August Garden Chores

Let's talk about August garden chores now that August is underway. Back East, you will be harvesting your vegetables in August. In Texas, they are all dead. The plants have been pulled up and you are getting ready to plant a fall garden at the end of the month. It is interesting how the different climates across the United States vary during the summer and other times of the year.

August Garden Chores - 8/8-8/14/2022

Monday, August 8, 2022 - August Garden Chores

At 6:50am this morning, our gate was locked. The sky is bright and it promises to be another hot day for you to do your August garden chores.

Good Monday morning! I went over to the Farm Store early this morning and fed the fish. I added de-chlorinator to the pond and set the timer for 30 minutes. When the timer went off, I turned on the hose and filled up the pond. An hour later, I went over to turn the water and check on the pond. It looks good. By this time, our team members had been here for 20 minutes. I did not run into any of them.

I do not believe I am contagious since it has been ten days but I am still coughing. This usually lasts for many weeks. So I may be back and forth today but no one wants to be around someone who is coughing. Old folks just don't heal up quickly like young people do.

This week, we will be talking about August garden chores. If you are in Texas this year, your main August garden chores will be to pull up any dead plants you have not already pulled up from spring, keep harvesting what is still alive and producing, get the beds ready for fall planting, and finally plant your fall garden seeds during the last week of August.

Pamela and Sue Ellen tore up their thick mat that they sleep on. Silly puppies! They have been tearing up toys and pillows over the last few weeks, whatever they can get.

Pamela and Sue Ellen tore apart their nice new mattress I bought for the kennel. It cost over $40. They started tearing it up on Friday night and finished the job early this morning.

I was watching TikTok this morning and found some low carb recipes that look really good. I will try them. One is for a chicken crust pizza and the other is for chicken nuggets. I can't wait to try them. I am putting them in my own copy of the Favorite Farm Recipes notebook.

August Garden Chores

Some dead ground cherry plants. I cut them down and will harvest the ground cherries off. The fruits inside of the paper like lanterns are yellow.

August garden chores begin with pulling up anything left from spring that you did not already pull up, unless that plant is still producing. Our eggplants and watermelon plants are still producing a lot so we will not be pulling them up.

Our ground cherry plants, grown with seeds from David's Garden Seeds®, were green just two weeks ago, putting out a lot of cherries. They are now brown with tons of ground cherries produced. I am cutting them down today to harvest the ground cherries. They are dead but the cherries are still good.

I just went out and cut down several dead ground cherry plants. I brought them to my back porch and later I will take the cherries off. A lot of the cherries are on the ground in the bed. I will go back later as the sun goes down to get those. It is way too hot to be out there for long.

We got a lot of computer work done again today. There was one customer in the store. I know everyone else is trying to stay out of this heat or they are getting back to school clothes. Some schools around here started today. Some start next Monday and most start on August 22. Once that happens, folks will start thinking about their fall gardens. Of course, the very next week is when the fall garden needs to be planted.

Late this afternoon, there were sprinkles for about five minutes as dark clouds gathered overhead. Then they were gone and it was hot and sunny again.

Tuesday, August 9, 2022 - August Garden Chores

I shot this beautiful pano of sunset from the bench by the chicken coop. I stood up, grabbed all the way across the southern sky to the west as the sun was going down. Our home is on the right.

Good Tuesday morning! It is hot and miserable again today. I am still coughing but it is not as deep as it was. I fed the fish this morning and the pond has already gone down a lot. I don't see any leaks. It is miserably hot. Too bad it doesn't stay full longer. Algae is still there...

I made eggs and fed all of the indoor animals. Matt came before 7:15am and fed the rest out back.

Nacho is here today doing some August garden chores for us as well as cutting the grass all over the property. We no longer have anyone to do our August garden chores but ourselves now so it is good to have him here.

We had a USPS return on a $160 seed order because the customer doesn't know his address. Honestly, we get at least one return a day, sometimes three or four a day due to the wrong shipping address. This is something the customer enters on his/her own. We have nothing to do with it. How is it possible for an adult to not know his/her address? I do not understand.

The rest of the day, we worked in front of the TV and continued to watch Major Crimes. We are now on the third season. It is pretty good but I enjoyed The Closer so much more. I miss Brenda Leigh. She was so good!

I have decided that I will start intermittent fasting tomorrow. I will eat from noon until 8pm and then fast until the next noon. I just hope it doesn't kill me...

Wednesday, August 10, 2022 - August Garden Chores

I shot this while unlocking buildings this morning. I hate the electric poles and wires but nothing I can do about them.

I shot this gorgeous sunrise while unlocking buildings this morning from the business kitchen porch. I hate the electric poles and wires but nothing I can do about them.

Well, good morning. I woke up at 6:11am and it was still dark so I thought it was around 4am. No, it was time to get up for the day. It is getting light so much later now. I made coffee. I got dressed and ran over and unlocked everything. I fed the fish and put algae killer in the pond.

Since I am starting intermittent fasting today, I am starving. The only thing I have had so far is black coffee. It is 8:18am and noon seems so far off. I boiled some eggs that were 11 days old in the store refrigerator. They will be a nice snack for later on, lots of protein...

Meanwhile, I am working on the computer in my home office. I still sound terrible even though I feel okay. I need to get in that store, pull down all of the signs and decorations, and re-do everything since we have been moving things around. The bulletin board that I had up has been blocked by the grow tower so no one even sees it anymore. Maybe by the end of the week, I will go out there. I just don't want anyone to say that I got them sick so they can't come to work.

It is now 10am and I am starving. Just got another cup of coffee. Hope I make it...two hours seems like a really long time right now...

So I ate starting at 11:50am. Then in the afternoon, I made my first batch of sourdough bread from my newest starter. It was very good. I had some and then I had some more. I made potato soup for dinner which I should not have done. 7:50pm came and my stomach was upset. We did not go to bed until 12:45am. We never stay up that late but, honestly, I still was not tired.

My stomach was nauseated after dinner at least until after midnight.

Knuckle Purplehull Peas are part of the Southern Pea or Cowpea family.

August Garden Chores

Our highlighted August garden chores for today are to add homemade compost to your now empty raised garden beds to prepare them for the fall seeds that you will be planting in just 2.5 weeks and mix it into the soil. You can just use a shovel or a hoe. You do not need to till up the soil. Yes, 3 weeks from today is August 31 and you should have your fall garden planted by then. If you need some fall seed ideas, check out our Texas Fall Seed Set over at David's Garden Seeds® here.

Of course, if you are not finished planting for fall by August 31, you can continue to plant through September 3. Now keep in mind that this is for hot places like Texas, the deep south and the southwest. It most likely will not cool down much until October and November when you should get some good harvests. But the last few years have been weird weather wise. For instance, we have had early November and December frosts and snow and ice, something we almost never had in the 23 years we have lived in the San Antonio area.

Thursday, August 11, 2022 - August Garden Chores

You should put planting French Breakfast Radish seeds on your list of August garden chores. They will be a fine addition to your fall garden.

It is now 8:07am and I am tired. Did not sleep all that great. I woke up three times in the night so dry. I just finished feeding the indoor animals but did not make it out to feed the fish so I asked Matt to do that for me. My weight went up a bit so I am not happy. I thought a ton of weight would already be off since I nearly starved myself yesterday morning.

I probably should have had a simple meat and some vegetables for dinner. David kept asking me if there was fish in the potato soup. There was not. There was no meat in it all. I have frozen the rest of it for the chickens.

My voice still sounds terrible, all broken up. I am coughing less. David is a day or two behind me so he is still coughing a lot and sounds not so good. It takes older folks a lot longer to heal up. The kids who polluted us were sick for about three days. It is almost two weeks for us right now. Last time, it took me two months to get better.

I made a delicious tuna salad for lunch. David just put some pork ribs on the smoker for dinner tonight so we know he is feeling better.

We finally got rain at about 4:45pm. I ran out into it, fed the fish, and closed the store. I came back and chopped up summer yellow Straightneck squash, Grey zucchini, and Texas 1015Y onion and sauteed them together. I put in a little taco seasoning. They were a delicious side with the smoked pork ribs which were tender and juicy. It was a good dinner and I only had one plate. My stomach was nauseated for hours, just like the night before.

August Garden Chores

Today's August garden chores are to plan your fall garden planting situation. Decide what you will plant and where you will plant each item. Put it all on paper on purpose so when that final week of August comes, things will go smoothly as you plant your fall garden. We still have a few weeks for you to order your seeds for fall.

Friday, August 12, 2022 - August Garden Chores

Sue Ellen was by my bedroom barking her head off over and over this morning. She was moving with something alive. Gopher? Frog? Snake? Who knows?

Happy Friday. I was awakened just after 6am by Sue Ellen outside barking at something in or on the ground. I got dressed and went out there since she would not come when I called her. I could not see what she was barking at but she kept at it. I finally managed to get her inside and then I had to let Lucy and Ethel out. Now the dogs and cat have all been fed.

I gained weight again so this thing is not working. I am gaining weight and starving in the morning and being nauseated the entire evening. I am done. Life is too short.

I just need to not eat much. I am so disgusted after hearing all of this positive stuff about starving for half the day. Whatever.

So I came out to the Farm Store and put up the rest of the canned goods. I filled the pond, found more bags, restocked the treats, and straightened things out.

It is noon. So far, no customers but school still has not started for many districts around here which means people are still dealing with buying school supplies, clothes, and lunchboxes as well as paying babysitters. One more week to go and then back to school and planting the fall garden, all in the same week.

We ended up having two couples come in this afternoon to buy some seeds. Then, it poured again, for about five minutes. I closed the store as it was almost 5pm and went home.

I had a terrible time with Amazon customer service this afternoon. They have become more horrible than ever before. No, it was not business-related. I bought my mother and sister some tower fans that I thought they would enjoy in this awful heat. Apparently, they did not put out much air at all, even though the Amazon reviews say they are good.

My mother and sister called me and they and my brother were all yelling in the background as I tried to initiate a return. On one of them, I initiated a replacement instead of a return and once you do that, you cannot fix it. You have to call for help. I tried for an hour to get in contact with Amazon and they have changed how it all goes down now.

I finally was able to get a human being on the line, someone from India. He was nice and I thought he was helping me. He put me on hold and then came back with an American girl with a loud mouth. I tried to explain the situation but she kept cutting me off, telling me about how I should order this or that for my mother and sister instead of what I did order. At that point, I just wanted to return the items that are in El Paso and nowhere near me. She then started giving me family advice. I kept trying to return to the problem. She continued to cut me off.

I then asked her very nicely how she could possibly be working customer service but she kept cutting me off. She asked me to repeat what I said. I did and she hung up on me without doing anything. At that point, I decided I will be canceling my Prime membership with Amazon at the end of the year when the payment is due again.

Now, I am not sure if maybe that call was audited or what happened but two hours later, I went back into the Amazon orders and they were reset. I initiated the returns again and this time, they went through.

I am so disgusted with my family, Amazon, and everything. Now UPS needs to go to their house and pickup the fans. They say it will be on the next business day so that should be Monday. Once that is done, I should get my money back and then I am done trying to help my family. Most times when I am nice and send them things, they don't want them. But why tell me their problems then? I mean they told me off but good because the fans, which were not cheap, did not work like they thought they should. Whatever. I am done.

Saturday, August 13, 2022 - August Garden Chores

Good Saturday morning! I got up and fed all of the indoor animals. I then went outside and unlocked everything and fed the fish. Shay gets here at 8am.

I went inside and David was cooking bacon and eggs so I ate that first and then went outside to feed the outdoor animals out back. There were three new eggs in the nesting boxes. I grabbed those and had to go in and change. I was sopping wet from the awful humidity.

I cleaned up the kitchen and started some laundry. I got a dozen eggs ready to bring to the store. At 9:55am, I opened the store and started taking down decorations since we are moving things around.

Our herb seeds are now located by our commercial refrigerator. The triangular display was always in the way of customers getting through.

Shay moved the herb seeds off of the triangular display in the store today over to the wall display where the fruit seeds used to be. It looks good. I pushed the triangular display to the wall for now. We will probably dismantle it but that is up to David.

I received an email from my dear customer service rep asking if she solved my problem from yesterday! Is she kidding me? Of course she did not. The rep hung up on me without doing anything. So I took the time to answer and give Amazon a quick rundown of her lack of help and how she hung up on me. I hope they take the time to read it and to listen to the call. If they do, they will see that this girl does not belong in customer service at all. I spent many hours of my work life doing customer service. I know how it is done. Amazon has enough problems; they do not need this girl driving away customers.

It is hot and humid and the clouds are moving in again so maybe we will get another rain shower. We are desperate for cooler temps and some rain, a lot of rain. Thank God that we have a well or else it would cost us a fortune to water everything. Even though we are watering, a lot of plants are dying in this horrible 100° plus heat. It is now 1pm and only 96°. Alexa says it will hit just 100° and that it will not rain. I hope she is wrong on the second count.

Turns out, we got no rain today at all. We watched Svengoolie. The movie was The Horror Of Dracula. It was pretty good. We had pizza that Matt brought along with some groceries we asked him to get. We had a good time. I gave him some sourdough starter all ready to roll. He makes bread but has never done sourdough before.

August Garden Chores

It is hard to believe that it is already the end of the second week in August. August garden chores include pulling up the rest of the plants that are not up yet. We still have a lot that are putting out good produce like our watermelons and eggplants. There are a few cherry tomatoes that are putting out. Usually, David pulls up everything to give us a fresh start for fall.

As part of our August garden chores, we will be planting lots of fall flowers per David. If we have a mild winter this year, the flowers could last through the winter and into spring. The last two years we have had horrendous winters with some freezes and even snow and ice, totally unusual for Texas. Don't worry: we will be planting a lot of food as well.

As part of our August garden chores, we will be doing some more canning as well. We are harvesting a lot of eggplant and some other things that will need to be canned or pickled.

Sunday, August 14, 2022 - August Garden Chores

Happy Sunday. It was a good day to do August garden chores due to the lower temps but we did not do any. We are still recovering.

Good Sunday morning. David is still coughing so we did not go to church again. I have spent a lot of the morning washing fruits that Matt brought last night. He picked a watermelon from the garden and I cut that open today. It is already starting to rot inside. I cut it up and froze it to cool off the chickens this afternoon.

I chopped up vegetables and got the Instant Pot all ready for us to have a nice pot roast for lunch. I will be cooking it in about 20 minutes. Some of the potatoes were growing eyes so I saved those to try and plant some. We have never grown potatoes before but I would like to try. We will see what happens. If you are wanting to try growing potatoes, now is the time to get them in the ground. They take about 110 days to produce full grown potatoes.

Rain clouds are coming in but The Weather Channel shows us not getting any rain. We have about a 20% chance. I hope they are wrong.

They were wrong. At 11:41am, it started raining, off and on for the next hour or so. It was awesome. There are still dark clouds out there and it is only 2pm so maybe we will get wrong. It is only 81°. Can you believe that? It is not 100° or more! So awesome. Thank you, Lord!

The pot roast was very good. Now lunch is over and put away.

Obviously, due to rain, we will not be getting August garden chores done today. That is okay as we are still recovering from being sick. David is napping in the den with the puppies.

Return from August Garden Chores to Our Fourth Year

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