I usually try to tell a cohesive story. Not this time. The GoPro didn’t record, so most of the footage is missing. I still wanted to share, so expect some chaos in this one.

Note: The video version of this post gets released on Wednesday, September 04, 2024.

The weather is doing whatever it wants at the moment. We had a weather forecast for a severe rainstorm and three days of rain. And instead the rain was cancelled this morning. And now it’s raining but it’s just a drizzle.

But yeah, now there’s supposed to be rain on Saturday, Sunday, Monday. It seems to change just about every hour. So we’ve given up.

I can’t operate the pump when it’s raining this much, but there is sunshine on the horizon. So we’re just gonna wait it out and then get going after.

But yeah, rain was cancelled, right? Totally cancelled.

Moments later, the rain stopped, so I continued working.

There are beans all over these plants. There’s a lot of beans in the purple teepee. Those look great. The new plants still are only making flowers, but their original plant is doing really great.

But over there, there’s also another bean. I’ll have to look up what it is. Neckarkoenigin oder Brunhilde, one of the two, but it’s growing so well, and there are so many fruit in it.

I hope to get a real harvest here in a few weeks. For now, small dinner additions. And sorry for the weird angle. There was supposed to be a second camera recording…

I’m not sure when the other camera died so I hope there’s a cohesive story here somewhere. I’ll just finish up mulching this little bed and then I’m gonna pack up the pump and go home and make German knoedel. I’ve been trying to do that for a couple of days but somehow time in the garden always got away from me because something needed doing urgently but I think I’m okay today. I think I did everything that actually needs doing so I’ll finish up the mulching here and then we’re gonna get home.

And, one of these days I have to empty out the two barns over on my neighbor’s plot where there’s a lot of almost new straw that the animals were supposed to use as bedding but then the animals went away so there is a lot of straw with a little bit of poop in it and that’ll make excellent mulch and there’s a lot so it’s probably also going to make excellent compost.

My first corn is in tassel. It’s the one that has a different color, so I think only one of the green corn made it and that one’s now tasseling.

And, it’s not going to go anywhere but it’s fine. all the other ones are starting to tassel, and if I’m lucky they are just going to make it in time before that one, and then we’re going to have a ripe hybrid between green and black. I’m fine with that.

It’s all good, but yeah, the corn is looking good. Some of it is reaching full height. I am very happy with how the corn is going. Yeah, it’s so cool. I’m growing corn!

As so often, a tiny harvest to take home.

The last thing I need to do before we leave is reset the slug traps, and all of them are full. They keep eating my kale and my other brassica anyway, but I still think they’re helping because there are a lot of slugs in there.

And also I still have about 20 plants at home that I can put in wherever they get eaten. So I hope that by the end of them growing to a size where the slugs aren’t as big of a deal anymore, I’ll have enough plants in. But yeah, it should work out.

The other brassica in the rest of the garden are looking great anyway, so I’m not worried and–Oh the sunflower is branching. I haven’t even seen that yet.

Hold on. It’s a volunteer sunflower and it is ginormous. I mean just look at the stem of this thing. If just compared to my hand just down here… It’s–I can barely grab around it. It’s such a big stem and such a ginormous–Look. It’s so much bigger than me. It’s beautiful. I love sunflowers so much. Ah, it’s great.

My husband had printed me some slug traps. One of them was working. But I’d soon realize they weren’t the answer to the slug problem. This would turn out to be the last refill.

The trap on the first bed was filled with slugs, the other three were filled with unintended visitors. Oh no, just spiders. I’m sorry little spiders. That’s probably why the brassica in the first bed were eaten because there’s apparently only slugs there. All the other traps were empty or filled with poor little insects that I accidentally killed.

And now I feel really bad for the insects because they were never supposed to be targeted by that. I mean, sure, I’m not the biggest fan of a potato beetle, but they didn’t do anything. They didn’t even eat my potatoes this year. So I don’t like it at all. I’m very unhappy about that. And I’m considering not continuing the slug traps. I’ll continue them for now and see if that continues.

But if there are no slugs in there, I’ll just stop using them and only fill the one maybe move the traps here where the garden house is because that seems to be slug central, so they don’t even get into the garden. But I haven’t decided. Right now, I’m just very unhappy that I killed spiders and other insects. And I’m not happy about that.

What I am happy about is there’s a melon. There is a big melon down there, but we also have melon on a second plant now, which is excellent. I’m a really big fan.

And I hope that we get some melon to full majority because I am in North-East Germany. Winter comes fast here, but they are in a greenhouse. So I have hoped. I am really hoping that it all works out.

There’s also the first tomato fruit. I saw that yesterday, but I don’t think you’ve seen it. But look at that. There’s the first tomato fruit in the greenhouse. So, well, Bogus Fruchta has been fruiting, but yeah, not the unknown variety on the other side. The indeterminate ones have the first fruit now. And I’m really excited because that means I’ll soon figure out what they are because so far I don’t know yet.

Okay. Let’s close up the greenhouse and head home.

At home, I realized it had been too long since I’d made German dumplings. The dough had been too liquid for plain dumplings, so I’d used the napkins again.

In Germany, we have something called “Serviettenknoedel” which means “napkin dumplings.” I use that approach as a plan B if the dough doesn’t work out well enough. I don’t like to, because it makes a big mess. But the result is just as delicious.

Peas, beans, and a few tomatoes made this even better. All from the garden.

So long, and thanks for being here.