Mystery Solved and Bumpy Pears

The mystery vine has another fruit. It grew fast after the last one was destroyed in an unsupervised toddler accident only 20 days ago. The new fruit is starting to turn orange so I'm officially going with pumpkin.




The dead leaves all around the pumpkin are from a wicked case of downy mildew. A fungus that grew on most of the leaves and made them dull, white and fuzzy. Now they're dead. There are new leaves so I think we'll make it until this pumpkin is ready.

As I was checking out the garden today, I squeezed a pear. It fell off the tree in my hand. I guess that means it's ready to be picked but it seems awfully firm. I'll leave the rest for a few more days at least.



It's the bumpiest pear I've ever seen.

Just a Boring August Update

My first batch of peaches in July were awful. The bugs had almost completely destroyed the fruit before it ever had a chance to get ripe. I got to eat a few but that was only because I was willing to eat around to cut out the damaged parts. I never would have bought any peaches that looked as bad as mine. I may have found the solution to my problem.





My other peach tree, the Belle of Georga, is starting to ripen now and there's no insect damage. It' s late enough in the season that there aren't as many bugs around now. I found a semi-soft peach yesterday and ate the softest half right off the tree just to see how they tasted. It was a little crunchier than I like but really sweet. White flesh instead of the yellow flesh on my Gala peach. The few I picked today will need a couple of days on the counter to ripen but they look great.




If these work out well, I might order a couple of more Bell of Georga peach trees in the spring.

As you can see, we've also got tomatoes, (on the bottom of the basket) and all the grapes are ripe now. 6 varieties. 3 seedless (one of which has seeds - I don't know why), and 3 with seeds. I prefer seedless grapes but had read that the seeded varieties produce bigger fruit so I tried both. I could fill this basket 10 times with just bunches of grapes but how many grapes can one family really eat? I've never heard of frozen or canned grapes so I guess the rest will go to waste.

The best in my opinion are the white Lakemont seedless (Just like the white grapes in the supermarket), the red Reliance seedless (same variety as the supermarket) and the dark purple Concord seeded grapes.

Concord are what's used to make grape juice and they taste just like grape juice. I also have a variety called Glenora that's dark purple. This tastes just like grape soda. I never realized that the grape flavor in grape juice was different than the grape flavor in grape soda until I tried these grapes.

The fire blight I haven't seen in a month or more has shown up again on a pear tree. Since the limb is dead all the way to the trunk, I had to cut several inches of the top of the trunk. This meant cutting off one of my 5 remaining pears. It's not ready yet but I took a bite anyway. Needs another month.





The sugar sorghum seed heads (say that 3 times fast) are starting to turn orange. I'm going to try to use the seedheads like any other variety of sorghum. Sorghum is grown in Africa and the Middle East as food for people and animals. My dad actually grew several acres of sorghum as a grain crop when I was a kid growing up on a farm. My parents had a bird seed store and mixed their own seed. Millet (sorghum seeds) was one of the ingredients in their mixed bird seed.




When this stuff is used as people food, they toast the seeds and then boil them with water to make a porage similar to oatmeal. Mixed with milk and sugar it's eaten in lots of places, just not here. I'll let you know how it turns out in a month or so.

No More Water

Yesterday afternoon, I turned on the water in the bathroom sink and I heard the sound of air being sucked into the faucet instead of the sound of water coming out of the faucet. I tried the kitchen sink...same thing.

I checked the expansion tank pressure gauge: zero pounds. I checked the circuit breaker: On. Something was wrong with the well pump.





I had 240V to the controller in the basement. Good so far. I dug up the top of the well head and checked the wires there...240V. I then tried to start the pump from the controller. The pump should draw about 6 or 7 amps when it's running. Mine drew close to 50. I measured the resistance of the motor windings by using the wires leading to the pump motor at the bottom of the well. Both pump motor windings tested fine. For some reason the motor was stalled. Could be bad bearings, sand in the impeller, a small stone, or anything that was preventing the motor from turning.

So I pulled the pump.





Wanting to get a shower before going to bed, I went to buy a pump yesterday afternoon. We went to Lowes, Home Depot, Sears, and Tractor Supply. All had some type of pump or had the pump I needed but didn't have the controller. We showered at my parent's house last night. It's Sunday. I'm sitting at home waiting for some place to open this morning so I can go pump hunting again.

Hoping the pump was still under warranty, my wife searched through her warranty file. The warranty file is now a huge box of paperwork filled with warranties that expired when I was cool in my hawaiian shirts and velor sweaters.





Warranty for the pump was for 18 months and it's been 3 years since I installed it. Of course. A residential pump should last a lot longer than 3 years. but of course, mine gets a lot of use. I run the pump for lots of hours and thousands of gallons more than most people because I have a ridiculously large garden.

When I add the $300 for a new pump into the cost of having said ridiculously large garden, I'm now convinced more than ever of gardening truism #1.

"Gardening is Stupid."

Watermelons, Peppers, and Mowing Down the Garden.

Late Summer into Fall is harvest time and we're finally there. Last weekend I cut a watermelon that wasn't quite ripe. Today I found one that was. Picking a ripe one is tricky. They all look the same on the outside so you're left to thumping them and listening to how they sound. Supposedly the spot that touches the ground turns from white to yellow when they're ripe but that happened weeks ago. Some people say the vine starts to turn a little brown when they're ripe. That hasnt' happend at all. So I was left to thump them and listen for the one that went "plunk" instead of "plink". Not very scientific but it seemed to work.



These watermellons are "sugar babies". Smaller than the regular watermellon at about 12" in diameter. They are very sweet.

We also picked the peppers today. That half of my garden was used for all the leafy stuff that was done back in June. It's been pretty much forgotten since then except for me pulling a carrot to eat once in a while while I was out there working. The carrots are past their prime so all that was left to tend to on that half of the garden was the peppers. We picked them all today so I can mow that half down and not worry about it anymore.

We cut them up and freeze them in big chunks. Whenever we're making something that could use pepper, we pull a chunk out of the freezer, chop it up and throw it in the dish. We don't eat a lot of spicy food so this basket will probably last us until we harvest again next summer. There are several varietis of mild peppers here, mostly bell peppers. If we had waited a few more weeks, they would be all shades of yellow, orange, and red but I'm tired of dealing with them and green tastes just fine.

The world's most amazing squash squashed!

Fall's getting close and the garden's finally starting to pay off. I'm still eating grapes and expect there to be more varieties ripening over the next few weeks. The first round of peaches are gone and I got to eat a few.

Now the sweet corn is ready. I think we'll pick most of it this weekend and freeze what we don't use right away. Some of the ears have minor damage near the end from beetles but nothing that can't be trimmed off.



Still, I'm convinced gardening isn't worth it. I could have bought half a dozen peaches, a bunch of grapes, and a bushel of corn and been ahead.

The mystery vine growing along the house will probably remain a mystery. The only fruit growing on the vine was torn off of the vine yesterday. The details are sketchy but I know it involved an unsupervised toddler who, I was told, meant no harm.



It might have just been a boring old pumpkin. On the other hand, it might have been a new, undiscovered variety of cancer curing, anti-aging, unlimited fuel supply, high temperature superconductor squash. Now we'll never know.

Grapes

A short post.

Some of the grapes are ripe or very close. My Glenora seedless variety are just about there. I pulled of several of the ripest and they were good. Very sweet. Another day or two and I'll pull the bunches.

Glenora seedless

The concords are also close. The concords are only two year old vines. They look sparse but for two year old vines, they look good. Concords are the American dark purple grapes used to make grape juice. I don't think they're great table grapes.

Concord

I'm still waiting for two more seedless varieties (one of which has seeds) and two seeded varieties to ripen.

Mostly Pictures

It's been another busy week. I took a vacation week last week and spent this week at work catching up. Sometimes taking a vacation isn't worth it. I've neglected the garden even more than usual this week and it's a mess.

But here's an update anyway. Mostly just pictures.

The sugar sorghum I'm trying has put out seed heads. I'll cut it down in a few weeks and see if it's actually sweet.





I checked my garden this morning and set up some irrigation. My two remaining walking stick cabbage plants looked pretty good. They both had several large leaves at least 18" long and probably closer to 2 feet long. This afternoon, one of them has been eaten by something.





The vine that came up by itself in a flower bed is still unidentified. I thought it looked like a pumpkin but now it's got fruit and I don't know what it is. It's nothing I've ever grown before.





The fuji apple I cut down due to fire blight is putting out new suckers. I'm cautiously optimistic.





Something's been eating blackberries. I think it's a groundhog. At least he left me two.





The upside down tomato experiment on my porch is a limited success. It never got as big as I had hoped but it only gets a few hours of sun a day. It does have a red tomato.




The loofa sponge gourds are getting big. I'm not sure when to harvest or even what to do with them once I do harvest but this was my wife's idea so I'm off the hook. I also don't know how to spell "luffa" so I'll be trying out all possible spellings hoping I get one right.




And finally some of the grapes are almost ready. Several bunches are just raisins. I don't know why.