Getting the Garden Bug Again!

It has been a hot and humid summer in Central Florida.  After my last big eggplant harvest, I pulled up all but one plant that still had flowers and threw in my gardening gloves.  Three weeks ago I checked the sweet potatoes and have left them to grow on their own, surrounded by marigolds that flower in wild abandon. I was confident that the regular summer rains were enough to sustain them.  When oh when will my potatoes start cracking the soil?  I'm ready to harvest!

I'm wishing for freshly picked vegetables and tonight have begun planning for late September!  Pull up the potatoes, compost the plants, compost what's left of the eggplant bush and then all vegetable plants will be removed.  If I remove ALL of the marigolds, I can start fresh with a clean clear 4'x16' slate, ready to be turned under with additional composted soil and earthworm juice.

There is a stink bug problem at the vegetable garden co-op, and we are not supposed to use poisons/chemicals.  According to the bug repellent list, petunias are what I need.  Should I pull up every single nematode repelling marigold and replace them with petunias?  I planted a few marigolds in early summer and they took over, but I suppose if me, a pretty flower lover, would stay on top of things and dead head the flowers, this would stop the prolific marigolds in their tracks.  Currently I have a garden full of tall and mini marigolds in an ocean of of yellow, orange and reddish colors that are blooming their little hearts out and I am wondering how strong those roots will hang on when I start pulling?  It's gotta happen, there is no room for vegetable gardening!

This a list of some vegetables I am considering in my late September planting (prone to change at a moment's notice):  broccoli, spinach, peppery endive and variety lettuces, bok choy, kale, sweet peas,  lima beans.   They won't all fit, so I have to make some decisions, probably cutting the peas and beans, and possibly broccoli from my list.

Making Waffle Cones

I bought a $20 Bella Waffle Cone Maker for Mark.  David and I whipped up a batch tonight.

The instructions were a little awkward and I think they were translated from another language, as it called for two eggs, then said to mix the yolk and the egg white with salt, etc.  Who discusses the parts of an egg?  You just put two eggs in.  The ingredients also called for 1/3 cup milk, but the instructions never said when to add it.  I looked at other recipes online and added it at the end, choosing to use evaporated milk as it was suggested in one of the online recipes.  The cooked batter was wonderful, but as crumbly as a potato chip.  Getting the lid to snap closed on the batter was impossible and although I put the required amount in, it overflowed and the waffle didn't cook evenly.  And it was too hot to work with AND even with the instructions, the cooked waffle kept slipping off the plastic cone form when I was trying to transform it from a flat pancake into a cone.  Needless to say, making cones was a failure and David and I ended up pressing the last three in bowls, which worked well. 

David scooped some softened ice cream and when he plopped it into a big cone, the cookie shattered.  Mark liked his cone, but we all agreed that I should take this back and get my twenty bucks refunded.

We ruined three and the picture below are our somewhat successes. Our fingertips are burned.

 

Clogged Drain Cleared!

Our bathroom sink was slow to drain, probably from years of soap buildup.  We have a septic tank and I am not a fan of pouring in harsh chemicals like Drain-O, so I looked online and found this clog busting recipe of things I had on hand.  

1 cup baking soda
1 cup white vinegar
1 gallon of hot water.

First put the baking soda into the drain. Follow it with the vinegar. It will react with the soda and fizzle. Let it stand for a couple of minutes then pour the boiling water down the drain.

I put a gallon of water on the stove to boil and went straight to work. Our sink has a permanent drain stopper, so I pushed what I could down the little opening and then poured the vinegar, using my fingers to push the bubbling baking soda down the drain.  One more slosh of vinegar was all it took for the mixture to clear the sink.  While that rested, I waited for the big pot of water to boil, maybe five minutes.

When I poured in the hot water, I could hear bubbly noises from the vinegar-soda solution, but I didn't get that big whoosh of water drainage that I expected.  Maybe the hot water needed to sit in the trap for a while to melt the clog, so I put another pot of water on to boil and tried again.  The second pot of water went down a little faster.  The third pot was the charm!

I wonder if I could have saved my soda and vinegar and just flushed the pipes with boiling water?  I hope I didn't hurt the PVC.

Yes, we could have taken out the trap and cleaned it, but that would have involved emptying the storage stuff from the cabinet.  Plus - YUCK - who wants to do that??