Let the harvest begin

Today was a the beginning of what I hope will be a good harvest from the garden. I picked harvested the rest of the garlic and have it hung for drying. The "Garden Sunshine" plants have been heavy with multiple peppers so I finally got around to picking them. I also ate one in a quesadilla for lunch and it was delicious. The fingerling potato plants have really started to lay over and brown up. At first, I thought I'd over-watered them but a friend told me that's just what they do when they're ending their growth cycle so I dug a good supply for roasting, along with some carrots, which have been ready for a few weeks. The green beans continue to produce in large amounts so I picked the trellis clean. My biggest excitement, however, was that I will soon have the first tomato of the year, as one of the Cherokee Purple variety has started to ripen. Despite getting the tomatoes in earlier this year, they've taken longer to ripen. I'm not sure if that's due to the drought or to the different variety. Last year the Stupice tomatoes were ready on July 4.

I also did some re-stringing of the tomatoes, which are getting very heavy now. I was convinced by a local farmer to try this method of stringing instead of staking but the result has been a big messy look and a constant struggle to keep them from falling over. Next year, I'm going back to the stakes.

Lastly, the melons and giant pumpkin have really started producing in the last week or so. I'll have four melons ready to pick this week and the main pumpkin on the vine has quadrupled in size in the last three days.

Buzzin' busy

My wife the beekeeper said it's past time to check on the bees again so last night she donned the gear and we lit up the smoker for a trip to the hive. We've been keeping them well fed and hydrated with a sugar water solution. They go through a full Mason sized jar about every two days, quicker if it's dry which it has been lately. She opened up the hive and was pleased to see that not only are the bees pulling out the cones but several have already been filled with honey and capped off. This will be their winter food source so this is a good sign of the health of the hive. We don't want things to get too crowded and risk the collapse of the hive so we're going to order a "super" to put on top of the hive body. This will give more room for them to expand and put away more honey, except that when we're ready to harvest, we'll take from the super and leave their original stores alone.

Oh, Deer Me!

We've seen what I assume is this same deer in our backyard several times for about a week now. Our yard seems to be a convenient cut through from the timberline across the street and down our fence to the park and on to more coverage. I wouldn't mind at all being the deer highway, except that this Bambi stops to "munch on our garden" as my three year old puts it. She's particularly fond of the tops of tomato, pepper, and strawberry plants. The fencing keeps her out of most of the garden but some is still exposed through the gateway and along the edge. I went to Southern States on Saturday to get some kind of anti-deer product (I hear bear urine is good but a little tough to come by) but they were closed. I'll try again next week.