Seminole Pumpkins and the bees

Just a quick post: 

Precious Virginia stumbled on these pictures while hanging out clothes today. She was carefully avoiding becoming entangled by the encroaching pumpkin when she noticed black circles in the blooms.

  

The bees love these plants.

 You should see them trying to fly away!

Seminole Pumpkins, the Kudzu of the Vegetable Garden

Recently David the Good posted an interview about his new thriller Turned Earth, A Jack Broccoli Novel. In it he talks about his love of pumpkins and the danger they pose. It took me back to a post that Precious Virginia made back in 2014. But before we go there. I have taken David's bait and planted some of the Seminole Pumpkins he raves about. We are beginning to have fruit, but the vines are already 20-25 feet in both directions. I tried to train them down the hill at the back of the garden. They proceeded to turn around and grow back up the hill. In the other direction, they are approaching the house already.

So innocent looking

Keep Moving. Nothing to see here.

Underneath the clothesline.

Somebody warn the neighbors. The pumpkins are coming. The pumpkins are coming.

Without further ado, here is what Precious Virginia posted way back in 2014.

Some of our vegetables are getting a little scary.

I think they are trying to take over.

The squash are at least semi-polite about it.

At least this one gave us fair warning when it ate the solar light.

It never went further than the other side of the sidewalk.

(Which makes me have to ask, "Why did the squash cross the sidewalk??")

It gives a LOT of squash to compensate.  I already have 24 bags in the freezer and we have been feasting on it a couple of times a week.

But the cucumber does not have the same politeness.

 It just comes right on into the basement 

 

and makes itself at home

Without even bothering to knock!

Major Fail: Pet food for fertilizer.

Who knew cat food would prove fatal for this Opossum?

I recently read an interesting article about using pet food for fertilizer, by David the Good. I found it interesting. We had some dry cat food that was bad, so I thought, let's put this to good use. I had a pumpkin plant that I placed it around. It seemed like such a harmless act on my part. The night before last, I caught sight of an opossum(possum to most of my people) late at night. He disappeared before I could properly counsel and deal with him. Last night around midnight the outside light was on and one of the cats indicated not all was right outside. I proceeded out and found him stuffing my cat food fertilizer in his mouth. I was prepared to properly counsel him this time. He did not receive my "counsel" well. I am sad to say this proved fatal to the poor creature. He died before he knew what happened. I guess you can call this reason .22 that you should not use pet food for fertilizer. It can prove fatal to the poor possums. As he thrashed about in his last moments he almost killed my pumpkin plant. Now that would have been a real shame. You just never know what you will find when you spend more time in your garden.

MM

Tillers, Broadforks, and Compost, OH MY!!

    We are gardening in the middle of Alabama. Like it or not, our soil is a heavy clay soil that compacts into a hard brittle soil.

Here is what our soil looks like uncovered.

    Up until this year I have battled this soil with a rotor tiller.  She has been a good tiller for the last nine years. I have spent many hours behind her. But this year I tried something totally different. I broke down and ordered a Treadlite Broadfork. I was skeptical when it arrived. And it was a challenge on the hardened clay soil. I have since learned that unlike the tiller, it works much better when my soil is wet; I can drive the broadfork deeper when the soil has some moisture. I have fallen in love with this tool. I never dreamed I could loosen my clay soil this effectively. WOW!

My new baby.

    This approach allowed me to greatly reduce my tilling. I still continued to use the tiller for some jobs for a while. But that is another story.

    Many years ago, I read Dick Raymond's gardening books. I walked away with an understanding of the importance of mulch for a garden. I have tried buying hay, scavenging bags of leaves off of the side of the road, Lasagna Gardening with cardboard and scrap paper, all with limited success. This year I realized that I had a wealth of leaves lying under some three acres of trees. I proceeded to drag the leaves up to the gardens. I managed to create a light leaf mulch over most of the garden. But dragging a tarp loaded with leaves up a hill over and over and over again gets old in a hurry.

    I had read David the Good's (yes that is how he refers to himself) book,
 Compost Everything: The Good Guide to Extreme Composting

     One of the things you realize in reading David's book is that there is no such thing as enough compost or mulch. He has an interesting alternative to stretch your compost. It is his own compost tea, swamp juice, or that nasty smelling 55 gallon drum at the edge of the garden, as Precious Virginia thinks of it. Here is the link to his video about his compost tea. 

That which should must not be disturbed.

    David's approach is an anaerobic compost tea. You toss in greens, browns, water, urine; any thing not banned by the EPA mainly. When he named his book, Compost Everything, he was not kidding. You are instructed to cover it securely. This is an important step. The lid I originally used did not fit as snugly as my current one. I think a new mutant-strain of fly has developed in there; they certainly have been prolific. 

Any way, several months ago I placed some around my early tomatoes in the back and the main tomato crop in the front. (They are doing quite well I might add. Details coming in a future post). As life gets crazy, special projects fall by the way side. Until the 4th of July.

Oh My, My, My!!!

    I celebrated the 4th of July by emptying the swamp juice.  Yes we do celebrate things a little differently in my neck of the woods.

The sludge was placed around the latest corn crop.

Castor Bean

 

Giant Dill Pumpkin.

  
    I used the liquid to fertilize most of the newcomers in the front garden as well as the sweet potatoes in the back garden. I will update you on the results. The foul odor of the front garden dwarfed the fowl odor of the chicken pen that day. Fortunately, I had a shower and the garden had a good rain shower.

    The leaf mulch I hauled in to the gardens was a great start. But it still seemed insufficient for my garden needs. The weeds still seemed in control and a good dry stretch of weather would take its toll. I needed to take it to the next level. What could I do for my poor garden? Stay tuned.

  

Successes and Failures-Safety Third

 I am going to be posting about the successes and failures in the gardens as on ongoing theme. Everyone who gardens will not have one without the other. At least that has been my experience. But remember that failures and successes do not define who you are. Who you are is determined by what you do with your successes and failures. There is much to learn from both your failures and your successes. Most of these posts will be about the garden. But when I came across this picture, I had to start with a more personal one.

You can teach an old coot new tricks!

I spent 59 years without using safety glasses. I was rather proud of that fact. The only minor complication was an occasional piece of trash in the eye that healed in a short time. That was until two years ago.

I was building this chicken tractor. Yes. We have chickens. 

Anyway, where was I? I was building this tractor. I had the grinder, from the first picture, in my hand. As usual, I had no eye protection. After all, eye protection was for sissies. Then the unexpected happened.

A small sliver of rusty tin buried itself in my right eye. Initially I thought I just had a bit of trash in my eye. Things went down hill from there. Fortunately, we have the Callahan Eye Clinic in Birmingham. They were able to get me in to see Dr. John Parker the next morning. My first experience with Dr. Parker was not a pleasant one. He had the tweezers and I was trying to keep my head absolutely still while he removed the sliver from my eye. But here is where God's providence came in. Dr. Parker is one of the best cornea doctors around. My vision had been diminishing over the previous years. He was able to look at my eyes and see the cataracts that were developing and even take some baseline images of my eyes for reference if I had cataract surgery. I have now had both eyes corrected by him. It has been a blessing to get to know him professionally and as a brother in Christ.
 
There are several lessons here in this failure and success. To begin with, make it a priority to wear eye protection when using power tools. Dr. Parker is even suggesting that I wear a hat to prevent macular degeneration at my age. That one is a tough habit to form, but I am working on it. The second lesson is, do not let Precious Virginia catch Marvelous Mark using power tools without eye protection any more. Enough said on that one. The third lesson is that God is at work even in our "failures." He can work to redeem a knucklehead putting a piece of metal in his own eye. What can he do in your life? Think about it.

MM