As of today...

"I figure that you need to plant about twice as many plants as you think you need "

And then they ALL germinate, and grow, and produce, and you must make friends.....

LOL

gg-I can't believe the heat you are having up there. Combined with the humidity, wow.
Are your tomatoes still setting? Texans think that we have ALL the heat and humidity but I have been fortunate enough to have done alot of traveling and there are many other areas that have it worse. Does it cool down at night?

evelyn -

1lisac, the tomatoes are still blossoming and setting. It gets into the 60's and low 70's at night, which may be good enough to keep them going. I have a few tiny tomatoes coming on my currant tomato, and some of the others are starting to form. They actually seem pretty happy except for one that has curling leaves.

I'm not sure if the upper tomato branches are still setting fruit. I see flowers, but not many fruit. Once the fruit at the bottom start ripening, I'll fertilize the plants to see if I can get the upper branches to try harder.

Usually mine keep going all summer, Honeybee, without my doing anything special to them. Do yours?

greenhouse_gal - Apart from watering and fertilizing them, no I don't do anything special. If we didn't get frost at some point, they would probably keep going all winter.

By the end of summer I'm usually ready to pull the plants and start something else in their place. There are just so many maters one can freeze or give away.

That's interesting. Mine slow down towards fall and stop producing; I don't know whether it's the shorter days or the cooler nights or what. Sometimes we have tomatoes that I can let ripen off the vines for Thanksgiving, but that's unusual!

I can usually freeze all I can get, in the form of sauce. I've also dried them but I never know what to do with them afterwards - i.e. how to incorporate them into recipes.

I get up at 5:45 walk the dogs, feed the cats, check all 3 e-mail accounts, walk the gardens and tend to what needs tending, get ready for work, and off we go.

I do it, but I don't have to like it... I think all of that could easily start at 7:45! ~:-)

But look at how much you get done by 7:45!!

Ya'll go to bed right after dinner, right? Around 6pm?

No, but we're not good for much after 9 or so. DH likes to eat at 7 in the summer, which is really pushing it for me; I'd like a little more evening to relax and read. But we're usually in bed by 10. It's light here by 5:30, which I'm sure has a lot to do with the time we wake up. Now that the year has turned (sob!) and days are going to be getting shorter again that will doubtless change.

Going to bed now...

Well, I just pulled out the computer...

" I think all of that could easily start at 7:45! ~:-)"

It could, and for me, in the winter it does :). When we first got the cows, I read all about them. I learned that as long as their feeding was at the same time daily, they were fine. I chose 9:00 am. The dogs found that acceptable, as well. Then Joe took over their care (he was the one who wanted cows). He decided that they needed to eat at first light. Of course, the dogs thought that meant they should, as well. And they're MY job :(.

It's not that I wasn't up and about at 5:30, I was. It just was an easier way to do "rounds". I'm actually quite happy that I can see where I:m going at 5:45. Now I can get the dogs fed and walked before the sun is really up, and then the chickens get out before they start screaming that the day is almost gone, and I still have time to do a few gardening chores before I come up here. We can't run the AC this year, so my computer time has to be early, while this room is still bearable, temp wise.

I hate winter, and daylight savings, it takes away so much time, and my day is so rushed. Sigh. Whine, whine, whine.

I do admit, I would be quite happy if the chickens would choose an earlier bedtime. 9:00 I would like to not be hunting for stragglers....

Catmad, have you thought about one of those automatic chicken coop doors? We got one, and after dealing with some design flaws (we hadn't realized that the guy just started producing them!) it works beautifully now. We have it on a timer so we have to adjust it with the seasons, but it's SO nice not to have to drag yourself out one last time after a long busy day. In the morning I open up the big doors on the coop when I go out, so I can feed the geese and then get some food down for the chickens before they're scrambling all over me getting in my way, rather than waiting for the timer to release them, but in the evening it's very welcome.

When we had goats we milked 7 and 7, since it's good to have about twelve hours between. Much later and it was too hard to go out there. We started off splitting the milkings, but I hated going out there in the cold so we traded the evening milking for the evening dishes. Of course now that we haven't had goats in years I still do the dishes, but DH does lots of other stuff so I don't mind.

g_g, I have to _know_ they're all in. Andy is convinced the roof is safe, so I have to get him off if it every night (he thens goes in peacefully). Last night 3 were missing. Found two (just chicks, really) in a shelving unit, and one of my favorite young (Jan) hens had a nice nest in the shed, which she decided was ready for setting with six eggs. I wasn't even sure she was laying yet. I didn't think she should stay there (not safe), so moved the nest, but, of course, she broke. Now, when I WANT to break them, it's impossible...

I know, I know...

That makes a lot of sense, Catmad. Our chicken coop is out in an old orchard, and there are no other buildings for them to be seduced by, so they go into the house at night. The only critters we ever had problems with were the guineas, but even they learned to go to bed there, too - eventually.

How come you don't have a/c? We didn't have it the whole time our kids were growing up, but we lost a huge shade tree a number of years ago and then had a couple of summers in a row where it stayed around 100 for weeks on end, so we just capitulated and got it. We had put in the ductwork when we built the house so it was easy to add.

I AM so glad that I'm not the only one hunting for chickens. The ones I have now go right in but there have been many nights that I had to wait for them to find places to roost then go carry them into the coop. I was so glad nobody could see me, carrying chickens.

LOL, Lisa! Quite a sight, I'm sure!

I WANT CHICKENS!!!

You just THINK you do....

No, no - I REALLY do! (The cats are hungry...)

Ha!! Forget that. The poor cats are very careful to stand clear of the chickens. There's a big 'Ol Tom that visits occasionally, and I think he hope for a little chicken nugget. When Mom (a banty/turken cross) figured it out, she WHALED on him. I couldn't stop laughing at the big scruffy King of the Neighborhoos totally routed by an irate Little Red Hen.
I do have one little feral who begs for eggs. She'll even try to crack them with her teeth...

g_g, we have AC, I just don't have room in the budget to run it. It's a bit of a struggle right now to keep everything current. I did invest in a Solar Dryer , which should lessen the load somewhat:)

p.s. Sequee, if the little hen succeeds, I shall grant your wish. When the PO calls to tell you that you have a Box that Peeps please retrieve it promptly. I will include instructions.

Hmmm, a solar dryer is an interesting concept! We keep the house at 75 when we use the a/c so it's not as expensive as it might be, but it's still costlier than not running it.

Our cat has never gotten involved with our chickens, but she does take out the occasional songbird or mole.

When I was in hs in San Clemente, my parents got my sister a chick for her birthday. The little fella fell in love with my dad and followed him everywhere. If my dad was crouched down working on a car, he'd hop right onto Daddy's knee or shoulder. One day the cat tried to get near Dad and it was mayhem. The chicken chased the cat out of the garage, down the driveway and up the street. Very funny. The cat never went near the chick or the garage again!

Maybe I shouldn't be so grandiose. It's a carousel clothesline...

When I ran the AC, 74 was sufficient, and right now sounds like heaven :).

See Sequee? The wrath of a chicken is mighty to behold. Poor kitty.

peeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeep

Sequee, I love your chicken story! Catmad, we have a clothesline, too...

One day my Dad was working on the car. He had a small bucket of gasoline and was cleaning spark plugs with a wire brush. The chicken jumped up and lost his balance, falling into the bucket. Daddy rushed him inside to give him a bath! He suffered a minor brun on his head where he lost his feathers, but by the afternoon he was bcak on Daddy's knee and they were closer than ever!

Here's how my garden looked as of this morning

Here it is from another view

This message was edited Jul 5, 2010 2:30 PM

How lovely Honeybee...Your garden looks so neat and tidy. Certain areas of mine look fine and other areas have gotten away from me during this heat wave (which has restarted again today as it is 5:45 and we have just hit 100 degrees again. Will show you some of the better areas of the garden.... I aspire to have mine look as nice as yours!

A view of the "Tomato Jungle" . Enter at your own risk! (:o)

And the Rombilino (sp) squash running wild over the trellis! It may take over the garden. It is only three plants... may have to cut back to one next year. {:o(

And finally the Butter Beans.... BIg Mamma butter beans in the making! ):o)

What great photos!

Here is a picture of today's harvest. We are really broke right now (new roof, car needed $1,000 worth of work, etc.) So I was pretty proud of myself when I realized we won't go hungry because I can FEED US!

WoHoo!

Beautiful haul! Isn't it great knowing that even if you don't produce enough to be self-sustaining, you can produce enough for a few meals?

And it's so much healthier for you, both in the growing and the eating! Congratulations!

Very, very nice, happy!