As you see by today’s title, Deb’s Garden, then it has to be obvious to you all just exactly who wears the britches in this household…and it ain’t me! Basically I’m just “the hired help,” and also she claims on her tax return that I’m…sub-contract labor.

By this she has no tax liability on my account, but this in itself, ALMOST throws me in another tax bracket in regards to my taxes. But by her only paying me $3.50 a day, no not per hour, but a day, I just barely stay under going into another tax bracket.

Her philosophy to me is simply, “Look Dub, I’m really doin you a favor here. If I paid you more, you’d end up paying more taxes, right? On top of this, I keep a roof over your head, let you borrow my vehicle IF, you need to go to town, and I cook your meals and wash your dern clothes. Ya got a pretty good thing going on here, so my advice to you is very simple…DON”T MESS UP A GOOD THING! Comprende?? I thought you might…cause I KNOW the judge would!”

Hence…IT IS, Deb’s garden, on top of everything else around here too! Marriage…isn’t it grand?? LOL!

The garden is doing very well, and my only complaint so far is…where’s the dern rain? Good night it’s been dry. Our pond is about 8 feet below where it should be, and may possibly be 10 feet. I believe it’s the lowest I’ve seen it before.

You know, I just got to thinkin, everything else around here is Deb’s to hear her tell it, so I wonder if she’s gone and took the water outta the pond too? I sure wouldn’t put it past her!

No, the greenhouse is doing great, the grow areas around the greenhouse are doing fine, and in our garden out in front of the house, what we’ve got in there so far, is doing good too! We’re blessed in all sorts of ways. The Good Lord does provide!

Well, here’s a few pictures for you guys to let you in on what’s going on…

Okay, this first picture is of, left to right, sweet peppers, squash (lemon and straight-neck), onions, and cucumbers. We’re getting squash pretty much daily now, and I’ll probably put up some squash pickles this weekend, or the first of the week. We’ve also been eatin some onions out of…Deb’s garden! LOL!

The next picture is of our tomatoes. If you notice, we cut the suckers and lower limbs off. Thanks for the tip Miz Sandy and Mr. Bill, from Mobile!

Inside the greenhouse now, check out our beets comin up between our okra sets. Beets are really, really good for you! Ours aren’t quite ready, but, they’re getting there! We planted Bulls Blood, Detroit Dark Red, Lutz Salad, and Golden.

Check out the height of those volunteer tomatoes. A couple are now bumpin the top of the greenhouse at the low end.

There’s the cucumbers. They’re the Japanese cucumbers. They get 22-26 inches long, but thin. We love the taste, and they’re supposed to be excellent pickling cucumbers…we’ll soon see! If you look closely, you can see some hanging off the vines. We’re fixing to have to tie more string across the rafters and let them run towards the center of the greenhouse.

There’s a close-up showing the cucumbers.

From left to right, watermelons, squash (crook and straight-neck) eggplants, and far left is hot peppers.

Another view of our tomatoes, again Sandy, we removed the suckers. And lower limbs. The cows ate good! I believe they’d of enjoyed us just pullin the whole dern plants up and chunkin em over the fence to them!

The missing spaces, a row and a half, will have black tomatoes planted in them by next week.

Here’s the garden out front, we’re planting a little as we go out there. Got irrigation to it too, now! YES!! The pictures out here were a little fuzzy, but you can see what we’ve done. Check out that water runnin!

This is a partial row of tomatoes, with eggplants finishing the row on the left, then squash and peppers in the right-hand row.

This is two full rows of tomatoes.

Last is a picture of the greenhouse from the other garden…

We hope you guys enjoyed the photos!

Please take care, and God Bless. I’m relaying a message from Deb for you to keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

This is Dub…from Deb’s garden, out!

Dub and Deb

The wind though blew the squash around pretty good. We lost two, just broke em off at the ground, but surprisingly we have maybe 3-4 more that need a couple broken stems cut out, and I believe the rest weathered pretty well.

Watching those things blow around brought back memories of my killing those 50 + plants to get our growin season off to a great start! LOL!

I was talking to our good friends, Bill and Sandy, from Mobile Alabama, who by the way are… “Auburn Tiger” fans (hee-hee-hee Sandy), and she’d sent us some pictures of what’s goin on gardenin wise up in their “neck of the woods.”

Their garden was looking great, and I believe Sandy said they’d just brought in 50# of potatoes! They, like us, love piddlin around in a garden.

Both these guys have green thumbs. The proof in the pudding of their having green thumbs was evidenced to me last year. I called them in January, it was about 15 degrees out up there and I ask, “Sandy, where’s Bill?” Her answer, “Oh…he’s out in the garden pickin some tomatoes.”

“???? 15 degrees and Bill’s in the garden picking fresh tomatoes???”

Sandy’s like, “Yeah, he’s been a little disappointed with em though…he don’t think they’ve done quite right.”

“Okay…”

I have to tell you guys, although I hate to, they’re actually Alabama Crimson Tide fans. Gotcha Sandy! Roll Tide!

Anyway, I’ve got about three videos for you guys to look at if you’d like. One is our other garden we’d just prepped for planting, and one is of the greenhouse and grow area. Honestly, all these plants are doing well. We’re pleased.

The last video, which in reality will be the first was sent to us by a friend, this being Wayne, from Alma, Georgia.

Wayne’s a sport-model in his own right, and that scoundrel grows some great blueberries, but he’s pretty stingy with the dern things.

L:ast year as an example he told Debbie and I he’d send us down some blueberries by my brother, and he did. TWO! When I called he told me, “Shoot, that’s one apiece!” LOL!

Here Wayne’s video…

Not a bad idea actually, huh? If I still drank, I’d be takin a ride up to Ace Hardware!

The next is of our garden are we just prepped, followed by the grow area. Hope you enjoy them!

You guys all have a great day, and God Bless! Deb’s hollerin for ya’ll to keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

Dub and Deb

So far, so good with the garden. After getting off to a flying start this year by immediately killing about 50 +plants, we’re going along pretty good now.

If you didn’t know, well, we’d put up a greenhouse, and started most of our plants from seed. We wanted to use all heirloom varieties mainly on account of Deb’s juicing, or, our juicing. By doing so we’d have no genetically altered seeds, but in essence, basically the food God provided for us, and in Deb’s regard we felt this vital.

Quickly, while going through a Sports Illustrated” the other day, I read something that floored me, really. There was a little write up on cancer, and it claimed that in the US, 1 out of every 2 men would contract cancer in their lifetime. ONE out of every TWO! Half!

I found that just incredible?? What’s up with that?

In women’s regard…1 out of every 3. Still, 33% of women in the US today will contract cancer. Why is becoming so rampant? Is this our diets? Is it from most produce today being genetically altered? Is it what is being applied to the crops for insect control?

How about our poultry? You guys taken a look at the size of chickens lately? Hard to find a small fryer these days, or have you noticed? Is this from growth hormones? I don’t know, but I am asking…help me out somebody.

Anyway, as a whole, we’re just trying to eat a little healthier, but I did find those numbers literally staggering!

Back to my killing our first plants…we didn’t have any idea that if you’d started them from seed in a greenhouse, you had to harden them up prior to setting them in the garden in full sun. This is just setting them out in the sun for a few hours a day until they harden, or toughen up to the elements, for about a week. Once that’s done, everything works out great!

By my not knowing this, I set that first bunch straight out of the greenhouse into the garden, and killed the dern things…graveyard dead!

We have been prepping our garden out front the last couple days, and we’re pretty much ready to get started setting out some plants there now as well.

I tilled it in yesterday, both directions, and man, the soil is really looking pretty good. We’re anxious to see how it grows things off this year. We’d added cow manure and leaves over the entire garden area a couple, three months back. We let it set for about 3 weeks then tilled it in.

We then put out more oak leaves over the entire area again, and after building our grow areas around the greenhouse we put about ¾ of a semi load of compost we had leftover in it as well. This and the leaves are what I tilled in yesterday. Honestly, it’s starting to look pretty rich now.

We’ll be planting tomatoes, peppers, and okra for sure, but probably a couple other things too. We almost decided on peas too, but backed off that. We do so well with planting our peas in August, we’ll just keep planting them then!

We’ll also run irrigation to it after planting. The irrigation around the grow areas beside, and in the greenhouse, has just absolutely RUINED me. No more hose draggin if I can help it! LOL!

I’ll share some pictures of how the greenhouse is coming along, and the grow areas too. The vegetables in both are now really taking off! Everything outside when we set the plants in their hole, we added ½ teaspoon bone meal, and then filled the hole up with Jungle Growth garden soil.

Evidently it was just what the doctor ordered getting the plants started off, as again, everything looks good!

I went out earlier to check things out, plus we’d had a pretty good couple of showers, and good night, it doesn’t matter how much water you put to your plants…NOTHING works as well as rainwater! It all just looked…so alive, after the showers!

Anyway, how bout a laugh before we take a look at the garden? This comes from my sister-in-law Patricia, but just plain ole Patty to us!

God Loves Drunks Too

A man and his wife were awakened at 3:00 am by a loud pounding on the door.

“Over here on the swing,” replied the drunk.

Here’s our watermelons on the right, our squash in the center, and eggplants on the left.

Cucumbers on the right, onions to the left, squash further left, and sweet peppers on the far left. Many of the onions we grew from seed.

Our tomatoes. Some are now on their third tie.

Red-seeded Simpson on the bottom left, iceberg in the center, and Romaine up top. Okra top right, beets scattered through it, and sweet peppers.

Japanese cucumbers…headed into the rafters.

The volunteer tomatoes headed into the rafters as well.

Another view of the tomatoes in the grow area.

Melons, squash, and eggplants again.

Melons, squash and eggplants taken from upstairs porch.

We hope you guys enjoyed the pictures! Take care and God Bless! Deb says to keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

Dub and Deb