Plants love things that smell like poop

Now that we are starting to see some tassels on our corn plants it is time to fertilize them, so we can harvest more corn cobs. Earlier, We did a few treatments of fish emulsion, which is high in Nitrogen, (which is great for encouraging vegetative, non-reproductive, growth). Now we are switching over to peanut husks, (you know the thin little shells around the peanut, inside the shell). Peanut husk is very high in Phosphorus and Potassium, which is great for encouraging reproductive growth.

We placed the peanut husk into a barrel and added water. We let it sit for a few days, so that the nutrients would seep into the water. Next, we dumped the mixture over a screen into a stock tank. This separated out the bigger pieces so we could pump the remainder directly onto the corn plants.

Here are our advanced tools: a shovel and a bucket.

We be Jammin

I have been making jam out of a local invasive plant; chokecherries. Chokecherries were brought here by the pioneers as a food source and the wood was used to make tool handles. Nowadays they are considered a pest because they grow aggressively and the cherries are too tart, and have huge seeds for their size (hence the name chokecherries). But after seeing all the canning supplies at the store I looked into making jam out of them. It turns out you can make jam by boiling the cherries and saving the "juice".

The jam made this way isn't very thick because there isn't any pulp, but it is much easier to make because it doesn't require me to pit the cherries. It has been raining the last few days which will plump up the blackberries that grow all over the area. Once it stops raining, I am going to make some blackberry jam and some chokecherry-blackberry jam.

Too much of a good thing

We had a really hot July; high 90s here, and 100+ in the city; and it has taught me a valuable lesson: even sun-loving plants can be overwhelmed by intense sunlight. Most of our vegetables were dying before they could be harvested. The tomatoes were bursting themselves because they were taking in so much water it would rupture the skin of the tomato fruit.

Within a few days, this basil plant went from looking green, and totally healthy, to what you see here. Part of this was due to inconsistent watering (we didn't get the timers up until mid July)

We covered our garden with shade-cloth. This allows some of the daylight to reach the plants, but will reflex back most of it.

These peppers were turning black and falling off the plant. But thanks to the shade cloth, they are now producing healthy, colorful vegetables.