Cauliflower, compost and water fights

After dinner most nights our family heads out to the backyard.  The girls play and we work on things in the backyard.  Tonight I needed to water everything, especially the rest of the new raised bed that I finally planted on Sunday, and the potatoes.  It seems like I always have to water the potatoes. As I was watering, I noticed that the cauliflower is forming heads on 3 of the 4 plants.  I'm really glad that it seems to be doing well, as last year my cauliflower left a lot to be desired. Actually, it was downright pathetic.  Of course I failed to save the plant tag or write down the information about what cauliflower I planted this year, and it's doing really well.  Go figure.  The leaves definitely have some damage - not sure what from as I've never actually seen anything on them, but the heads are looking good.  No spindly, tiny, oddly purple-streaked heads this year.  The one problem is that it is taking so long for the cauliflower to form heads, and the eggplants I put relatively close to them are having to compete quite hard for sun and water.  I thought the cauliflower would be out by now.  I was wrong. Thankfully I am used to being wrong (see the crazy pea trellis picture in my last post for further proof).

The aforementioned mystery variety of cauliflower.

The garden area, complete with the new raised bed and wood chips (chipped Japanese honeysuckle - yay!)  And Claire (heading over to play in the hose also).

I also worked until dark last night hauling compost.  I emptied the compost bin, or so I thought, earlier this year, about April or so.  I am really lazy with compost.  I don't analyze it, I just dump stuff in the bin (it's mostly "greens"- kitchen and yard scraps). I turn it infrequently and begrudgingly.  I have 2 large bins made of wire fencing that are about 4-5 ft in diameter.  One of these is new and one I've had for about 4 years.  The older one is around the south side yard near the air conditioner, and since we finally have a gate in the back fence, I want to move it back there - closer to the garden and not visible from the front yard.  So I am gradually starting to move the stuff out of it into the back bin.  In digging through things, I found an entire trug tub worth of mostly finished stuff in the bottom.  I was thrilled, as I still have a small area of the new raised bed to fill, and I want to put a bunch around the eggplant in front, as it is lagging significantly behind those in the garden.  My ribcage and stomach muscles are extremely sore today, and I think it's from pulling the stupid tub all the way around the house and into the backyard.

The compost I pulled out of the bin last night, minus what I already put around the onions which were peaking out of the dirt too much.  My stupid ribcage is sore just looking at this picture.  That tub holds a lot.  Why oh why did I not use the wheelbarrow??

Finally, I have to show some pictures of the fun we had this evening. When I was done watering, before I put the hose away, Kate was thirsty from playing soccer in the backyard with Daddy, and wanted a drink from the hose.  I was pulling weeds in the garden, and somehow missed the next few minutes, but a drink from the hose somehow degenerated rather quickly into Kate chasing Daddy around the yard trying to spray him with the hose and giggling so hard she could hardly catch her breath.  Then she decided to spray me, which was no big deal except for the small detail that I had the camera around my neck which is not cheap and not waterproof.  It came out unscathed, we all came out wet (Claire from playing in the water in the baby pool) and throughly happy.