Gee, More About the Weather (and the garden)

We have been short of rain, or any kind of precipitation this year, and I wrote about the 1/9 inch we got last week. Well the night before last we got a 1/2 inch and then last night we got another 1 1/2 inches of rain. AND we are expecting more tonight. Woo Hoo! It has been coming down so most of it is soaking in rather than running off so that is double the good news.

We, like much of the country, have been running on the warm side of normal but we get a couple days here that will be in the upper 60;s. Of course, we just got the pool set up and the kids got in it today for the first time and now we get a couple days too cool to swim. We often have the pool set up by the end of April but it didn’t get done that early this year. Brianna hasn’t been hassling us this year and I was focusing on the garden.

Speaking of the garden, those Rat's Tail radishes are producing like mad now. I have refrigerator pickled some and they are good that way too; which is good because they are prolific enough that we are not eating them all while fresh. They haven't minded the record breaking heat at all that I can tell. These are supposed to have been very popular a couple hundred years ago and are heirloom veggies that I highly recommend. I got seeds at www.rareseeds.com at a place I have been getting seeds from for years called Baker Creek; it is a  great place for open pollinated seeds ( NO GM FOODS!).

The other new things we are trying this year are purple tomatillos, a new cucumber called Dragon's Egg (we have been growing a Lemon Cuke), and a or the Burr Gherkin, a cucumber relative that people buy as little sweet pickles, and a tomato called Violet Jasper. We have a tomato that we love called Fox Cherry but we want to be sure we have the best for here and we can grow two kinds and still keep the seeds true. We can't get big tomatoes to ripen and the Fox Cherry is BIG for a cherry tomato, about the size of most whole peeled tomatoes in cans, and they ripen. The Violet Jasper is supposed to be about the same size so we are trying them.

It was too hot for peas this year.

Besides the radishes, we have had a couple of summer squash--which is new too come to think of it. It is called Table Dainty and is a striped oval thing. It is pretty good but I have yet to decide whether I like it better than the Lemon Squash that we usually do. We have had problems in the past couple/few years with those; the plants not producing well before they die off usually by squash bug infestation of that wilty thing caused by cucumber beetles. They used to do better before we lost them. I wish I could figure out what to do with the squash bug thing, we have been battling them for too long and the problem is not getting better. It is tempting to go for the non-organic methods but  I am still holding out...

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

Cyril Connolly

Dark Shadows

My family and I went to see the movie "Dark Shadows" on Sunday. I have been meaning to write about it since but every time I get ready to write my husband starts talking to me and then I get to tired--I am trying to ignore him now (not really). I am not sure how I feel about the movie. If I had no knowledge of the original "Dark Shadows" soap opera I would probably have really liked it. Depp seemed to feel comfortable with the part and was entertaining. I am trying to think of how to describe it without giving away anything….I could start with the year of Barnabas being freed from his chained coffin. The soap started in 1966 and ended in 1971, Barnabas came into the series about six months in, so that would be 1967 that he makes his appearance. The movie takes place in 1972. This is insignificant, really, but I am curious as to why if they were going to change the time that they chose 1972-- just slightly more modern than the soap but not fully modern. And, in the soap the Collins were not as well-to-do as they had been in the past but they were still doing just fine compared to the average townsfolk. In the movie, the Collins were on hard times. And in the movie, Elizabeth, the current family matriarch, is aware right away that Barnabas is a vampire--that does not follow the soap either. Certain main characters were missing in the movie, or combined, two characters into one. Dr. Hoffman wasn't already there when Barnabas comes to stay in the soap like she is in the movie. And the introduction of the werewolf was, um, weird. In the soap that person was not a werewolf. Also, it seemed as though something pertinent to the werewolf situation had been cut out of an earlier part of the movie; I base this on a comment made when the werewolf shows up. But there was little point in having the werewolf in the movie at all. And there was no time travel in the movie. I remember watching "Dark Shadows" as a little kid, it was creepy, this movie was set up to be humorous.

The ending was set up for a sequel; I would watch it.

We have been watching the old soap on DVD, that is why I am sure about how things started in the show. I was way too you young when it started. And while I remember various scenes I do not recall story lines or how it ended.  So watching it this way is kind of fun. It is going a bit slower than I anticipated though; we have to find the money for the DVDs and the time for all of us to sit in front of the TV for a bit.

I mentioned I do not recall how the soap ended, I do remember not being able to watch it in those final months because I was foolish and I remember being chastised by my sister for causing us to not be able to watch it. There was this one scene that scared me and so I left the TV room and told my mom when she asked what was wrong that "Dark Shadows" had scared me. My mom didn't watch it with my sister and I and she knew little about it, I guess, and she didn't know that it usually didn't scare me like that. We couldn't watch it anymore. My sister was pissed. I shouldn't have told Mom about it. Can't go back and undo it though.

I did watch the revival series in the 90's. I do not remember much of it, it didn't last long. I do not recall it being bad though.

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert Heinlein

The Weather

So, I guess it is past time for my first post;I have been putting it off and it has not become easier to start--big surprise there. I decided if I am going to blog then I ought to blog and the weather wins out because it did.
We got an 1/8 inch of rain today.and unfortunately that is the only rain we have received since May began. April was rather dry too. I hope the rest of the growing season is not this way; it is hard to garden when it is this dry. Last year was a bit dry, mostly later, during summer, our spring was wetter than this year though. It got so hot and dry that most folks around here gave up on their gardens; we did pretty good in comparison even if it was a bad garden year in general. A couple/few years ago we had a very dry spring but a wet summer. I am hoping for a wet summer since we have no rain this spring.
We have a larger garden this year than anytime previous here (11 years). And we finally found a reliable radish for us. We have poor luck with them forming bulbs and our springs can be short enough that it gets too hot too fast for radishes or peas so we found something called a Rat's Tail radish that forms fat tasty seed pods instead of bulbs. It supposedly does not mind the heat so much also. We have had a taste of a few smaller ones and so far so great. The flavor is really good and we are already close to getting as much radish as all the  "bulb" type we have ever planted.
I suppose I ought to mention that the "we" is, as far as gardening is mostly my husband and I with a little help from one of our two daughters, the youngest, who is emerging into her teen years this year. Our other daughter doesn't help in the garden; she is autistic and it is just not something we have been able to get her into doing. We live in the Missouri Ozarks.