We have had a solid week of clouds and rain.  We are lucky here as we get only one half to one inch of rain with each storm, most people here in TN are getting flooded out or at least  five or 6 inches of rain.  Yesterday we got almost an inch in the morning when the storm for that day came blowing through and it was the first day to get an real wind with the rain.  I was down in the studio sewing when it started and I thought we would lose the power a couple times but it passed before any harm was done.  We got almost an inch of rain and when Norman went down to the garden to look he said the corn was blown over some so when the sun comes out we need to hill the corn and try to straighten it up.  We then went to McMinnville and got out meat for the month.  I like Food Land for my meat- they have good meat and they always run the 5 packages for $19.95 so I can get a nice variety of meats.  I had some chicken left in the freezer but was out of everything else so got two sets and got pork chops (which has gone way up in price) stew beef, stir fry beef, cubed steak, hamburg, bacon (will cheat once in a while so froze it so I can get out one slice at a time) and one package of ham slices and chick breasts.  This will go us a month or more and cost us about $2.00 a meal as we eat so little meat and only once a day.  The chicken costs less. This morning I sewed while Norman went for his walk and after breakfast we each took our hoe and headed for the garden.  Most of the corn had straightened itself up but we did do some hilling and straightened up those few that needed it.  Then I picked cabbage worms and found one potato plant with larva on them so squished those too.  Then I picked a meal of Swiss Chard for under the chicken breast and other vegetables, I picked a meal of green beans and a meal of snow peas.  Tomorrow I must pick another cauliflower as two of them are getting very big.  I did pin up the outside leaves of the cauliflower plants to blanch the heads, they are so nice and white now but with the warms eating the inner leaves they will turn a yellowish color if I don’t protect them from the sun.  It doesn’t hurt the cauliflower any but it looks so much nicer all white.  I cabbages are getting big now also so this weekend we will have topic one of those for a meal.  I hope they last until Patty gets here but at the rate they are growing now they will be the size of basket balls by the time she gets here if I don’t have to pick them before that.   Also tomorrow we have to dig some more potatoes.  I like to leave them in the ground as long as we can but as the plants start to die back they need to come out and I do want to plant more green beans in there for canning.  The mint-X that Norman put out yesterday seems to have worked.  He put it out without cutting it and that keeps the smell in longer I guess =  when we need to replace it now we can use the bag for garbage so  it is better than cutting it as I had.

Rosemary, good luck with your garden.  When we were in Florida living out on Hutchenson Island, we used seaweed that we collected from the beach to fertilize the garden and it work well but in NH I never thought of that.  It takes me a while to find out these things but if I live long enough I’ll get there.  Here we had a farmer who boarded horses so we could get all the stable manure we wanted and we brought that in by the truck load, that is why our gardens grow so well but now he has retired.

Time to fry the onions –  Have a great day.