Overgrown Garden

We arrived home from vacation to find a crazy, overgrown garden.  I didn't have time to do all the things I wanted before I left so I kind of expected it. 



Sorry for the poor lighting

The pumpkins are coming along nicely.  The bottom left is a "giant" plant, but we don't really get enough sun for a huge squash so it's an experiment.  Those orange flowers are all standard pumpkins and their vines are running out of the garden and all over the first round of lettuce which you can see to the right of the blooms.

On the far left is the first round of lettuce, then spaghetti squash in a much-too-small space, celery, and the second round on lettuce on the far right.  I've got to give those spaghetti squash some room.  I'll also want to get any good spaghetti squash recipes from you readers because we're set to have a ton!  You can see one at the bottom center. 

Round 2 of the lettuce is bottom center with bell peppers just above it and jalepenos to the right.  At the top is ridiculously overgrown broccoli.  There are also ridiculous amounts of weeds in this picture.

Here are the tomotoes.  Doing well, but not as well as some of my friends' plants.  Also, a ton of weeds here are using up the tomato's sunshine and water I think.  I've got to get on those!

Round 2 of snap peas have been ignored by the rabbits.  Hooray!  They need stakes.

Round 2 of the green beans were eaten by rabbits again despite my attempts to deter with cayenne pepper and human hair.  Those light green leaves you see down the center of the photo are cucumbers.  I need to weed and give those guys room to grow!  I'm going to let them trail into the green bean stalks.

Zucchini and tomatos pulled off.

I'm really going to put some effort into the garden this weekend.  Hopefully I'll have some nice, tidy photos to share early next week!

Katie

Quarter Stuck in Disposal

I have a quarter stuck under one of the blades in my garbage disposal.  I have tried manually turning the blade from the top with my hand, a screwdriver, needle nose pliers, a hammer handle, and a monkey wrench handle (it fit right between the blades).  I have also tried an Allen wrench to loosen the blade from the bottom of the disposal, but it won't budge.  I used the pliers and a slotted screwdriver to try and propel the quarter out from under the blade.  Nothing is working.

Any ideas?

Katie

Produce & Freezer Space

I love this time of year! 

I just reserved 4 boxes of peaches for $15.50 each.  Those usually run about 22 pounds/box so it works out to about $.70/lb. 

I also just reserved 30 pounds of blueberries for $60.  At $2/lb I got the maximum allowed per family!

Yesterday I picked 10 pounds of raspberries at Remlinger Farms for $2/lb, too. 

I am also expecting some "#2" peaches to be available for $8.50/case in 3 weeks but those are never guaranteed.  If I can get those, I'll get another 75 pounds.  Last year we used 125 pounds of peaches by May and I was saving them at the end.  I would absolutely use 175 or even 200 pounds because we use so many peaches in smoothies.

I'm hoping to find a good price on pears and apples, too.  Last year we went through over 100 quarts of applesauce - one of my girls would have pint every morning if I let her.


All this to say I'll be plugging my outside freezer in soon.  My ambitious goal is to have it unplugged for 4 months every summer, but I finally unplugged so late this year (May 15) that I'll be lucky to make it 3 months until August 15, but that's my goal!

Katie

July Update

In July I was really busy at home catching up from not being home in June!

1. We weren't able to save much this month for the emergency fund but we realized that another, smaller emergency fund should really be included in this bigger fund.  I don't know why it took us 4 months of saving to remember this, but we were excited!  Also, DH has been working a lot at his side job this month so we saved some from that.  We're up to 18.2%.

2. I almost managed to only use the dryer twice.  DH used it once early in the month because he wanted his yard work jeans in a hurry.  I used it once to tumble all of the "wrinkle-free" shirts that had been collecting.  I also had to use it to dry cloth diapers when we were leaving town for a week, so that one pushed me up to 3 times.

3. I did remember to keep my thankful list this month, though maybe not as complete as it should have been.  Thank you for my friend, Sarah, who watch the girls for us while I was on a weekend getway.  For the Lord's provision so much extra work this summer for DH and right exactly when we've been home.  For DH who so willing to work extra hours!  For my brother, Dan, who came to work on the basement and his great skill that blesses us so much.  For Aunt Renee who has graciously agreed to sew flower girl dresses when she has so very little time.  For my mom who organizes our annual camping trip.

4. I didn't post everyday on www.ProjectTwentySix.com but I did more than one post on the days I missed to catch up. 

5. I did not freeze a case of peaches.  I'm hoping to do that next month

6. I did completely clean out one basement closet and very nearly got the other finished.

Goals for August:

1. Save for Emergency Fun! 
2. Use dryer only 2 times
3. Freeze peaches (and like can if I can find a good deal!)
4. Post everyday on ProjectTwentySix
5. Keep a thankful list

Katie