You had a full day....AND you had a busy afternoon at my house, too.

I had only a couple of hours in the garden today. I was able to prune the lowers branches of one row of tomatoes and tie them to the trellis. And a partial row. It would have been best if this was done a week ago. But, it is what it is.

There's lots of little green fruit on the plants.

Tomorrow, I would like to finish the second row of tomatoes in the SG and pull the cages out and placed on the other tomatoes in the other gardens. We will see if that gets done. I'm going to quickly fix dinner tomorrow night so I can get out to do that.

Once that chore is complete, weeding and clean up. Maintenance.

Just a quick look at the kitchen garden this evening at twilight. Something is eating my kajari melon seedlings. But, the cucumbers look good. Asparagus continues to be plentiful. We have an entire refrigerator crisper drawer of it. I want to make cream of asparagus soup if I can ever get a moment to do it.

Well, that's all for now. Still have several chores to do before bed.

It sounds like both of you have been busy. I got a little work done. I don't know how I use to have time to hold down a job, have a pretty lawn, maintain a home, have a pretty , but much smaller garden, go to little league game, and be active in church. I dont think that was me, I done even have time to change the oil in my car and truck now.

I did get most of my tomatoes pruned and tied, and looked after the greenhouse while neighbor was gone. We have lost a few plants, but not bad considering the number of plants we have out.

We got another load of mulch this morning. I plan on moving some of the mulch over to my house to mulch around the outside of the garden and around a few trees.

Rick, I liked your comment about the greens, I use to do the same thing, and loved it. When I got grown I quit eating a lot of butter, fat meat and bacon grease. Several years ago I got the wild idea to try the wilted greens again, all that grease made me sicker than a dog. I have to watch my diet much closer than I did when I was young.

Sounds like y’all are having lots of fun and making progress. I am dreaming of gardening. I am also planning since I have a crew of my kids coming to my house tomorrow to rework the yard and house for me to be able to go home and function. I will be going home on Friday I hope. Four workers and one supervisor should be able to get it done. I can’t wait to see my pots of stuff growing. Maybe some flowers. I have not been home in three weeks I think. I bet alot has changed.

Kim, I am glad you are coming home. I seem to rest better at home, I guess most people are like that, and for me, the desire to be home gets stronger with age.

I hope all your plants are doing well. Our plants are doing well, but we have too many to care for properly. We still have around 100 sweet potatoes to go in the ground, and slips still coming on.

I mover mulch yesterday till my allergies almost killed me, and I noticed this morning that we had at least one more load delivered to our pile yesterday or this morning. I brought (9) 6' buckets to my garden, and about 15 buckets to neighbors garden.

When I was checking the gardens this morning, I noticed that neighbor had planted roselle and egg plant where I had 3 rows of zinnias and sunflowers planted, They were just starting to come up, but he goes at everything in a dead run, and I guess he did not notice the flowers just breaking through the soil surface. I will wait a few days and replant if needed.

Hey Kim. Super happy your kids are helping you get settled back home. I hope your flowers are thriving and beautiful!

Larry, sorry about your zinnias and sunflowers.

Today was the last day of school. I am exhausted in all the ways.

I wasn't able to go to Pilates tonight, but that is okay with me. Tom smoked meat and made the sides. Didn't take long. I pulled out the remaining jar of pumpkin puree from last year and made a couple of loaves of pumpkin bread. Ethan won't be here in the fall to enjoy pumpkin bread, although Stella is a great cook/baker.

I even had enough time to be outside for an hour or so. Got the onions weeded (mostly). The kitchen garden is looking so much better. Better than the video I made a few days ago.

Rick came out last night and we got the kitchen garden tomatoes caged and trellised. And pruned a bit.

Spending time alone in the garden (like tonight) is so relaxing. I just love it so much. Working at my own pace.

There's a quote about the best thing for the garden is the presence of the gardener. I can't remember exactly how it's worded. Anyone remember?

Anyway...I do believe that is true. When you're sitting on the ground, pruning tomatoes, pulling weeds, etc., you truly see what is going on. The bugs, the spots on the plants--stuff like that. And, there is the connection. The connection to the garden--to the plants and things that live in the garden.

I noticed that there are 3 volunteer tomatoes in the midst of the onion bed. It will be interesting to see what type of tomato these are. I had heirlooms and cherry tomatoes in that bed last year.

Hope everyone is doing well. Amy? Jen? Lynn? Everyone else?

Jennifer, I am sure the zinnias and sunflowers will be okay, I may have to add a few more seeds between the roselle, but that will be no problem. I most often plant seeds too thick, and have to come back later and thin the plants.

We gave away our extra 100 sweet potato plants. A neighbor from up on Diffy mountain came wanted some plants, we were happy to give the plants away, I enjoy doing things like that anyway, he also wanted some of my walking onions, and bunching onions. We now have everything in the ground except some yellow squash, that are just now coming up. We have been having trouble getting the yellow squash seeds not germinating, I expect we have some bad seeds.

We got more rain last night, my south garden is doing pretty well, except for the new part, I have not amended the new part as much. It usually takes me about 5 years to get new soil in good growing condition. I need to get a soil test on the gardens, it has been several years since the last soil test. I like to test the soil about every 3 years, but seldom get it done that close. My soil test always say add lime at "X" amount and add nitrogen ( at a small amount ). I can guess pretty close to what the plants are needing. My north garden stays too wet most springs, and this is one of wetter springs, but the rains have been spaced out to be more gardening friendly.

I finished my tomato cage project. I was holding out the last four that were wrapped with plastic wrap, wanting to see if they'd get the blight. But the plants were getting too big and I needed to expand the cages. Next year will be a better year to test that out. The plants are loading up with tomatoes.

I need to prune some lower branches and drive the T-Posts to anchor the cages. But I bought a pickup truck load of pecan and hickory this morning and I will be working my tail off stacking it in the backyard. Buying wood for smoking is an iffy game. I'd rather know someone who has just cut down a tree and do all the work myself. When I do that I know what I'm getting and I know how long its been seasoned. And this is the first wood I've bought since the Ice Storm of 2020, I think it was. That storm created a ton of wood.

Won't have to ride the bicycle to burn calories the next few days.

I figure I'll be pulling onions and digging potatoes in a couple of weeks.

Then I'll be succession planting cowpeas (Knuckle Purple Hull) in that space while there is still moisture in the ground to get them up hopefully before it starts getting hot and dry like it usually does.

That will complete my planting for the spring/summer season. I think I got enough okra planted out already. If not , I can plant more.

Rick

I doubt that I will be able to save any of my onions, I may be able to freeze some, it looks like most of the onions bolted. I dug a few garlic today. The garlic and onions were over grown by weeds very badly. My walking onions are the only onions that did well, I think those things would grow on a sidewalk.

I did get my mower and tiller parts today, hopefully I can get both machines running properly. It seems as if the supply chain is broken. I use to get parts in 2 or 3 days, it seems as though parts now take at least 2 weeks to get here. I try to keep the things that I expect to need on hand, but I have misplaced my crystal ball and now I don't know will break down next.

I thought that I had already posted here a couple of hours ago, but I guess Houzz and I are not getting along.

I did get some tomatoes tied up, and some lower limbs trimmed. I have never pruned or tied up my tomatoes very well, I am trying to take better care of them this year, hoping to make them last better. I often get tomatoes to go through till frost, but they are low quality tomatoes.

I am so pleased with Madge, she has taken to my old rickety light shelf like a pig to slop, she has really started some nice plants. Most of them I have never heard of, but she is growing plants like a pro.

Our squash in the greenhouse are sprouting very well also, I don't know if neighbor bought new seed, but if all the seeds come up we will have enough plants for another 168 hills of squash.

We also got another 3 loads of wood chips today.

I'm here Jennifer, it's just hard for me to post here.

I'm depressed, my tomatoes are still in solo cups, and they're not looking good. I gave some extras away Tuesday.

I have a milkweed blooming. It does not have orange flowers, which is what i thought I put there. It's either the green or the clasping type.

Houzz and my tablet can't play nice.

I appreciate you checking in, Amy, even tho it's a big pain for you.

Posting here with my iphone isn't fun either. Normally, I won't. And if I want to post a pic, I'll post it and come back to add the text.

Also, I'm sorry about your tomatoes. I wish I was there to help you plant them.

The milkweed that grows wild around my property is the green kind. The one that I planted has purple flowers--Showy, I think.

Tom is off work today--a very long holiday weekend. He and Ethan are going fishing tomorrow, so we're trying to get chores done today. Ethan took off work tomorrow. It will be nice for them to go fishing. And it will be nice for me to be home alone so that I can get some housework done.

We've spent most of the day outside, trimming trees and cleaning up stuff. There's a corner of our property that was a real mess. I had broken down bags of oak leaves back there, that were overgrown with weeds and grass. Got them all pulled out and Tom trimmed it all. The oak leaves are in my compost now.

The back of the property has that shed (that Rick uses to store his garden supplies) that has a large tree on our side of the fence. It has poison ivy growing on it. I had to get out the Roundup to kill the ivy and it worked. But I found more this morning and sprayed the new stuff. And carefully pruned and trimmed everything else. It's where I put the wild violets. There's also comfrey growing like crazy back there. It needs to stay in its lane, though. I threw a comfrey plant back there a few months ago and now there's dozens.

Tom is very allergic to poison ivy, so I identified it all first and trimmed around it before he came in to do his part.

Speaking of....he just left to go to our doctor to get a shot. A spider must have bit him at some point this morning. His hand is red and stiff. He's also very allergic to the brown recluse. I didn't realize that only a small percentage of people are allergic to brown recluses. He is one of them.

I suppose he could have been bitten outside, but suspect it was in our shop. Two nights ago, we had an opossum walk into the shop--luckily Tom saw him before we closed the cats in. So, we had to tear apart the shop to get the little guy out. Honestly, he was backed into corners a few times and I just wanted to pick him up and carry him out. He was scared to go out the big doors. It was a crazy time. Someone said to put on gloves and throw a blanket or towel on them...and then carry them out. Next time. It could have been worse. It could have been a skunk.

Anyway, we have a lot of wood scraps in the shop that had to be moved that night. Tom reorganized them today. I believe brown recluses like to hide in old wood.

Other than that, I weeded around the elders that are in the back. The ranch variety is in bloom. The Bob Gordon and Oklahoma John are not. I'm just so happy that they didn't completely die after last year.

Does anyone have a Moringa tree? A friend gave me one. It doesn't look great right now.

It is fun to see all the moths, butterflies and bees out there. Some of you might have seen the hawk moth I posted last night. It was gone this morning, so either it flew off or something got it. They are so fun to see. I realize their caterpillar can do lots of damage, but those moths are so cool.

I had a giant swallowtail on the cosmos last night. What a beauty.

May is just lovely, isn't it? When it's not destructive.

Larry, I'm interested in knowing the varieties that Madge is growing. It's great that she is enjoying your light shelf! And that you're sharing it with her.

Not sure what is on the agenda for tonight. I'm sure if I walk outside, a task will make itself known to me.

Blight is showing up at the bottom of all my tomato plants, including the four that were wrapped with plastic wrap until two days ago. So much for that experiment hahaha . If it was that easy to prevent blight, it would've been done a long time ago.

Lynn, I have more trouble with blight when I start plants early. I don't have any signs of blight yet, but my plants are much younger than yours.

I just got through planting 40+ hills of Crimson Sweet watermelon in very wet soil. The melons are not in a good spot, but, it was the only spot I had ready to plant that was protected with a hot wire, and it has been too wet to work more ground.

Jennifer, I would like to know what Madge is planting, also. All the plants I have ask about were called something like Rare Orange and Blue Hybrid tomato, or some kind hybrid cucumber. When I ask Madge about the cucumbers, that she order 15 seeds for $6.95, when I already have 1000's of different kinds of cucumber seeds, she said "but these are small cucumbers". I told Madge, "they all were small if you pick them soon enough" . Anyway, Madge has planted 8 cucumber seeds and has 8 nice looking plants. We have a mineral tub out by the garden that has a pretty tomato plant in it, and, a tag that says "Surprise", I feel sure that is not the proper name of that plant. We had a 10 pack of round pots that we just marked "Madge". Neighbor is almost as bad, I like to mark each container, but they only mark the tray, sometimes plants have a way of getting out of their tray, and visiting other areas. Anyway, we are having fun.

The greenhouse only has sweet potato slips to pull and summer squash that is just now sprouting.

I have about 3 tomato plants that are marked "Mrs. Maxwell", I am impressed with the plants. I also have a few plants that are marked "Beef Maestro", that are impressive, those seeds came from Nancy. I also got some seeds from Nancy that I marked "Old German", those plants have impressed me for about 3 years, but I have not been able to get them to last all summer. Our summer can really be tough on tomatoes. I also have "Bush Beefsteak" from Nancy, that have been impressive, but they sprout leg and walk off. I also had a package of "Beef Master", the Beef Master looked very nice, but they seem to walk off also. I have to laugh at all of this, we are all the same, we all want to grab the biggest piece of cake and go eat it before anyone can take it away from us.

I moved a lot of wood chips today, but I wore a mask this time, and, did not work as long, maybe I wont get sick this time. These were fresher chips and did not have any mold in them.

Pic from this day last year. What would go on to be my worst tomato year ever had some plants loaded with tomatoes. But that was all they produced as June heat shut them down.

And there's blight on this plant along with a few tomatoes.

I am ashamed to post pictures of my plants after Lynn has posted pictures of his garden, my plants never look as good as Lynn's plants. I am trying to do things a little different this year by keeping my plants pruned more openly.

I have posted in the past about how pleased I was with the Mrs. Maxwell tomato plants. The Mrs. Maxwell has a more open growth habit and takes les pruning than the other tomatoes. The Mrs. Maxwell and Brandywine are are a lot alike, they are both potato leaf plant with growth habits near the same.

I did not plan on posting this picture. This is an Arkansas Traveler, there is not anything special about this plant, It is a little older then the Brandywine, and Mrs. Maxwell, but it is a nice plant.

This is one of the Mrs. Maxwell plants, Note the more open growth habit, it has been pruned a little.

This is a picture of two Brandywind plants. I have grown Brandywine before and was not impressed, they seem to be slow and lazy. The Brandywine has a wonderful taste, but you will starve waiting on them to produce. I have grown them before and I doubt that I have ever gotten more than 10 or 12 tomatoes off of a plant. So the Mrs. Maxwell is ahead of the Brandywine.

I hope to report good news on all the tomato plants this fall.

Please don't disown me for my trashy garden, I just don't have the time to work in my home gardens because of the time I put in in other areas.

None of my plants this year, have tomatoes like the plant in that pic. I think that variety was Beefmaster, but I don't really recall as I planted several different varieties last year.

Right now, I've got plants with several small, quarter size tomato. A few that might be golf ball size or a little larger. Nothing even near ripe. And this is usually about the time that I get my first ripe tomato.

I tried pruning last year. It took a lot of time and I saw no value. But the weather obscured everything last year. I even clipped off some suckers. I might try that again on one or two plants just to see if there's actually a difference. But again, I spend enough time just trying to keep them in the cages, much less pruning.

And I just bought a rick of wood for smoking barbecue and its taking a lot of my time cuz I have to resize it for my smokers. I can't use the same size splits people use in their fireplace. Got other irons in the fire, no pun intended, than the garden.

Lynn, I have too many irons in the fire also, I just cant get around and do the things I use to do. I am trying to care for 68 acres of land also, which takes a lot of time. I can see why people want to down size when they get old.

I have tried pruning and suckering about 3 or 4 times in the past, and never stuck with like I should have, and I never got the results that I expected, but I thought I would try it one last time. I think that the best things you can do for tomatoes, is, to have good soil, use mulch, have a good watering system, keep a close eye on them, and pull off a few suckers. By the time you do that you have just about used up all of your spare time.

I just got back from checking the wildlife garden ( I now have people food planted there). The 60+ plants in the wildlife garden are the same age as the 40 + plants in my house gardens, and for the most part they look better, they don't have any yellow leaves either, and are much fuller. The yellow leaves seem to bother us more when the soil starts to dry out. We are not able to stake of prune the 400 tomato we have planted. We do have a lot of wood chip mulch, but mulching as many plants as we have is a very big job.

Larry here’s my trashy garden. I was sick and then gone for 5 weeks.

Kim, some of my garden looks just like your's, and I have not been gone or sick.

Kim, rest and get your health back, then start after the garden, there is a good chance that the work will still be there when you get well

The kids came and got alot done for me. So thank full for them. Son built new porch and others cleaned yard. It was such a blessing to watch them work.