Hickory nuts (and butternuts)!

Nut harvest!

Well this was unanticipated!  Evidently this is a "mast" year - when the nut trees produce a huge amount of nuts to overwhelm the squirrels so they can get a chance at reproducing.   I had my eye on a couple butternut trees this year, but as I was going around and collecting the butternuts, I discovered that a lot of the hickory nut trees that I thought were "pig-nuts" (a variety of hickory nut that is flavorless and small) were actually true hickory nuts and quite good and productive!  So I went around and collected the nuts from around the trees on the edge of my big field.  I am sure that there are many more nuts in the forest, but finding the nuts and gathering in the forest floor would be much more difficult.  Also, how many nuts do I need?  They are a bugger to crack and shell out!

The more oblong nuts are the butternuts.  The rounder (somewhat smaller) nuts are the hickory nuts.

Strange tracks in the mud

I was out picking nuts and found this print in the mud.  I have no idea what it is.  Kind of looks like a dog, but its BIG!  

Compare the size to my foot in the lower part of the picture.  Fairly large paw print!

I couldn't find anymore decent prints.  Leaves covered too much of the mud to get anymore.

More pinto bean picking

It dried off long enough to get into the patch to pick more beans.    The weather did not help these beans any this year, that's for sure!  These beans shell so nicely!

These have stayed in the garden too long and have begun to sprout and mold due to the moisture.  Ideally I would have had these all picked 1-2 weeks ago, but rain had other plans.

More grape arbor posts rotting off

Found another post had rotted off at ground level.  I knew these posts were not in it for the long haul when I used them, I just didn't have any good options when I put this arbor up.   I did hope that they would last longer than 3 years though!  I put this arbor up in 2014 when I planted the first grape vines!  I hope the new posts that I used for the 2nd wave of grapes does better (those newer posts are treated with CuNap and I believe few are even locust).  Anyway, I need to get to work and save/mill some posts.  I will need posts not just for the arbors, but also for the fence I am going to build around the grapes.

These are the newer arbor posts.  They are treated with CuNap and some are even locust.  They should last over 10 years if not way longer!

The lower left one is the most recent to rot off.  It's probably going to be a pain to replace!

Some of the others are showing some signs of decay as well.

This one took a lot of bracing.  

Pinto beans, wildlife - the turtles and the bees?

Pinto Bean Harvest

The pinto beans were in a patch that was flooded and partially washed out, not to mention attacked by rabbits (and a groundhog, perhaps), and overgrown with weeds (I was able to cultivate it ONCE - it was too wet the rest of the time).  Anyway, I had to go in and pick what beans I could find.  I was able to harvest probably 8-10 lbs of beans!  Not bad considering the situation.

Filled in around porch

I moved and leveled the porch last weekend, but there were gaps around the house and base of the porch that I wanted to fill in with dirt.  This weekend I got a couple of front-end-loaders full of dirt and fill in a bit.

There was a hole on this side - in the corner next to the house, that I am pretty sure a groundhog had been using (or had plans to use) for a den.  I wanted to shut down such a bad idea.

European Hornets

I was in the kitchen when I noticed this guy on the kitchen screen door.  These guys are all over the pears and apples!  I need to figure out how to eradicate them!  They are eating a significant amount of fruit and they are quite disturbing.

They are about twice the size of a regular bald-faced hornet!  Thankfully, they seem to be relatively docile.

Turtles!

I caught these two doing this outside!  Such naughty turtles! LoL

More summer squash!

Yep, well into fall now - but the summer squash are doing fine!  Will this be the last harvest?   The plants are looking pretty rough...

Winter squash (buttercup) are doing fine

There some decent looking squash coming on.    Wouldn't have minded a few more - but maybe there are enough...

Confused Forsythia

I discovered a number of forsythia that were putting out blooms!  They normally bloom in the spring.  Weirdness.

Pinto bean picking continues

It goes slow with all these weeds!  Hard to even see the beans in there.

Beans, strawberries, apples. First elderberry picking!

English walnut - I have one!

According to the internet English walnuts shouldn't product until their 6th year.  I planted these 2 year old trees 2 years ago - so they are only 4, but I found a nut on one of them!  Cool.

I have never seen a "real" english walnut - this will be new for me.

Cabbages, broccoli, and eggplants...

Not sure how the eggplants got in there though!  I am wondering if they got the seeds mixed up?

I wasn't able to tell which plant was which when I planted them but I lucked out and planted mostly cabbages!

Corn is growing fast too

Eggplant is actually doing well.

Cabbages are doing nicely.  I have been keeping up on the sevin

Strawberries

The ever-bearing strawberries kicked in again.  We didn't get a huge amount - maybe half-gallon at most.  We have just been eating these - no processing.

This is all of the berries that we brought back this weekend.  We did eat some there though.  Notice the bramble berries?  They are coming in too!

Blueberries

The few that are on are getting ripe.  We picked a couple handfuls for eating.  More to come.

Those radishes should be harvested soon probably

Bean patch

I was finally able to get into the bean patch to run the hoe.  Its just been so wet I didn't dare get in there before now.

Greenbeans are blooming

Pinto beans are a bit sparse.  I didn't plant seed beans - just dried beans from the market.  Also, I didn't count on a river running through this patch!

The patch actually looks ok from this angle!

The "green-beans" (velour? accelerate?) are on the right - they are planted in rows that are closer together.  

First of the elderberries this season!  

Some of the elderberry plants are diseased or dying for some other reason, so I picked the berries off of them (since they ripen earlier when that happens).  I didn't think I had that many - but after I picked them I found it made quite a pile!

We took these back to the city and de-stemmed and processed them for the freeze-dryer.  They are still drying as I type this.

First apples of the season!

The pristine apples had enough ripe to pick this weekend.  I got about 15 of them I think.  I ate a couple, gave Tom one and brought a bunch into work to share (and eat).

They are a tangy apple - but juicy and sweet as well.  Best early apple that I know of.