Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day....

Happy Mother's Day to all of the caring hard working people in everyone's lives...

Sunday care and share...

Today, is cool and calm outside and Tangent is waiting for me to get up and start checking, cleaning and fertilizing...

The Tomatoes are doing amazing...  such nice full bushes ...

But the zucchini and summer squash aren't very happy,  not sure why !

They are both full of flowers and the summer squash even has squash on it... it has had fertilizer once every ten days but it just seems like it doesn't want to do anything better...

Pepper plants are still producing... Just look at them...

That is one limpy branch

and the grape vine is slowly coming around...I haven't seen any of the pesky little caterpillars... but I think I pruned a little to harshly because I only one cluster of grapes...   

There is a surprise visit from the Pea family that decided to produce...

I have some amazing Dill wanting to be harvested and dried too... among some of the herbs I love...

Now watermelon I cant believe how lovely the vines look...  I certainly have high hopes for some melons this summer...

Well, the winds are still happening and midnight thunderstorms popping up every other night... and hot weather threatening to rise it's hot head...  

Peppers, April Winds, Dusty Desert....

So,  In my area of the dusty desert, there are two months out of the year we endure the winds, some have said these are called San Ann winds or something. April & October..
Well, not only are these winds disruptive, but annoying... I get there are reasons for the winds to happen but when I come home and see the thick dust, and broken Bell Pepper limbs, yea aggravation isn't all I feel...

I kept these plants happy through freezes and sun scorch in the hot months..
Okay, maybe keeping them alive for two spring seasons is a little much.. But really why not...? Well, maybe mother nature is strategically telling me why keeping these plants alive longer than needed is not really wise,  The longer they stay alive the more brittle they become... I mean it's only been two days of heavy winds and each day broken limbs..  okay okay not a great ration.. 100% fail... but if the winds weren't so strong i can get another great batch of peppers out them before giving up on them.
With understanding peppers are potentially great keepers for a couple of good harvests...

So the winds finished up some what... really made a mess of things with the dust.... but look at what I harvested so far!


My peach tree had an amazing batch of peaches this go around.. the peaches were a bit small but juicy and tangy sweet...decided to bake a peach cobbler...

This is whats left of this batch,  the birds were making sure they were getting their share so I had to pick a few that were a bit under ripe... I'm all to share some but not letting them be so greedy..

Oh by the way, the birds knew my game of tying ribbon and hanging CD's on the tree to try to keep them away... IT DID NOT WORK...   so other than using the netting not sure what else can be used...
Ideas anyone?

 Hopefully, being the start of May the winds will die back some and dust won't spread so much... and the may flowers will come with an abundance...

The Return of the Skeletonizers

Last year in May of 2015,  I had a war with the grape skeletonizer... 

My Executioner Husband will have a nasty Job to do again... Because they are back...

Either we didn't get them all last year or they just know the best diner in town is located here...

I did take a picture of them and made sure that they were the outlaws, before high noon comes...

So the death date is set, spray time is set, and there is no turning back... 

Grape vine

I have been away for so very long sometimes life gets in the way of best of Pleasures, and well its 
still true for now...

But.... New plans are being drawn up... Thats if other hopes fall through... 

The big picture and hope is getting on the ban wagon of homesteading or at least being a bit more 
self reliant...

But until we find that piece of heaven, we are maintaining our little heavenly backyard as of now...

Some clean up and chopping and growing are in progress...

Tangent looks pretty good so far... I will be letting go of the Peppers... They are weak and ready to be pulled next season
But Tomatoes look great...

My yellow squash set veggies... yay... 
Temperatures are ramping up and 100 degree weather is here..

Hope to have most of the plans or designs made up to share soon.