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Those are my pears...on the ground. It is indeed a sad day here on the OAH. My dreams of canning up a bunch of pear preserves have been dashed by the crazy, unpredictable nature of Oklahoma weather. For the past two days we've had windiness here...like DUST BOWL windiness. Then, last night, a storm came. One of those "Head for the fraidy hole!" Oklahoma storms.

According to our trusty weatherman, this baby was preceded by 80 mile an hour straightline winds and had tons of rotation inside the storm. All in all, though I am truly mourning the loss of around 20-25 pears, I'm just happy we didn't sustain more property damage than we did (the pear tree and a few pickets off the fence).



The good news? There's one pear left. He must be a determined little bugger! Let's take a moment now to send happy, healthy pear thoughts to this little guy. He won't make a batch of pear preserves, but it's a start.

A bit more good news? Pete (the bunny) will have some yummy treats over the next few days! Have fun, Pete...next year the pears are all mine!!


(The photographer wishes to apologize for the crappy nature of this photo. Apparently I was focused on the fence behind the actual subject of the shot....my bad.)

Humpday Harvest Revisited...

(Two posts in one day? No way!)
As promised...proof that we have blueberries. Well, we HAD blueberries. They. were. yummmmmmmy.

Humpday Harvest!!!

This is the first of a series of blog entries to be published each and every Wednesday (unless I'm on vacation) detailing harvests from the week. (A good idea, no?)

I dig up potatoes as I need them...I'd say we've harvested around 35 potatoes this week.

We've also harvested enough lettuce and snap peas for 4 family sized salads. (Sorry...no photo...I'll do better I promise!)

Lastly, I ate two delicious blueberries yesterday!! They were so delicious that my resolve to raise my own berries was renewed. I originally planted three blueberry bushes. One did not make it through the nasty, icy winter we had. The other two are so tiny still that I had considered giving up on the great blueberry quest...until yesterday! YUMMY!

(Note: I took a photo of the blueberries, but my camera battery died (DRATS!), so I'll have to post it for you later.)

A bit of exciting news from the West garden...the cantelope are blooming, profusely. I can't wait to sink my teeth into some home grown cantelope! I'll take that over a sticky ol' watermellon anyday! The only problem is that I believe I *may* have overdone my planting. Anyone know how to preserve cantelope??????? :-/

Orchard Update...

The pears are growing...

And the peaches, too...though a few have shrivelled and fallen off the tree. Not sure what's going on with those, but I'll be happy to get any peaches this year as it's the first year for these trees!

And yes, there are a few blackberries on my precious little bushes.

Ahhhh...progress

We've got a beautiful red lettuce that is thriving in the square foot gardens. Here's an up close shot that shows the color and texture...great for grabbing onto dressing!

Here's a view of one of the square foot beds...as seen through the sugar snaps.
These are the patio tomatoes I planted as an afterthought. They are certainly outpacing the heirloom varieties.
Here are the pole beans. This is an heirloom variety called "lazy housewife!"
More tomato plant photos. I love the way the little hairy stems showed up in this shot. Can you see the buds getting ready to open at the top of the photo?

Steady Now...

I'm just "biting at the bit" (as DH would say) to dig up some potatoes and since I'm not so good at that little thing called "patience," I dug up one...just one!...plant this morning to see what was going on under all that dirt. Little M and I brought in a handful of tiny new potatoes and fried them up with some eggs then we devoured the whole lot! Unfortunately, all this happened so fast that I didn't get any photos. Okay...I forgot to take photos. Sorry.

In the West Garden:
I also put some corn in a couple of weeks ago and the tiny plants are coming up.
The cantelope plants look great.
The girls and I go out every other day and pick potato bugs off our potato plants. These guys can be really destructive to your potato crop...especially this time of year when the potatoes are blooming.

In the Square Foot Beds:
Our lettuce and spinach collection is growing. I anticipate that we'll be able to stop buying salad in the next week or so.
The Pole Beans are getting a good start, but not really climbing yet.
Our Sugar Snaps have taken off. They're really starting to climb and producing several sugar snaps to throw in our salads each day.
The cucumbers are really getting a slow start and are a bit yellow. I put out some organic fertilizer (earthworm poop) and they seem to be perking up a bit.
I'm planting a few more varieties of lettuce today and replanting beets...which have failed horribly. Not sure how I screwed up the beets, but I'll try again since I had some seed left over.

Other stuff:
I've harvested a bowlful of strawberries every morning. These are going in the freezer for either jam or some lovely strawberry shortcake.
Our blueberry bushettes are tiny, but they have a few berries. I take this to mean that they are thriving and healthy.
We planted birdhouse gourds to grow up the sides of the swingset. They've come up and look healthy.

Little M and I will head out with the camera in a bit and I'll try to post photos soon. Progress is good, but my nails are shot...I guess farmgirls don't worry with maintaining a manicure, huh?

How does your garden grow?

The square foot gardens are coming along nicely...

It may not look like much now, but we ate a small salad from it just a few days before the photo was taken. It will really fill in the next couple of weeks.

Here's a sugar snap sweet pea plant saluting the casa.

And this is one of the blueberry bushes...well...bushettes. It really doesn't qualify to be a bush yet, but you've got to start somewhere, right?

And...I saved the best for last...here's the view from the backyard of the OAH this evening.

This photo doesn't even begin to capture the beauty of this sunset. Isn't it an amazing world we've been given?