the little wild kingdom

[flowerbug]

made some good progress on bean shelling yesterday and this morning.

the part bag (about 1/4 full) i shelled out yesterday was from a poorer soil garden and there were not very many decent quality beans in there (perhaps a half cup). there were a mix of varieties.

today's shelling i did a box full (which is about 1/4 of a bag) and it was Purple Dove beans picked from the very last garden i planted. almost every pod was full of nicely shaped beans. only a few were wrinkled or not edible. even the wrinkled ones will be edible but i'll put them in a different container from the rest. the wrinkles came from them being finished off by the frosts and not quite done. i've rarely had so many bean pods look nearly perfect without mold spots or damage from bugs or critters. i had about 2 cups worth which is a lot of beans from this variety and a lot of the pods had already shattered so those beans are still on the bottom of the bag. i'm hoping about 6lbs from this bag total but won't be able to measure that until i'm done (and likely i'll forget to do it by then ). have another bag just like it...

 

[flowerbug]

finished shelling another bag of beans... 3lbs of dry beans. not as many as i thought but still a welcome bonus as it came from a garden outside the fence. only ten more to go, but before i can get back to them i really need to get the garlic bulbs taken apart and some cloves set aside for planting so they can get put in a garden. i know where i want to put them and the space is even ready for them for a change.

 

[flowerbug]

got the last of the strawberry patch done (turned under) in 1&1/2hrs (it probably took me six hours total). digging a hole and burying most of the surface debris and weeds is much much faster than getting all of the weeds apart from the old strawberry crowns. the only weeds that went in the bucket for the weed pile were some of the oxalis that was taken out of the pathway and some from in the strawberry patch too that were easy to remove, but i didn't dwell on doing that and also the dandelions and thistles and a few other larger weeds that i thought might be able to resurface from being buried.

feels good to have the exercise and also to have this task crossed off my list (it's been on there for four years or more).

[p.s. this is an older picture and not how it looks now ]

 

[flowerbug]

i did get some pictures today including an "after" picture of the strawberry patch. will post eventually, just not sure when.

 

[flowerbug]

back to shelling beans the past few days, but very slow going due to other things needing being done. today no exception. Mom baking cookies and i'm on tap for cleanup duty in a while.

will start in on another bag. i'm going to need to get some outside work done this week as i'm getting rather stacked up with empty bean pods in bags here. these can be used in the worm buckets this winter so i will keep a bag or two for those but having reduced the bucket count to 7 instead of 10 means i can't do as much at a time. the rest go back out into the gardens this fall (on a not-so-windy day, take them out and spread them on a garden and then lightly turn them in) - i have some wood ashes to put down too so both of those can be done at once for gardens i've not put ashes on in recent years.

the weather has not been as cooperative the past week, but we'd been very lucky for a few months so it isn't any kind of a surprise and we also needed the rains.

 

[flowerbug]

yesterday got outside for some dirt therapy. put down four bags of bean pods, spread them out, put buckets of ashes down, moved dirt to fill in that low spot some more and then spread all that out to make sure things were covered and then turned it all once with the shovel. leveled it a bit with the cultivator (what i always call the four pronger). gladly it rained last night so any stray pods on the surface and ashes were not going to blow around or move much. rain and even S**W in the forecast for the next three days. then a break this weekend so i may be able to finish the last buckets of ashes and move more dirt and put more pods down in another low spot and then i'll be done with those things for this season.

it did feel good to get some exercise. about an hour and a half was plenty.

some more weeding needs to be done i see some speedwell taking off in the onion patch again. pesky weed! on my list for Sunday...

 

[frustratedearthmother]

even S**W in the forecast

Yikes! Ugh! Boo....

(unless you like snow)

 

[flowerbug]

snow doesn't bother me. it gives me a good reason to stay inside and read a book or something... i lived up north for 15 years where they get a lot more snow than we get around here - so you can say i've been through much worse than most of what happens here...

the winter before i left we got 345 inches of snow.

 

[flowerbug]

raw and rainy day today. didn't expect anyone to show up for the garden club meeting but i did get a few errands run for Mom and sat and read a book which i was going to return. a pleasant time (i love libraries ). talked to the clerks and caught an old friend there as she was checking out - i'd not seen her in six years or longer.

 

[flowerbug]

dirt therapy today, first shelled out some beans this morning to finish the bag i was working on so i could then have the pods along with some other bags to take out and put in the low spot along with some ashes and moved dirt going on top, turned it all, raked smooth, weeded onion garden and then crawled under the house to get the air filter changed on the furnace and check everything out. all ok for the most part.

so all projects for the day finished and on schedule or ahead.

good news seems to be that the common house spider invasion that was going on down there is calmed down. likely some other meaner spider came in and cleaned up. i'm ok with that.

need to go through the house again and check for any new ones now that the heat has been running and the bugs are calming down there's not as much to eat around for the spiders (other than each other). have some days this week where the weather may be raw so i can get that partially done...

also project i need to finish up (getting some grout on some tile on a bench seat that i did). after that gets done and dried down we can call the guy to come get it. but maybe Mom will want to clean it up some more and paint it (which should have been done before i brought it inside to do the tile, but oh well, that's not on my list of things to do (and i won't put it on there... a guy has to put his foot down someplace here or there...).

so new things on the list and old things too, see if the lawn mower guy will work on our lawnmower or not and what he might think about that. also can now get rid of the buckets for ashes since they are empty and can go to the people who burn wood and fill them back up again for next spring... maybe get the lawn mower drop off and buckets delivered as part of the same trip. call him tomorrow and go from there...