While we were gone, the garden exploded with growth the tomatoes are so burdened with green fruit that the trellises are coming out of the ground and falling over. We have Swiss chard leaves that are as big as your head. I like looking at them. They remind me of the primordial plants the dinosaurs would eat.
Over by the bunny shed is where the ducks lived in the winter. I had a greenhouse set up for them where they could shelter from the snow and then they slept overnight in the bunny shed with the bunnies so they had like a run around those two buildings. I would feed them the baby tomatoes from my vegetable plates and the result of that there’s about 10 tomato plants in that area hidden amongst the waist high weeds. I don’t want to mow over there and mow down all the tomato plants so we have a little jungle with just a very tiny foot path through to the door of the bunny shed.
Even though the house sitter was harvesting from the garden while we were gone, I still came home to a bunch of squash and cucumbers, ready to pick. No zucchini yet though. It seems weird to complain about zucchini when normally I’m drowning in them this time of year. Squash, zucchini and cucumbers are amongst the plants along with beans and peas that the more you pick the more will grow. If you stop picking the plant will stop making more stuff so you really have to stay on top of them and continue to pick. I went out and I picked all the stuff that I could see. I prefer to pick squashes young, especially the summer squash. I don’t want them to get more than two fingers width and the length of my hand that keeps them tender and sweet. They get a little woody and dry when they get too big and the skin gets tough.
Of course you have to be careful with zucchini plants. They’re very sneaky one day there will be no zucchini and the next morning you’ll come out to a zucchini that you could use as a club that weighs 35 pounds so I will continue to vigilantly check the plants.
I planted an abundance of squash and pumpkins this year. I tucked them in anywhere that there was space or empty ground so I suspect we will have a lot of hidden gems in a couple months hiding in amongst the wild, tangled leaves. I also spotted a little baby watermelon (palm size). I’ve never successfully grown a melon before, so I’m excited at the prospect because I love to eat them.
As seems to be my usual mode of operation, I got my three sisters garden in very late. Probably about three weeks later than I should’ve. That also exploded in growth while we were gone. We’ll see how it ends up. I planted everything at the same time, which you’re not supposed to do, you’re supposed to wait for the corn to be a certain size before you put in the beans and then the beans to be a certain size before you put in squash. I planted everything on the same day because I was so late so a lot of the beans have disappeared under the squash leaves. I’m not sure how much of that will survive, but I intend to let them sort themselves out.
The corn is a little small for where we’re at in the summer. Technically, the rule for corn is that it’s supposed to be knee-high by the Fourth of July and it’s the end of July and my corn is about knee-high now, so as you can see I’m about three weeks behind, but I have had corn still give me corn when planted late. It’s just a matter of – Are we gonna have an early frost? I’m betting on a late frost. If we have an early frost, I will get probably no corn.
We did not end up getting ducklings. I waited and waited. She very diligently sat on her eggs, but we had a heat wave where it was 100°+ multiple days in a row and I think that killed the ducklings at mid development. I did finally end up throwing the eggs away and one of them was partially open, she had eaten some of the shell away, and it was partially developed. I think what happened is we basically produced homegrown balut. Not the ending I was hoping for. But the ducklings delivered in the mail in May are almost full size now so we’re still going end up with more than 10 ducks and our ratios will be good. We got all girl ducks in the new batch, so once they are completely fully grown, I’ll integrate them with the adult ducks. I probably will just wait until the fall when I have to move everybody into their fall/ winter area and then we’ll put everybody together. So no ducklings from our flock this year but I’m content to let her try again because I don’t think it was anything she did. I think it was the heat wave which is not something that neither she nor I can control.
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