Been pickin'??

[Chief]

With the sun back out and the temperatures back up where they ought to be for August, we've been pickin' fresh veggies all week. The "Moskva" heritage tomato's I put in are nine feet high now and almost overwhelming a rhodie. That particular tomato is hybridized for this area, and it's a pretty nice producer of decent sized solid salad tomato's. I've tried a lot of different tomatoes, and it does very well with direct sun for most of the day.

Another big pleaser this year has been the pair of yellow sweet peppers I planted in an oversize pot on the deck. The pot's big enough to hold sufficient water that it doesn't dry out quickly, and both plants are producing bigtime. Mrs. Chief took a fresh off the bush yellow pepper for a snack today, and there's another one waiting on the window sill. Last week I treated her to fajitas on the grill; fresh yellow peppers, fresh onions I raised in the flower bed, and a cheap steak from Costco...done on red hot cast iron on mesquite charcoal... ;D

I started harvesting sunflowers this week too. My thumbs are stained from the red sunflower seeds, and we got a pretty fair amount for what we planted. I'm keeping some of the seeds for replanting next year, but the majority will go to the birds and the squirrels

In addition, we've been harvesting a bunch of herbs for drying; in particular we had a good year for tarragon, lavender, and an English thyme...all are stashed away for when indoor cooking season resumes this fall.

The other project I finished this week was making anew chipper blade for the shredder. Since it's a Troybilt, there are no parts available for it. (Their "Garden Way" chipper unit went bankrupt several years ago). Part of the reason I think they flopped is that they made their machines too well, and simply enough for just about anyone (even me) to maintain. I hit the hardware store last night for the right sized steel bar stock, treated myself to a new set of indexed drill bits, and made a new blade for the side-chipper from scratch. Pretty simple to do with a drillpress and some grinder time...like I said, Troybilt made no money selling spare parts...

So the shredder is ready to go when composting time hits, and I guess I'm about ready for it to be September....good thing too cuz' it won't be long now.

Next job up is to clean out the woodstove and start making room for firewood...

;D

[karma]

Glad you are pickin' and grinnin'! We have been eating and sharing what we have in the garden. Our corn has been picked, blanched and frozen already. The corn stalks have all been shredded and ready for the compost in the garden pile. We have just planted the fall crop!!

[Chief]

Crop of what??

I'm thinking of putting in some broccoli and a few 'sprouts...

[tefen]

We've got three small pumpkins outside already. I haven't really looked at the tomatos since we got back, we told the father-in-law to pick whatever he wanted when he came over to water them while we were gone.

[karma]

Fall Stuff, Chief. Peas, beans, onions and stuff like that for cooler weather!

[Chief]

ya know, I dan not considered a fall crop of peas, as I usually plant mine in February, but that ain't a bad idea....

I'll have a good sized bed opening up here as soon as the sunflowers are done...

[Waterbuffalo]

Should there be a gardener nostalgia thread for you two? <hehe..>

Didn't plant much this year because of health reasons that making walkings hard for me plus housing situation hasn't been too stable.. Hope that will change next year and I'll be adding small stuff just for myself. Not sure what I'll plant next year.

[karma]

Isn't it nice that Chief and I can give the Columbian some stuff to write about?

[Waterbuffalo]

Are you saying you want to be hired as Chief Conseur of many things (chief) and Gardening Tipsters (karma) that really could be a nice ?