Cucurbitae and Solanaceae

I laughed when the husband brought that golf cart home, but I have discovered that it is very useful for hauling produce over from the garden. I used to use the kids’ old wagon, but the golf cart holds a lot more and is fun to drive.

Yesterday’s haul included a box of cucumbers:

If WS wants some for the market, I said he could have them; otherwise, I might start a batch of fermented pickles. These will just keep coming for the next few weeks.

The tomatoes are insane. Some of the plants are so large and so heavy with fruit that they are pulling over the tomato cages. I have started picking the tomatoes as soon as I see them ripening and bringing them inside to finish. I do not want the ground squirrels to get them.

I have one tomato plant whose fruit is suffering from blossom end rot and I am not sure why. Thirty-nine other plants are just fine, so I do not think it is a systemic issue such as lack of calcium or inconsistent watering. I got down on the ground to see if I could find the label for that variety, but it’s a jungle out there and if that plant has a label, I won’t find it for weeks yet. It’s a smallish paste tomato of some sort. The chickens are getting all of those.

I cleaned off the gooseberry bush and came in with several gallons. Those will likely end up in a pie for the husband and perhaps some jam.

This is a mystery squash—Elysian and WS like to sneak a seedling into my collection every spring and I wonder if this is this year’s contribution? It almost looks like a Delicata, but it might also be a winter squash of some sort.

We’ll find out!

The pollinators are quite busy:

If I stand in the garden and listen, I hear a constant low hum.

****************************

I finished putting the hardware—straps, buckles, and snaps—on the Slabtown Backpack and it is officially complete. While I love the finished product, those kinds of projects are nervewracking, because any small mistake at the end can ruin hours and hours of work. I triple-checked everything before I secured rivets and snaps. I also told the husband that I was very happy he bought that anvil.

The Bernina serger was set up for rolled hems, so I finished a stack of napkins before changing it over for regular serging. I have two LDTs ready to make as well as that Lark Tee. I like to assembly-line my projects as much as possible so I don’t keep having to rethread the machine and change needles.

I got a very nice e-mail this week from one of the students in my Spokane serger class, and last evening, the owner of the store called to let me know that the response was overwhelmingly positive and she would love to have me teach again. Yay! More road trips.

****************************

The big news in Kalispell yesterday was a subadult black bear that somehow found its way into town and was being tracked on social media. People posted pictures and videos of it at the mall, over by Walgreens, and walking past one of the elementary schools. FWP thought they might have to dart it and tranquilize it in order to get it back out in the woods where it belongs. Sometimes the mama bears kick those teenagers out, especially when there are cubs, and the teenagers have trouble figuring out where they belong. Town is not that place, LOL.