coming as I attack one plot/job at a time. Today it was cleaning out the pea plot, despite some rain, adding fencing to keep out the rabbits. That was actually a good thing, as I planted more peas and a couple of rows of Blue Lake bush beans. I spent a half an hour picking up bean seeds, as the bag broke before I could plant the seeds. I am hoping I can finish putting together the irrigation system, as it will get up to 80º again on Sunday.
My Walking
In the meantime, I just completed 6,000 miles of walking since May 2, 2021. I guess the next goal is 10,000, which would be like walking around the world. The 6k miles is 3 round trips to Florida or walking to the west coast and back. I wore out 4 pair of running shoes.
April 1, 2025
A 16.5 hour road trip back home from Florida went as planned, with little traffic and an arrival time of 5:30 am, all without incident. I make this drive to limit the amount of movement Nancy has to make in and out of the car if we were to stop and stay at a motel along the way. It is a long day (night), but once we are home, we can relax and unwind.
The house is in good shape, other than lots of weeds and the lawn needing a trim (done later in the day on April 1). Cleaning out the van went well, despite being filled to the top. The seedling I brought back home survived and nothing fell out of the van during our trip.
Maggie was very good, settling in once we got going. We made a few stops along the way for gas and the bathroom, but that is expected.
It was just good to get back home and sleep in our own beds again.
My Walking
I didn’t even miss a day of walking, as I did a mile before leaving Florida and then managed to get in another mile once I got home. It was nice to walk in the woods with temperatures similar to Florida (an early warm front coming through), but with much lower humidity and cooler evenings.
This year's trip down to Florida was a few days later, due to appointments having come right at the end of October. The drive down was pretty much routine, 15.5 hours with a few stops for gas and relief. The cottage managed to stay strong during the tornadoes and hurricanes that hit in early October, but many areas close by were hit hard, with devastating results. Six people died as their homes were destroyed by tornadoes (17 tornadoes came through the area) and huge warehouses crumbled under the powerful winds.
The rest of the month went along fairly smoothly, although the walking needed to be cut back as my left hip was hurting. I have tried to figure out if new pain is due to an IT band injury, a bursa bruise or the reduction in my anti-inflammatory drug I take. The end result is that my miles per week have taken a major hit.
There were no major projects on the docket as daily events seemed to take precedence and all projects were put on the back burner. Most consist of finishing up detail work left over from projects I did last season.
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