Fellows, your gardens look great! Love the containers coyote. 
HT, those Cornish Cross are looking like they will be ready pretty quick. I imagine they are going through a ton of water with the recent heat. 

Thanks for the compliment. Not sure how the dirt was going to be since I had buy topsoil for the new beds. I‘ll definitely improve it with some compost and manure by next season.
 
Pork: Last year I used the tires whole to grow taters but the voles decided that made a great home with food. This year I took the cordless sawzall to them to make a bigger planting area for the pole beans and cucumbers. As long as you stay just below the tread in the sidewall it’s like a hot knife in butter. I put taters in the buckets this year as an experiment.   
 
HT: Livestock looks great. chickens look like they’ll finish around 8# give or take.
 
Here’s to a bountiful harvest for everyone 

My wife noticed the first beetles of the year in her hibiscus. I was hoping a normal spring would have curtailed them the way it seems to have knocked down the ticks. But no.

So all the roses, fruit trees, and ornamental trees got a spray of Sevin this morning. Some of the roses had a beetle or two; some apple trees had clusters of a half dozen; and the cherry had more than a few clusters.

Hopefully I got them at the start and they don’t strip the leaves like they can.

 YouTube has a bunch of remedies...
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyvcmpyD7FM

Yesterday was a great day of work to process our chickens. The wife and I had an awesome system down and our work stations went perfect.
We first plucked ( with a plucker) and put all the birds in a tub of ice water.
Second station we cleaned and heat wrapped 10 birds whole.
Third station we halved the remaining 15 birds.
4th station we vacuum sealed 30 halves and all the wings seperate.
We took many breaks in between each station to clean/ sanitize and cool down in the pool.
While it took us mostly all day, the actual work was about 4hrs, not counting cleanup.
In about 12 weeks, we'll do it all over again. 😀

Today I'm going to pick some of my garlic and start the drying process. I will plant some more tomatoes in their place.
My tomatoes are doing great and many on the vine but still always away.
Cukes seemed to pick up a bit.

Oh, we also processed 10 lobsters for freezing and about 200 clams for chowder.
One of these days there will be time to rest on the homestead, lol..

Happy independence day!

hot tuna
Yesterday was a great day of work to process our chickens. The wife and I had an awesome system down and our work stations went perfect.
We first plucked ( with a plucker) and put all the birds in a tub of ice water.
Second station we cleaned and heat wrapped 10 birds whole.
Third station we halved the remaining 15 birds.
4th station we vacuum sealed 30 halves and all the wings seperate.
We took many breaks in between each station to clean/ sanitize and cool down in the pool.
While it took us mostly all day, the actual work was about 4hrs, not counting cleanup.
In about 12 weeks, we'll do it all over again. 😀

Today I'm going to pick some of my garlic and start the drying process. I will plant some more tomatoes in their place.
My tomatoes are doing great and many on the vine but still always away.
Cukes seemed to pick up a bit.

Oh, we also processed 10 lobsters for freezing and about 200 clams for chowder.
One of these days there will be time to rest on the homestead, lol..

Happy independence day!

Very impressed!  We have done the processing many times ourselves and know what a job it is. Once you have a good system it is a world different though!  We are preparing to help a friend of mine do her first processing this Sunday.  We will take our equipment and teach her and her family the steps so they can then do it themselves later. This first round is Cornish cross (CX) meaties.  So will teach them how to do the plucking route. In the fall she will have a bunch of heavy breed cockerels to process and a second round of CX so will go back and teach her how to skin and pressure can them.  I gave her a couple jars of our pressure canned chicken and her family loved it so she got a bunch of cheap heavy breed males to raise over the summer. (She has a good spot for them to free-range and forage).  She also got 7 or 8 turkeys. I helped her plan out the growth rates so the second CX, turkeys and cockerels should all be ready within a couple week time frame to make it easier for processing. 

Fisherlady, this year we had an awesome system down after struggling the past 6x2.
Absolutely having stations set up properly in order and not jumping to different processes in between was key. Can't wait to get the next batch of chicks in 7 days.
We also compost all the remains.

Ended up picking 200 garlic on Monday and all drying well. I checked a few of the other 200 patch and they are ready, I'm just not yet. They will be fine growing unless we get substantial rains.

Can't find any pre started tomato plants anywhere to put in the empty boxes. I might start summer squash in place and hold out 1 box for greens once the sun gets lower.
My 50 or so tomato plants now are doing well. Expected harvest in August.
My peppers suck..
Cukes are nowhere near potential.
Herbs are daily and being dehydrated.

Fall is soon upon us..
Show your goodness

This was my wife’s first attempt with a raised bed. We had very enjoyable leaf lettuce, but now it seems to be growing skyward in 8-10” stalks instead of replacing the leaves.

Is it done?

Yes, once lettuce starts to bolt its about done. You can still pick that last batch but it'll be a little bitter. Pull it out, wait a couple more weeks and resow. You can have lettuce into September and October.

I got kinda "spooked" about that garlic rotting, so I pulled it. Great return. Some grew bigger than others, but I will have plenty for canning and cooking. I keep the biggest cloves for the fall planting. I planted 2 different kinds of hardneck. I'm gonna do about the same amount again, which was around 100 head. One a great side note, The Big Lake is supposed to be really good for weather and waves the week after next. I'm feeling another vacation coming on. 🐟🐟🐟🎣🎣🎣🛥🛥🛥

How's everyone's tomatoes doing ?
We've basically been in drought for awhile and I water every other day. All my plants were from seed of 4 varieties. Jet star, Rutgers, Roma and better boy.
My plants are cranking and producing lots of fruits with some ripening. There will definitely be a lot coming.
My only thing is, all varieties are small in size. Basically just larger than a cherry tomatoes.
That's strange because 2 should be large as they were in past years.
At least we got a 30 minute gully wash today. Nothing new in sight for another week

Most of my tomatoes are doing great. Couple "weak" ones here and there. I also run the sprinkler every evenging. Can't believe we went from rain and monsoon weather last month to zero rain this month. If I can get one of the girls to take some pics, I'll gettem up here. I'm still having trouble with posting from my Samsung🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️. Keep on going and growing..

Some incredibly humid weather the last 2 days brought with today a much needed good soaking rain throughout the day. The air is THICK . My garden will bust wide open by next week.
Unfortunately, drying the garlic took a setback in the humidity. I clipped about 100 from the covered outside drying racks and moved the bulbs to inside racks with fans in our house. We have central a/c.
Tomorrow's project is to get them all inside on racks.

The chicks are doing great in the brooder. Only 1 dead loss out of 30 and the remaining 29 are growing before my eyes.

This was today's pick. As I said, for some reason these heirloom tomatoes are tiny.
The Roma and plum look normal size.

Happy eating the rewards we sow.

And so it begins. Should be doing about 8 quarts a week until things kick into high gear around August.

I need maters....lost 3 or 4 ripe ones from one of my containers due to blossom end rot.....just out and had to tie up a couple mater plants.....winds from yesterday's storm blew the staked basket over......
 
Found 2 8#-10# zukes "hiding" under the leaves....not sure how I missed them....not sure what we will do them.....