Thursday, August 22, 2013

The butternut squash saga


Yes, now I know this is an acorn squash.

Does anyone else have forgetful moments like this? For the past few months I have been thinking that I was growing butternut squash. I was dreaming of making butternut squash ravioli and butternut squash soup. Not that I won't do that, but sadly it won't be my home grown butternut squash.

I have to admit I get somewhat confused at the squash family. Zucchini is easy but I get mixed up with the others, obviously. I kept looking at the abundance of all these little squashes and thinking how well they were doing but for some reason they were round and I was sure butternut was a different shape.  Yes, silly girl it is!

I vaguely remember eating some acorn squash at a friends house thinking this is yummy, I should grow it. After looking at my seed packet, it was confirmed to be an interesting yellow, green acorn squash. I don't know what happened, maybe they didn't have any butternut squash seeds when I bought my seeds, who knows! Perhaps my subconscious was trying to tell me something. That is fine, I am very happy with the little guys and hope that I didn't pick this one too early. There seem to be quite a lot of them. Some are a good size and some are still teeny so they probably won't mature but we will see. I read that if the skin was hard they are ready and they seemed to be quite hard.

I plan to eat this one and test it out this weekend. Looks like I will be on my own eating it however as my hubby doesn't really like squash too much although he does make an exception for zucchini.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Hummingbird Heaven


Last year at this time I was in hummingbird heaven. We had so many at our new house it was like a dream come true. This year it doesn't seem like we have had as many judging from the hummingbird water intake but we still have quite a few customers. They are a feisty bunch again this year so it is no wonder that I'm not going through as much water as they chase each other away constantly.

Our little male hummingbird that was with us all spring moved on and we have all females or young ones. I can't tell but there are a few really scruffy looking nervous ones and I'm kind of assuming they must be youngsters.

I hear them at the allotment garden as well and they love it there with all the flowers. One surprised me at my Bee Balm and I think I surprised him just by being there standing still. 

I absolutely love the little birds. I usually put out the feeder at the end of February and don't take it down again until the last one leaves around the beginning of October. There are always stragglers at the start and at the end. I'm already sad to think that soon these little jewels will be gone...

I will miss them.

Hummingbird being watched by a plastic hummingbird

Hummingbird amongst the sweet peas

Belated Sunday Snaps

Sunday was an unusual day. It started off with some thunder and then a downpour which we badly needed. I headed out to the garden while it was still cool and it was the best! I wandered around and took some pictures and hardly anyone was there. It was awesome. Nobody telling me what to do and

I had a great time puttering about. I even managed to cart a wheelbarrow full of manure and put it in one of my empty beds. Unfortunately I took my small point and shoot camera and I'm not too happy with the results. A lot of the pictures just weren't in focus. It is so handy to just carry a small camera but not if the results aren't great. Oh well live and learn.

Here are the best of them.






Last but not least. My first red heirloom tomatoes!

Friday, August 2, 2013

Slug Wars!



Okay, now I'm not finding them so cute anymore. The lovely poppy and toad lily that I bought a few weeks ago have all been eaten down to almost nothing. This is war!

I tried containers of beer but quite frankly what a waste is that? It also doesn't look great, little cut out plastic containers with brown sludge just doesn't have the look I'm going for. It is odd however, that some plants they don't touch and others are just too tempting for them. The Astilbe they don't seem to touch. Maybe I should do the whole yard in Astible? There is a plant in the garden that has been absolutely ravaged by them. I leave it because I figure that they go for that one and leave the rest alone. My mint was chewed to bits and is only now starting to come back. Don't really feel like using it though after it has been slug slimed.

I bit the bullet and bought some organic slug bait. You know the stuff where it only gets the slugs and doesn't hurt anything else. It seems to be working and some of the plants are actually growing back. I have to keep re applying it though as with watering it dilutes somewhat.

We have finally gotten some rain here at last which is lovely for the garden so it is outside for me now to put out some more slug bait!