Summer Garden and Vacation Time

Are retired folks supposed to have vacation?  I have the notion that some people believe that retired people are always on vacation or that they don't have much to do but, at most, putter around.  We here at the Back Forty Garden and Park are taking a summer break from our toils in the garden because we are having a very special guest.  Our granddaughter is visiting and it is important that we devote our time to her for a few weeks.

The first morning, she went out to the garden with us and we cut down three Black Beauties, eggplants.  We picked some green peppers as well and looked around in the cucumber vine and found one hefty cucumber.  For lunch, I dunked slices of eggplant in an egg/milk solution and then in a flour and Parmesan cheese concoction.  I fried them in Canola oil until golden brown.  It was not a success with the little guest.  The cucumber sandwiches were fine.

The corn has come up, tall and green, and the silks are forming.  My husband is putting Mineral Oil into the silks to prevent worms and other bugs from crawling into the corn.  By the way, if you buy corn from the grocery store you have the tendency to pull down some of the greenery to see if any bugs have crawled in.  If there is any sign of bugs or discoloration, you return the corn to its bin.  I do.  I've been told that most often, the rest of the ear of corn is all right.

I have prepared the space in the garden for planting black eyed peas as a cover crop.  I found they were easy to shell and pretty good eating.  There is no time for solarization since our garden is producing year around and I don't have six weeks to give up to plastic covering.

While the granddaughter is here, she is taking swimming lessons and her first day was yesterday.  Everything went swimmingly.  As we were leaving, the real swim instructor showed up and took over the pool.

We hope that you all will have a nice summer.

Thank you for visiting my blog.