Good Things Come To Those That Work

Or, is that Wait?  Yes, I do know the saying...I am talking about my garden.  We got our first ripe tomato a few days ago, it was green then and it fell off the vine when I was running my supports, but I put it on the window ledge and it ripened.  It had such a good flavor.  I had an egg customer who brought me some home grown tomatoes too, it was very nice of him...I have had only one out of my garden so far.  We cut one of his tomatoes for our burgers last night.  I am not sure if it is because of the type of tomato, or because I worked so hard to get my garden going this year...but mine tasted better!  Lol, my husband said it first...he was surprised the flavor was not the same.  I am not sure what kind he planted...they are very large though.  Mine are Heirloom tomatoes, I think all but maybe the Roma tomatoes.  But when I was out watering and weeding yesterday, I noticed one starting to ripen...it is a Purple Cherokee tomato.

I harvested Broccoli too, my plants are doing very well and are the biggest I have grown.  I guess moving my garden to the front of my house was a good move.  I have green beans big enough to harvest now too, and noticed my Brussel sprouts may be getting the sprouts!  I also have quite a few Bell Peppers and Habaneros too.  I have water melons the size of my fist and a butternut squash about four inches long.  I have cucumbers forming too...and am thinking about planting a Fall garden.  I need to move a bunch of compost to the front, you can tell where I stopped spreading the composted chicken manure by the size of the plants.  My corn, well about half of it was laying on the ground yesterday, the wind was blowing and the soil/sand dried out...I have a lot more work to do to amend the soil so that doesn't continue to happen.

It has been hot and muggy here.  We have been having brief downpours, most only last five minutes or so.  But, we are coming into our dry season.  We may not get much rain for the next two months which will make our high temperatures a little better.  Last night on the weather they said June in Shreveport Louisana is usually the wettest month of the year, we are a bit over 50 miles from there.  This year I think March and April were the wettest.  It is hard to get things done for a garden when you have 8 to 12 inches of rain in a day.  But between storms and fencing in a new area, tilling my garden four or five times...planting started plants after they should have been in the ground and seeds two weeks later...I think it has worked out great.

I have worked more on my four breeding pens too.  I got the house part almost completed, all the roofing, siding and most of the hardware cloth is on.  I even have roosts in.  I have the top section of the divided walls to attach hardware cloth to.  Then I can start on the runs for the pens.  I need more wood though, otherwise I will have to use some doors off of other pens and they are only four feet tall...not really tall enough to contain the chickens.  I need to get it finished, I have a lot of babies getting too big for my back porch brooders.  I need Growout pens for ducks and turkeys too!  Maybe another for my chickens...or maybe dividing the breeds out into the breeding pens will give me enough space in the coop to get the babies into the Side Car...or getting rid of more roosters will open up enough space to use my Growout pen for it's intended purpose?  Lots to think about, and always lots to do!