How does my garden grow? This year, not too badly. I tilled in a load of composted chicken manure and shavings from the coop in the Spring, and it sure has helped! The plants, for the most part, are big, green, and leafy. Of course, the manure is high nitrogen, which promotes leaf growth, so flower and fruit set was slow. I picked up some blooming plant fertilizer, which is lower in nitrogen and higher in phosphorous, because that will help with blossoming. I’m starting to get more flowers now. I’ve harvested a whole bunch of radishes, and the first of the pickling cucumbers. It could have grown a bit longer, but I was impatient! Have many more pickles, and a few salad cucumbers growing well now. The tomatoes have lots of blooms, and there are some nice looking green tomatoes out there now. Both winter squashes and zucchini are setting blossoms, so they should be fruiting, as well. The carrots are starting to come up, and I see a good deal of new growth on the asparagus. That last gives me hope for next year, since we haven’t been able to harvest a lot of asparagus so far. I did lose a few of those plants over the winter, so I think I am going to just turn that whole section of the beds over to asparagus next year. That way, I can replace the ones that died, and add more. Unfortunately, peas and beans were a bust this year. Something kept eating them. I suspect some sort of insect, as I have not seen any sign of the groundhog so far. I may try more beans when I plant the next round of carrots and radishes, and peas again when the weather cools.
I am getting a new computer tomorrow. Yay! This laptop, while it has been a good little machine for a while now, has some issues. For one, it is getting quite sluggish, and that is just annoying. The other big thing for me is that it does not like having an external monitor attached. It is supposed to be able to deal with that, but we have tried several different ones, and it just doesn’t want to deal well. So I am getting a desktop, which I know will take two monitors. I like the two monitor set-up. I admit, I was skeptical at first, but I quickly grew to like working that way. I got the laptop originally for the convenience when traveling, but now we have the netbook which is an even bettr traveler, so this one can retire. We put the two monitor stand on the desk over the weekend, and the smaller monitor is on it already. The bigger one I had seems to have some sort of problem and doesn’t like to stay powered on. That could be a problem, I think. The BaldMan will pick up the new one we ordered tonight. The computer itself and various miscellaneous bits (an underdesk stand and USB hub) are scheduled to arrive tomorrow. And, then, of course, the real fun begins! Getting it set up and figuring out all the “stuff” I have and need to add to the new one. The nice thing is that I am not working with a dead computer, so I have the old one as a reference. It will still be tedious, I am sure. Ah, technology! The good, the bad, and the ugly, at times.
It will be a busy few days here, but things will return to whatever passes as normal shortly. Meanwhile, enjoy your summer. Spend time with family and friends, relax a bit, and give those grills a good workout!
And So On... 