Garden Update June 14

Had a helper this weekend.

First let me start with a big thank you to a few folks.  My blog traffic has exploded as of late!  It all started when Angela over at Food Storage and Survival graciously used my syrup making entry as a guest post on her site.  The referrals really started pouring in after that feature.  Then I started noticing visits from Farm Life Lessons and Blissful in the Boonies becoming more regular.  Then I see a whopping 245 referrals this week alone from  Subsistence Pattern.  Whoa Nellie!  It's all probably from some web bot or something for all I know.  Maybe there are a few actual readers in there somewhere.   Thanks to those fine bloggers for listing me in their rolls.  Just in case those numbers include some real people....let me say...... I am humbled that anyone would really want to read what a random guy like me has to say.  I welcome those who have come across my little corner in the blogosphere.  Hopefully you get a little something useful out of my musings.

On to the garden update.  It's still dry.  I'll spare you that portion because I'm sounding like a broken record this spring.  It's starting to get hot too.  That's nothing new really.  Happens this time every year in South GA.  We did have a warmer May than usual, but now it's June and 100 degree days are the norm.  That signals the end of most gardening.  Even with good water most gardens just give up in the sweltering heat like that.

Some looked good, some not so much.
Freeze the good ones, cream the ugly ones.

Our home's staple veggie, snap beans, have been in abundance yet again this year.  As of this writing we have 47 quarts put away.  My Father has probably 10-15 more as well.  I figure we can get one more picking yielding 8-10 more quarts before they finally peter out.  They're rapidly nearing their end.  Our Squash ans cucumbers have continued to do decent.  After questionable beginnings I've been able to harvest 40 or so cukes.  One oddity is the single cucumber plant that I put in a half 55 gallon drum.  They taste like garbage.  So bitter that I can't eat them.  The plant is beautiful, but the cucumbers have all gone straight to compost. The issue now is to figure out why.  It is a different variety, but I wonder if it's the barrel.  I have a tomato plant in the other half of that particular barrel so that will be a good test in a week or so.

We broke about 15 ears of corn Saturday with mixed results.  Some looked nice while others had about half of the kernels aborted.  We froze the good looking ears whole and creamed the rest.  This Saturday is looking like the peak corn harvesting day.  This week I'll be really putting the water to it in hopes of giving a nice boost in the late stages of maturing.

I haven't talked deer in a while.  Ever since "super-mega-killowatt-death-fence-3000" zapped one curious visitor earlier in May, we have had no more intruders.  I hope this post doesn't jinx me, but after four years of trying every home remedy known to man, it seems like the electric fence is the winner.  Add the fact that my only cost was the charger itself and.......... well...... that's cool ;)

Y'all take it easy,

Alex