Gotcha! More Watering and other Routine Chores - Tomatoes!

Weather continues the same...hot and dry! We have quit listening to the depressing weathermen. How they do love severe weather of any kind and can wax eloquent for way too long!

Good news this morning. Look what I found when I checked the live trap by the corn patch.



Maybe it has been him instead of a raccoon all along. DH reset the trap without new bait. So I don't expect to find anything in the trap this morning! A friend suggested a tin of salmon cat food as bait for raccoons. I have added that to my shopping list.

I did my last beetle trap emptying (maybe) yesterday morning. I got so that I dreaded that so much....the smell was horrific. I just took the second one down.
I stored the baits in a small jar and kept the rest of the trap apparatus too.

Now I will check all the plants each morning and see if they are landing on them instead of the baited traps. I had to do some spot spraying of okra and beans in the garden. Oh yes, they love the large okra leaves! A few were on the hibiscus too. This will be a test period to see how things go without the traps.

I set up the sprinkler to water the main tomato patch and saw four ripe tomatoes....well one almost ripe. I brought those to the house along with a few other harvest items.



After checking the squash daily, I still missed one that got past prime. See that warty one? Probably will become chicken feed.

The eggplant was supposed to be Slim Jim; obviously, it wasn't. That makes me so mad when that happens. The tomatoes are Heinz Classic, a canner and my favorite Granny Cantrell.

When I finished outside, I came in and had my favorite summer garden snack: sliced tomato with a dollop of Miracle Whip! It was delicious. The Heinz Classic must have a high acid content because it has some zing...very good flavor.



We had our very first summer veggies with lunch. I sliced onion, squash and bell pepper into the end of the electric skillet (I had hamburger steaks/patties cooking on one end). with some garlic flavored olive oil. Just before they were ready, I added the diced almost ripe Heinz tomato. We sprinkled grated parmesan cheese over the top at the table. Salad was a slicing cucumber tossed with some white dressing and salt and pepper. I must say we did enjoy it all.

I took a picture, but it really doesn't do it justice so I am not posting it.

Farming

Another tractor bit the dust; we are hoping it is just a wheel bearing costing a few hundred; not some other $4,000 thing that they mentioned. We may start looking at tractors.........not a good thing.