Last night the kids were playing with sparklers, the stars were out and the moon was slim, so it made for some good pictures of the palm tree in our yard and the stars behind it. Each image is available on my website www.CarsonMatthewsPhotography.com. The change in ISO from 3200 to 800 made a big impact on what is visible in each picture.
Over the past several days Atlanta has seen damaging storms roll through town. On Monday alone there were 20 confirmed tornados in Georgia. On Wednesday that same front turned around and came back through as a warm front, countered by a bigger cold front from the west. When it wasn’t storming the skies were perfect for photography. On Tuesday it was beautiful; here is a picture of the moon late that afternoon.
On Wednesday we had early storms in the morning. I set up my GoPro in the front window on timelapse and caught this strike of lightning over the trees.
When the morning storms cleared the coloring was beautiful outside with the sun trying to break through the clouds. Here is a picture of the calm between the storms.
Wednesday night we got the 3rd round of storms which went late into the night. Again I set up the GoPro, this time doing timelapse video, capturing the storm from the time the sun went down until it came back up Thursday morning. Here is a condensed version of that video, showing the stormy phase of Wednesday evening and the beautiful sunrise Thursday morning.
And finally here is a picture of the sunrise Thursday morning.
This weekend over Fall Break we made a quick trip up to Highlands North Carolina. On Saturday morning we strolled up to Sunset Rock to get the kids out of the house before lunch. The trail head is located just past Mountain Fresh and only takes about 20 minutes to hike. There is parking across the street from the Highlands Nature Center on Horse Cove Road. Sunset Rock offers a stunning overhead view of the town of Highlands. In the morning the sun behind you provides beautiful light over the town, highlighting the fall colors.
Over the past couple of days I have noticed some of the green beans getting pretty big in the garden. This morning I picked a couple of handfuls of beans and two pretty red tomatoes. Tomorrow night I believe we will be having green beans, tomatoes with basil and a cucumber for dinner!
Over the past couple of weeks I have added some growing structures for the tomatoes, squash & cucumbers.
I have harvested lots of strawberries, but for most of them a slug has been getting to them first. I added some natural wood charcoal ash around the raised beds as well as epson salt around the plants which will hopefully take care of the slugs.
I added some stakes to the pole beans, cucumbers & tomatoes and all seem to be shooting up as a result. The blueberries are starting to get their color which has the kids really excited, hopefully they will be ready to go soon.
At Matthews Farm, 2016 will be the year that I defeat the squirrels and chipmunks. Each year my garden has grown bigger and bigger, and each year more critters come out to enjoy the harvests the night before I come out to pick the fruits of my labor.
This offseason I decided to build real cages around each raised bed, and my strawberry & carrot bed has a hinged top as well. The other bed cages will be organic, as in they will grow with the crops as needed. I plan to build trellis’s for the tomatoes, cucumbers & squash, and keeping those caged in will be an ongoing process.
Below are lots of pictures of the evolution of the garden, the planted crops, and some early seed bloomers (pole beans) that will grow in a bamboo teepee. I am also quite proud of the set of sawhorses that I built thanks to direction from familyhandyman.com.
I’m looking forward to a summer full of fruits and veggies from the back yard!
Garden coming out of the Fallthe first cage going inFirst Raised Garden Cage
Right of Passage Sawhorses doing their thingStrawberry Patch Cage with Top
Faithful Sidekick CodyNifty hinged toptools of the tradeFinished Cage TopBroccoliBlueberriesStrawberriesGreen BeansGreen BeansStrawberry PatchDIY Soaker HoseStrawberry Ready to EatVegetables and diy soaker hoseBlueberry PatchMatthews Farm
Yesterday we took the kids to check out the newly renovated Chastain Park Playground. You can read all about it at ChastainParkBlog.com. Here are a few of the pictures I got of the new playground, it’s truly one of a kind. More pictures are on my website www.CarsonMatthewsPhotography.com/ChastainPark
Here is a picture of the sun tonight as it began setting over the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta. This shot was taken from the East Palisades Trail of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area looking west to Cobb Parkway as it crossed the Hooch.
Nikon D800, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8
70mm f/8.0 5 frames processed in Photomatix and Lightroom
Here are some pictures to give you an update on how the summer raised garden is coming along. Â We have 30-40 tomatoes growing, one bell pepper which appears to be turning red, and some baby squash (I picked the first one too early and it was not ready). Â We had lots of blueberries but those were eaten soon after harvest. Â We can’t wait for those to mature so we can have gallons of blueberries in the summer! Â Until then we have veggies…
Bell PepperTomatoesYellow SquashTop of the Tomato CageMore Tomatoes Coming
Today we got a good rain and a couple of my tomato branches split and fell over. I needed a quick fix so I found an old tripod that came with my first dslr, a Nikon D40. It really isn’t worth the materials it’s made out of, but made a great additional support system for my tomato cages.
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