AAHH!!!

PESTS!!

Another summer and another zucchini crop cut short!

Without fail, every summer my squash crop gets blitzkrieged by squash vine borers.

An adult squash vine borer

What they do to your squash!

 I can't stand the nasty buggers!! The plants grew amazingly well as usual then, started producing fruit. And then, about a week later, the plant starts wilting and the fruit that is already set starts rotting on the plant. 

NNOOOO!!!!

This year I decided to pull the pull the infected plants and plant a new mid summer crop.

To avoid the same problem, I planted the new crop in some old tires. I filled the tires with a topsoil, manure, and compost mix. 

This tire has some tomato suckers and basil.

This one has yellow summer squash

this tire contains ZUCCHINI !!

Wish me luck!

I'll let you know how this second crop goes (grows).

Au revoir, mes amis.

SUMMER YUM!!

Summer skillet

This 4th of July saw me grilling steak, potatoes, onions, garden grown zucchini and peppers.

It was AWESOME!!

But, what may have been even better was the next days supper.

First, make sure you grill more onion and potato than you're gonna eat. Pull the leftovers from the 'fridge, unwrap and dice.

Straight from the vine :) !

CHOP CHOP CHOP

Hot banana peppers from le jardin

After every things chopped and prepped, add your fat of choice to the frying pan ( I use a blob of butter and olive oil).

Add the potatoes first as they will take some time to brown. Once you start seeing color on all sides of the spuds, dump all your other ingredients to the skillet.

Fry until everything is heated through. 

As it's all been cooked already it doesn't take much time.

I like to serve alongside eggs cooked over easy.

Nothing quite as delicious as egg yoke and summer skillet all mixed up on yo' plate!!

 Bon appétit, mes amis!

Sorry.

Been a while...

Sorry, It's been some time since my last post. Life has a tendency to get in the the way of plans and intentions. C'est la vie!

Speaking of life etc.,the dutch bucket tomato system is doing remarkably well. I had a slight setback about a week and a half ago. While trimming the backyard hedge, I apparently discovered some poison ivy. The problem moved from local to system wide. What started out as a rash and blisters soon became a guessing game as to where it was going to pop up next. Everywhere was the answer to that question! YUCK! Annoying as can be. Heat and moisture seemed to make the problem worse. Heat and moisture IS the southern United States! So, I didn't go outside after work at all for at least a week.( I also finally went and received treatment a week later. )While hiding indoors, I had forgotten about my poor tomatoes. I turned out to be a week late in changing out my nutrients. And the temperatures being in the upper 90s ( Fahrenheit) for the last several weeks, and evaporation being what it is, my reservoir tank was basically empty!!

Poor tomatoes.I just about killed 'em.

They're finally on the mend now though.

Taller than ever , lush and green foliage, full of fruits.

The" sweet million" tomatoes are bursting with fruit!

My first ripe "German Johnson"

Already had a couple of "Lemon Boy" 'maters. YUM!!

All in all, this has been an excellent way to grow tomatoes. I'm definitely doing this again.

Super easy once you have the initial set up built.

Thanks for checking in! 

Au revoir, mes amis!

Dutch Bucket Tomatoes

So far so good!

The results so far have been pretty amazing. The foliage is a deep healthy green with plentiful flower clusters and there are already fruits on the vine.

The growth has taken off! I have an earlier post just weeks ago where the plants were up to the first plank of my siding.

The sweet million cherry tomatoes were the first to set fruit.

The Lemon Boy plants are fruiting as well.

"dirt" tomato (top) vs. hydroponic tomato (below)

And the winner is.... HYDRO!

Oh yeah, I removed the chinese cabbage and replaced them with some basil clippings my Mother had rooted for me.

So we will see how the Kratky method works for basil.

Au revoir, mes amis.

Carolina Morning Sky

I took the dogs "walkies" around 6:00 am and looked up.

Pretty stunning.

The dogs weren't impressed but, I was.

Spring cleaning

Muckin' out the pond

Unfortunately, this Spring I had a major algae outbreak in my koi pond. It got so bad, that my 3000 gph pump

got all gummed up and wouldn't pump the water steadily.

That meant I had to do a deep cleaning to the pond for the first time since I built it.

Not too bad though considering I put it in 4 summers ago!

Here's a link to my youtube channel and the building of the pond video.http://youtu.be/j5EcunDF6lA

This is the pond being drained. It doesn't look as bad as it smelled!

Yup, the balding, slightly over weight, middle aged dude is me. 

Totally holding my breath while I muck it out!

I decided to remove all the stones from the very bottom of the pond. This should help keep the pond cleaner longer.

A very freaked out neighbor.

Fillin' it back up. It looks a lot cleaner now!

I kept all my koi and goldfish in this barrel while cleaning.

I hooked up a smaller pump in the barrel to circulate water and added a home made venturi siphon for extra oxygen.
The pump was a gift from some family friends. Thanks Mr. & Mrs. E!

Full up and all systems go !

My water irises were in full bloom.

 When I put the fish back in, I used the extra pump to add

a bubbler in one corner of the pond. I think it turned out all right. I ran the pump line into the bottom of the sea shell

and it comes out in a fan pattern.

Here's what it looks like in action...

Flowers in my yard

The white peonies are in full bloom right now. The pink ones are getting ready to burst open any minute now.

The red hot pokers

The rose bush thats trying to take over the world.

The yellow rose of Carolina.

Dutch Bucket 'maters

DBT week 2.5

Let's do this!

The tomato plants are growing very well. Two and a half weeks in, all the plants except the middle bucket ( which got planted a week later) have grown another 6 - 8 inches taller and are already setting flowers.

I also have added a solar powered air pump. 

I don't really know how much this has added to their improvement but, it sure didn't hurt.

The pump wasn't unreasonably priced and it works as well as I had hoped.

Obviously it won't work when its dark out but, I don't really need it when the sun sets and the temperatures drop.

When I need it most is when it operates the best.

Around mid day to evening the solar panel gets full sun.

All in all I think it was worth the expense.

Here it is in action.