Remember back when I said the garden was DONE! I was wrong. That was just the eye of the storm. It was calm and quiet for a few weeks. It was so quiet, in fact, that we even sneaked away for a long weekend of vacation — since there wasn’t much happening here. Maybe it was the extreme heat followed by the unseasonably cool weather that stunted the production of tomatoes, peppers and squash; but now they are back with a vengeance.
I came back from vacation to find a garden full of ripe red tomatoes, red and green peppers and more squash! In fact, I picked 14.5 POUNDS of tomatoes. Time to get busy canning again!
Thankfully — we weren’t affected by the hurricanes…But we’re in the middle of a tomato tornado
Isn’t it enough that we have a chicken coop? Now we need a chicken shed too?
We’ve been using a plastic storage bin that was intended for lawn furniture cushions. It has more than exceeded its life expectancy. The squirrels have taken a toll on it – nibbling to get inside to the chicken food. We knew we needed to replace it, we just hadn’t found the right thing – until the other day.
I was leaving the Amish farm market where I sometimes stop to indulge in their freshly baked sticky buns, and there it was with a “For Sale” sign. They called it a “trash condo” – intended for trash and recycle bins – but it was just the right size for the five gallon buckets of chicken feed, bird seed and chicken treats (yes, the chickens get treats). We went back out over the weekend (really an excuse for more sticky buns), so I could show it to Chris – and bought the thing.
Then another trip out on Monday to pick it up (really an excuse for MORE sticky buns). Chris was quick to point out just how useful his truck and trailer are. For a little shed – it’s heavy. It’s not like we could just lift it up and put it down. After a lot of maneuvering, we finally got it loaded, home, unloaded, settled in place, and all set up with the chicken food and paraphernalia stored inside. Now the chickens can have their treats. I went inside and ate a sticky bun – because I think I earned it.
This box has got to go!So we brought this cute little shed home.It doesn’t look that big, but it was a project to get it into place.I definitely earned this treat!
I thought harvest time would be in October – but here we are, barely into September, and my “root cellar” is nearly full already. I don’t really have a root cellar – I have a basement. And the basement door has a sign over it that says “wine cellar.” It’s not really a wine cellar either. I’m not sure what the basement is other than dark and damp and cool. I guess that makes it the perfect place for a root cellar and a wine cellar.
We’ve dug up the potatoes, harvested most of the winter squash, canned the tomato sauce and put up a year’s worth of pickles and jams – and it’s all stored in the root cellar/wine cellar/basement. It can be a bit inconvenient to traipse outside to go to the basement/root cellar when all I need is a couple of potatoes for dinner – but as long as I’m there, it’s a good thing that it’s a wine cellar too.
The “fruits” of our labors – jams and pie fillings.Pickles and tomato sauce.Butternut squash, butter cup squash, spaghetti squash and acorn squash.And lots of potatoes!
That’s funny. There’s always work on the farm, especially on Labor Day — a day off from work… so we can work!
The calendar changed to September and so did the weather. It’s cool (actually chilly!), and the garden seems to be winding down. There are still some tomatoes and peppers, and we’re waiting for that fall crop of salsify, but everything else is DONE! Even the corn. We didn’t exactly get a bumper crop. We had maybe two dinners with our own corn. I wouldn’t exactly call it corn on the cob. It was more like corn on coblettes. They were short, stubby cobs with a kind of starchy, rather than sweet tasting corn. It wasn’t the best thing to come out of the garden. But all was not lost. The best harvest from the corn was yet to come! The corn stalks!
Now, we’re ready for fall.
The corn wasn’t much of a meal.But the corn stalks look pretty for our fall decorations. Even our “pet” crow thinks so.Can summer really be over already?
I have a favorite pickle recipe. I’ve been making it for years. This year I started with 24 cucumbers, 12 cups of vinegar and 12 cups of sugar, some peppers and onions along with some pickle spices (mustard seed, celery seed and a little cayenne pepper to give it a tiny bit of a kick) and a huge galvanized canning pot. Everything was going well until I realized that this is a lot of pickles and I didn’t have enough canning jars ready. In the middle of the preparations, I had to put things on hold and run out for more jars!
Now we have four cases of bread and butter pickles!
But that’s not all.
We also have wild blackberries growing all over the place — and now we have three cases of blackberry jam. And I accidentally bought 30 pounds of blueberries — so now we have two cases of blueberry jam, 6 quarts of blueberry pie filling and two gallons of blueberries in the freezer. (I didn’t realize how many blueberries are in a 30 pound box when I said I’d take a box of them!)
And then there are still beans and beets to freeze and tomato sauce to can and squash to pick. I think we won’t go hungry.
24 cucumbers doesn’t seem like a lot until you have to slice them all.And cook them in a big pot.And run out for more jars!
When I planted the squash in the side garden that we created this year, they looked so small and vulnerable inside that big space fenced only by some chicken wire. I wasn’t sure they would make it. The chicken wire was just about low enough for any hungry bunny to hop over, and certainly wouldn’t deter the deer if they wanted to just step over it and invite their friends for dinner. We did put some stakes around it with some webbing tape sprayed with deer repellent and we’ve been lucky so far.
In fact, the squash have grown, and grown, and grown some more. At this point — they are escaping the fence and running away, and there is nothing I can do about it – but wait for harvest, put on a my safari expedition attire, grab a machete and fight my way in to the squash patch and hope for a bounty of acorn, butternut and spaghetti squash — and some pumpkins and gourds.
I guess what is growing outside the fence is fair game for the rabbits or the deer.
The squash are so tiny you can barely find them in the dirt.But they grew…And they’ve crawled over the fence and are escaping — I’m afraid I’ll wake up tomorrow morning to find that they’ve covered the chicken coop!
Spring and early summer went so fast. I got a late start on my seeds since the greenhouse didn’t arrive until mid-March. By the end of June the greenhouse was empty — except for some weeds growing up from the floor. Seriously! I have enough weeding to do in my outside garden spaces.
I washed all the pots in a bucket of soapy water and let them dry so they’ll be ready for next spring. It’s kind of sad seeing it empty. Maybe I can start some seeds for a fall planting — there’s always spinach or lettuce. And I wonder how hot-house tomatoes might taste at Thanksgiving!
Weeds! In my greenhouse!A good scrub to get rid of slugs and creepy, crawly thingsAll cleaned up and drying in the sunshine — ready for next spring.
Remember that new toy/tool — the trailer? I wasn’t sure why we needed it — but as it turns out — it’s VERY useful!
“How?” you ask.
It’s useful for bringing home more toys/tools! Why didn’t I see that coming?
“What new tool?” you ask.
A wood splitter, of course. Every farm needs one. We did go through a lot of fire wood last winter; and we do have an inexhaustible supply of dead trees around the property. Chris already has a chain saw, so the wood splitter was inevitable, I suppose. And then he got to use the trailer too! It’s a great day on the farm!
Loaded and ready for the trip home.It was still on the trailer when it got to our driveway.Time to split some wood.
There is a big round pipe from the well that sticks up about a foot high in the middle of our front yard. You’d think there would have been a less conspicuous spot to drill a well on our five acres — but I guess the well-drilling company’s prevailing wisdom said they would find water in the front yard — and they did, 400 feet down. The well-pipe is an eye-sore and I’ve been wanting to find a way to camouflage it for some time now.
On Friday I made my weekly run to the my local Amish market. I try my hardest to stay out of the adjoining garden center — because there is always an impulse buy, and heaven-knows, I don’t need any more garden plants right now. But right there, right in front of the garden center was a well cover. Not only a well cover — but one exactly like I’ve been invisioning — with an actual well pump on top of it. I wedged my groceries into the front seat of the car, flipped down the back seat and opened the back hatch. There was only ONE there and I wasn’t going to risk coming back on Saturday with Chris and the pick-up truck. I wanted it now.
So now I have a swell well cover — and a new flag, just in time for Memorial Day!
An eyesore in the front yardThe perfect well cover for a farm!No more eyesore and a new flag! Happy Memorial Day.
With the addition of the greenhouse and all the plants I could start from seed, suddenly the 20′ x 32′ garden surrounded by a six foot high fence just wasn’t big enough. There are plants that take up more than their fair share of the garden; things like pumpkins, potatoes, gourds, cucumbers and a variety of squash. They don’t stay in neat little rows like peas, carrots and beans — they sprawl and climb and have a tendency to take over. So…it only took a little bit of pleading for another garden before Chris was on board with getting out one of those power garden tools and tilling me a 20′ x 20′ space. This one is only surrounded by chicken wire that we trenched into the ground to keep hungry bunnies from sneaking under the fence, and surrounded by some webbing sprayed with deer repellent to keep the deer from jumping over the fence. So far — its working.
My potatoes are coming up, the gourds, pumpkins and some of the squash have been transplanted into the new garden, and I even planted some corn! We’ll see how that works out this year. I have a bit of space left — but it’s not quite time to transplant a few of my other plants. I’ll stick to that rule of waiting until after Mother’s Day — and besides, it’s chilly this week.
The tiller is getting a workout.Putting up the chicken wire was a bit of a project.We trenched it into the ground so nothing can sneak underneath.And added webbing around the top, scented with deer repellent — so far — it’s working!
No Rhyme or Reason Farm 