Summer Garden

This spring, my husband and I decided we were going to try a "no-till" method on our large summer vegetable garden.  We watched a video called "Back To Eden" and were pretty amazed!
We decided not to plow or till.  He would only mow the cover crop and any grass that was there.  Then he started making trips to the dump to get trailer-full after trailer-full of this wonderful stuff!  I believe her got at lest 6-7 loads and started spreading.

After planting my seedlings which I had started earlier, we put them in the ground and gave them some water.  Nothing much else.
Here is what it looks like today.

We've actually had a hot, dry summer so far, with some rain last week.

Lots and lots of blossoms on the squash.

Patty-pan squash can be eaten as summer squash, or later left on the plant to get big for use as winter squash.

Notice the nice, soft, CLEAN, squishy bed that squash lays on!  

I have yet so see any squash bugs.  That doesn't mean I won't.

My husband has weeded twice.  Each time it took no more that 10 minutes.  Really!  Did I mention we haven't watered? 

See the video here.

The tomato plants look very good, although they have some sort of a leaf curl.  It doesn't seem to have much affect on them, although they are not as pretty.  There is just a tiny bit of blossom end rot on the tomato I picked this morning.  The rest of them look great!

We haven't put any green beans in the ground yet.  Maybe there will be time for a fall crop.  We got it all in very, very late.

I hope you will see the video.  It takes over an hour to view it all, but you will be pretty amazed!  

Orchid Fully Bloomed

Two years ago my husband gave me this beautiful orchid for my birthday.  It was pretty then.  It is spectacular now!  It has been in bloom for a month.

Ashley had great success with orchids when she was home.  She knows lots about them, so I always call her when I have questions.  

"My mouth shall speak the praise of the LORD: and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever."

A Few Recent Pictures

Here are just a few updates.

Elvira is a Mama again.  Strange.  This is her second  flock of chicks this year.  The first flock had  about 5 or 6 chicks.   They disappeared.

Now she has another family.  There are five.  Maybe some more will hatch.  

Tom is really pretty.  

Here is my honey and Daniel.  They are pals.

Sawyer took part is singing camp.

This was taken on "Little Girl Day".  Isabella and Uncle Hamlin.

Hens and Chicks

You have to have a sense of humor when you live around here.  

A few weeks ago, Sayre had a broody hen.  He just so happened to also have some bantam eggs, and I had some duck eggs.  So we put all our assets together and you can see what we came up with.

Just so you can get an  idea of the variety of "objects" Mother Fluff-Ruffle had to sit upon for three weeks, you can see the brown egg at the top is a large chicken egg.  The little ones are bantam eggs.

 Bantams are just miniature chickens; usually very brightly colored and the roosters think they are hot stuff....  The bantam roosters are usually the first ones to begin crowing in the morning, and their cah-cu-doodle-doo would register in the high soprano range.  

The large eggs are from ducks.  They are nice to bake with. 

 Mother Fluff-Ruffle is real proud of her little brood.  You have to wonder what she thinks about her progeny.

Here's Tom.  He spends the whole day strutting.  He is really friendly.  He is a heritage breed Bourbon Red turkey.  I'm hoping for "turkeyettes" in the spring~~and Thanksgiving dinner in November.  Of course, we will not be eating Tom.  Or his two hens for that matter.  Just the kids.  That sounds terrible.