She’s baaaack. Definitely an uptick in the eating department.

Another self inflicted crop failure. I planted peas, dwarf sugars, almost two weeks ago and got zero germination. I checked the seed pack and it was 2009 seed which means I probably bought it in 2008. I really should check the dates on seed packs before using and just toss stuff older than 2 years. I have plenty of fresh seeds and a new variety I wanted to try, Avalanche, so using the old, suspect seed is just dumb.

I had to discontinue my experiment with the vinyl tiles under butternuts. In two days 6 of the butternuts on top of the tiles started rotting. I have no idea why, heat buildup, gas emissions……..? So I quickly removed the tiles from those that seemed OK and replaced them with folded newspaper. As the vines grow, they continue to pop out new gourds and I’ve always experienced drop off among the first to form but this seemed excessive to me.

We had a cold front move through which dropped our daytime highs to 87 and the nighttime lows to 68. Based on that, I decided to move to the wild side and plant a carrot patch. I put them in right beside the onion patch. The nice thing about planting these root crops is that you can plant them quite densely so it only takes a small space to get something going. Last year was our first really good carrot year which I attribute to the soft, organic nature of the soil now. The variety that worked so well is Ya Ya. I still have plenty of that seed but decided to first go with an old standard, Nantes. One reason for that is that Nantes was the first variety I tried and experienced nearly a total crop failure. If my premise that the soil is now ready is valid, then the Nantes should work. If not, back to the Ya Ya.

Wonder if this record cold hitting the North country will regrow the arctic ice pack. I wonder more if we’ll hear about it if it does.

I’m noticing a slight shift in the media towards probing the current administration’s problems. Even CNN is finally reporting on the administration’s handling of international problems. I think they’ve been embarrassed by how obviously biased they’ve been and that they are generally losing credibility with the public and becoming irrelevant. I think they’re also getting concerned that their partisanship is going to cost them access if perhaps Romney wins. It may also be dawning on them that Romney was the governor of Massachusetts so deep down inside, he’s one of them. Then there’s the rats leaving the sinking ship theory; hedging their bets; covering all the bases etc etc.

GO GATORS! #4 in the nation. I would never have guessed they would crack the top 10 at the beginning of the season and the schedule ahead of them is tough enough to advance even further if they take care of South Carolina in two weeks. Beating Tennessee and LSU in the same season is a big win – taking down Georgia would finish off the big rivalries. The South Carolina game is big but it’s not a long running rivalry – still beating Spurrier brings it’s own joy.

The first official job when Nancy gets home is to pickle another batch of peppers. The first batch we made has been totally consumed and we need at least another 4 jars to make it through the winter. There are still plenty of blossoms on the jalapeno bushes so perhaps there could even be a fourth batch.


Picked up a pound of onion sets which worked out to be 110 bulbs. After planting half, I’ve decided to stop by the hardware store and get another pound. I’ll plant about half in two weeks and the last batch in early November-that should keep us in onions through the spring. This will be the earliest I’m getting them in but from all I read, nows’ the right time. Onions are cheap veggies so the financials might not seem to make much sense but the convenience of having them close by and the fact that you can pick and use them at almost any point along the growth curve, and that after picking they hold well, makes them mandatory from Nancy’s perspective. I just like the way they grow. I plant 16 of them per square foot so they really don’t take up much room, similar to carrots – which will start going in by the end of the month, maybe a few sooner.

Lots of bean blossoms. I started seeing bush bean blossoms mid week and by the end of the weekend, they were dense. No signs of blossoms on the pole beans on Sunday – quite a few on Monday so things happen overnight. According to calculations using the supplier’s data, we shouldn’t expect to be picking any beans until November but my guess now is that we’ll start before the end of this month.

Trying something new (to me) with the butternut squash this year. The plants are going gangbusters and putting out plenty of gourds, some of which drop off and some of which go on to maturity. One thing that happens to gourds as they grow is that they occasional attract a borer and occasionally start to rot where they’re directly on the ground. My thinking is that if I set the gourds on something that eliminates direct contact with the ground, the rotting problem would be reduced or eliminated. When we installed the sheds, we finished the plywood floor with stick-on vinyl tiles and had a handful left over. I spotted them yesterday and thought they might find a use as mats under the butternuts. So as of now, there are a dozen butternuts sitting on vinyl tiles. In the process I clipped off about half that many which were turning yellow and certainly not going to mature. These plants are quite young in their cycle so I’m guessing that there will be loads and loads of butternuts before the frost gets them.

Let’s see if I have this right – a month before the election we get a jobs report showing very poor performance in terms of adding jobs and the unemployment rate drops. Hmmmm – perhaps a little Chicago counting? Good news for Obama – both Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela have voiced support for Obama. I’ve never been happy with the choices this year and still feel like this an election between a Democrat and a Socialist and I hate it that I’m going to have to vote for a Democrat/Massachusetts Republican.

On Monday I went to the post office as usual, nothing unusual. On Tuesday I got there and realized that the key to the box was not in the console of the car as usual. Apparently I had somehow not returned it to the designated spot. The post mistress recognized me and gave me my mail after I explained that I had lost the key. She said no one had turned any in so I was fairly sure I had just left them in my pants pocket. Nope. I tore the house up and double checked the car. No key. We do have a spare so my plan was to get a duplicate made at the local ACE hardware. I decided to go by the Post Office first to pick up the mail and check once again if it had turned up. Sure enough, twenty minutes before I got there, a woman brought them in. I asked if she said where she found them and learned that they turned up between the seats in her truck. How bizarre is that. My guess is that I left them sitting on a sorting table and the next customer used the same table and just swept them up along with her own mail. Turns out that you can’t dupe the key anyway so good that it turned up.

Got a call from little Tommy and he’s experiencing his first North Dakota snowstorm. They’re expecting 6-12” which is not exactly a light dusting. I keep close track of his weather and saw it coming but was pleased that he called to give me a first person report. He’s coming home for Thanksgiving and his birthday so by then he will have experienced the real thing. Can’t wait to talk to him then. He’s a journalist and the elections will be over by then so we should have some great discussions.

We’re having an unusual citrus year. Between us and George, we have multiple varieties of oranges, grapefruits, tangerines, satsumas,and limes. In each case, the fruit is maturing 2 months ahead of schedule and is much smaller than normal. I noticed it first on the white grapefruit since it’s closest to the house and was concerned that maybe the tree had the grunge or something. Now I’m suspecting it goes back to the warm winter we had last year. My guess is that it’s not going to be as sweet as usual since, according to the experts, it takes a cold snap to sweeten the fruit and we’re months away from a cold snap.

I find it hard to believe that the presidential debates mean anything at all. It’s inconceivable to me that people who haven’t already decided are the kind of people that watch debates. I could understand it better if both candidates were new but with an incumbent, you have 4 years of history on which to make your judgement-either you’re happy with the past 4 years or you’re not. Personally I don’t think the incumbent should be allowed to campaign. He has an important job and we learn every day if he’s doing it well. One way or another he’s on TV every day so over the 4 year span, there’s plenty of exposure and surely anyone who is remotely interested, doesn’t need to hear campaign ads or debates. We know where his head and policies are so let’s just hear from the challenger.

Right now, the lake is at the level we’d like to see coming out of the dry season, not going into the dry season. I’m hoping we see an unusually wet fall and winter to get it up another foot or so before the nursery winter draw downs happen.

Planted the last batch of pole bean seeds and the last zucchini bush seeds on the first of October. That’s the third and last planting of each. That’s been the plan and it seems to be working out well. The first batch of beans was planted a month ago and those are now reaching 10′ tall, hopefully getting ready to pop out some blossoms. The seeds just planted should be producing in December and is my hedge against a warm winter or a later than normal killing frost. The pic shows the generational situation. Obviously the tall ones are the oldest; the shorter bushes to the left are two weeks behind; and you’ll have to believe me that seeds are planted under the left most poles.

At this point, the fall portion of the crops are 100% on the way and will give way to winter plants from here on out. The fall crops represent about a third of the available space in the garden. I have 50+ plants in starter pots that will start making it to the garden this week. I’m hardening them now by sitting them in the sun and cutting back on their water. If they are simply transplanted from the moist, shady environment they’ve lived in so far, the shock will take a heavy toll. By the end of October the winter plants should bring the garden up to the three quarter point in terms of space utilization. At that point I plant the root crops, beets, carrots, onions and radishes, to finish it off. As the fall stuff finishes up, that’s replaced with hard winter plants such as spinach and other regular cool weather plants on a space available basis.

Nancy got off for her Salt Lake trip bright and early – a 5AM wake up for us. I don’t have any big projects set up for this trip so it will be just business as usual. On the way over to the airport, I ran over something large and white which woke both of us up, big time. It was either a really large, white dog or a goat or perhaps a deer – already dead. It was dark and foggy so I just didn’t have any time to react and would have had to swerve severely to miss it. I tried to get a look at it on the way back but at highway speed I couldn’t get a good look. It was definitely some kind of animal and fairly good size – maybe calf size but my best guess is large dog. Coincidentally, on the way home, the air conditioning quit working. I got under the car to see if there was any obvious damage and saw nothing suspicious. In fact, the underside of the car is well protected by the chassis so I think the only possible damage to the car might be alignment but I don’t notice anything different there.

Got an interesting thing going on with the T-Mobile cellular internet connection. From the get go, I’ve had four or five bar signal level at what they call “Edge” speed. “Edge” speed is the slowest, well under 3G or 4G but for us out here in the woods, it was adequate and far faster than dial-up. Two nights ago, the five bar Edge was replaced with one bar 4G. Sometimes it works at high speeds and sometimes the signal is just too weak to be worth having. I learned that the modem works at all the speeds available but defaults to 4G if it can, regardless of a superior, albeit slower, signal. It’s built into the modem so I don’t have the ability to choose which signal to lock on to or reject. I called T-Mobile and they said that they were very surprised I could get 4G at all based on tower locations and they were also surprised that I was happy with the Edge signal. The issue that surfaced was, according to them, I should be getting a strong 3G signal. We’re 2 miles from the cell tower which is pumping out both the Edge signal and a 3G signal. Based on that, they assumed that something was wrong with the tower 3G equipment and they opened a work order to have an engineer go out to the tower and see what’s happening there. So maybe next week, I’ll be a full fledged 3G guy.

My chicken coop neighbor announced a crop of new chicks – the first ones. I went up and checked out the five new arrivals. I guess the plan is to raise chicks, not eggs.

We’re getting a new neighbor. May is staying with her daughter now after she spends the next couple of months in rehab following a fall induced hip operation. Her daughter Pat stopped by the other day to let us know what’s going on and said they were renting out the trailer starting in January to an older couple living currently in Kentucky. Apparently the guy had an accident in a racing car and is also recovering from some severe injuries to his arms and upper body. I’m guessing they won’t be bringing a jet ski to the lake. Other than the hip, Pat said May was in excellent health and the doctors were optimistic about her recovery prospects – even at 91.

Milestone day – the night time temps dropped blow 70, the day time temps below 90 and the humidity below 50% so we turned off the air conditioning and opened the doors. Must be fall.

Congratulations Dr. Lindsay Yearta. You make us all proud. The graduation is in December so we’ve blocked out the whole month to make sure we don’t miss it.

Getting ready to do the bachelor thing again. Nancy’s off to SLC for her annual sabbatical and I’ll be toughing it out here. The four day NY trip was a dummy run for the ten day SLC jaunt but I think I perfected all the skills needed for the additional days. I have enough pizza shells and toppings to cover the whole trip if I decide to go that way; enough hard rolls and pickled jalapenos for an all sandwich trip; plenty of red wine but maybe short on the premium beer.

I put up two pea fences in the garden, each about 10′ long. Planting both sides of the fence means I will have a total of 40 linear feet of peas. Half will be the flat, edible pod Chinese type and the other will be classic English green peas. I think it’s still just a tad too warm to plant them but there was just a bit of a nip in the air this morning so I want to be prepared if I have to make an emergency planting otherwise I think I’ll start one the first of the month and the other a few weeks later. That should set up a December harvest. I’m also jumping ahead a week or two from my plan to put in some lettuce. I have quite a few plants, way more than I need or can even give away, so I’ll plant four on the off chance that they’ll survive the heat. If these guys make it a few days, I’ll put in four more of a different variety. Really nothing to lose. Remember those shade cloth huts that were protecting the tomatoes? I took those down and have them protecting the new lettuce. The tomato plants should be able to handle the direct sun now with no problems.

Ever see squash blossoms? Some people are surprised at how big they are and that they’re edible. I could pick these and batter them for a squash blossom fry. But I won’t. If you look closely you can make out a baby butternut squash just beneath the blossom. To calibrate you, the blossoms are roughly 6” across. You can also see a baby zucchini on that photo, that’s a month from seed. If that particular zucchini makes it, he’ll be on the table in about 2 weeks, whereas the baby Butternut won’t be pickable until November.

The first patch of pole beans are now reaching 6′ tall, a month from planting. I started worrying a bit about them 2 weeks ago when the leaves were apparently being eaten with great relish by small caterpillars. Some people love to watch butterflies; personally I only see caterpillars. I sprayed with BT, which is a biologic insecticide, not a chemical insecticide and apparently that worked. If you look at the leaves, those at the base of the plants are still pock marked into a web. Above that in the area where I sprayed before the leaves were eaten, no signs at all of any damage. Interestingly I had the bush beans, pictured below, under insect cover for the last couple of weeks and assumed that would keep them safe from the caterpillars. Not so. I popped the cover to check out growth and sure enough, there were loads of caterpillars gnawing away. It’s really impossible to seal it off but I was surprised at how little affect the cover really had. I quickly sprayed those plants with BT also and spent a half hour picking off all the crawlers I could see. What they do is eat their fill and then wrap up the edge of the leaf to form a home for the cocoon so I just look for the folded leaves and squeeze them. Bye bye caterpillars.

Go Gators. This could end up a reasonable season after all. Four SEC teams in the top 6; not too shabby.

We had an interesting day today. Mark is building a new catamaran, this time a motor boat. He started the first hull last March from plans he codeveloped with an Australian marine architect and has completed the first phase -building one hull. The next step is to rotate the hull and finish the inside with 2 layers of extra strong fiberglass. The hull, weighing about 1000 pounds, is roughly 34′ long, 4′ wide, and perhaps 5′ top to bottom so rotating it 180 degrees is no simple job. Mark built a special saddle to facilitate the rotation which I guess is the standard way to do the job. I didn’t count heads but suspect there were 50 people who volunteered to help. Most were strangers (to us), a few of Mark and Joey’s friends that we’ve met before, and our family, well represented by us, Tom, and Brian’s family. I’ve put together a few photo’s to give you a feel for the process. From start to finish it took about a half hour and went off without a hitch – no broken bones or broken boat parts. If all goes according to plan, the second hull should be ready for the same treatment next spring.

After the hull turning, Tom invited Nancy and I to lunch at Dixie Crossing, a seafood based, long time favorite restaurant in the area. As usual it was excellent and Tom ordered alligator ribs for an appetizer. I’ve seen them on menus before but never actually saw or tasted any. I had a mental image of something that would take two hands to deal with – like a brontosaurus rib. In fact, these ribs were delicately flavored, very tender, and the bones were on the order of 3” long and 1/4” wide. I asked the waitress if gators just have micro ribs or were these baby gators; the latter. They get them from a gator farm in Louisiana. If you really have a hankering for ribs, stay with pork or beef but don’t be afraid to give the gator ribs a shot.

In the last post I had pictures of the “snake” that popped out of the garden. One reader was kind enough to forward me a link to the Eastern Glass lizard and suggested perhaps that was what I found. Sure enough, that’s what it was. Try this site: http://www.wildflorida.com/wildlife/lizards/Eastern_Glass_Lizard.php to get a really great look at it. Thanks for the input.

These pictures show the deck concrete wrap up work. We poured 8 cobble stone molds which will be cut into individual cobble stones and used to fill in the areas where a whole mold wouldn’t fit. You see those on the tarps down the walkway. Another couple of shots show how those cobble stones are set in place with cement used to fill in the cracks to give it a smooth finish. By our calculation there should be enough cobblestones to get the job done. One pic shows the stone facing on the step. The same slate like rock will be used to pave the top of the step. It took 50 bags, exactly what he bought, to do the cobblestone job. I’m guessing we’ll need another 3-5 bags to do all the misc stone work and fill in the cracks over the whole deck. As you might guess, this is slow going work so probably going to continue at least through the end of the month.

The butternut squash is coming along and was starting to push up on the insect cover so I decided to remove it and spray some BT to kill off the hoards of leaf eating caterpillars sure to come. The plants were seeds 6 weeks ago and there are already several small gourds forming. My experience is that the first few that form will fall off before they mature but ones that form later will hold. My projections are for a harvest starting in November.

We have new neighbors. The last house for sale on the lake is now occupied after about 9 months on the market. We haven’t met them but I do see a bass boat in the yard so maybe I have some competition. Plus, there’s a feared and dreaded jet ski pulled up on their lawn. I may have to break out the torpedo launcher after all. Also seeing kids and kayaks on the lake but not sure if that’s part of the same crowd. They may just be visitors since the kids are definitely school age but swimming and boating mid afternoon.

So far so good on the rabbit fence. I’m seeing plenty of rabbits but none inside the garden.

I know some of you have been waiting with some anticipation about the sweet potato crop. The books tell you the time from planting to harvesting is 90-120 days so I set my computer schedule for 120 days. Today was day 110 and I considered that close enough to at least try one plant. For sure they were ready and I went ahead and harvested the whole crop – 6 plants. The pic shows the pile I dug. You would think digging the potatoes would be free of adventure but you’d be wrong. Turns out we have an underground eco system that includes toads and snakes. I’ve dug up the toads before but the snake was a real surprise. The soil is so heavily mulched that it’s really soft so I could dig down with my bare hands easily to my elbow. You dig down an feel around for the tubers. I didn’t actually touch a buried toad or snake but one of each did pop out of the ground very, very close – I know they were less than a foot away. I might have had a heart attack or a major bowel movement had I actually grabbed hold of either. The picture doesn’t do the snake well but it’s about 2′ long, very sleek, smooth and shiny. The toad was about the same color as the soil.

I’m officially crossing okra off the list of things I grow. Two years ago, when I first decided to try it, I was disappointed when the plants became infested with ants. Last year I switched to another variety and the ant problem went away but the okra was often too tough and fibrous to eat. This year with yet another variety and a new location in the garden, I was hoping for a break through. Ants again. Today I yanked out the plants but not before being seriously chewed up by fire ants.

Nancy is home for a week or so before traveling again. She travels light with only a carry on bag but when I picked it up after her trip, I risked a hernia. That little bag was crammed with 50 pounds of booty from Jersey – including 20 pounds of pasta. Unless you’ve been in a deli or grocery store in Jersey or NY or Philadelphia, you can’t appreciate the wide selection available compared to our limited selection in Florida. So when we travel in that region we invariably end up restocking. This time she came home with a few shapes I’d never seen before. Should be fun eating and we have enough stock piled to last a year at least. That’s because we supplement the purchased stuff with home made.

The lake level is over the third step finally. That’s an important milestone because I’m fairly sure that I could lower the boat into the lake again. If the rest of the month holds, I could start trolling for spec’s in early November.

I sure feel better about the Gators after they dealt with Tennessee handily. The first game was scary even though they won; ditto game two. Now I’m thinking this can be a respectable season instead of the disaster I was dreading. After all, Tennessee was nationally ranked at #23 so they had some level of respect. Florida was 18 after starting the season at 25 so maybe this win will move them up a notch. The schedule ahead is tough with several top 10 teams on the horizon so I’ll be really surprised if they are still in the top 25 by the end of the season.

I mentioned in the last post that the pole beans were growing quite fast. The picture shows just how fast. The seeds were planted August 28, about 3 weeks ago and the top tendrils you see on the pole are 3′ above the ground. At the same time I planted a bush zucchini seed(s) and the plant is 2′ high and has a 2′ spread on the leaves. Hard to believe that both those were sitting in seed packs 3 weeks ago. The insect cover showing behind the zucchini is covering 3 x 20′ rows of bush beans. All the seeds have pretty much germinated and I wanted to get the insect protection on before they were chomped on by grasshoppers or whatever. The butternut vines are 3′ long. They’re hidden under the insect cover barely showing by the pole beans. I see incredible growth rate every season but it never ceases to amaze me just how fast the stuff takes off. The tomatoes I planted are doing so so. I always plant spare seeds anticipating a fall out and this year I’ve used all my spares and a few volunteers from the empty rows. I did get some mental relief the other day when reading the gardening section of the local newspaper and the columnist, a master gardener, said that it was time to put in fall tomatoes but they were always a hit or miss fall crop always. He said that one year you get great tomatoes, the next not a plant makes it. He can never figure out why – same varieties, same planting schedule and method, same garden – but some years the plants do well and …………………. That made me feel much better. Today I pulled the lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage seedlings from the starter pot and transferred them to individual containers. That’s a really delicate process and my ham hands break off a few along the way. Luckily the seeds for these type vegetables are cheap and plentiful so I plant way more than I need. Any excess that’s survived by planting time, I give to Nancy’s gardening friends. Still way too hot to move them into the direct sun so they’ll be in those containers possibly until mid October. The lettuce is a bit faster so maybe first of the month on those.

Three inches of rain in the last couple of days so the lake is now up to the bottom of the third rung on the ladder – 2‘ to go. I really need it up 3‘ before speckled perch season starts in November.

—————————

Doesn’t it just make sense that if Obama knew how to fix the economy, after almost 4 years it would be fixed? By every important economic measure, things are worse today than when he took office. Here’s an interesting factoid – if you count the number of months with unemployment in excess of 8% starting with Truman and ending with George Bush, it’s 34. Obama is now in month 42. That one measurement alone demands he be fired. He may be a nice guy and a good talker but he’s in over his head. Sad but true. If he was a football coach at a top school or the CEO of a major corporation, he’d be history. If he was Japanese, he’d be reaching for the sword.