Mmmm, veggies

Vegetables grow at an alarming rate - slightly over a week has passed since the previous vegetable related post and it really is a jungle out there now.  It's really amazing what a handful of seeds will turn into.

WOAH

These pictures were taken yesterday...
I'm pretty sure the pumpkins are even bigger today.

Peppers & tomato

Onions, lima beans, green beans, purple beans

Black beans, yellow beans, lettuce, more onions

  

Huzzah!

Happy Flag Day!

Did you know that PA is the first (and only) state to celebrate Flag Day as a state holiday?  Aaah any reason for the state workers to take off, we're awesome like that.  Damn, I wish I worked for the state. 

P.S.  Today is also the day the Army celebrates its birthday - happy 237th!

Do go chase some waterfalls!

Saturday I decided to take a break from the usual yard work & took a road trip to Ricketts Glen. The 2.5 hour drive was well worth it to take in some of nature at its finest.  What's really amazing is it started to rain when I made it to the parking lot near the Falls Trail - but once you enter the forest little to no rain makes it to you.  The trees are so big and old they make a fantastic natural umbrella.  I didn't make it the whole 7 mile loop to see all the falls, hell I didn't even get half as far.  BUT I did get to see the main attraction - the 94' Ganoga Falls.  In a word, stunning.  I would highly recommend visiting this park right now - bring plenty of water, take your time, wear good shoes - the trail is clear but a little rough in some spots.  There is great access to the falls, lots of photo opportunities.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Welcome to the Jungle

Until now the only pictures of the 2012 veggie garden have been really lacking.  Mostly because it was so damn weedy it was hard to see where the real plants were.  Shawn and I were fortunate to have an assistant weeder/rock picker yesterday (who will be rewarded with lots of veggies come harvest time) and things are looking quite marvelous - see for yourself.

Hooray for veggies!

Sweet cherry peppers

Itty bitty sweet cherry peppers

Big guy jalapeno
Supposed to get up to 5"

Peperonici
*These are grown from seeds that I saved from last year's crop!

The seeds I saved for the sweet peppers did not germinate.
So, I bought some seeds and these guys are a bit behind.

Big Mama tomato!

Lima beans

Green beans

Purple beans
*Also grown from seeds saved from last year's crop

Black beans

Yellow beans

Mmm, lettuce

Onions
These are planted around the perimeter of the garden:
Rumor has it bunnies don't like them.

The 2 remaining eggplants

The rogue tomatoes!  I think/hope they are summer salsa - nice, meaty tomato.
If not, they are the supersteak hybrid.  Magic tomatoes that were growing amongst the onions.  Must have been from a tomato that fell on the ground last year & rotted.

Horseradish

Bucket-o-taters

TRIPLE rainbows you say?

Yesterday the weather beat the bejesus out of all the plants, luckily nothing is mortally wounded, just standing a bit crooked now.  Nothing a few supports can't fix.  I try not to whine too much about the rain anyway because the veggies sure do need the water and of course with rain showers there's always the hope of a rainbow.  Shawn pointed out a very faint but very wide rainbow, so of course I grabbed my camera.

Oh look, a rainbow nuglet!

A bit before 8:00 I looked out one of the living room windows to see what Forrest was staring at & saw another rainbow.  This one was much brighter and far more complete so I went outside to see.  Upon further investigation, I saw something I'd never seen before: a DOUBLE RAINBOW!

WHAT DOES IT MEAN???

Oh yes, full on!  Across the sky!  So intense!  It was so bright & vivid!  I almost cried like this guy but then I remembered it's science and not a unicorn peeing across the sky. 

Eh, it's just some cosmetic damage

I am quite impressed with the size of all the plants this year. I'm not attributing this to a magical green thumb, but rather the combination of a mild winter and sunny skies much earlier than anticipated.  It's amazing to see the daisies I started in the tub last year, they are nearly as tall as me.  Same way with the catnip I started last year.  Best of all, the hollyhocks I started mid summer are covered in buds and two of the nine are taller than me.  I have a couple of mini ones, I hit them with the mower a few times this year (oops) but they've recovered nicely and at a foot tall have many buds!  The down side of this is the rust.  Yes, dreaded rust, just like on your precious 87 Toyota.  I can save you a trip to Wikipedia:

Puccinia malvacearum, also known as hollyhock rust, is a species within the Puccinia genus known for attacking members of the Malvaceae family. An autoecious pathogen, it can complete its life cycle using a single host. 
Yuck.  The short end of it is rust is a nasty fungus that attacks only hollyhocks & their BFFs.  They get these gross little spots that aren't bad on the tops (see below) but do look pretty funky on the bottom.  Basically it will munch up the whole damn leaf and it's a dried up skeleton.  Kiss your big leaves goodbye.

Exhibit A, some rusty ass leaves.

I've already attempted to control the problem by cutting off the foliage & treating with fungicide.  Recent rains have not helped my problem and the rust continues to spread.  It's not jut the leaves, either.  I see spots on the stalk & I've even seen a few contaminated buds.  Depending on the location of the different hollyhocks some have it much worse than others.  As I said I've tried containing it and it's just not working well for me.  I don't want to cut them down.  They are very tall and are covered in buds, and I just wanted to see a flower damnit.  Two days ago I saw the first bits of color poking out, and this morning two (same plant) had bloomed.  There are also three more buds ready to burst and I say flower away!  I do have two plants sort of marked for execution as they aren't much more than leaves poking out of the ground, but any of them with buds can hang out - let's see what happens.  I'll look past your leprosy, little hollyhock!

It's so beautious!

Huzzah!

Happy Memorial Day!
Thanks to all the fine service men & women who have given their all, we all appreciate it so very much.

P.S.  Say hello to the unofficial start of summer!

Forrest is getting ready for swimsuit season

Roxxy says LET'S GO!

Cars at Carlisle

April for anyone living in Carlisle since the mid-70s means one thing: CAR SHOW SEASON.  Great if you like cars, not so great if you like going to the grocery store without people waving you in to their yard to park.  Perhaps I should just write "RESIDENT" across my windshield to prevent this from happening in the future.  Our home is situatted in a rather unfortunate spot come car show season - between the fairgrounds (where the car show is held) & the turnpike interchange.  Hooray, I can't get out of my driveway!  At any rate sometimes all the extra hooplah is worth it because you see really awesome vehicles out & about.  This weekend's show: Import & Kit Nationals, which brings some interesting things to town such as the SWEET CRUISER I saw on Saturday...

Eeeek, a VW dune buggy!

Oooooh, aaaaaah

P.S.  This sucker is SUPER ULTRA MEGA sparkly

If you enjoy vintage cars (or maybe you want to blow in to town just to disobey traffic), visit CarsatCarlisle.com for more information, see below for this year's schedule.

Ford Nationals — Jun 1-3, 2012
GM Nationals — Jun 22-24, 2012
Chrysler Nationals — Jul 6-8, 2012
Bike Fest — Jul 20-22, 2012
Truck Nationals — Aug 3-5, 2012
Corvettes at Carlisle — Aug 24-26, 2012
Fall Carlisle — Oct 3-7, 2012

Spring Carlisle — Apr 24-28, 2013

Berries of razz

One of this year's new additions to the landscape is the raspberry patch.  I love raspberries, and the Burpee site had some great deals (5 plants for $20 - yes, please!) so I figured I'd give it a whirl.  I found the plans for the patch in a fantastic book called The Backyard Homestead and Shawn did a wonderful job recreating it in our backyard.  I chose a red, ever-bearing variety by the name of "Caroline" and paired it with a yellow variety by the name of "Anne" - both are disease resistant.  When I opened the package they were not very exciting, literally sticks with bunches of roots.  We planted these on April 1 & I'm please to report that every single cane has new growth!  The yellow, or Anne if you prefer, seem to have taken off much faster than their red counterparts.  I'm not certain why that is, I'm just glad that all 10 raspberries are on the way to providing mounds of fresh berries.

The little cups are keeping the wildlife from gnawing everything to stubs.

Dear Moms of the world,

Thanks for putting up with all the shit us kids put you through - you're the best! 
P.S.  Can I borrow $20.00?

Gardening 101

Way back in February I planted this year's garden.  Inside of course, as February in PA is not exactly the best time to start horticultural endeavors outdoors.  I had leafed through the Burpee catalog numerous times through the winter and had found my DREAM indoor seed starting shelf (multi-levels, adjustable lights) for the low low price of $275.  Ouch.  Shawn took a look at what I was after and decided he could construct something much less expensive and voila!  After a trip to Lowe's I am now the proud owner of this contraption:

Plastic shelving + lights + small chains & hooks  =
SUPERB seedling factory

This cost less than $100 vs. nearly $300 - I'll take this one any day.  It has been working excellent, I was able to keep the lights super low when the seeds were sprouting and raised them as the plants got larger.  Two months into my indoor garden and we've got nice plants that are ready to start the outdoor lifestyle.

Luffa, strawberries, & columbine

Peppers!  The four in the center are actually pepperonici grown from seeds I saved from last year's crop.

Even more peppers also some eggplants and cucumbers.

Bun-Bun VonCutenstein

It's not unusual to see baby bunnies in the yard.  We encountered quite a few last year - Shawn even ripped apart the shed to evict one of the little guys that had zoomed in there.  I had very few surviving sunflowers last year because of them, but oh well.  They are too cute & I'd rather they eat the flowers than go to town in the garden.  Besides, they have to eat something.  Today I tinkered in the yard for a bit and on my quest for water I discovered this guy, who I promptly dubbed Bun-Bun (very original, I know).

Bun-Bun VonCutenstein
aaaw

The bunnies are extremely patient with my paparazzi like maneuvers so I was not surprised at all that he remained still for me as I clicked away.  I was, however,a bit alarmed that on my third trip past he had done nothing more than change directions.  I looked him over and he appeared ok, but a little poke to the back leg with zero response told me there's a problem.  I shaded him from the sun & talked to him while I wondered what to do.  His breathing became more labored and his tiny mouth started moving...  I think that's when I realized Bun-Bun was on his way out.  I stayed with him until the end.  I wish I could have done more for him, but I take a bit of comfort in the happy look he sported when I stroked his teeny head.

Sweet dreams, little dude.
May there be miles of sweet clover for you on the other side.

Life along the path

Let's make that even creepier with this: I discovered the path behind the dumpsters at work.  Yes, at a location where there is a large koi pond complete with a bridge and little waterfalls, I was wandering around behind the dumpsters.  I'm really glad I was because in my wanderings I discovered the path.

This beautious mowed trail leads to the path

I was delighted to find a blacktop trail surrounding a field where I soon encountered Bill.  I asked if the path went the whole way around or if it was a dead end - he assured me there is indeed a circuit & he sure does walk it twice a day with his dog Sandy.  I met some other nice people that told me a bit about how the path used to be & gave me some history on the building I work in.  Since the first day I've met some more dogs, the delightful Miss Helen and said hello to a variety of passersby on the path.  According to Noom's Cardio Trainer app it's nearly a mile (0.8 to be exact) and it's my new favorite place to be for lunch!

Marvelous after working in a windowless office all day!

Yinz are in Stillers Country

OK, I may have tricked Shawn into our first visit to Breezewood.  We travel the turnpike regularly to visit my family in western PA and I'd seen the sign numerous times advertising STEELERS STUFF.  I, like all of the Steeler Nation, totally dig STEELERS STUFF.  So on one of these treks to western PA the sign inspired me to spend monies and when we were a few hundred feet from the exit ramp I said, "Hey-Shawn-pull-off-here" super fast so he was kinda pressured into it.  Funny for me until we got to the tollbooth and he was all WTF we're exiting?  Oops, forgot you were in a race with every other man in the world to make it to your destination in record time.  Anyway, all was forgiven when he saw Crawford's Gift Shop sitting atop its little hill amongst all the gas stations & restaurants. 

The sunbeams give it that ethereal touch
ooooh, aaah

Somewhere outside there is a sign proclaiming "Souvenirs from all 50 states" or something of that nature but it's really more of a Steelers store as you may be able to tell from the various flags & lights outside.

 

 

 

At this point if you loathe the Black & Gold you should just go because it gets much more intense.  I have never seen so much Steelers-per-square-foot outside of Pittsburgh.  This store is amazing.  Hell, I used the restroom there once and I swear to you there were vinyl decals under the toilet seat.  Take a road trip out to Crawford's to see for yourself if you don't believe me - I swear you won't regret it.  I'm betting it will take more than a few shots of the porch to get you motivated, please do click these images to see larger!

 

 

 

Also some ♥ for the Pens! 

 

 

 

Yes, Steelers fans, you must make Breezewood a pit stop on your journey for memorabelia.  Particularly since I did not take any pictures of the clearance room.  That's right I said room of clearance merchandise.  I promise you it's not all crap back there either - yinz just gotta go!