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Garden:

The garden is doing well, mostly. The pH level is shite so the snow peas didn't make it. I've done some quick amending but the real fix will need to come this fall after final harvest. That will involve ashes and quicklime.

The tomatoes are being tomatoes and complaining that the soil isn't perfect as there was a serious depletion of calcium. Amendments were added and the tomatoes didn't die but they didn't thrive at first either. I also have a metric fuckton of cherry tomato plants popping up from seed from the last two years where they went insane on their own. They started to show a little yellowing at the center of their top leaves but that isn't spreading which means that the calcium amendments held (for now).

Corn was completely replanted as the first batch of seeds had only about a 19% germination rate. Second planting is closer to the 90%+ that I'm accustomed to.

The green beans are thriving (second planting as first didn't germinate as well as I would have liked), such as they can with rabbits coming by. The hawk that usually guards my garden seems to be gone this year so I have to rely on other methods (repellents, fox urine, etc.) which seems to be working. At one point, there were 5 of the little bastards just chilling in the patch and thinking the green bean plants were fucking gourmet salad. Between me, repellents and the pup having an absolute blast chasing them, they're largely gone - I'll sometimes find one little brazen fucker just hiding in the patch like we can't see them and I smack it with the dog leash and the dog chases it off - it stays away for a day or two after that.

I companion planted the corn and green beans. Eh, it seems to be working and they're climbing the corn so I don't need to worry about that but I'm not as impressed as I had hoped I would be and I don't know why.

I've already harvested 7 squash that were about 15 inches long and given all but two away. There's about 10 more ready to harvest very soon.

Eggplants are starting to flower and I already have a watermelon fruit.

I've just planted pumpkin seeds hoping to get some in time for Halloween for the neighbors.

And the cucumber plants are doing well enough and I've already harvested 5 and given 3 away.

The pepper plants are doing well enough (two of them are stunted from the calcium/pH issues).

The entire plot should be remulched and that will be between 13 and 16 cubic yards... about $400 and a fuckton of work.

Oh, and a "wild potato plant appeared" so I'm curious to see how that will turn out.

In short, the "community" garden is doing very well all things considered.

Found another "wild" (unplanned) peach tree for a total of 7 on the property. They're all loaded. Apple trees are still too young to create a lot of output but there's a couple here and there. Blackberries are creating again this year and I might have a few figs from the two trees.

All grapevines are producing this year with the youngest two only producing one bunch and the oldest producing 60+ bunches. I stopped counting at 60 because I got the point by then that I'm going to have more grapes than I will ever be able to consume on my own.

The neighbors have been grateful so far but it's not gotten to crazy levels of harvest yet and soon they're probably going to have to give food away which makes them seem more awesome to their neighbors which strengthens community cohesion even more.

There seems to be plenty of deer that come and chill in the back of the property and I do believe that a groundhog has moved in. All of this is fine as long as they leave the garden alone. Also, moles have been trying to get to the garden plot but the railroad ties bordering the edge seems to stop them somehow. Them little fuckers will burrow back and forth along the outside of the ties but can seem to figure out how to go deeper to get under them or something. In any case, they're leaving the garden plot alone so I'm fine.


Grocery Update:

I've done two grocery top-offs since December when I stopped grocery shopping regularly. There seems to be lulls in the pricing craziness where they drop for a little while, maybe a weekend here and there, and I can top things off without spending more than I feel is reasonable. The scant harvest from the garden I've taken (three tomatoes, 2 peppers, two squash) has bumped up my kitchen stores notably (meaning that's like enough to extend my stores for a week or two depending on how I cook). Shopping and timing this way, I've been able to top off at December's prices twice. Most of the time, the items that get topped off are flour and meats for the dog (she gets meat every day). And milk. I always get about four gallons, reserve one for drinking, 2/3 for general cooking, and turn the rest into yogurt (which generates a fuckton of whey used in making breads) which is then freeze dried and vacuum sealed for later use. Just add water, hit with an immersion blender, use as needed.

Coffee supplies finally got a little low (less than 10 pounds left in the stores). I consider 10 pounds a little low during potential issues but 2 pounds is generally what I keep on hand when things are otherwise fine. And honestly I'm getting tired of having such a huge stockpile although it's handy as fuck to go into the basement to get more of something instead of the store.

General updates:

The puppy is one year old today. She's still a little behind in her training (because of when I got her) but is currently wearing a cone of shame since she was fixed (and had an umbilical hernia fixed at the same time). She gets all the good foods today including steak. On that note, I can do anything I want to her but the vet has no end of trouble and she had to be sedated for them to put the cone on her. I'm not sure if I view this as a good thing or a concerning thing. If society becomes completely unstable, I don't want her trusting anyone that well but if things stay relatively stable, this might be an issue. To that end, I've trained her that she can't take a single thing (treat, steak, chicken, whatever) from my hand until I give her the command to take it. It works on impulse and focus training and I'm hoping that will reel her in a bit at least while I'm nearby.