Monday, June 6, 2011

Gardening Update


Summer is here, our thermometer read 102 on Friday, with a very high humidity. Being almost 6 months pregnant now, I'm feeling it more than normal. The key it to get out very early in the morning, when the heat is standable, and then very late in the evening, when the sun is going down. But anyways, here are a few updates from around our house.
You may not can tell too well, but here are a few stacks of wood that my husband and brother cut recently. The storms blew down a ton of large trees around our place, but the good news is that now we have enough wood for the winter.



Here is a picture of our well. There is a pulley system from the top, and the bucket can be raised from there. There is a lock on it, with a key hidden , just for safety precaution since we do have young children. Let me tell you , it has the coldest water I have ever tasted. So delicious.It has been here for about 90 years, and even though I'm no where near that old, I've been told that it's only been dry twice.
Our corn is growing nicely. We should certainly have some coming off by the fourth of July. I can almost taste how yummy it will be.
Our lovely grape vine. This produces some very sweet, seedless grapes. Our yield from this has been slowly increasing the last several years, and I'm hoping for the trend to continue.
This though is my pride and joy. I'm kind of taking the picture funny, at the end of the arbor, kind of underneath, but these are my muscadines. This is a grape like variety that grows well in the south. They do have a seed in them, but the girls never seem to care, they just pop them in their mouths, then spit out the seed. It makes delicious jelly and juice. I save some of the juice to freeze for smoothies, as well as just to drink like you would drink grape juice. These have just produced so, so well. Plus I think they are pretty beautiful.
Yes those are green beans that you spy! It won't be long until I can pick a nice mess for supper. It seems that no matter how many I plant, I never have many left over for canning. We eat these things as fast as they can get into the kitchen. I normally have enough for maybe a few pints, then the rest I put in our vegetable soup, the rest is just pure goodness we eat the same day they are picked.
Maybe I'll do a part 2 later this week to show you my tomatoes, peppers, herbs, squash, etc. This post is getting fairly long, and I don't want anyone to go to sleep here on me. Summer is here, it's hot, but the garden is growing great and we are getting to sample the goodies that lay ahead. Happy Homesteading all....

7 comments:

  1. Your grape arbor is just wonderful! It's hot here too. In the mid 90's. I try to get out early and then do stuff inside in the afternoon.

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  2. We have a grapevine, but it is nothing like yours!

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  3. Our actual grapes aren't near as big, it's the muscadine trellis that I'm so proud of. It seems that in the South they grow much better for us. Although there are some great vineyards around with grapes, I've never had a ton of luck with grapes here. Just the muscadines. Thanks for stopping by.

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  4. Love the muscadine grape arbor! We do pretty well with grapes in the Philly area; we should be getting tons this year for making jelly.

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  5. Everything looks great. And the well...how beautiful! We have a well that was dug...but the water is disgusting. We've been fighting with getting real drinking water from it since we moved in 4 years ago! Great blog!

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  6. I love this arbor! I recently inherited my dad's place along with some old and very runaway muscadine vines...I want to redo them and make an arbor like this....

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