We have been slow getting back into the swing of things since coming back from vacation. The day after we go back Daddy was working, then we had an abbreviated Thursday with a lot of things to get caught up on. We only had two hours to work on the farm, before moving right into an horrendously busy drill weekend.
Everyone else was busy, so only Winnie came to the farm with Daddy, but we had a wonderful two hours together.
It’s a miracle! One red tomato!
As we have mentioned before, this year we have not had any success with tomatoes. The vines were slow to get started, not really taking off until almost August. Then they became big, beautiful and healthy, with dozens of green tomatoes on them. Green being the operative word.
Only two showed any signs of turning red. Then Winnie stepped on one of them.
Then off to the squash/pumpkin patch. Here is another gardening oddity. The cucurbits were small and pathetic until about mid August, long after we had given up on them. Then, without warning, they took off and took over. They spread far and wide in every direction, mostly under the buckwheat.
So now we have some Georgia candy roasters, some pie pumpkins, some delicatas, some acorn squash, and even a couple of fine, large zucchini, and that with average highs in the 60’s, lows in the 40’s, gray skies, and soil temp of 50.
“So heavy!”
The red cabbage is looking big and beautiful. We’ll need to plan out something special for that. And check out those brussels sprouts!
The wheat is getting thick and tall, although the stand is not as even as I would like.
It is also growing radishes from the radish stalks that went to seed and dropped their seeds when we cleared the bed. No worries there, we can just pick and eat them as we go along. We may need to mow the wheat down once before spring if it gets too tall.
Look at all those cute little garlic sprouts!
Last thing, we cleared the corn.
Sweet corn, just coming ripe on Halloween! What’s up with that?
We spread a winter cover crop. Soil temp is 50, kind of borderline whether it sprouts or not. If it does not, we’ll have to cover the beds with muck over the winter to reduce the runoff.
Winnie figured out how to take her hoodie off, and put it back on, all by herself! Inside out, so she couldn’t zip it up, so Daddy zipped it up with the zipper inside, thinking that would make it more difficult for her to take it off again. That actually worked!
We dumped all the garden debris in the chicken yard, which the turkeys are now sharing with them. We’ll have to find a day to process the turkeys in the next few weeks before Thanksgiving.
Winnie is starting to take an interest in repeating numbers, so we counted the ducks. Still ten of them. Seven or eight of them need to go in the freezer as well.
Too short a day with Daddy and the Littlest Girl. There is never enough time for the things that actually matter.
Little Farm in the Big City 