Hmm? You wonder, where's Hummingbird Hills Homestead. Well, located in Central Illinois. It's our little patch of land. My husband's late wife dubbed it Hummingbird Hills and I added the Homestead part. It's been a busy week here trying to keep on top of stuff and then we have had the extreme heat.
Work on the vegetable garden is ongoing. We fenced around it, but apparently bunnies or something still figured out a way to get in and proceeded to munch on a few of our vegetables. Not all our seeds germinated which was a disappointment. But, things are starting to grow. I've replanted a few things. We enjoyed a couple of ripe tomatoes...a bit early, but a nice treat. We've had lettuce and radishes and green onions so far. The radishes are finished, unfortuantely, they were super. The green beans have started over since something ate all the tender leaves off of them. I had started two celery plants from the bottom of a stalk and whatever ate them as well as two bell pepper plants so it has been work trying to figure out how to keep things from being eaten.
I resorted to cutting the top and bottom off of juice bottles to put around some of the plants. Not pretty, but hopefully effective. I restarted another celery plant and hopefully it will get a chance to mature. I replanted some things that didn't come up, hoping it was the weird weather we had earlier. One cucumber plant is really going to town, so I'm hopeful we will get lots of cucumbers. I like to make relish besides eating the cucumbers raw.
Sadly the weeds have been abundant. I've been working on filling in this flower bed with lots of perennials, but ther eis this invasive vine that I pull it up and the next day it reappears, even if I got the roots. I told DH it would make a great horror movie if this thing got really huge; it could take over a city in a matter of days!
In good news, I bought a box of wildflower seeds at a Dollar General this spring hoping they would come up since they are supposed to be flowers that hummingbirds and butterflies like. It seemed like it took forever, but the plants are up and there are even some blooms!
We've had some other projects going on here as well. But with the extreme heat, we are not overdoing it. I'm watching the wild black raspberries because I'm thinking they will be ripening at some point. I made jam with them last year and would like to do the same this year.
I read an interesting book that I checked out from the library. It's called "The Feast Nearby." It from 2011 about a lady who was divorced and lost her job and moved to what was to be a vacation cabin which became her home. She talked about living on very little, foraging, bartering, and canning. The author's name is Robin Mathers and she worked for the Chicago Tribune before losing her job. She included recipes. She is way more resourceful than I am, sad to say. But it was an interesting read. One thing she talked about was supporting the business people around her such as farms.
Well, guess I should get on my work clothes and get busy!
June 23rd, 2025 at 02:40 pm 1750686005
June 23rd, 2025 at 06:53 pm 1750701218
June 23rd, 2025 at 09:32 pm 1750710725
PatientSaver, I'm about to get out a shotgun. Something overnight ate the leaves off of the green beans that were just starting to come back...Grrrr.
June 30th, 2025 at 08:12 pm 1751310755
July 1st, 2025 at 02:44 am 1751334271
I only have 2 raised beds but they are filled with weeds. It's been either crazy hot (mid-90s) or storming here for a couple of weeks so good for weeds and bad for gardening.