Okay, you guys in the south think we’re sissies. But, we’re definitely not used to such high temperatures, especially at planting time. Not only is it hot but we have a record number of mosquitoes this year. We spray up, then sweat the bug repellent off. Ish! My sister sent a neat cure for household mosquitoes. You fill a spray bottle with alcohol then spray the buggers when they’re dancing on the screens. It dehydrates them and leaves no mess. Now if I just had a couple of gallons of alcohol…

Today, Will spent the day trying to run our furrows for the tomato plants and potatoes. Yesterday, I cut up the seed potatoes, planning on getting them in today. But you know how that goes… Yep, after two passes, he hit a big, buried boulder in the Wolf Garden and twisted it out of shape. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but he’d caught it on a rock in our driveway and bent it earlier this morning. After three hours, he got it untwisted, welded, and back in shape. Only to have it happen again. He finished the needed rows with a single bottom plow, instead, not having enough energy to fix the furrower again today.

These Lakota seedlings are now planted in the Sand Garden.

While he was doing that, I was planting sweet corn in the Sand Garden — Who Gets Kissed and Simonet, plus Burro Mountain Anasazi popcorn. They won’t cross as they are all very different in pollinating times. I’ll admit I had to do it in stages, with a rest in the house in between times. Then I set out Lakota squash plants on the north end of the corn and planted Olinka naked seeded pumpkin seeds next to them. (Olinkas are Cucurbita pepos, where Lakotas are C. maxima, so they don’t cross.)

I’ve got flats of Glass Gem popcorn and Navajo Robin’s Egg corn as both are long season corns and to get needed great mature seed, I plant both indoors.

When I was planting, I noticed a Monarch butterfly flitting around on the edge of the woods. That made me feel good! Best, yet, when I came home, I saw two more on the lilac bushes in the front yard! I’m hoping they’ll lay eggs on the Butterfly Weed in the flower bed again so we can watch the cute caterpillars. We had so much fun with them the year before last. But none hatched last year, and we didn’t even see any Monarchs. So, you can see why we’re happy they’re here today!

We’re hoping we get another batch of cute Monarch caterpillars this summer like these two years ago.

— Jackie

29 COMMENTS

  1. Jackie, Is it possible/practical to dehydrate canned vegetables? Say green beans or peas.

  2. Jackie, Is it possible/practical to dehydrate a te canned vegetables? Say green beans or peas.

  4. Here in the Gulf Coast Region of Texas, we are seeing beautiful weather. Mid 80s and low humidity which is rare in June. We’re also getting rain. Haven’t turned on the air conditioner yet either.
    The garden is going well. Canned up 19 pints of yellow waxed beans and green beans, 10 pints of pickled red beats and 4 pints of pickled jalapenos. We’ve been eating out of the garden since the beginning of April.
    Fighting a squirrel and birds for my tomatoes. They are beautiful this year.

    • I’m thrilled your garden is providing so well for you!! The great part is that it’s fun, too!!

  5. ouch ! break downs from rocks are always a bane of farm life. WOW the Lakotas are beautiful!
    i gotta order some from you along with the Anazai popcorn once things settle down (winter! :)
    glad to hear you are able to get on with the seeding, even with more breaks. take care in the heat. here in Oregon we re about to see a 2nd early heat wave. there will go my lettuce an spinach, neither fans of heat.
    Mary

    • Bummer about the lettuce and spinach. Heat like that sucks! We had a good rain and it cooled down nicely. We’re so grateful!!

    • I know they are. So when we’re seeing them daily, we have great hopes they lay eggs on our milkweed and butterfly weed.

  7. It’s starting to get hot here again in my part of Oregon. My orange milkweed is forming flower buds right now. I can’t wait until it blooms, it so pretty and all the pollinators love it. I have it in pots as it spreads like crazy, both by roots and by seeds. I make sure to remove the seed pods before they can pop, think giant dandelion seeds lol. I received a purple milkweed this year from a friend so I am excited to see it bloom. Let me know if you want some seeds Jackie, trust me, I have LOTS leftover from last year lol

    • I also have purple milkweed. Our butterfly weed doesn’t reproduce via either rhizomes or seeds. I think it’s the climate as we’re so cold in the winter, here.

  8. Here in N. Central TX we are seeing 80 degrees…… Ah, that is nice…… But 60-80% humidity……. Help someone wring me out! LOL

    • That kind of humidity simply turns me to mush. I’d have to garden with a headlamp at night!

  9. Here in the NY Finger Lakes region 2 weeks ago I lost the tomatoes in the garden to a FREEZE even though they were covered (thankfully I had extras that hadn’t been transplanted yet). All this week we’ve been in the 90s. I ended up putting sheets over the 2nd batch of tomatoes so they wouldn’t scorch to death. I can only work in the garden early morning and evening with these temps, but I put in much less than you so I can fit in the time sensitive stuff and push off other stuff.

    • Wow, a FREEZE!!! We always look for them this time of the year. If we don’t get one, it will be the very first spring in Minnesota that we didn’t get frost in the first two weeks of June. I’m talking about 40 years, total. Climate change at its worst.

  10. The Lakota I planted were just
    Wonderful. Big healthy vines and
    Lots of delicious food. And they’re
    Beautiful in the garden. Winning
    Combination. Your seeds really are
    Treasures.

    • We are happy to hear you think so too! I mean what better name for a seed company than Seed Treasures???

  11. I like that idea about the alcohol, I’ll be trying that today.

    Years ago we lived in northern Pennsylvania where mosquitoes are everywhere in the summer so we were used to them and we did all the normal stuff: cleared out standing water, stayed indoors at dusk and dawn, etc. I never bothered with insect spray, too much poison on my skin I said. The we moved to Vermont and the first year here we experienced black flies (I’m told they exist in Pennsylvania, but I never saw one.) Flying demons, they’ll take out a chunk of flesh. Now I keep many cans of insect repellent in stock at home, the strongest DEET stuff I can find.

    As far as the rocks are concerned, it’s a losing battle in the Green Mountains. I’ll get all the garden beds nice and clear one year, but the following spring tons of rocks have moved their way up through the soil over winter and some of them are absolutely huge. I know they weren’t there in the fall. It’s a never-ending fight.

    • We used to live in Nova Scotia where black flies were the PLAGUE every spring. We found that mixing some lemongrass essential oil in water in a small glass spray bottle and spraying liberally (shake often) really worked! Very relieved to find this as I hated coating my daughter in Deet and they loved her. Doesn’t work for deer flies though. They seem to be attracted to the smell. Have to respray regularly, it doesn’t last all day, but I still prefer it over chemicals.

      • Thanks for the tip! I always keep lemongrass oil on hand for the beehives, I’ll mix some up for us and see how well it works. At this point we’ll try anything.

        We do our best to keep the DEET on our clothes rather than directly on our skin, but the darn things fly into our ears so we’ve got to put a little bit there.

    • Blackflies here in Maine as well and they will indeed take a chunk of skin. I use a Maine made product called: “Flick the Tick”. Don’t let the title fool you. It is excellent for black flies. I spray it on my hat and shirt collar. You can also spray it on your skin. The nasty little buggers buzz round but don’t land. It’s all natural and you can buy it on line. I love the stuff!

    • I think rocks produce babies in the winter and then shove them to the surface, come spring. We are finally getting ours under control in most of our gardens, after nearly 20 years of picking them every spring.
      We have tons of black flies too. Ish! I’m getting Flick the Tick like Sheryl advised. Anything to get more hours in the garden.

  12. Picked almost a quart of strawberries today. Got a *little* bit of rain but we do need some (of course whoever cut hay today probably wasn’t happy – we could smell it tonight). Canadian wildfires are affecting our air quality today.
    We’ve been in the low 90s also but come Sunday back down to more “normal” (if there is such a thing these days) temps.

    • Two more quarts this morning and a visual late afternoon show more ready to pick tomorrow. This morning’s quarts have been/will be shared.

      • Yep, we can smell Canadian smoke here so strongly sometimes it wakes us up, thinking we have a forest fire nearby! Yum! Strawberries are the best.

  13. There is a bath oil made by a company with door-to-door sales people.

    Spray it on the door frame. Flying insects do not like it and will avoid the area.

    Original scent and it smells good to people.

    kathy in MS

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