How does your garden grow?

Here it is....the 10th of July, and the gardens here are thriving. Well....most of the gardens are thriving. We have had a few issues with the beets and carrots. The first planting didn't yield much other than weeds. We went out to pull weeds and decided there were way more weeds than veggies, so hubby tilled it all under and we started over. Hoping we will get some beets and carrots this year. Yesterday I worked in the barn most of the day...pitched out the old bedding...laid lime..then put in new bedding. The weather was beautiful for working outside...temps in the low 80's with low humidity and a wonderful breeze. This morning it is 65 degrees...just beautiful. They are saying a high of 85 today and tomorrow as well. YAY! I did a quick walk through the garden yesterday to check on things...the green beans should start producing any time now, the tomato's are full of small green tomato's, the onions are about the size of large eggs and the potato's are finished blooming...starting to die back already. I just might get a second planting of potato's this year. That would be nice! As I was looking at the potato's and onions, I noticed that our blackberries were finally starting to ripen.

There were only a few..but wow are they big and sweet! I can't wait until I can get enough to make some jelly. I am hoping they ripen quickly since I am off of work until the 16th. Not sure they will be done in the next week tho. After I finished the barn yesterday..and finished putting up all of the animal feed, I went to work building a small scratching post/ tower for the 2 kittens. Now, I have never claimed to be an architect but they seem to like it. It ended up being a bit wobbly...top heavy really, so I wrapped 2 bricks in burlap and sat them at the base. This will work for now, until they get bigger. Then I will either work on a better one or just go buy one for them.

Yes, I know it leans a bit...but they don't seem to mind. Oh, I also had bought a box of commercial grade black lawn trash bags yesterday. I had read about making haylage in small batches for winter feeding. Since we only have a handful of goats, one growing cow, one ewe, and pigs ( for now) and chickens and rabbits...we don't need tons of haylage. Since we have several bales of hay left from last year, I am going to use that mixed with fresh grass/weed clippings and a few handfuls of corn. Layering and packing that into large heavy grade black trash bags, removing as much as the air as possible, then tieing it up for winter feed. I am hoping that by the end of summer I will have about 30 bags or so. This is a first for me, so I will report later in the year how this works out. Well, the sun is coming up...I better get this day started.