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August 14th

• The garden is doing very well. With all the recent rain it looks like the tomato plants shot up a good bit, they outgrew the Texas Tomato Cages, the poblano on the left center is nearing 6' tall and is loaded with peppers.
  

• The Reliance Grapes are doing better than I could have hoped for.
  

• Did a bit more trim work on the trunk and cordons.

Removed a few tomato plants that were struggling, the plants on the hill have exploded. I pruned the Hardy Kiwi there were several main stems that were twining, so I cut them at the base and started the tedious task of unwinding the cut stem from the main trunk. I'm going to cut them just below the trellis and hopefully get a couple cardons.

• Harvested my first batch of Yard Long beans, and cooked them, I dont like green beans and would rather eat these instead. I dont think anyone else cared for them but I think my family felt bad and really didn't say much. They were OK but I don't think I'll grow them again. I'll finish the year with them and make dilly beans.
  

• Cooked another spaghetti squash, this was the one that was green (pictured above) Tried it with a Sage Butter. I liked this squash much better than the first one we tried but not enough to regrow it next year. It had a very pleasant smell when cut open, reminded me of cantaloupe. I did save seeds from this just in case.
  

• I had to cut back a lot of stuff. Some things remained in the beds as mulch, other trimmings went into the compost heap and questionable trimmings went into the firepit.

• I planted some Detroit Radish on the back hill, left and right of the tiger lilies, around the playhouse trellis and in the front Hugelkultur bed. Here I am trying out my shredded paper mulch.

• The pond is doing real good this year, no string algae... KNOCK WOOD!! The pepper plants aren't doing too good in the veggie filter this year, they are still producing but look stunted, I usually fertilize twice in a season but just added some 10-10-10 to the peps this weekend... long overdue. I'm pretty conservative with adding anything for the plants that reside in the veggie filter for the safety of the fish. If they dont bounce back a bit, I may try to find something else to grow in the veggie filter. The water lettuce will make a fine compost this year, I may even just plop these in the hugelkultur beds as mulch.
  

I cut back all of the perpetual spinach and my daughter took the cuttings to the AARK for the animals, also pulled my old woody beets to feed to the AARK animals.


Added some fertz (Leftover Milorganite, yeah, yeah I know!) to the flowers and shrubs and 10-10-10 to the potted plants. I dont add any type of fertilizers to the non-potted plants with the exception of the flowers and shrubs, only compost.


The yard is loaded with critters, more so this year than any other year, the Carpenter Bees look like they're getting drunk on the Passion Flower. The oregano and Mint is loaded with insects.

• Maypops are going nuts, next year I'm going to figure out an arbor or something for them to climb a bit neater.

• Wasn't sure if this was a thread waisted wasp or Mud dauber
  

• Some crazy looking spider.

• Looks like a frog with 4 eyes!