Green Beans
I picked what I could of the green beans in my patch - only about 3 quarts. Then I went to the patch I have over at mom's and picked a whole half bushel (well - a bus tray worth - its a lot). I also picked some peaches while over at mom's. She has several trees that came up from the pits they use to throw out! Anyway, I took the green beans back to my farm house and started cleaning them and prepping for canning. Long story short: I was up until 4:00 am canning 12 quarts of green beans! I went back the next day and picked another bunch to take back to SS for processing. The ones I took back I froze in quarts - 8 quarts! All told I put-up 20 quarts of green beans this weekend!
Hawk
Well, I found out what was removing the bird protectors and breaking the persimmons tops out. A Hawk! I got a pic of him on the game camera. I looked it up and found out he is a "red-shouldered" hawk. A small hawk that eats small critters - voles for instance - which I think I saw him pick up!
Ditch Digging
I finally got around to working on the plow - man that was some work! I removed one of the two plow blades. I found that the plow framework is a bitch to work with due to its heavy nature and tendency to get out of alignment. Anyway, I finally got the plow ready and started plowing the ditch along the driveway to the barn when the shear bolt broke! I went back and installed 2 more before I gave up and replaced the bolt with a drill bit! Here is what the ditch looks like after I used the frontloader to clean it up a bit:
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| Ready for some rain! I am hopeful that this will keep some of the water out of my garden |
Grape vine powdery mildew
I was trimming around the grapes vines and looking them over. Most are growing nicely.
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| Almost to the top of the trellis! |
But then I noticed that some of the vines where having some issues. Powdery mildew! I looked it up to be sure. The articles that I read indicated that it can ruin fruit but that it is not fatal to otherwise healthy vines - unless they are young vines! I looked up how to treat this problem - organic solutions exist: garden sulfur or potassium bicarbonate. Fortunately I bought some potassium bicarb last year for treating squash leaf fungus (I never used it for the squash). I mixed up a gallon an saturated the vines good. It is supposed to be re-applied every week. We will see if it works.
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| powdery mildew causes those brown spots on the leaves. |
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| on the back of those leaves you can see the mildew itself - its quite thick on the leaves. |
Elderberries
The elderberries are getting close to ripe enough to pick! Unfortunately, I have noticed on the big bush that some have already ripened and been eaten off by birds! Arggh! I hope enough survive that I can make some jelly this year.
Sunflowers
Here are some pictures of the sunflowers!
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