Harvest Monday

October 19, 2015

We harvested more green beans, raspberries, and tomatoes this week. We also harvested more fall green beans, garden peas, and carrots. As we were cleaning up before the first frost of the season, we found some potatoes and a cucumber!

We had our first frost Sunday so Saturday we cleared out all of the tomatoes and beans.Tomatoes were on either side of this old chicken tractor. After the tomatoes were cleared out, compost was added. Now the ground is ready for next spring! The chickens love when we clean out the garden! (Last of the tomatoes!)

We ate the last of our squash this week. Sad day 😦 I hope one day I will learn how to grow summer and winter squash. It is our favorite and the squash bugs won’t let us get more than a handful of either each year. We cooked the last two butternut squash for our pumpkin baked oatmeal this week and next. After Halloween, pumpkin patches will give away their pumpkins and we will be set for the year (and so will the chickens!). We’ll have to survive for the next couple of weeks 🙂

This upcoming week, we will be harvesting sweet potatoes, putting up more hoop houses, and covering the rest of our fall/winter crops. Busy, busy! Check out what other gardeners are up to at Our Happy Acres.

 

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Harvest Monday

September 28, 2015

We harvested tomatoes, raspberries, and strawberries this week. As I was ripping up a tomato patch, we had a surprise harvest as well!

I was missing these guys 🙂 We are between harvesting beans. I ripped up the spent purple beans and the new fall green beans will be ready to be harvested this week.

I was able to spread compost one day this week, rip up some spent plants another day, then the rain came. It rained about 4 days in a row. It was very welcome; that just means not much else was done in the garden. Instead, we baked bread, made marinara sauce, and made more seed tape to plant this week (hopefully).

So the plan for this week is to:

1. PLANT (carrots, beets, lettuce, spinach, kale, peas)
2. Transplant more brassicas
3. Weed
4. Spread compost (only if it dries out)

The chickens are still moulting so we’re getting about 1 egg every couple of days. Smoothies and oatmeal are where it’s at these days 😉

Check out what other gardeners are harvesting at Daphne’s Dandelions!

Harvest Monday

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:

1. Weeding
2. Spreading more compost where crops have been ripped up.
3. Transplanting a few more brassicas.
4. 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 🙂

Coming Back After A Break…

September 14, 2015

It rained quite a bit while we were gone on vacation this past week. It is always interesting to see the garden come alive after a good soaking.

Here’s what I came home to…

The tomato plants are terribly ugly at the bottom. Last year, I pruned the plants, trying to keep them healthy longer. This year, I did not have the time or energy to prune. They are still producing just as much, they just have a lot of ugly, black leaves at the bottom. The tops are beautiful though, and we are still harvesting tomatoes! All of the potatoes we missed are sprouting. We’ll have to dig those up this week.

The uncovered brassicas are basically dead but will likely bounce back if I cover them soon. Right next to them, the covered brassicas are flourishing and need to be planted this.week. Now to figure out where…

We have one stinkin’ chicken that gets out no matter how many times we put her back in the run. So…she has dug up all of the greens I  planted last week and most of the carrots and beets 😦 I am so sick of that bird! 😛

The raspberries, as the tomatoes, are producing really well, though the plants are ugly-looking. We need to harvest strawberries as well.

The fall beans and peas are sizing up well. The bugs are leaving the beans alone for the most part and the peas are starting to flower 🙂The sweet potatoes have bounced back for the most part. Hopefully, they will have another month or so to bulk up before we harvest them.

Another part of the garden that enjoyed all of the wonderful rain – the weed seeds. We’ll have to take care of that this week.

SOOOOO, what was it we need to do this week?

1. WEED
2. Harvest potatoes (that have sprouted), strawberries, raspberries, beans, and tomatoes
3. Plant all of the brassicas
4. Cover the uncovered brassicas
5. Replant all of the greens
6. Oh, and the kids are bugging me to start school with them this week. 😛 Welcome back from vacation – now, hit the ground RUNNING!!!!

Two other random pics I wanted to share: we have a moon and stars watermelon sizing up.We have yet to harvest one of these because of the critters. I saw something scratched at this one so I put a fence loosely around it. It is also right next to the electric fence.

The other pic is of a baby butternut squash. I have a bear of a time each year with squash bugs so we do not harvest many squashes (summer or winter) at all. It is always exciting to see this 🙂What are you harvesting? What are you planting for the fall? Check out what other gardeners are doing at Daphne’s Dandelions.

Harvest Monday

September 7, 2015

We are in a lull for harvests. We are harvesting half a gallon of tomatoes each day, about a gallon of beans once a week, some carrot thinnings, and a few raspberries and strawberries every other day. However, the peas are sizing up, the sweet potatoes are looking good still, and the greens (lettuce, spinach, kale) are sprouting so fall harvests are not too far off! 🙂

This past week, I cleaned off the roosting table, spread more compost in the garden, cleaned up some spent green bean plants and flowers, and the kids cut the grass around the electric fencing in order to keep the charge as high as possible.I also transplanted broccoli into three boxes and covered with insect barrier. That was about 1/10th of how many more I have to transplant. Now to find room to do so…

This week, we are at the beach so there will be no gardening to speak of 🙂 We have friends letting out the chickens and putting them up at night. Hopefully, we will come back to all alive and well chickens.

Check out what other gardeners are harvesting this week at Daphne’s Dandelions.