So we are settling back in to the routine here at home. Working through laundry from the trip. Getting time in at the office. Starting to harvest some things in earnest. Pond is doing well, and while we are not inundated with frogs, there is a good number, and the grasshopper populations are going down. This pickerel frog is resting on a clump of creeping charlie I set on a piece of floating wood in the pond weeks ago. Gives the frogs a nice place to think they are hiding when I take photos of them.
Violet enjoyed watching the frog as well, declaring “BIG FROG!” over and over again. <grin> It is pretty big. Probably 5 inches from nose to butt.
A lot of people think we live on a huge farm. We do not. We do borrow property elsewhere for growing things, but we pack a lot into our backyard. Took this photo standing on the deck railing, holding the camera as high as I could to show the pond, and the trellis systems behind it back to the rear fence in our yard, facing north.
That is the view east, when standing on the deck railing. All trellises with things planted between as well.
And the between shot. Facing north east.
This is an experiment I am doing on the rear fence, where I am growing Super Canabec tomatoes, which are a semi determinate tomato, and I planted pole beans among the tomato plants to tie them to the wire and twine trellis and hold them upright. So far, so good. The tomato plants have set fruits and are being held upright by the beans. The beans can just be left alone until frost as they are for dry beans. Trellis goes to about 7 feet, which is much taller than the tomatoes will get, and Super Canabec are not incredibly huge tomatoes. That is a Copenhagen cabbage in the foreground. Going to have to start fermenting them soon. Heads are getting big.
Started harvesting onions. Pulled the 100 long storage onions I had in my yard as more than half were laying down. I will wait until the tops start to dry and then braid together into groups of a dozen or so, and just hand them inside until we need them.
I have a lot of basil plants in the yard. About 40. This is a group of 8 I planted early, and kept sheltered under cloches during most of the cold wet spring. They are well ahead of all the rest of my basil. I harvested a lot before vacation and took it up north with us for cooking. Plants were twice the size by the time we got back. Today I cut them down to half height. Helps prevent it from setting flowers, and every stem you cut, it sends up two new stalks, so, up to a point, the more you cut, the more you end up with later.
Ended up with a couple of pounds of basil, and divided it into multiple bundles, tied them up and suspended them from the ceiling from hooks in the dining area where they won’t get bumped while they dry. Last winter I ran out of dried basil. I go through a lot of it when I am processing tomatoes, and Frank and I start actively making pesto sauce, but for now I just want to restock the dried because we love having the dried basil and oregano topping cheese on winter pizzas.
Area where I pulled garlic before vacation, I dropped in bean seeds. Just a dry variety, and might, or might not make it to maturity before it gets cold, but either way, I still win. Garlic sucks a lot of nutrients out of the soil. The bean plants put a lot back in. Might get dry beans from them too. No point letting the area go to waste.
You may have noticed that there is a lot of milkweed in my yard. I have found it to be one of the best attractants for pollinators to have in the yard. I am also glad to see that monarchs have found it as well.
My mom called me today at the office with a report on the blackberry patch there. Plants are loaded with berries, but nearly all hard and green, with just a few starting to show some pink. A few weeks yet until we make a trip/s down there for what may be the last harvest from the patch I put in there a decade ago.
So that was this evening. Nothing earth shattering. Beautiful weather. Cool, and honestly this whole year has been cooler than the norm of the last 30 years, but more typical of prior to that. No rain forecast for the next 5 days or so. Frank and I plan on working at the Minnetonka garden together tomorrow. Will try to remember to bring the camera and show how that location is doing.
