Will you need to make a support of some sort to hold the weight of the cantaloupes? I know last year several of my butternuts climbed a cattle panel but fell off when they got large. (I didn't plant them to climb, they just spread enough to reach the panels.)
Looks like those of us from Ohio to the Carolinas are in for more bad weather for the next few days. Lots of damage and 2 dead from last night's storms rolling through the area. We had some damage in town (6 miles away) but escaped the brunt of it here at home. My creek is up and will likely flood as the rains continue over the next few days. :(
I started a 2 gallon batch of American Neufchatel cheese last night and it's time to start it draining now. If it's any good I will make cheesecakes to take to the VA RU later this month. I didn't want to make it so soon, but was worried about the milk keeping. I'm told the cheese will freeze, which makes it okay to have made it now. (I hope.)
On the May Homestead
Still plodding along getting the garden in. It was up to 93 here yesterday, but is suppose to cool down by the weekend.
Regarding the discussion last week about moving the flood waters... I heard on the news this morning about rubber bladders which are being pumped full with flood waters and surrounding a MS hotel protecting it from flood water damage. Good for up to 6-7' protection. Looked pretty cool. Seems to be working so far.
Now that makes sense, if they don't float away. How efficient to use that instead of sand bags.
Darius ~ you can suspend canteloupe, squash, etc on trelli by mesh or net bagging or hose.
Hope everyone stays safe from the spring weathers.
Robin, I didn't see that, but it sounds like a good idea.
I got another inch and a 1/2 of rain last night. Is this ever going to end?
I'm going to the village of DeGraff, Ohio today so I can go to John Wagler's greenhouse. John is old order Amish and he always has some interesting stuff. Old fashioned tomatoes especially. After last night's drenching I can't work in the garden today anyway. I did get all the herbs planted yesterday, and spread 16 loads of manure on the field.
When I was in the Navy we used to partly fill bags with water and put them in the scuppers when we were refueling. That way any fueloil spills stayed on the ship. Also, when I make kraut I put a bag of water on top of the cabbage. it makes a good seal. I can't see why it wouldn't work for a hotel if you can stack them that high.
MsRobin, plodding is the perfect word for when the temps start getting up there! We're hoping it will cool down for the next few days...A/C is on the fritz. Hoping to get it fixed before we get into the 100's!
I need to look up training the melons, never done it before. I usually avoid anything that sounds like 'extra' work in the veggie garden. But didn't want to waste the space. The panel arch went so fast that I'm going to use it again next year, especially for asian long beans.
Darius, let me know how you like the cream cheese. I can make a good cream cheese, but not one that holds up to cooking with. My cheesecakes get a strange oily top on them. I think it might be too high a butter fat content, but not sure.
Nik, that's a great tip for pressing down kraut! Thanks.
Linea, I'm using 2% milk (and non-fat buttermilk as the starter), but the recipe is from a woman who has her own milkers; she says she just skims the milk.
I need to try that, I get so much cream during this time of milking, I run out of things to do with it! I've only been using full cream recipes, but saw one posted by Tea that was more milk then cream..it looked promising as well. Isn't that what it makes Neufchatel...lower fat content?
Sorta... American Neufchatel is a low-fat cream cheese. Real neufchatel is mold-ripened like a camembert, with a rind... and is more crumbly and salty. Aged about 9-10 weeks.
LOL!
Still making lots of progress. Planted sweet potatoes, winter squashes and okra today. Had to make signs for some of the rows and also cut some extra pieces of the corragated plastic to use for shade against afternoon sun on these seedlings that are going out in this heat. Have to plant my melons tomorrow. I think I'll use some cattle panels I have for trellises. They're all mini's, so should be easy enough to train and tie up. After that, other than corn, strawberry plants and a few herb plants, everything else is succession planting. Most people around here haven't even got their soil turned yet, or if they do, they haven't been able to plant like Nik, so I'm way ahead of the game.
We have a 5' kiddie pool for our dog under a tree and I pulled a chair up to it and stuck my feet in the cool water on my breaks. Sure made the heat much more bearable today. Won't be long and we'll be putting up the swimming pool.
I think those bladders held something like 600 gal and were long tubes. On the news, they showed where one end of one was overlapping the end of the next one. When full, they were 6-7' tall. They might not work for all cases, but in this case, management seemed to think they would protect the hotel. After the flood waters recede, these bladders are then emptied back into the river. I had never heard of them before, so was just impressed that someone thought up something so simple.
My garden is coming along. I put out a straight neck squash. That's 5 squash now and I have a couple more to go. I also put out 15 tomato plants tonight. 10 are in containers and 5 are in the raised bed. I potted up some pepper plants and eggplants. Have to get a spot ready for them. Also have to dig some more compost for the bags for the melons. So much to do but I do feel like I have a real garden now. My beans are about to bloom too. And I pulled the grass away from my raspberries which are just starting to bloom.
We had a bad storm last night. It was worse on either side of us but we got lots of rain. The wind went over our house on the ridge tops. We could hear trees falling up there but no damage here. Problem was, it knocked trees on the power lines on either side of us and we were without power from last night at 9pm until tonight at 9pm. They were saying it might be Saturday before we got power back because all the repair crews were down in Alabama helping after the tornados. So glad the skeleton crew did such a quick job. No leaning on their shovels today.
Sounds like all of you have been busy. It's that time of year. I am pooped tonight. I'm not long for bed. Going to town with DH in the morning. Have to get some props for my skit this weekend.
Rain!
yes!
Rain it is! I can see the pond and it has come up, hadn't checked the rain gauge yet. And with a hint of more to come.
Yay!
Two rain gauges with 2 1/2 inches each ~ would that mean we got 5 inches? LOL
Ahhhhhhhhh NO!
We got 2 1/4 (just once) and hope all that they promised for tonight shows up as well.
Congratulations on the rain! We didn't get any of that, that went through the midwest and across Cajun's area.
Cajun, way to go on the garden! Wow...how long ago did you plant your beans? And you are growing some melons in bags too?
Headed back out to the garden to see if I can get those last few rows planted. Only a 30% chance for pop-up showers today, so guess I need to start watering. It's already muggy out there.
cocoa_lulu will appreciate this... a "Stilton" started last Sunday. I just smoothed it and now it's ready to go in the cave for 60-90 days. Blue is growing nicely but smeared when I smoothed out the wheel so it doesn't show well in the photo. It weighs 1300 grams.
btw, my American Neuf turned out quite nicely. 2 gallons 2% milk + 1 cup non-fat buttermilk made 53.3 ounces!
RAIN a full 5 inches from a strong thunderstorm yesterday. Lots of runoff
of course, but the ground is wet, and now the grass will grow!!!!
Robert
Hooray for Everyone Who Got Some Rain!!!
Please send us some; it keeps passing north of us.
Why am I not surprised to see many happy Texans! lol Does my heart good to see all those that needed it so desperately, waking to rain.
Sorry, Porkpal it's gotta break sometime. They mentioned on the news this is the sign that La Nina is on her way out...?
Darius, that looks good! I can appreciate the heck out of some Stilton :0) Yum! Are you making a cheese cake today with the cream cheese?
Robin, that's got to feel so good being ahead of the game, great job! Did you order sweet potato slips or grow your own? I got the kiddie pool out last week too...and can't keep the dogs out of it.lol It's not for them, but oh well, they look content sitting in it :0)
Cajun, good to see you. I was wondering how you were feeling. It looks like you are feeling just fine! What are you going to do with all that summer squash?
I got some hoeing done this morning, nice not to have the bounce off the hard ground.lol
My 12 year old may have broken a finger playing basketball. Keeping an eye on it, since the Dr is closed early on Thursdays. Poor kid, it looks sore :0(
No, no cheesecake making yet, but in a few days. The RU is the 28th but I'm staying there the night before...
I'm waiting for SP slips. The ones I tried to start didn't do squat, neither in soil on a heat mat, nor a couple on toothpicks in jars. Ordered slips 2-3 weeks ago and they already have my money. No indication of a ship date. :(
I grew my own SP slips off of some small potatoes left from last year. They were taking forever though, so when I ran across some at Lowes, I bought two nine packs. Needless to say, mine took off like crazy. Plus, one of my new MG friends brought me some stems to root for Stevensons bush SP. They are suppose to have been grown every summer in our county for 100 years. I now have plenty of slips. But that's okay, because we love sweet potatoes and they keep so well.
We keep a couple of kiddie pools filled for Samson to keep him out of the garden fish pond. He gets really hot fetching balls, so takes many dips in his pools through the day.
I may have to get a kiddie pool for me... No, wait... I have a spring, and a creek!
What company was that Darius?
I never thought of looking at box stores for the slips, none of the feed stores carry them...I thought that was strange since our county produces so many SP.
I suppose I'll give mine some more time. I was hoping to put in at least 100 slips, not just for us, but the future pig. If I can rely on the slips I have so far, I'm only going to have about 25, drats.
I started them extra early with top and bottom heat, just not working well enough. Guess the end this year I'll try and keep some as house plants, then make starts from the vines.
It dried a little the last 2 days. I am going to set out the brusselsprouts (12) I got as soon as the sun goes down a bit. I had some idiot out here from the county trying to tell me how I need to ask for a grant to install Air COnditioning since I didn't have it. I didn't get the shotgun out, but it was a near thing. I DON'T do Air Conditioning. That's what fans and shade trees and sprinklers are for. I don't do television, either. The guy was really pushing it. I explained that I could afford A/C if I wanted it. I didn't need his gub'mint money. He just couldn't understand that either. I finally took his card (and pitched it when he left) and told him I would study on it. I do use the 2-40 A/C in the car and the truck. That's 2 windows down, 40 Miles per hour. hehehe.
I'm glad some of that rain fell on you guys in Tejas. We darn sure don't need any more here for a while. The farmers are really stressing as the corn and beans both should be planted now and they haven't even sprayed round up or Anhydrous yet. It's gonna be a rough growing season.
That cheese looks pretty good! I never made cheese before, but though about trying some cottage cheese or farmer's cheese. There's lots of things I would like to do one day. If I had a family here I might do a few of those things, but with it being just me I don't do lots of things like that.
I think I sold the front end loader, everyone whisper a prayer and keep your fingers crossed!!
Brown's Omaha Plant Farms, http://www.bopf.com/
Linea, to be fair I have to say they ship by last frost dates, and mine is May 15. I did indicate I wanted them sooner but you know how automated orders go...
I had frost here either last year or the year before in late June.
My morning is not off to a good start... Blogger (just for editing and new posts) is down, and the server for my email is down. :(
But I just tried on the 2 pair of $1 jeans from a yard sale last Saturday, they fit almost perfectly, even in length which is always a problem since I wear shorter length jeans... :)
I can't do anything outside yet, too wet. Can't do laundry because the others are sleeping. Guess I'll go out for a fast food biscuit!
Wow, 12 hours and no posts since mine early this morning! Was it something I said? LOL.
I made some progress on outside chores today; built some teepees and planted haricot verts to climb them (more yet to do), planted some thyme, chard and summer squash in several spots, worked on sorting contents of 1 shed, put part of the collected wine bottles in a tub to soak off the labels (hoping eventually to bottle all the various fruit wine vinegars I started last fall), found some of my stored seed flats and started more seeds, and made 2 trips to the dump. Oh, and cut back about half the old dead raspberry and blackberry canes; I got too wet after the afternoon rain to do them all.
Went to Lowe's earlier to see what I need to re-route the old water lines in the root cellar. Looks like I can step down the pipe size since the house now runs on the #$%^&* required chlorinated county water and not the spring, and I can get the lines out of the middle of the space easier (and cheaper). Still need to find an electrician to swap out the fuse box for a breaker box before I can do much in there.
Ha, I don't think it's anything you said. I hope it's because we're all having great weather and the time to get things done.
It's beautiful here, I've thrown all the windows open and spring cleaning.
I've started thinking about fall seeding, bought a seed few packs and will hit the trading forum soon to look for some odder things I haven't found locally. And of course I need to reorganize my seed box and make sure I don't already have what I'm looking for.lol
I think the guys are going fishing today, so I need to dig a trench for the guts, can't believe what a scavenger I've become :0)
BTW, I called about my sweet potato slips yesterday. He said the 18 days of rain has set them back but mine should ship this coming week. (They are in TN)