another round of thinning

thinned out the luscious pear tree, took off 45 baby pears. counted 34 baby pears still on the tree.


thinned 17 more pears off the parker pear tree. leaving 44 pears still on that tree. (second thinning)


last year there were 20-30 pears on the luscious tree and they ALL stayed baby pears. so i think i need to cut those numbers by half. hell, the other two pear trees have only 6 and 8 pears each.

but thinning off pears is hard! what to leave, what to take. i've already thinned each bunch down to one single pear. and pulled off all the ones that had anything wrong looking with them at all. and on the parker tree, i pulled off more pears so that the biggest branches (oldest/most upright/center) had no more than 3 pears, the medium size branches had 2, and the skinny littlest branches only had one.

i think its better if i thin a little at a time. walk away. thin a little more. i never thought it would be THIS hard for me to thin out the baby pears. plus this is new to me. i'm not entirely certain i'm doing it right. i'm worried i'll screw up my trees somehow.

but mostly its a war in my head that says NOOOOOOO! DONT DO IT!!!! even though i know its the right thing to do.

chicken salad

i made chicken salad back in the end of june and it was awesome!
i chopped up the chicken


then chopped up celery and stirred it in until it looked like a nice ratio of crunchy to not crunchy


added just a little bit of onion. almost added more, but i'm glad i didnt. the onion was what i was most uncertain about.


i threw in a few grapes cut in half, added a few more grapes, then added more grapes.


dumped in a blob of mayo. mixed it up. added a bit of salt. it made great sandwiches.


and when i ran out of bread i ate it on crackers.


it was good. just the right amount of crunch, just the right amount of sweet. i'm very proud of myself. i'm not comfortable at all cooking without measurements to follow. but since i'd recently eaten my moms salad, my mouth helped me guess at the ratios.

another bug

the little leaf miner bug from the ash trees. its small, not even 1/4". maybe 3/16" or 3 mm long.


the ash trees seed prolifically, especially along my fence. every year i have to cut down tons of volunteer ash tree seedlings. this year, the undersides of the leaves were filled with little long skinny bugs that i've never seen before. TONS of these bugs. they were killing the leaves. which i didnt give a toot about. i want the seedlings all dead anyway. but cutting them down disturbed the bugs and they swarmed me and freaked me out. they LANDED on me. EVERYWHERE! i was brushing them off and running away. very yucky!

i tried to look up what kind of bug it could be, but i couldnt find anything, and the more i looked, the worse my heebie jeebies got so i had to stop. it is definitely NOT the emerald ash borer in any stage. these were skinny, long, black with two white spots up by the head/neck, two further down the body. sometimes only the one by the head. some were a little more brown than black, but most were black. about a quarter inch long if even that. easily 20-30 bugs per underside of EACH leaf. they were leaving white trails in the leaves. not eating the leaf itself, but leaving trails like leafminers do.

yummy pork chops

i made pork chops. slathered them in seasoning


good honey lime rub seasoning


then dredged them in flour




fried them in a pan with oil over medium heat for 3 minutes on one side, 2 minutes on the other. these are thin cut pork chops.


yummy yummy yummy


i tried it with breadcrumbs instead of flour


but it wasnt as good. the flour with the honey lime rub is much better.

pear tree thinning

the bucket full of 118 baby pears i thinned off the parker pear tree


thinned down from approximately 179 baby pears on the tree to approximately 61. i thinned them from 3-4 at each spur down to one.


baby pears with funky spots where they rubbed another stem. i pulled off any funky looking pears.


even with all that thinning, theres still 3 pears on this one branch


and still 5 pears on different spurs on this branch


its hard to count pears on the tree.

ugly bug pictures

ugly little grub bugs that were eating the leaves of ground cherry plants


their backs were covered in goo that wiped off on my gloves when i touched them


i pulled them off and squished them under a brick. that seemed to end the problem. i have no idea what they are tho. never seen them before.


a gardening community suggested that they're beetle larvae. they suggested potato beetle, but i'm seeing striped cucumber beetles in my garden. googling seems to bring up similar pictures for both. so i'm going with the striped cucumber beetle larvae. and the goo on their backs is their excrement, it makes them less tasty to things that would eat them. *gag*.

clover

i love clover


it smells so good!

sweetpea and peas

sweetpea flattening a new tray of lettuce and greens. some she eats, some she just tramples.

sugar snap peas from my garden a few weeks ago.

baby pears on my pear trees!

parker pear tree, LOADED with baby pears. 179 baby pears!


i'm going to have to do some thinning or the pears from this tree will all be teeny tiny like last year. SO many little baby pears!




luscious pear tree. 56 baby pears.




patten pear tree. 7 baby pears.


summercrisp pear tree. 6 baby pears.

pictures from the garden and yard

'champion blue' bellflower campanula. my mom took me to the garden center after the garage sale and i blew some cash. i think this flower is beautiful and would like to have lots more of it! its a very stiff firm flower, holding its shape despite high winds and downpour rains. and such a pretty color too. i dont think this location is a good permanent location for it, but i wanted it in back where i could look at it every day. its so pretty!


raised bed. down on the bottom are sugar beets. moving up from there are ground cherries on the left, bellflower on the right. halfway up are 2 zucchini plants. sweet onions and more ground cherries intermixed everywhere. at the top are two rows of carrots.


strawberries are doing fabulous. biggest crop i've ever gotten this year.


so yummy and sweet and super juicy.


drainage ditch project. the grass is growing great! need to finish the drain part. need some kind of drain tubing to go under the fence to keep the hole/ditch open. need blocks to line the bottom of the ditch with. need to extend the ditch past the fence along the side of the garage up to the lilac bushes. however, the grass is still very young and tender and delicate and the dogs have already ruined a couple spots. but the water is draining away from where i want it away, and going to where i want it to go. that wasnt happening before. so even half finished its still helpful.


three kinds of sedum, planted out front. 'neon' stonecrop sedum on the left rear. 'bertram anderson' sedum on the right rear. 'vera jameson' stonecrop sedum down in front (spread into two branches heading left and right).


the transplanted day lilies have really taken off out front. i probably should have spaced them further out!

junes garden pictures

green beans and their trellis


tomatoes up front, peanuts in the rear


two pretty marigold varieties i picked up when none of my seeds sprouted


zucchini plants, a volunteer sunflower from last year that looks to be a monster, and the diminishing pile of leaves, no longer needing a wire cage around it.


spaghetti squash, with a whole row for it to spread out into


sugar snap peas on the left, black eyed peas on the right. watermelon down in front. (and weeds)


more watermelon. three sets of it, amid the weeds. and lots of clover.


the rye has really gotten tall!


close up of the seed head


peanuts on the lower left, up to broccoli, to cauliflower, over to brussels sprouts, back down to cabbage on the right