September 21, 2015
This week, we continued to harvest purple beans, tomatoes, strawberries, and raspberries. We also harvested the potatoes we had missed earlier this summer that were sprouting.
I also transplanted over 100 brassicas (purple sprouting broccoli, green sprouting broccoli, green cabbage, purple cabbage, and broccoli), and planted peas, spinach, carrots, beets, lettuce, kale, and cilantro. After all of the transplants got over their shock, I collected compost from our wonderful chickens, put compost around all of the newly planted/transplanted plants, and watered it in.
Everything is covered so at least they will not get scratched up by rogue chickens. The brassicas are covered because of the cabbage moth. Everything else is covered because I interplanted the root veggies and planted the greens on the south side of the brassica beds. I have not seen any cabbage moths but I made the mistake of taking off the covers this spring because I did not see any cabbage moths and I ended up only harvesting 1 broccoli head from 50 plants and 3 cabbage heads from the same number of plants – all because of those stinking worms! That mistake will NOT be made again.
We weeded a little bit this past week but we will need to do a lot more this upcoming week. We need to do a twice-monthly weeding and we are a bit behind at this point. This week’s chores include:
- Weeding
- Spreading more compost where crops have been ripped up.
- Transplanting a few more brassicas.
- Planting some more carrots
Spreading the compost will be a multi-week project. Shoveling compost into the cart to take to the garden just about does this pregnant mama in. I can only do one wheelbarrow load/day. And I like for the compost to be dryish so that limits when I can spread it to some extent.
Hopefully, we’ll get weeding done this week. The children just don’t have eyes like I do. They say they can’t find any while I see them EVERYWHERE. Kind of like cleaning their rooms, I guess 😉 Maybe in about 3 weeks we’ll be able to add some spinach to our smoothies in the morning. Right now we are using kale but I prefer the more mild taste of spinach. Can’t wait!
The 2yo hens are in full moult. They are pitiful! The new pullets are giving us about 1 egg/day so we are eating more oatmeal. Eating less eggs during the fall and winter is one of the hardest parts of eating with the seasons. We are having fun experimenting with more oatmeal concoctions though.
What are you up to in your garden this time of year? Check out what other gardeners are doing at Daphne’s Dandelions 🙂
Gardening Without... 
Yum berries. I’m missing berries right now as I forgot to water my raspberries and they really don’t like that. Usually September would be wet, but so far no such luck.
Do you use rebar to hold up flexible pvc for your row covers? I’ve not used row covers before, but i have a couple rolls I’d like to use this fall. Your sweet potatoes look great! That will be an exciting harvest 🙂 We went on vacation (camping) in Sept as well and started school when we got back. It’s a crazy time of year, but I love camping in the cool fall weather.
We do not use rebar. I go by mother of a hubbard suggests: http://www.motherofahubbard.com/how-to-build-a-low-tunnel/ She only puts rebar on her hills. As long as they are 1ft deep, I have not had any issues. The hardest part for me has been keeping the fabric on – we are in the middle of a pasture so the wind gets REALLY strong!