BMN Diligence Paying Off

Good Morning

Yesterday was pretty good for me; I did go down the hill and bust rocks. I needed the exercise and boy howdy swinging the 10 pound sledge hammer is serious exercise. Feel free to correct my negative thinking: I believe manual labor is becoming, if not already, a lost art. I didn't specifically ask Jack if anyone answered my plea to come to his aid, but I was in the ditch alone, again.

Anyway, I made some progress on breaking the big rock in his new leach field. What I did pleased Jack greatly. I got to burn hundreds of calories. Jack and I got to commune for a while. We discussed techniques for breaking rocks, furthering the art of sustainable lifestyles. These are all fine things, each good, together grand.

Please understand it is my only intention to encourage people to do these things. I truly believe we would all fare better the possibility of a worsening depression if we knew how to do things for ourselves. That is a big motivation for writing this newsletter.   

August-2012-Garden-Tobacco  Knock on wood this is the first time many of the plants haven't prematurely gone to flower. I think the shade cloth is making a big difference by keeping the intense sun normalized. 

August-2012-Garden-lettuce  Finally the lettuce growth is outpacing the varmints' eating habits. I planted more lettuce, and some is coming up. I read in Mother Earth News that this is a good time to do a second planting of Kale, and other frost resistant varieties. I think we only have one kale plant of all those that I started. I might just try the Fall garden idea. Who knows though with Climate Change what to expect. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a killer freeze earlier than ever before. 

August-2012-Garden-peppers  Finally we got some peppers to grow. These are mildly hot. we've eaten two already.

August-2012-Garden-peppers-carrots  Last night I prepared steamed string beans and learned why they are called that. Nell said I was supposed to remove the string, whoops. The meal was delicious, with steamed spinach, on a bed of brown rice, and sauteed, onions, zucchini, from the garden and Portabella mushrooms from the grocery store. Pretty good though, only two ingredients weren’t from the garden. 

August-2012-Garden-corn-squash-beans  This is also the first time we've gotten corn to grow. I am making my own fertilizer. In a 55 gallon open top drum, I fill it half full of clean horse manure, place a pinch of Septic Helper 2000 from Miller Plante, and fill the drum with water, let it sit for a few days and draw off a few five gallon buckets of liquid to put on the gardens. This adds nitrogen and helpful bacteria to the soil, keeping it alive and active.    

August-2012-Garden-zuccini-squash It looks like we're about to have a torrent of zucchini, as long as the God of hail says we will. Those are potatoes in the foreground, We picked one potato already. It was on the surface in the lower garden begging to be harvested. It was also the largest potato we've ever grown, a good sign indeed.

August-2012-Garden-front-garden  Our front garden it doing equally well. The hollyhocks, all red and white give a lovely splash of color to an otherwise barren landscape due to this killer drought. We do have a 1000 gallons of rainwater stored now, thanks to two showers recently. In the foreground are a couple of broccoli, with bell peppers below. So far the bell peppers haven't flowered. They better soon or it'll be too late. Those are Mums behind the broccoli, and more onions on the right. The strawberry barrels look good, but the varmints are reaping harvest. We need to put some netting over them.     

August-2012-Garden-front-garden-unidentified-flower  I was thinking this is a snapdragon, but I don't know for certain. A late planting of beets, spinach, lettuce are seen coming in beneath.

August-2012-Garden-front-garden-petunia-celosia  Not too many Celosia survived the Memorial Day freeze. The three or so that did haven't grown much. 

August-2012-Garden-greenhouse-tomatoes  The cherry tomatoes are ripening. Every day we get another hand full to eat. The larger tomatoes are getting there too. I've over fertilized these plants as evidenced by the leaf discoloration. Again if they don't hurry the hell up it freeze and that will be that.

August-2012-Garden-Buddy-Lets-go  Buddy giving me that morning look. As if to express, "Are you done bragging on yer silly plants? Let's get going."

Okay, Jack just welded the two awesome little brackets I cut out yesterday for Desertgate. Thank you, thank you

Gotta run. Crap do I ever? it is 9:30AM.

Y'all have a great week end
Brian Rodgers

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