The Harvest.

Not sure if I am too late for my Harvest, we have been picking tomato’s and cucumbers for the past few weeks (cooking/eating these is another issue) but now it looks like frost is going to be coming. In fact this morning there was some frost around but I am hoping that it did not kill everything in the garden.
So now we need to pick everything, that is of course the easy part, the hard part is figuring out what types of things we can cook with what we have, here is the list of things that we have:

1. Tomato’s (mostly cherry but a few that are maybe 2-3 inches across can’t remember what type they are).
2. Cucumbers (good size ones too, most are 8-10inch long and 2inch in diameter)
3. Zucchini (only a few right now but the ones that are growing are big 10-12 inch long, 2 inches in diameter)
4. Carrots (small finger size carrots, I think I put then in the wrong place in the garden and planted them a bit too close)

So there is my current list, not too bad for an 8ft square garden.
The next big challenge is finding ways to cook these things in interesting ways, I really like spicy foods so if anyone has some good ideas around what I should do with all these vegs please put your receipt in comments.

The Garden update.

With August just about over I figured it was about time to give everyone a garden update. Things have been going well; we have had lots of lettuce, a few beans, some cucumbers and some very small carrots. We still have cherry tomatoes, more cucumbers, zucchini, bell peppers, carrots (hopefully bigger ones this time) and maybe a few big tomatoes left to harvest.
This year was also the first year that I figured out what to do with our sour cherry trees, we have 2 smallish tree’s about 10-12ft tall that produce all kinds of berries, I think I got about 2 buckets full. So far I have tried making sour cherry pie and sour cherry & strawberry pie. If anyone has any suggestions for next year’s crop please let me know.
Well here are a few updated pic’s of the garden.

Left: tomato's Mid: cucumbers, zucchini Right: lettuce

Here is one of the tomato plants, hopefully they all ripen before the first frost.

Does anyone have ideas for what I should do with my extra tomato's?

My Vacation Project

I have not been very active with my blog in the past while, this is mainly because I have been very busy working on 3 houses for Habitat for Humanity.
To add to my work I decided to finally redo the floor in our front hallway, this is something I have been wanting to do for a very long time. I am not sure that is was the smartest thing in the world to pick the hottest 3 days of the summer to do it, but as I had a bit of help from a brother in law that was staying with us this was the time to do it.
Here is the before Pic

and Here is the after Pic

I am very pleased with how it all turned out. Hopefully when the temperature goes down and the humidity changes we don't end up with lots of big gaps in the floor.

BTW, here is an official thanks to my brother in law for all his help.

Our Garden This year

Here is a bit on my latest project, my garden. We have tried this in the pass but each time the weeds have basically taking over. So this year’s garden is my attempt at fixing my weed problem.
Here is a picture of the garden, it is 8 ft x 8 ft.

The raised bed are 2 ft wide and either 6ft or 8ft long, this idea came from another website about doing gardens in 2ft squares, it makes it easier to weed and control.

(These are tomato's and Peppers)

The irrigation system that I put in is made of weeping tubes, I found that ½ inch copper tubing worked great for connecting it all together. This should help reduce the amount of water that is needed to keep the plants going during the summer. (here are a few pictures of the irrigation system)

(Here is where the hose connects to the system)

(This shows how the coper tubing connects it together)

(This is the system working, water just seeps out of the tub)

My environmental rant for the day.

With summer fully in swing I thought I would write a bit about one of the worlds great inventions for your lawn. As many of you have experienced when trying to mow ones yard there is a lot that can go wrong with a lawn mower, not being able to get it started, running out of gas, wondering if it is too late/early to wake up the neighbors, or the sound of that rock that you ran over wiping past your ankles as you remember that you crocks don’t have steel toes (or ankles).
Well why not try using a Reel Mower, quite, starts every time, and best of all kids can use it, once tall enough to reach the handle (ok, so they can use it but getting them to use it maybe another issue).

By the way, as a reel mower owner, they are not the same as your grandfather’s mowers. The new designs are light weight and roll across you lawn as easily or maybe easier then a heavy power mower (you can also get electric version that are even easier to push).

For those of you who want that perfect looking lawn, keep in mind that the golf course use reel mowers because they are much gentler on the grass and result in a much nicer/heather lawn.
The final and my person biggest reason for using a Reel Mower is that they are much more environmentally safe, not only do they not use gas and omit toxic gases, but they produce a much healthier lawn so you don’t need to use fertilizer or weed killer (not that you should be using them any way)

As a final note about your gas powered mower, think about this:
In 1hr of cutting your grass with a gas push mower you will produce the equivalent smog as driving your car for over 560km, and the smog gasses sit right in your back yard. A ride on mower is even worse some time as much as 5-10 times worse, it may actually be more environmentally friendly to drive you Winnebago across the country then to cut you lawn for the summer.(not that I am suggesting anyone drive a Winnebago across the country)
According to a CNN report, in a single day Southern California's lawn tools spew out more pollution than all the aircraft in the Los Angeles area.

Net Metering In PEI

I have contacted our electrical utility to see what the deal is with net metering. I don’t think that I will be going the way of solar electric right now but someone may find this interesting. (I am not going solar electric right now because we only us between 200-300kw per month, this means we have an electric bill of around $50/month, most of this cost is the monthly connection fee)

Here are some of the points on the Maritime Electric Net Metering program.
1. They will pay you the same price that you pay for your power (~10cents/kw). This was forced onto the utility by the government; you can tell from their document that they don’t like it. They wanted to pay the price that they purchase electricity for ~7cents/kw.
2. If you create more then you use you can bank the extra for less productive months.
3. Banked production gets reset to zero each Oct.
4. You require 2 meters, both supplied by Maritime Electric, not sure if there is any extra cost for this. (it looks like there is not)

Another cool solar electric system.

I have found another every interesting product for anyone looking for solar electric systems. It is called BlueLink solar.


It is basically an all in one solar electric system that comes on a pallet; you basically unfold it and plug it in.
Ok so it is not quite that easy, but very close.
The system has all the controls and converters on the actual unit and the unit comes fully assembled. The main thing that has to be done is setting up the connection to the house electric panel. I am not exactly sure how this is done or exactly what is needed to make this connection but from the other sites that I have read it sounds like the system has everything including 3 BP 160Watt solar panels, inverter and AC/DC disconnects, this should mean that you just need a connection to your panel, likely another disconnect (shut off switch) and a net meter (most power companies will replace your current power meter with a net meter power meter if you ask).
The cost is not too bad around $4500 US (~$4900 Can) + delivery $450 US. This does seem to be cheeper then other types of solar panels because you get the inverter, disconnects and mounting stand.