Garden update...

These pictures were taken a week or so ago, and frustratingly, I can only report that the trellised pole beans don't look nearly so nice at this point.  It just so happens we have some critters that love the leaves of green bean plants.  Early in the week I came out to check on things, only to find withered leaves at the top of these Kentucky Wonder pole bean plants.  "That's weird", I thought for a moment.  Then I traced the vine down to a spot where something had chewed through the plant.  Sigh.  Then one evening, as I approached the garden, I saw two cottontail rabbits hopping off toward a group of trees that line the back of the neighbor's yard.  My first thought was, "How cute!"  My second thought was, "YOU are the thieving culprits!"  

Honestly, I wouldn't  really mind if they ate to their hearts' content all the leaves from the bottom of the bean plants - as high they could reach.  But it was disheartening to see that they had chewed through the plant itself - killing it and, frankly, ruining any future meals for themselves.

And the above plant shows how some small bush bean plants were totally decimated - except for two little green beans left on this one.   For some reason, the rabbits have left two larger bush beans alone.  They are being held up by tomato cages, so maybe that has been a small deterrent somehow???

I sprinkled some blood meal around the remaining green bean plants since that's supposed to be a rabbit repellant, but I don't want to overdo blood meal since it's high in nitrogen and I don't think these plants need a lot of nitrogen at this point, so I don't plan to repeat that very often - if at all.  

I also read online that human hair might repel rabbits.  The timing was uncanny as I had trimmed my hair the same day I read that, so I took the little garbage liner bag that still had my hair clippings in it, and sprinkled it around the base of my green beans plants.  I hope I don't gross anyone out with this (I think I grossed a friend out when I told her), but the hair was clean and there was nothing else in the garbage liner so I don't know why this is any grosser than any number of other things I've had my hands in recently.  Besides, if it helps someone else, why not share?  I don't know what was most effective (the hair or the blood meal), but it's been several days and I haven't noticed anymore green bean leaves disappearing.  That said, I'm all but giving up hopes of green beans for more than a few meals this summer.  I need to do more research as I clearly need to be better prepared for rabbits next year.

Fortunately, rabbits don't seem to care for my pickling cucumber plants (pictured above).  They are going gangbusters - having climbed these cages to the tops as of this writing.  I was thrilled this week to finally have a few large enough to pick.

I set to work finding canning directions and a recipe for simple dill pickles.  Lots of people online have lots to say about making and canning pickles, and keeping them crisp, but few (if any) that I came across takes a person step by step from slicing to canning (with a recipe for canning in pint jars) - and that's what I wanted.  So I looked at a number of recipes, watched several videos, learned about the low-temperature pasteurization method (which many claim will produce crunchier pickles), and once I understood that method, I found a simple brine recipe and canned my first pickles:

I've tried to find the recipe I used, but I only wrote down notes while watching a Youtube video and I can't seem to find it now.   I understand the low-temperature process now, so really I just need to experiment with some recipes. Since I go through quite a few jars of dill pickles in a year's time, I figured dill was the first to try.  I need to give these a few weeks before trying them, but my hopes are high and I'm already planning on planting dill in the garden next year!

And while I wait for these pickles to... what?  Ferment? "Ripen"?  What exactly am I waiting for?   I'm not sure, but I'll look it up while I wait for more cucumbers to grow large enough to harvest.   

And I'm waiting for the tomatoes to turn red.   They've looked  approximately this color for weeks now: 

Curious why it's taking them so long to ripen, I looked it up.  Seems our weeks of sustained 90+ degree weather may be responsible for halting the ripening process. Who knew that?  I sure didn't.  I thought tomatoes thrived in hot weather - the hotter the better.  Evidently, not so much.

It's been a few decades since we've gardened (three to be exact), but I seriously don't remember it being this complicated.  We hoed the ground, stuck seeds in the dirt, watered the garden from time to time, and things just grew.  Or so it seemed.  I need to find some pictures and remind myself of what our gardens looked like if I can.  I know I've got at least one picture of me happily holding my first canned green beans.  Or maybe it was tomatoes.  Regardless, we actually produced things without all this hubbub.  And without the internet at our fingertips to answer every question we had.  And questions we didn't have.  When the temps get back into the 90's, I'll go digging through the photo albums and see what I can find.  

Anyway...  I might be disappointed, but I'm hoping the tomatoes ripen by mid-late August or early September so I have time to preserve them.  I have hand surgery scheduled for mid September - at which point, my canning/freezing days will come to a halt for at least a few weeks.  While I enjoy being generous, I confess I hope we don't have to invite friends over to pick and take home tomatoes in September, like we did with our strawberries in June.  

There are certainly worse things that could happen, though, I suppose.

Oh yeah...  and there's this:  

 

A peach tree we didn't realize was a peach tree!  And suddenly, it's full of fruit.  I thinned the fruit today (I learned last night that should have been done when the peaches were less than quarter size), but we never saw these coming!   We may have missed our opportunity for helping this tree produce decent fruit this year, but it's kind of fun having just discovered it loaded down with beautiful peaches. They're kind of small, but they're purty.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about having a peach tree.  I say we should give it another year and see if we can manage it, but if not (or if it doesn't produce fruit worth picking), I know we'd rather not deal with having to clean up falling fruit, and the insects it will attract.  It will be interesting to see what happens with this tree over the next few weeks...

More and more, we're seeing our job with this new place is to simplify the landscape.  There have been some cool things to discover, for sure, but seriously...  no one is going to be unhappy with this property when it comes time to sell if we've tamed it and made it more manageable.

And that's a wrap for another week.