Another berry good day

[Terry Coombs]

  Looks like we may get tired of strawberries ... nah , that ain't happening ! Picked another basket this morning to be sure we had enough for a batch of jam , coulda made 2 batches with these and what I picked on Thursday . So Mrs Snag made one batch and cut a bowl full up for shortcake . That makes 17 half pints of jam so far . Still have some fresh berries in the fridge which I plan to freeze tomorrow . A cup of berries and a quarter cup of sugar , seal in a vacuum bag and refrigerate for a day to develop the syrup before I freeze them . I also found time to plant a bunch of other stuff that was ready , including about 40+ sweet potato slips plus seedlings of yellow squash , cucumbers , zucchini , spaghetti squash , bell peppers , and a Roma tomato seedling that I had damaged when planting the rest . There's one more Roma in ICU , but I'm not sure if it will make it . We also scored another 3 plants that are bee-friendly . I'm trying to increase the number of plants that bloom in  midsummer since the spring nectar flows are the only reliable source of nectar for the bees/butterflies/hummingbirds. Scored a Spirea and a Rose of Sharon for buy one and the second plant half price , plus a large bunch of purple bee balm rooted plants - those were free . So far the taters are going gangbusters , corn is up - apparently some either got washed away or eaten by birds - beans are coming up now and all the tomato plants have survived so far . Another monsoon-like rain storm tonight means I'll need to check things over in the morning to see if any plants got damaged . Oh , and I forgot about the small pot of chives , they're ready for a bigger home so they'll get repotted to a 6" container . Now I need to learn where/when to use them ... does sprouting mung beans in a jar count as "gardening" ?

[Nyssa]

Nice progress.

Yes, sprouting mung beans counts as "indoor gardening."

Nyssa, who just had a jar of her indoor gardening sprouts in a stir fry yesterday with shrimp and broccoli

[Terry Coombs]

  That was kinda tongue-in-cheek ... These are intended for a beef stirfry for dinner tomorrow . Got a nice 1 1/4 lb chunk of sirloin tip thawing slowly in the fridge . When I realized my wife would be home for dinner tonight (Walmart's work  schedules really suck) I considered moving that up . Except she took a roast beef sandwich for lunch . So now I'm thinkin' pork loin steaks parm with pasta and a nice green salad . Maybe from the garden , got a bunch of volunteer lettuce from last year and some green onions ready to pull . I did freeze those berries this morning , got 2 cups and added only an eighth cup of sugar cuz a quarter cup looked like too much . Easy to add more later , not so much trying to take some away .

[songbird]

it hasn't happened to me yet either, but i have had so many that i've invited others to come pick and then gone out and helped them pick because i was so happy to have someone else put them to use.

hmm... i guess that would be one way to do it. i've heard of people putting them on a tray and then freezing them before bagging. i tried one year freezing mashed berries in pint jars but they were starting to ferment when i did that and i was hoping the freezing would kill off the ferment. it didn't... only a few jars were edible. the rest were like a glob of sorta strawberry wine smelling stuff. the worms were happy to have it... i suppose i should have got vids of drunken worms.

cosmos are a great mid to late summer flower, annual but prolific and all sorts of bees seem to like them.

buckwheat in small amounts can be planted at intervals if you need a patch to help out that is quickly established.

...

best in the early to mid spring and late summer IMO.

if you don't want them to spread you'll have to remove the seed heads after they have flowered for a bit. and by spread i mean take over... i've removed some large patches of them and i can say that i truly hate the smell of chive roots/dirt clumps.

sure. :)

songbird

[Terry Coombs]

  I coulda picked more today ... but they'll hold until tomorrow . I spent an hour or so out in the garden pulling weeds , mostly in the berry patch . Then I moved over to the Iris beds . It's a triangle about 25 feet on a side , with several big clumps of Daffodils and Iris that bloom sequentially lining the driveway side . I'm getting ready to plant a spirea in one corner and may plant some of the purple bee balm I scored in the middle - maybe around the hickory tree . There's already 2 kinds of mint in there .