The season of the blueberry is now here
Blueberry season has now arrived in Piedmont North Carolina. The pick-your-own fields in Surry, Stokes and Yadkin County are now open and ready for a summer harvest. On a Dog Day morning, rise early and head for a field near you to harvest a few gallons of fresh blueberries, Unlike strawberries, it takes a lot of blueberries to make a gallon. To make things easier, go to the field early before the Dog Day sun heats up and makes things difficult. Be patient, set a goal of how many gallons you want to pick and be determined to meet the goal. Leave the children with grandma because they will hinder you meeting your quota. You can make it up to them with a visit to McDonalds when you get back home with your harvest of blueberries.
A plus of blueberry harvest is that they are easy to freeze
It may require extra time to harvest blueberries plus contending with Dog Days, but they are very easy to prepare for freezing them. To freeze the berries, pour them one quart at a time in to a sink of cold water. The small and less ripe berries will float to the top. Skim them off with a tea strainer and transfer ripe berries to another sink of water. Use the strainer to remove the berries and place in plastic quart containers. Repeat the process for each quart.
Making a blueberry cream pie
Berries have an unusual that makes them the ingredients for a super cream pie. For this pie, you will need one tub of Cool-Whip, one can of Eagle Brand condensed milk, two teaspoons vanilla, one graham cracker nine inch pie crust, one tablespoon lemon juice. Whip the Cool Whip, condensed milk, lemon juice and vanilla and pour into the graham cracker crust. For the pie topping, blend one can blueberry pre filling, one cup fresh blueberries, half cup sugar, one teaspoon of vanilla. Mix all together except corn starch and sugar. Then add sugar and corn starch together with berry mixture. Cook on low heat until thickened. Pour over the cream filling and refrigerate.
Keep setting out tomato plants weekley
You can assure a harvest of tomatoes into autumn by setting out a few tomato plants every week for as long as you can find the plants. Tomatoes can also be started from a packet of seeds. When sown now, they will be ready to transplant to the garden in late July or early August. Good variety to plant for early autumn are Early Girl, Better Boy, Rutgers, and Celebrity.
Strike green beans perform all summer
Green beans are one of the garden’s best performing vegetables and are capable of producing two harvests over a one month period. One of the most productive varieties is Strike which will produce a harvest in about 65 days. The beans are pencil-shape with no strings. A row planted now will produce a harvest by the end of August. When you continually harvest them, they will produce for almost a month. Tenderette and Contender are also productive varieties. When sowing late summer green beans, use a layer of peat moss on top of the seed and top with a layer of Plant-Tone organic vegetable food before hilling up soil on each side of the furrow and tamp down top of row to form for solid soil contact.
Blossom end-rot on summer tomatoes
If the first tomatoes of summer show signs of blossom end-rot, take an extra measure to control the rot by mixing three cups of powdered lime in a sprinkling can of water and pour around the base of the tomato plants. You can also sprinkle lime around the base of the plants, hill the time into the soil and water with the water wand in “shower” mode or with a sprinkling can. A spray of lime and water mixed in a spray bottle can also be sprayed on the blossoms.
Rising with the sun like the dog star
Sirius, the dog star, is the brightest star in the night sky and is eight light years away from earth. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second and it takes the light from Sirius eight years to reach earth traveling at the speed of light (what a vast universe this is!) Dog Days originate because Sirius is a winter constellation and during summer, it is in the sky all day as it rises with the sun and follows it across the sky all day. Like the dog star, Sirius, you can rise with the sun before it heats up the day and becomes humid. After the early morning hours of getting outdoor chores done, you can enjoy an afternoon nap in the middle of the day and perhaps enjoy a refreshing afternoon thunderstorm.
Humid Dog Day heat can produce afternoon of refreshing storms as well as colorful rainbows
One of the benefits of Dog Day afternoons is the arrival of relief in the form of afternoon pop up thunderstorms that refresh the lawn, garden and flower beds as well as cool us off. Another reward is the display of a colorful rainbow in the eastern sky as the sun reappears after the storm passes. The colors of the rainbow are the colors of the spectrum and they are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. There are three primary colors of red, blue and yellow. Black and white are actually not colors, but the absence of light and the presence of light.
Keeping a lookout on morning glories
There is definitely nothing glories about morning glories. It is most destructive of all weeds and its flowers are deceptive and each flower pod produces hundreds of tiny seeds. The vine of the morning glories crawl up the garden rows and choke out all the growth from vegetables. The most effective method to get rid of them is to crawl through the row with a bucket and pull them up by their roots while they are small and throw them out of the garden. Morning glories develop a long root system that robs vegetables, flowers and plants of nutrients and moisture. When you pull them up early in their growth cycle, you nip them before they bud.
Four o’clocks have now reached bloom
The four o’clocks have now reached colorful bloom stage and their emerald green foliage is adorned with flowers of red, yellow, pink, white and wine. The colorful blooms resemble tiny Christmas tree lights. The colorful blooms will continue all the way through the summer.
Hoe hoe hoedown
“A cure for worry”- Jack had been a compulsive worry wart for many years and it was ruining his life. He visited a psychologist who refereed him to a specialist who could help him. Jacks friend Bob noticed a remarkable change in Jack and Bob asked him, “What has happened, nothing seems to worry you anymore?” Jack replied, “I saw a professional worrier and I haven’t had a single worry since.” Bob said, “That must have been expensive. How in the world do you afford to pay for it?” Jack replied, “I’ll let him worry about that!”
-Tough times don’t last, but people do.
-The grass may be greener on the other side of the fence, but so is the water bill!
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