{"id":9981,"date":"2023-07-05T14:38:08","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T18:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/?p=9981"},"modified":"2023-07-05T14:38:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T18:38:08","slug":"i-hope-everyone-had-a-great-independence-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2023\/07\/05\/i-hope-everyone-had-a-great-independence-day\/","title":{"rendered":"I hope everyone had a great Independence Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

After all, independence is what all of us self-reliant people are striving towards and that historical date hastened us down our paths, centuries ago. While we’re thinking about the Fourth, we’re also busy trying to keep our gardens going. If only the vegetables would grow as well as the weeds! Some crops are doing great while others are struggling. Our first-planted sweet corns were hurt badly by wireworms. These little, underground buggers started munching on the corn seeds as they germinated, then progressed to going up and eating off the stems at ground level, just like cutworms. Will crawled along a row and dug up one of the little varmints. They are about an inch long, cream colored and kind of shiny, with pincher mouths. Ugh! Not much treatment available except to replant in a different location, which we quickly did. Our rain has been very <\/em>light and infrequent, so we’re also struggling with drought again. The beans are so-so, with intermittent germination and some puckered leaves from dryness and heat. For the most part, our squash and melons look pretty darned good, as does some of the early-planted corn, both that we started indoors and in smaller plots, here and there around the homestead. We even have some knee-high, by the Fourth of July corn that’s almost up to my waist. (Okay, I’m a short person\u2026)<\/p>\n

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This is our Glass Gem popcorn, that’s up to my waist. (Notice the weeds too!)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Will is busy, carrying rotted manure to various gardens and side-dressing rows of plants that need a boost. I’m still planting here and there, to replace what was in trouble or to add something in a vacant spot. Today, I started carrying old, partly rotted bales of mulch to start mulching the Leelanau Sweetglo watermelons in the Main Garden while Will’s working at getting some irrigation going in the Sand and Central Gardens, as well as our Main Garden. I did jump when I found a snake in a bale! It was only a friendly Redbelly snake, about 8 inches long. I picked it up and moved it to a safer spot where it can continue eating worms and slugs to its heart’s content. They never bite.<\/p>\n

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Will is busy, spreading rotted manure along rows and hills of plants that benefit from extra fertilizer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I’m following Will around, spreading mulch around the plants and rows.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our Evans Bali and Carmine Jewel bush cherries are in full swing, with a lot of cherries getting ripe. I mean a lot <\/em>of cherries! I’m getting ready to can up a bunch for baking and making pies later on. I have a few cases of pie cherries in the basement, I’ve been kind of saving, until our then-newly-planted cherries came into production. Now, I can use them up, before the cans rust out, knowing our little trees will keep us in cherries forever.<\/p>\n

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Cherries, we’ve got cherries!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

— Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After all, independence is what all of us self-reliant people are striving towards and that historical date hastened us down our paths, centuries ago. While we’re thinking about the Fourth, we’re also busy trying to keep our gardens going. If only the vegetables would grow as well as the weeds! Some crops are doing great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9986,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9981\/revisions\/9986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}