August 19, 2015
My tomatoes are doing great. I had two tomatoes but I didn’t pick them early enough and the worms got it! All our tomatoes plants used to be bending over with fruit until we made cages to stand them up. We found a hornworm on the tomatoes but it had wasp eggs on it. The wasp paralyzes the worm and lays eggs on it. When the eggs hatch the babies eat the worm. We like seeing wasp eggs on hornworms.
Our potatoes are being used up like crazy. I got one that was 4 inches long and 3 inches wide that was huge. I planted two potatoes and six plants came up! There were even more potatoes than plants. I boil my potatoes. We eat mashed potatoes like crazy. The other night we had zucchini quiche,pasta primavera, and mashed potatoes. We sometimes have potato salad but not as often as mashed potatoes!
We have been growing cilantro a lot. When they flower they look like the Queen Ann’s lace flower. When they flower we put them to dry on the road and put the seeds in a bowl to plant later on. We have thousands of them.
The chickens are doing great.On June 21 we were supposed to have more chicks out of a black Australorp but something happened. We normally put the momma chicken and her eggs in a dog crate about two days before they are supposed to hatch. We did that but we put the wrong hen in the crate so the momma might of crushed them. All we know is we found eggs crushed in the morning! We also have a broody hen that has gone broody two times now! Chickens going broody means they want to have chicks so they peck at us when they want to keep their eggs. On August ninth some more chicks were born! I was excited! It was five chicks out of five eggs!
Our strawberries are doing well. We still get a few even though the groundhog got a lot of them. On July 26th we got about thirty! The first time the strawberries disappeared, we put up a fence around them. We have seen the groundhog many times now.
We haven’t got any corn this year. We planted corn and sunflowers next to each other on the same day because when there are really big storms the corn stalks blow over. Well, sunflowers grow fast and so it shaded the corn out. The raccoons also tore down most of the corn for us.
Our zucchini is done for the year I think. Around July 28 we picked our last zucchini. I was sad. I liked making food out of zucchini.
My cucumbers are doing well. I’ve gotten at least 20 cucumbers this year! I got cucumber plants for my birthday this year. I eat 2 cucumber slices a day or more! Everybody else in my family does too. Some of my cucumbers I give to the chickens. One time my brothers and I ate a whole cucumber in one day!
We plant beets every spring and fall. This year we gave some to our neighbors. We tried something called Roasted root vegetable hash that had beets in it but we did not like it. The two things we do like made out of beets are beet pancakes and beet juice.
Gardening Without... 
I was out picking my cilantro today. Though I don’t put it in the road to dry. I put it in a huge paper bag. Once they are dry and the weather has cooled down I will go outside to winnow them.