Garlic will be planted tomorrow and I ordered onion sets with organic garden club last night. I sure hope I can finally have some luck with onions!
I have a white lilac in blossom!
more this weekend after working in the garden.
Okay, we picked our first broccoli on Oct. 16 and it was planted (transplants from Lowe's) on Labor Day weekend because all the plants I had started from seed were ruined from the guineas. I think that's pretty good really. And the variety is Packman. I don't remember growing that one before but it's pretty good.
There are about three more heads ready to be picked tomorrow and I picked three heads on Sunday. We'll probably take some to market next Saturday.
I finally got all the sweet potatoes dug. We'll have lots of them to sell at market on Saturday. It may frost tomorrow night (Oct. 22) so I wanted to have them all in. Also, David picked all the remaining peppers and we'll take them to market as well.
I was hoping for a few bouquets but if we do have frost, and we probably will at least on Friday night, there won't be any flowers left. So, honey, garlic, peppers and sweet potatoes for market. Oh well, at least it's something.
I am happy with the fall beets and carrots. I will cover them tomorrow as a precaution. Carrots are still pencil thin. I forgot to look at the beets but before they did look like some were getting pretty good sized.
I planted more turnips about a week ago and they came up good but the guineas are doing dust baths right next to them and they did the same where I had planted lettuce. The lettuce never did germinate but it still annoys me that they are making dust baths in my row!
I still have a few more things to get done in the garden before calling it quits for the season. Actually, quite a few.
Okay, Im got most of my new row of strawberries planted yesterday. That makes row three and next year, row one comes out and another gets planted, doing a three year rotation. I'm actually thinking of pushing it to four because of the set up in the garden for rotating all the other veggies. I probably should just take the strawberries out of the garden plan and plant them somewhere else but I'm afraid if I do that I'll never take care of them. You know, out of sight, out of mind. :lol: seems I just don't make it too much outside the fenced in garden area, and a lot of the reason is I never get everything done there so I am always working on something in those 40 rows.
I was actually lucky to get done what I did yesterday since I was watching Miranda. She helped dig up some of the transplants but got distracted and was running up and down the hill (slope) and tring to help Grandpa David. She talked him into going to the swing set so that gave me time to work. But by lunch time I was ready to call it a day outside anyway. Pretty hot still, high 80's.
Today I really wanted to spend the day at home but D avid had spread the straw out to dry and really wanted to get it chopped before rain and also, Ira left the front meadow for him to mow so I could have the grass clippings to put down on the paths and he felt pressed to get that done. So we compromised and did some work at home early and went to the farm around 11:00 am.
David's back was hurting him from twisting while spreading the straw yesterday so I finished "fluffing" the straw to mow while he cut the meadow. Then I spread the grass clippings as he filled the bags. When he got to chopping the straw I mulched the newly planted strawberries right away. Once that was done I was ready to go so I didn't get the rest of thr strawberries planted today. Too hot anyway.
Tomorrow we go get another load of manure and then pick up three new hens for Matt. They are 6 mo. And already laying. I cannot remember the breeds but he's getting one of each. Sine we don't get manure until 2:30 I am going to try and finish planting the new bed here and get some mulch down.
Sunday is my day to stay home!!! We were going to go to Blue Ridge to Mercier Orchard but right now I think we'll put that off one more week. A good, tart, crisp apple really sounds good though. And knowing us, we may still decide to take off if we don't feel like working!
Got up early this morning and drove 1 1/2 hr. up to Powder Springs to get a truck and trailer load of manure. It was really composted nicely this time but a bit heavy because of the recent rain so we only got 6 scoops instead of the usual 7 or 8.
after Matt and I unloaded I started weeding the west side of the center aisle in the garden. Made a little bit of headway but there's still quite a bit to go and it seems my weekends are getting booked up fast so I don't know if I'll get to it very soon. I sure hope so.
we want to go to the orchard in Blue Ridge soon to get some apples, I need to transplant strawberries and dig some for Charles that I told him I would plant for him since he's really limited in how much he can do still. Oct. 12 we are planning on going to Hollandville Opera House to see Don and his band perform. Next Sunday we'd like to get another load of manure and Evie told me about getting her chickens from a friend at 6 mo. so they are already laying and when I talked to Matt, he said it was worth it so I think he may have us pick some up for him when we get more manure.
I planted some spinach and more lettuce today and mulched the plants that are already up in the same row. The broccoli looks really good but it still isn't starting to head. Hopefully soon. I'm ready to pull out all the peppers. There are still a few but not many. Since I have other things pressing I'll let them go for now.
did two loads of laundry but nothing else in the house. I so need to go through the Tupperware/other plastics and figure out what I really need and get rid of some. There's just no room for all of what I have! Right now I have two storage bins full sitting around with it.
Good news is I went to the orthopedic doctor on Friday and he said if trigger finger wasn't bothering me to just let it be and the bump on base of left hand middle finger is a cyst, nothing to worry about, AND BEST OF ALL no signs of arthritis in my hands! YAY!
I finally had time to weed some of my flower rows in the garden. All summer I would pull grass from certain areas if I had new plants or something important, if I could find it! It was depressing to not have the time to get to it but we had some recent rain and that's about the only way to be able to pull weeds in this clày, even though we've been amending the soil, so I designated two days to work on one side of the main aisle and surprisingly, I got almost all of it done!
I pulled out a lot of annual flowers along the way too. A lot of them were volunteers, cosmos, zinnias, celosia. I had gomphrena planted over the bulbs and ot was shedding seeds like crazy so I yanked them all out without even saving any seeds. I'm sure there will be lots of volunteers next spring.
there were a few nice surprises, like a couple of penstemons I started from seed and some agastaches Melanie gave me when she visited, but lots of tags with nothing there. I'm assuming the grass overtook them because there was plenty of rain all summer. Oh well, I have more seeds if I decide I really need them.
