Hot and Humid

SO, nothing much has changed. It's rained on and off almost everyday, I swear. We had rain 28 out of 30 days in June, and July feels like it should be pretty close to those figures. It's been hot and humid. We have had some nice days, but they are few and far between. I've been picking some of the jalapenos and the tomato plants are doing really well, just not turning red. I don't think any of our onions survived and were killed off by the rogue radishes we had. I think we're going to be green beaned out soon as well. Of course I need to make room in our freezer before we start freezing anything.
Since it has been raining so much, I've started re-organizing our house. Today we worked on the computer room. It's amazing how much space you have when you move all of the junk to a different room. We'll just have to deal with the aftermath tomorrow.

Awaiting Bounty

I went out to the garden today and it's looking pretty good, except for all of weeds. I haven't been able to weed because of all the rain. The thunderstorms last night started to unbury some of our onions. There are some tomatoes and one of them is even starting to turn red. Two of our pepper plants didn't make it, but the rest of them are OK. They haven't started to flower, but they did survive, which is half the battle.

Our tiger lilies have also bloomed and some of my wildflowers are starting to bloom as well. I'm not sure what flowers they are except for pretty. Once they get bigger, I'll post some pictures.

Will It Ever End?

The rain just doesn't seem to quit. My husband went out to mow the lawn yesterday and couldn't because the ground was too wet. Most of our garden has really taken off, but we can't get out and weed because it always rains when we have the time to do it.

So I guess it's on to indoor projects. I've been working on getting some of my recipes into the computer so I don't have as many loose papers to keep track of. Once I'm done with the loose papers, I'll move on to our favorite recipes from books. That way all of our favorite recipes will be located in one area, and I won't have to try and remember what book/magazine/paper it came from. I think it will be really helpful to have the recipes centrally located, not only for a fast reference, but to help keep clutter out of my cupboard. I'll post a picture of my plethora of magazines and cookbooks, just to show what kind of order needs to be done.

How Does Your Garden Grow

It has been absolutely gorgeous here for the last day and a half. It has actually stopped raining for more than six hours. Of course all of the rain has really made the garden take off. Of course our strawberries didn't really produce. It's been three years since we've planted them. I see little tiny berries start, but they never turn red. The rogue radishes that cropped up are already going to seed. Of course, one of us has to be home to actually start harvesting.

I also think our raspberries are going to have a had time producing. The weeds have almost completely taken over, so I'll have to see if I can't transplant some of the younger plants to somewhere else. We have a couple of spots that need plants, so maybe they will do better there.

Gardening

It has been really rainy for the past few weeks. We finally had the chance to get out and garden yesterday. I weeded the strawberries for almost an hour and didn't get all of it done. I did have to transplant a few rogue strawberry plants that had decided to grow on the lawn. I also transplanted some holly hocks that were trying to take over the strawberry patch. I'm not sure if the holly hocks will survive, but I tried. I also picked my rapidly growing rhubarb. Like I said, it's been raining here quite often and the rhubarb just took off! I cut it up, after giving half of what I picked to a friend, and got about 2 1/2 cups from what I picked. I made this really tasty, sugar-free strawberry rhubarb sauce. Of course we are out of ice cream and weren't able to try it out. Hopefully we'll be able to plant the rest of the garden this week, however they are calling for more rain for most of the week.

Rain, Rain

So, I have cut our seed potatoes Saturday so they can "cure" before they are planted. We were hoping to have them planted Tuesday, but alas, they still sit "curing" on my counter. It thunderstormed Monday night and rained on and off on Tuesday. There was even a chance of tornadoes. Today, it has been raining on and off again. Pretty soon it's going to be May and we're going to have a very late crop of potatoes. If my prepared potatoes are still good, that is. We still have a large quantity of seed potatoes, so we have an ample supply to try again. I don't know if they keep from year to year or not. I guessing not.

My husband and I aren't completely new to gardening, it's just been so long since either of us remembered planting some of the stuff we've decided to try this year. We've also decided to try the hanging tomato plants in hopes that the rabbits won't eat them off the vine. Of course gardening for us is always and exercise in patience, and somewhat futility, since there are so many rabbits in town. We're thinking about live trapping them and taking to them to the wildlife care center. We may even get some stray cats that we'll take to the shelter.

For now, we just wait for the rain to stop long enough to work in the garden again. I have some wild hollyhocks that need transplanting since they are in with our strawberries. But our strawberries looked to have survived another winter and our rhubarb has started to come up. Maybe this will be the year I can make strawberry-rhubarb preserves!