Our first tomato!

We got our first tomato last night from the garden!  It's from a "volunteer" plant (one that came up on it's own where we had tomatoes last year).  It's about an inch and a half in diameter.  We also got 3 zucchini, 3 burpless cucumbers, and a bunch of crookneck/straighneck squash. 

It looks like the black eyed peas have started to grow...yay!  They actually may grow taller than the okra soon. 

The zucchini is growing great also.  We have gotten 5 so far...yummy yummy!  My sister, L, fried some up last night the way we fry crookneck squash and it was yummy.  I steamed some in the microwave and my grandmother tried it, but she didn't care for it much.  My dad declined to try it. 

The cushaw squash plants are HUGE!  They are beginning to grow out of the row...not sure what I'll do about that yet.  I think they aren't ready to harvest until late summer, so it could be a long wait.

Our Cherokee Trail of Tears beans are doing okay.  We had a small mess and my grandmother cooked them up.  She said they were a little tough, but we haven't given up yet.  We've started picking them a bit younger.  We had another mess, but there was a kitchen "incident" and the beans didn't make it.  We picked last night and got half of a five-gallon bucket of beans.  It came out to be about two gallons or so of snapped beans.

On Saturday, I color coded the tomato plants in our tomato garden.  I took about a 12 inch long piece of colored yarn and put on the cage, by variety.  I am also making and laminating a card with the name of each variety on it and putting a piece of the yard on it.  I will have each one with a binder ring so we can just snap them onto the bucket and know which variety is which.

Daddy got irrigation to the watermelon plants and they are really growing.  This picture was taken last week and they have almost doubled in size since then.

The three on the left are Georgia Rattlesnake watermelons and the three on the right are Jubilee watermelons.  Both are the seeded oblong watermelons.  I can't wait! 

My in-laws will be in town this weekend.  I brought home some of the potatoes, beans, squash, zucchini, and cucumbers to do a really yummy dinner...will share after I cook it! 

Enjoy your day!



Garden Update - Saturday, June 9, 2012

Yesterday was Saturday, aka "Garden Day."  We met my dad for breakfast at Waffle House then headed to my grandmother's to play in the dirt.  

The only "work" that needed to be done was to put cages around some of the unruly tomato plants.  Oh, and weeding...always weeding.  Then of course, it was time to pick the crookneck squash...yay!  I love getting the food out of the garden.

So first I went and checked out the garden and picked squash.

Row 1 (Silver Queen Corn & Contender Green Beans):  the corn is growing great.  The beans are growing, too, even though on each end they are struggling.  

Row 2 (Clemson Spineless okra and California Black Eyed Peas):  this is the only row that doesn't have boards to define the row.  We have re-planted the peas on this row twice.  The first time we re-planted, some of the peas came up (you can see some of the taller ones).  The new peas are starting to break the ground now...yay.  I hope they come up really well because this is one thing my grandmother requested.

Row 3 is a repeat of Row 1, but has 3 Crookneck Squash at the end of it:

Row 4 (Russian Mammoth Sunflowers & Henderson's Baby Lima Beans with 4 Crookneck Squash):

Row 5:

Black Beauty Eggplant

Bottle Gord:  (the tag says apple gord, but we decided to use the bottle gord after I had made the label...oops)

Pickling Cucumbers:  

Butternut Squash:

Green Striped Cushaw Squash:

Sweet Potatoes:

Zucchini

Green Bean Arch (Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans):

My grandmother found some beans that should be ready in a few days.  There are TONS of blooms and they are GORGEOUS!

Now on to the tomatoes...if you ever have a tomato plant that gets unruly before you are able to get a cage around it...here's the answer.

Step 1 - Find a medium sized cardboard box.  Cut off either the top or bottom flaps and open it up on one side so it's just a long piece of cardboard.  Then roll it up:

Step 2:  Lift up the tomato plant on one side and put the middle of the non-flapped side of the box as close up against the base of the plant as you can.  Then gently wrap the sides of the box around the plant, drawing the two ends together.  If you are doing this by yourself, have a clip or small spring clamp to hold the box together.  Then slip the tomato cage over the box.

Step 3:  Gently lift the cardboard out of the cage:

Voila! 

Here is the tomato garden.  We still need to color code the cages since we are going to try to keep all the same kind of tomato together this year when we harvest.  Maybe I should laminate some tags rather than color?

I took the squash I gathered and canned it up.  It's an experiment really.  I know that squash should be pressure canned, but we want to preserve it to fry and pressure canning makes it mushy.  Freezing does, too.  So, I do not advocate in anyway anyone doing this.  We did it to try and see what happens. (NOTE...it did NOT work...do NOT try this please!)

Squash harvest:

I sliced the squash and put it into quart jars.  I then added 1 teaspoon non-iodized salt and 2 tsp vinegar to each jar.  I poured boiling water over it, got the air bubbles out, wiped the rims, and put lids and rings on the jars.  We water-bathed them for about 30 minutes.

I also weeded out the watermelon patch.  They are growing great!  They have even started to vine out.  However, my phone died before I could get a pic!  Ugh!  So, that will have to be next time.  It's supposed to rain today through I think Wednesday or Thursday.  Hopefully, if we get rain, it will be a slow, steady rain.

On the weight loss surgery front, the doctor sent me two...I guess presentation is the best word...to watch.  One on the band and one on the vertical sleeve gastrectomy.  So I watched those last night.  Really not anything I didn't know except on the band one, it said that part of your stomach would be sewn around the band to hold it in place...that sounds weird.  But we shall see...appt in 3 weeks.

Hope everyone has a beautiful day!

Kelly

Welcome to my brain dump!

So I have been thinking about doing a blog for a while.  Mostly to share everything that runs through my brain - my brain dump, if you want to call it that - it seems most appropriate. 

I am working on an awesome garden this year with the help of my wonderful dad, incredible grandmother, and awesome son. 

I am also starting the process of having weight loss surgery. 

Between these things, having a husband and six year old son, a full time job, and all the other little life things that pop up, sometimes I forget what I just thought 5 minutes ago.  I try keeping journals and lists, but sometimes, my little brain just needs to wander. 

I've been trying for a few weeks to come up with a blog name.  Nothing seemed right.  This morning on the way into work, I was listening to one of my fav's - Miranda Lambert.  Everybody Dies Famous In A Small Town...isn't that the truth!  Part of the chorus is "Every last one, route one, rural heart's got a story to tell" and it hit me - that's it!  So here it is, my rural heart's story to tell. 

First off - weight loss surgery.

I have been overweight my entire life.  Well, let me take that back.  When I was four, I started clogging in a group and I did that for six years until I was 10.  When I was 10, I decided I would rather be in girl scouts than clogging.  I clogged twice a week for a couple of hours each time.  I stayed thin.  Well, no more clogging and I started gaining weight.  I am 34 years old and at my highest weight of about 335, give or take a few pounds. 

A few years ago, my sister L had gastric by-pass surgery.  She had some minor complications with it, and seems to be doing great with it now.  She looks AWESOME!  My best friend, TK, had LapBand 2 years ago.  She looks incredible also.  I have tried Weight Watchers, the Duke Diet, and several other "I'll eat better and exercise" tries.  I don't have the self-control to not scarf everything in sight.  So, I believe weight loss surgery could be the tool I need.

I have my initial consultation Friday, June 29 at 1:30...woot woot!

Second - my garden.

This has quickly become my sanity check.  I forgot how relaxing weeding can be!  We have 5 rows at my grandmother's house.  In past years, there hasn't been much serious gardening going on.  Someone else did the garden one year, then last year I decided I wanted to do it and learn to can.  My dad had his tomatoes in one and a half of the rows.  This year, I kept coming up with new things I wanted to try.  So, he started a new tomato garden behind the house.  So technically, we have four "gardens" there.  One is the five-row garden, then there's the green bean arch, the tomato garden, and the watermelon patch. 

In the "garden" I have them planted:

Row 1 - Silver Queen Corn in the middle and Contender Bush beans on either side

Row 2 - Clemson Spineless Okra in the middle and California Black Eyed Peas on either side

Row 3 - same as row 1 in first half - Silver Queen Corn in the middle and Condender Bush beans on either side.  We also have a couple of Crookneck Squash plants on the end of this row

Row 4 - Russian Mammoth Sunflowers in the middle with Henderson's Bush Baby Lima Beans on either side.  There are also Crookneck Squash plants on the end of this row

Row 5 is truly my experiment row - the only thing in this row that I have ever grown before are the cucumbers and the squash...everything else is my first time growing.
3 zucchini plants
1 bush burpless cucumber hybrid
9 sweet potato plants
2 green striped squash (I have never seen these before.  Apparently they grow HUGE so I'm excited to see what they become) - if anyone has any great recipes, please let me know!
1 butternut squash
3 cantaloupe
2 bush pickling cucumbers
1 bottle gord
1 Black Beauty eggplant
1 Crookneck Squash

Watermelon patch currently has 6 hills - 3 each of Georgia Rattlesnake and Jubliee watermelons. 

At the green bean arch, this year we have only planted Cherokee Trail of Tears beans.  We had a few plants last year on this arch as an experiment, and my grandmother loved them so much she asked we do the whole thing in them this year. 

I will have to find my list of what kind of tomatoes Daddy has planted.  I know there are a lot of them though.  We do have a whole row of Celebrities.  They seem to have less acid in them and do really well in vegetable soup.

I know this has been a long post, and if you've hung in, I appreciate it.  I am really looking forward to posting and updating everything!

Kelly