Well this year's gardens are probably going to be 6 months worth of food, conservatively estimated. it's a good year, though most of my time has been spent clearing land rather than gardening.

I'm finally getting some melons, too. This is my 4th year of trying, but first year of success.

Anyway, I work long days. I leave at 6:30 am in the morning, and get home at 6:30 at night on good days, 10pm on bad days when I do the 3rd job, which is two weeknights a week :(

So the mother in law's been giving me sammiches for lunch. I'm so sick of sammiches! Yechh! All this bread, I feel like a friggin' pigeon!

So I have a big argument with the wife. She says I'm too picky. All I want is leftovers from dinner. Just make enough to give me the next day!

Now if we were paying for the food, she'd say, "We can't afford it!" But since I grew it in the garden, I was able to say, "Damnit woman, let me eat my garden for lunch! that's what I grew it for! I don't want to eat anything except my garden for lunch any more! I'm so sick of bread and sammiches!"

And of course she couldn't argue with that. That much less money to have to spend at the supermarket. FINALLY I'm getting to practice what I preach! And it is a good feeling. A small but important victory, itz.

Such a feeling of power and independence, to live off your own land, to have a little bit of power over your fate. No more yecchy, soggy sammiches for me, no sir. If I hadn't grown so much stuff, the wife would be saying, "Well, you have to save it for the rest of us," like it's a treat, but thank heavens, this year I grew enough with plenty to spare, and the wife can't say a thing. I won one for a change.

Well, I hope the rest of you are enjoying an abundant summer!

Rob

I remember on an episode of married with Children Al bundy said:

Yeah Peg, got me a garden. Now you will be ah cookin and ah cannin, then I’ll be ah eatin and ah belchin.

Now why did your melons fail last 3 years? We planted an acre a few years ago, we just planted the seeds and went back and harvested the crop and had a good crop. Perhaps you are paying them to much attention.

Another thing that will kill watermelons and other plants of that nature is if a woman gets around them while she is having her time of the month. If you let a woman get around your melons while she was having her time that is what caused all your problems.

My vine products (melons cucumbers and squash ect) is running wild. It is unreal my cucumbers have taken over my tomatoes. My table squash have run through my tobacco and tomatoes.

I have been thinking about taking another pic of my gardens. People stop by the house everyday and exclaim how they had never seen a garden grow like the one in from front yard. It has been in the ground for 2 weeks today. My squash vines are 10 feet long, the watermelon vines are about 3 feet long and my tobacco is 1 foot tall. Then my pepper plants are huge and my tomato plants all fell over, I haven’t had time to properly stake them.

I have been so busy building a house on the farm. Probably next year I may have about 20 acres in farm instead of 3. Once the dozer work is done the field where I am building the house will be 8/10s of a mile.