The garden was rocking! For awhile. Then the heat of Summer got to it and some of our stuff got stringy and weird. The turnips didn’t really turn out for that reason. We did harvest all of our radishes, which turned out pretty rad. And we got the garlic out of the ground! We had 4 different varieties of garlic growing, some turned out with big, nice bulbs, and some came out very small, but still tasty. Some of the bulbs had a lovely purple hue, and when you crack the cloves out, the cloves have a beautiful maroon-brown color. It was pretty fun to dig all the garlic up, then you let the stalks sit in the sun for a couple of hours before snipping off the green stalks and letting the garlic dry. We set the bulbs on metal grates on our porch, in the shade, for a couple of weeks before starting to try them. Spicy, crisp, organic, fresh garlic. Delicious.

Radishes!

Garlic!

Then the deer pretty much demolished what was left of our dear garden. To be fair, we don’t have a deer-proof fence. And it’s pretty much just one deer. One doe. I’m sure she’s deliberately not telling her deer friends about our delectable garden. I had some rad anise, cilantro, and basil growing, and that all got eaten down to the roots. Then she came back for all of our spinach, swiss chard, and endive. She also decimated what was left of our beets and onions. She won’t touch the carrots… yet. And so far the tomatoes have been safe in the greenhouse. But right now isn’t an ideal time to be doing a lot of gardening anyway. It’s too hot and dry. So next project is fixing up our fencing and we’ll do some fall planting at the end of August.

Drying.

Our water situation has improved greatly! We got our hands on a used 325 gallon cistern for $200 (a steal!) and R built a solid platform for it next to the garden. Now we can fill our smaller cistern in the truck, haul it home, and just gravity feed the water through a hose into the big cistern. And we can water the garden straight from the cistern! Our “water bill” was cheap already, and now we have to fill up even less often. $3 or $4 a month. Not bad. The platform doubles as storage too, and we’ve been able to move a lot of crap out of our house, and it’s still protected from the weather. We’ll put doors and lock on it soon, so we can keep things like the chainsaw and power tools in there as well.

All the lovely water.

Sunflower’s a-bloomin’!

This guy also lives in our garden.

Also, it’s been really quiet at our house without Amelia, and now Archie. Arch wandered off and hasn’t been back for a bit now, but we’re searching and haven’t lost hope yet. There’s been a possible sighting of him, and we’re staying hopeful. Any positive vibes to help Arch get back home would be appreciated! We miss having him around…

Fun with the Loki buddy.

So to help lighten the mood, we’ve been making an effort to have more fun with Loki! We’ve been playing in the river, going for rides in the forest, and it’s been lifting all of our spirits. R and I are making more time to go out exploring in the woods, and it energizes us to see new, secluded, awesome places. We feel more motivation to work at home if we can refuel out in the woods. And having a cold beer after work and watching the hummingbirds at our feeder definitely doesn’t hurt. Tonight after R gets off work we’re going to grab sushi for dinner, head home for a beer outside with Loki, go for a walk, and relish in the fact that we get to live in this beautiful spot in the forest. Maybe Arch will be sitting on the porch when we get home.

River dog!