These aren't really the the dog days of summer for us, because our dog is too spoiled to go out in the heat. Craig and I will be outside working and Lulu will stand by the door, insisting we let her back in the air-conditioned house.
The garden in good times
Actually, this time of year we are usually outside only in the mornings and evenings. Every summer when the heat really gets going my garden starts getting neglected and overgrown, although I managed to keep on top of it longer than usual this year (thanks, quarantine!) But we're finally at that point - I've gone a full week without pulling a weed or picking okra. I'll have my work cut out for me this weekend!
Overgrown okra is still pretty
Of course, even when I'm being good I still fall behind on okra picking, because if you don't pick every day you wind up with billy clubs instead of edible pods. The orange bucket was heading straight to the compost pile. The blue bucket was the week's haul of bell peppers, plus the edible okra.
One thing I did pick this week was wild muscadines. Almost 10 pounds of muscadines, which is actually not all that much, since they're bigger and heavier than regular grapes. It took me about 30 minutes to gather that many and I could have gotten more but...did I mention it is hot outside?
I did actually pick more...but a great many of them wound up in my belly instead of the bowl. And yes, I sucked the pulp, spit the seeds and tossed the skins!
Grandma's hand-me-down Tupperware - family heirloom!
Pretty soon we'll be getting pecans and that's going to be a real job. Our trees are absolutely loaded this year - I'm excited and dreading the work at the same time! I even looked into getting a roller to pull behind our lawn tractor but that's way more money than I'm willing to spend to save myself a few hours of rolling with a hand tool. Might change my mind halfway through, though.
These branches aren't normally touching the ground - they are just weighed down with pecans.
We also had a bumper crop of black walnuts this year, which would be great if I liked them. I found out I didn't really care for them after the first time I went through the long, tedious and messy process of getting them ready to eat. This year I just gathered a bucketful to toss out into the areas we're letting go back to woods - maybe we'll get lucky and some will take root. If you haven't ever seen them being grown - they start out looking like limes.
This year I mixed in a lot more flowers in my veggie garden than I had in years past and that's worked out really well. It is supposed to attract more pollinators and I think it has, but mostly it just makes it pretty and I'm all for that.
This weekend is supposed to be cloudy and not quite as brutally hot as August in Georgia usually is, so I'm hoping to get the garden wrangled into order (as much as a garden ever is, or should be) this weekend. Wish me luck!
