My Not So Secret Garden

The odd plant thats in my frontyard has taken over. I think it must grow a foot a day!I was thinking it must be a pumpkin of some kind, but now I dont think I'll ever know! It has bloomed and has many more blooms ready, but they are all male flowers though. The big blooms stay open for just a few hours then they close up and fall off the next day. Oh well Jer likes it so I guess it will stay out there until fall. I thought this was too pretty to leave out. Its an upsclose picture of the flower of the odd plant. This rainbow is from a couple days ago. I was driving home and it seemed to stretch all the way across town. You can just barely see it right above the garage. It was a nice cap to the day... It had rained all day and cleared up just long enough for this.

Here it is in action. It took a while to figure out just how much heat I needed to make it work properly. First it jiggled too fast, then too slow. I eventually got it just right. Here's what I got done today. 4 Strawberry jams and 2 1/2 mushroom spaghetti sauces. I didnt know you werent supposed to only fill a jar 1/2 way if thats all you had. Oops. I guess I will have to use that soon. All of the jars popped close, but my jam did not set well. Its kind of runny :( Oh well I'm sure it will taste good on biscuits or on Ice cream.

Its entirely too hot to do anything! I got 3 clematis plants and a couple clumps of daylilies off of craigslist, but its too hot to go plant them . I think they will sit in the garage for a couple hours until it cools down.

WooHoo ! YARD SALE FINDS: First up , a buzzing bee water kettle. When the water boils the Little bees on the top fly around and buzz... too cute. Second up , a Mirro pressure cooker and 78 jars. Everyone keeps saying these things are deathtraps, but hey I have AFLAC it will be OK . I read up on them so I would be somewhat sure that I wasn't going to burn the house down. It seems to be a newer model as it has multiple air vents to release pressure should anything go horribly wrong. I watched a few YouTube videos too. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing. I guess well find out soon though. I plan on making strawberry jam (as requested by Robbie), spaghetti sauce, ketchup, and maybe some apple butter. Oh, and canning some of my up and coming green beans. My 3rd Yard sale find is a Cuisinart pure indulgence ice cream maker. I think this might be my favorite find of all. Its brand new in the box and here comes the best part... it was free. I also have plans tonight o...

Someone has been digging in my newly seeded pots outside. I had a pretty good idea who it was but I couldn't prove it... Until now. I happened to glance out of the window earlier today and caught this rascal in the act. He knew he'd been caught and starting "clucking" at me. I then proceeded to scare him off of the porch. Sleepy bunny out in the garden I think my corriander is getting ready to be bagged. My book "Gardening in Iowa" says that when the seeds start to turn brown you should put a brown paper bag over it and tie a string around the bag. This is done to catch the seeds. My Pepper plants are getting so big! they are almost as tall as my tomato plants. The habaneros are starting to really produce. None have turned colors yet though. I think my moms ok with that though. These might be a tad too hot for her. Jer said we should put them in just for her ( she did say she likes to eat hot stuff) Harvest today: Lemon Boys,Better boys,bell pepper, green b...

Heres a cute picture of Obama defending her spot on the coffe table. I havent gotten to take many pictures of the bunnies outside. I get out in the backyard and all of my attention turns to my gardening. This is a really dark picture of a little cucumber. I always go out to check the garden before I go in for the night to see if I missed anything (If I dont get it the critters will) I found this little guy and a couple of his friends hanging out in the cucumber patch Here's the harvest for today: 3 tomatoes, an eggplant, a banana pepper, and one yellow bell that refuses to turn yellow :( Heres last nights dinner. It had so much garden items I just had to put it on here. Porkchops in an orange sauce Fresh Green Beans Eggplant delight (my eggplant and my onions fried up and topped with cheese) Lemon Boy tomato Baked Spaghetti Squash ( from a neighbors garden) Jer of course refused most of the vegetables, but he would at least try a little before he said no. He did however take a ...

I went out to the garden to inspect and collect yesterday, this is what I found. My cucumbers seem to have been affected by Powdery Mildew :( Everything I've read says to pull the affected leaves out. My plants aren't very big, if I pull more than 1 or 2 I'm afraid I wont have a plant left! I found a recipe for a baking soda mixtures that a couple people said might help. We'll see 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 quart of water couple drops of liquid soap We did lots of yard work yesterday. Robbie came over to help. This is him on our roof trying to clean out the gutters. They were really bad. There was even a newspaper up there! Apparently the tenants before us didn't feel this was anywhere near the top of their priority list. It was on ours though. Debris was catching at certain spots and making the gutters sag. Unfortunately one of those spots was right over our pond. Robbie was nice enough to help clean out the pond too. Our fishes love him I'm sure. This is Jer ...