Month: July 2006

July 31, 2006 – Peppers

highhopesgardens July 31, 2006

The peppers are starting to come on strong. Here’s an assortment from the garden.

The dark purple peppers (Purple Beauty) are the size of normal grocery store bell peppers and the big green one is called “Napolean Sweet Pepper” – just for fun here’s a description of it from the 1923 L.L. Olds Seed Company Catalog: “Plants about 2 feet tall. Possibly the most productive of all the large peppers, bears consistently until frost. Mild as an apple. Fruit about 8″ long and 4 ½” in circumference, standing upright until they get so heavy they sometimes droop. Remarkably early for a large fruited pepper. Might be classed as an extra early.” Good flavor when green, sweeter when red.

July 30, 2006 – Taste Highlight of the Summer

highhopesgardens July 30, 2006

Our new peach trees are just giving their first few fruits this year. There are very few things that taste better than a warm, even hot, ripe peach picked right off the tree and devoured! Truly a taste highlight of the garden this year.

Yea, it’s still hot.

It’s also very dry – last week some storms rolled through, we got 1/3 inch which we felt grateful for, but just 12 miles south, they got 3.2 inches. In June, 0.1″ of rain fell, in July we had 1.5″ when we were gone and .33 last week, so in the growing season that we normally receive about 8 inches of rain, we’re at less than 2 inches.

July 28, 2006 – Odds and Ends

highhopesgardens July 28, 2006

I probably don’t need to comment on the weather – other than you know it is muggy when you get out of the car and your glasses fog up. Or when you walk into the barn and see the bricks on the floor are wet. Or when you stand in the shade staining windows and the sweat drops off your nose, ears, and arms.

The hay rack is a great place to finish/paint stuff. Here is the big window for the attic dis-assembled.

To try to match the original aged woodwork (pine and fir) in that carmelly old color, I had a custom stain mixed, apply a couple of coats of orange shellac and finish it with a couple of coats of poly. It’s a lot of work, still not exactly right, but much closer than I can get out of a commercial finish.