Garden Fun

 

The garden is doing really well this year - heres a picture of what we pulled out of it on Saturday - and this picture doesn't have the peppers

Lots of tomatoes - there have been rumors that I may have planted too many tomatoes - as if that is even possible.  We do have 8 different types of Tomatoes this year.  My favorites are the Roma's (the oval shaped ones) which are used primarily to make sauce.

Speaking of sauce, the less than perfect tomatoes - ones that have split due to the heat or have some insect damage get cleaned up and then put through a food mill to make sauce.  The pitcher holds 3 quarts and we managed to get a total of 6 quarts of tomato sauce.  My wife then takes the sauce and turns it into marinara sauce which we freeze and use the rest of the year.  We got 2/3 of a gallon today of that red gold.

The garden looks like a bit of a jungle but is doing really well.  It makes my wife really happy and after her year of dealing with COVID she gets what shes wants.

I promise to have some miniatures content in a future post

Rolling Herb Garden: Quarantined Woodworking

With spring around the corner, it's time to think about getting the garden ready.  Add on top of that being quarantined, well then one needs to get creative.

We've got a nice raised bed garden in St Michaels but the boss (aka my lovely yet fierce wife) wanted a small herb garden near the kitchen at our place in St Michaels.  I had a bit of cedar in the garage so 8 hours later we have this rolling herb garden.  I copied the design from a product that is available on Amazon.

I decided to put wheels on it so we can roll the herbs inside during the winter.  The wheels came from my number one hardware source McMaster-Carr.  If you need hardware, fasteners or are just looking to be inspired to build something then go to their website.  The seeds to plant the herbs are on order from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds so it's really just a rolling cart of dirt for now.  For those of you in North America, Baker Creek is the best source I've found for seeds if you're into gardening.  With the world's economy crumbling, its an activity I do recommend all of you take up.

MB was actually thrilled with the planter, so +1 me!

Stay safe and healthy

Even Later Garden Harvest

 This Fall has proven to be an unusually productive one for the garden.  Perhaps the most important milestone is my wife's announcement that we have enough tomatoes to last the winter.

Sunday's harvest was also heavy on the basil, so there will be some pesto making in my near future.

This summer the garden was so-so in terms of yield but it's doing well now through October.

I really should be painting figures for the club's upcoming game but it was just two nice a day - sunny and 65F (that's 18C for you in the rest of the World).

I ended up contemplating life on the Hammock Sunday afternoon.

It was a good day

Late Garden Harvest

Not a bad haul from the garden for this time of year.  By mid September most of the plants have run their coarse so it's always a bit random what one gets.

We do have a Haberno Pepper plant that is going gangbusters so I am going to try to make some form of hot sauce to store over the winter.

Pest control is handled by a large population of Yellow Garden spiders (Argiope Aurantia).  They are big (about 2 to 2.5 inches in diameter) and very scary looking but harmless.  They are also very effective once one learns to work around their intricate webs.  I purchase some egg sacks at the beginning of each planting year to ensure plenty are on hand.  Plus its fun to scale house guests with them when touring the garden.

Of course, my first encounter with these guys wasn't so fun.

Shelob Lives!

Figs and a New Friend

 Our Figs are just starting to ripen.  That means for the next two weeks it's Fig-O-Mania at the Lair.  My Lovely wife kicked off Fig time with a wonderful Fig and Peach cobler.  it was truly spectacular.

 The past two years we've had pretty meager yields due to very late freezes impacting the development of the fruit.  This year, however, seems to be shaping up nicely,  Now I just need to protect the figs from our local wildlife.  A few weeks ago I did trap a raccoon under the tree.  After a fair trial,  justice was dealt swiftly in the form of high velocity lead posioning.  Stealing figs is not a pardonable offense.

For you animal lovers, said offender was mangy and probably had rabies as it was out in the day time.  A small service was held and words were said.

While up the ladder picking figs, I picked up a passenger - a very nice Young adult Mantis.  We have lots of these in the yard and I've always been rather fond of them.  I set him/her back on the fig tree to resume guard duty.  They are fascinating to watch while hunting - an agonizingly slow approach and then BAM! super fast lunge.

More 1:1 Scale Modeling: The "Other" Garden Boxes

Last weekend, I finished replacing the other four boxes in the garden.  Despite bing much larger than the first four, these were done in almost half the time as I had the process "down".  I've also got a dumpster for a few weeks so that means another major clean out.

The previous boxes.  The next step in the garden refit is to replace the wooden fence as it has also rotted away.  The replacement fence will be made of a composite material and will not be subject to future rot.  For this next project, I've hired out professional help.  It's a bit beyond my meager skills and needs to be done quickly.  With all the hungry wild life in the area, the garden will not survive long if the fence project gets delayed mid stream - something I'm known for!

A Nice Weekend

 No Gaming related activities this weekend.  There was some 1:1 scale modeling as I rebuilt 4 of our 8 garden boxes.  These boxes were first built in 2007 and are starting to fail due to a combination of weather and insect damage.  The ones along the north face of the garden just fell apart so I replaced them.  The fencing also needs to be replaced but that's a much bigger project and one I may hire some help for.

 This was a fun/easy to do project and perfect for working on the weekend I just returned for London.

Heres a picture of 2 of the four remaining original boxes where you can see how weathered the wood is.  They're all still functional but I suspect Mary Beth will make subtle and not-so-subtle suggestions to redo all of the boxes.  I'll need to wait until I redo the fences to provide easier access.

 Speaking of the garden - We've got our first Tomatoes!

My household is a Tomato crazy one, so getting the first ones on the vine is a big deal.  The garden has a total of 25 tomato plants of various types so we should be well stock this year.  There are also 5 other Tomato plants in pots on the deck.  One really can't have enough tomatoes.

With the summer now in full swing, we've pretty much relocated to the shore, which means the cats have moved house.  The younger one, Izzy, loves the St Michaels house and has picked this chair in the corner window as her favorite perch.

The other cat, Buddy, just hides under a bed upstairs as he doesn't accept change well - he comes out at night to serenade us.  In a month or so he'll be fine, assuming I don't shoot him.  I kid, I kid (mostly).

Izzy even tolerates (barely) me sitting in her chair in the early am as I have my coffee.  My apologies for including a picture of me, especially as it's one of those crass "selfies".  Let us all hope I use better judgment on picture taking in the future.  By the way, what do you think of my "New Wave" hair style?  I'm trying to update my look to be more modern in a late 70's "New Wave" way.  Sadly the tune 'Anarchy in the UK" seems to have a bit more relevance.

The handy-dandy Historicon Countdown timer from HMGS indicates it 43 days, 12 hours and 11 minutes plus a few seconds until Historicon.  I've got a fair bit to get done so better buckle down on that.  That means a interminable series of Historicon Prep Posts, which may be even worse than "selfies"

I'm very sorry, but you should know by now what you get from this blog.

Another pretty boring HCON game update - the movement trays are now painted.  The color is Vallejo's "Iraqi Sand" which is my go-to desert color.  Rather than use the expensive stuff, I had my local hardware store mix up a batch of house paint that matches.

The last step is to add some texture and then these bad boys are done.

Our garden has an interesting interloper - A single black-eyed susan has sprung up admits our tomato plants.  I think it's kind of cool looking.  We did manage to harvest our first crop - and handful of smallish tomatoes and a hot pepper.

Back to HCON prep!

Gardening in 2018

 My wife and I like to garden (Ok she likes to garden and I work for her).  This year we went a little overboard on tomatoes and have planted 8 different kinds and have a total of 38 plants "in-the'way"

We're starting to get some tomatoes forming - first up are some Roma's which are my favorite as they are primarily used to make tomato sauce - gallons of that red gold!

 More Roma's

 Some "Big Boy" hybrids

 We may even get some preaches this year!

It al depends on how my war with the raccoons goes.  They are a worthy and crafty opponent and tend to eat all the peaches and figs before their ripe.  Bastards.

Because my wife loves peaches, she has authorized the use of deadly force in the defense of our homestead.  Her rules of engagement do ban the use of a shotgun as they have been deemed "too loud and messy".  That reduces my arsenal to some cage traps.  At least we can learn the answer to the age old questions of which do raccoons like more - peanut butter or peaches?

Another of my animal kingdom foes - Deer.  This one is standing right next to the garden - I'm pretty sure I could here that doe mocking me.  I really do need to get my wife to reassess he position on lead poisoning.

Terrapin Sunday!

 If it's May on the Maryland Eastern Shore, then a few things are true: the weather is great, the crabs are plentiful and the Terrapins (a type of turtle) are laying their eggs.  On SundayI ran into some of the said reptiles deciding that my yard and driveway would make a suitable nursery - including the one in the first two pictures in my drive (right next to the garage door).

 Since these pictures were taken, I've marked off the area with stakes and and ropes to protect the eggs.  I know my duty!

I ran across a number of other turtles in the yard.  One other thing I've noticed this year is a big increase in the number of lizards (skinks to be particular) and a decrease in the number of snakes - there may be a link there.

Seeing all these reptiles has given me an idea to include in my upcoming Historicon games - see I managed to get back to the topic of gaming!

Fall on the Eastern Shore

 It's officially Fall over here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland - it's my favorite time of year and I thought I'd take some photos of the fall colors in out yard.

 This photo of a butterfly in flight came out nicely with the sun's rays and pool in the background

 Nice reds and

 yellows throughout the garden.

 Our vegetable garden is on it's last legs.  Some of the tomatoes are dying off and the rest are on a race to ripen before the first frost on October.

 We did get buckets full of tomatoes this year and have a few gallons of sauce stored in the freezer to help get through the darker months of the winter.  My wife's tomatoes sauce is the real reason for my painting productivity during the Painting Challenge!

 A few more tomatoes and behind those are some Zucchinis and Peas.

The lettuce on the left is doing nicely.

We've got 2-3 weeks left before the first frosts take the garden.  Still it was a good year.

My New Friend in St Michaels

I met one of our neighbors while working in the Garden - a very elegant Northern Rough Greensake.  These are very small snakes that spend most of their time in trees.  This young lad or lass was about 24 inches long and rather docile.

 I was able to pick him/her up without any aggressive response.  These snakes primarily eat insects so are welcome garden area residents.

Kind of cute, in a reptilian sort of way.  After a short somewhat one-sided conversation I put the snake back in a tree and he was on his way.

Insects of Doom: Cicada Wasps

 One of our Tomatoe beds has had some rather scary looking residents move in - a colony of "Cicada Wasps".  These wasps nave black and yellow strips and are 2 to 2.5 inches long - that's 4 to 5 cm's for my metric friends.

They have very aggressive behavior, which given their size makes them a rather scary proposition.  Well scary until a little research.

 These Wasps have a brutal lifecycle - they hunt Cicadas and other larger flying insects which the males grab in flight.  Male Cicada Wasps don't have stingers - so while their aggressive, they can't hurt you that badly.  They still have large mandibles but rarely bite anything they can't fly away with.

The scientific name of these brutes is Sphecius speciosus - which I find a bit humorous.

 So what happens to the hapless Cicada or bumble bee that's caught.  Its kinda of a grim fate.  The new guest is brought back to the colony for dinner where It's introduced to the a female.  After a little chit chat, maybe some hot hordeovres, the female cicada wasps stings the cicada paralyzing it.

The now incapacitated guest is dragged further into the colony and the female lays one of two eggs on it and our poor cicada serves as a meal for the young as they hatch and mature.  A fascinating and ghastly example of the efficiency of animal day care.

While the females do have a very nasty stringer, they will rarely sting a human and these very scary critters are that dangerous.

I'm still trying to decide if I need too eradicate them from the garden.  I need a lot of bee activity for pollination and I have found a lot of info on how these critters interact.

I have seen the wasps go after bumble bees

 Of course my wife doesn't believe any of the information on the "low threat" and will not go in the corner of the garden they inhabit.

 These Wasps are fascinating to watch and are very colorful.

 Still, I get a little nervous when they land on my ears while I'm working in the garden.  For some reason my ears look like a Wasp rest stop.  It's happened every time I've gone in the garden without a hat.

I always wear a hat while gardening now....

Some of you might be asking - why in the hell is he gardening with Historicon just about a week away?  Fear not, progress is being made but there have been some setbacks.

The last terrain piece thats needed for the game takes shape...