Shellman Homestead Garden 2011

This is the garden in early July, before it turned into a jungle. The pumpkin vines spread out and covered their neighboring pathways. The beans flopped over their neighboring pathways. The strawberries proliferate like bunnies in every direction. It's not a pretty sight at the moment. Oh, and that sunflower stalk you see at the top? It's about 15 ft tall with blossoms all over. I am so grateful for the incredible harvest God has blessed us with. That said, anybody want some carrots?

Egshell Pots

Back in the winter time, I found an idea for a peat pot alternative. Somewhere on the internet, someone suggested using eggshells. For a month, whenever I made cookies I would break the eggs carefully so that one end would be large and intact. I saved the eggshells in egg cartons until I had amassed about 5 dozen eggshell pots. In March I filled the pots with soil and planted tomato and eggplant seeds. Germination rate was pretty good, but the plants never got very big. The deal breaker, though, was the smell. I had to keep them in my bedroom. Guess what, my bedroom smelled like wet soil with overtones of rotten egg for over a month.
Cute little darlings, aren't they? The tomatoes didn't transition well to the outdoors; less than half survived. I blame the weather. The eggplants did surprisingly well. Here they are in late July.
Now they have lovely purple bobbles on them. I'm going to need some recipes involving eggplant soon.

August sunset

Watching a late August sunset with my sister. We sat on the front steps of our brother's house. He and his wife were out buying some chairs; their six children were in the house behind us playing with my three children. They made root beer floats. My sister called our mom to see how her heart ultrasound had gone. Mom said she gets to continue taking rat poison for two more weeks.
It was warm and quiet. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had such a peaceful moment around a relative. I was usually surrounded by loud and lively children. I asked my sister, "When do we start worrying?"
She shrugged and muttered, "I don't know."