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Hi Everyone,
Here a little, there a little, everywhere a little little. Here on the farm we seem to do a little here and a little there. We can never devote a whole day to one project—for there is much that has to be done in a day on a regular basis, and then there are those projects that could be accomplished quicker than they are, but there just isn’t enough time to work on them in large stretches. Cows must be milked every day of the year—rain or shine, hot or cold, holiday or regular day. Then the chickens, sheep, dogs, cats, and other cattle must be taken care of also. Then when all of the daily chores are done we can work on projects—like adding railing to the three sets of porch steps on our house. We have lived here for 27 years just fine without railing—but the insurance has decided that they will drop us if we do not put railing on our steps by October. While my Mama enjoys building, it doesn’t come easy for her. She can see what she wants, but it comes about by trial and error and it takes so much longer than it should. The good news is that when she and Papa are done with a building project it looks really nice. Mama and Papa spent Thursday and Friday working on the first railing. They had to figure out the design, and then they had to figure out the how. They now have one down—and five more to go.
Fall gardening is in full swing right now as I get the gardens prepared and start planting in the gardens and in the greenhouse—but sometimes I have to real myself inside and focus on other things besides dirt, weeds, and growing food, flowers and herbs. There are emails to answer in bulk every Monday morning so that I can get the bread orders in to the baker by noon—and while I was inside last Monday I took the time to make a new batch of kombucha. I did get to spend the afternoon outside in the gardens, but after dinner I was back creating in the kitchen—I had picked more pepperoncini peppers and they needed to be pickled. I would love to have spent Tuesday outside, but I desperately needed to make a new batch of Lip balm, Soothing Salve, and Virus Salve. I also had to make two batches of yogurt, help package eggs, and make all the receipts for the Jacksonville delivery on Wednesday.
I did manage to spend four out of the seven days last week in the garden—and yes it was HOT!!! Heat doesn’t last forever though and from what I have seen next week is going to be just perfect weather—80’s by day and 60’s by night. Monday afternoon Micah (our new worker) and I started working in the first Market Garden tunnel. It was hot in there—like working in a greenhouse (nice in the winter, scorching in the summer). It was time to clean out the dead plants—green beans, thyme, parsley, winter savory and celery. The sage is still surviving well—the parsley kind of was, but most of it had gone to seed. While we were cleaning out I found one bed full of rabbit manure—great fertilizer, but the provider will not be welcome once I start planting baby plants in the garden. This means that I will have to take time to secure some plastic panels down the sides to keep the rabbits out. Once we got the weeds and dead plants removed I decided that it was time to go work someplace cooler. Therefore, we headed to the Cottage Gardens. A HUGE oak tree shades one section of the Cottage Gardens so we parked under it and gave the raised beds a face lift. I am always amazed at how persistent Spanish needle is to totally take over. Thankfully it is easier to pull up and eradicate than elderberry. The wild morning glory vines like to take over the roses, and all kinds of other minor weeds like to pop up wherever their green heart’s desire. There are still a lot of weeds to give the boot to, but the sections we got to look a lot better. The others will just have to wait for another HOT day when we need to cool off, but still work.
Thursday found us starting to prepare for the planting of the red potatoes that have greatly sprouted in our storage room. The beginning of Summer Jessie and I cleaned out one side of the first Market Garden and then we covered it with a silage tarp in order to prevent any weeds from taking over. It is nice when I can work smarter and not harder—and I do not like to weed an area twice, but sometimes I never manage to do what it takes to prevent the weeds from growing. So I was grateful that we did manage to get the area covered with the plastic cover. Micah helped me drag the silage tarp out of the garden area and then while I headed back inside to make another batch of yogurt and to get dinner in the oven, Micah mowed and weed wacked an area that needed to be tarped for the next two garden tunnels that we plan to erect sometime in the distant future. We had planned on building them this summer—but all the time and expenses have gone into our new multi-purpose barn. When I returned to the garden area Micah and I got the area covered with plastic and by the time we do get around to building we will not have to worry about digging all the grass up—for it should be good and dead. Then it was time to cover the beds where I plan on planting the potatoes, multiplying onions and carrots with a dose of compost and wood ash. By the time we finished the work day was over. I considered heading back out to broadfork the beds and maybe tilth them—but one look at my red hot face told me that my day was over and that it was time to cool off in a shower.
While Mama and I finished milking Friday morning, Micah was able to work on some mowing in the garden and cleaning up the fence. Steve hasn’t worked the garden for the last few years, and some places have become quite overgrown—especially fence rows. You couldn’t even find the water valves to turn on the sprinklers due to the overgrowth of Spanish needle. Micah did such a superb job, and the fence looks great. When you find a great worker, you feel like you have struck gold. After milking I headed to the garden to broadfork and tilth the garden beds. The beds in the Market Gardens were very dry and hard—I hadn’t watered them all summer. So after I broadforked and tilthed them I ran the sprinklers in hope to soften the soil some. The garden beds in the East Garden do not have a plastic roof over them, and they have had compost added to them for years—and that soil was so fluffy and rich that I went ahead and planted the carrots. We then tackled cleaning up around the Market Garden tunnels. We were supposed to line the outside with heavy duty weed cloth when we built the tunnels—but alas life got busy and what we didn’t want to happen, happened. The weeds and grass took over! With my new right hand man I hope to remedy that problem very soon. The big weeds are all gone now, and we just have to do some fine tuning before we cover the area with woodchips or weed cloth.
Saturday found me back out in the garden—but not to work. The cayenne peppers and the pepperoncini peppers were ready for another harvest. The cayenne plants are starting to slowly shrivel up and die—and I do not know why. The peppers are also getting smaller and smaller—which could mean that they need some nutritious food fed to them. In my spare time I need to do a little bit of pepper research. Harvesting wasn’t the only garden work I did though—I also spent some time in the greenhouse. It was time to start some of the cool season flowers. I was going to grow some Baby’s breath and some False Queen Anne’s lace—but when I went to order the seeds I talked myself out of them so that I could focus more time and space on flowers that I really enjoy. So on Saturday I started a couple hundred snapdragon seeds and 72 Rudbeckia “Cherokee Sunset” seeds. In a few weeks I will start Calendula (for my salves), Carnations (for my Mama—they are her favorite flower. When Papa was dating her he bought her carnations instead of roses), Sweet peas, and statice. Then in November I will replant the ranunculus that I dug up from last year’s planting. I absolutely fell in love with them last year. Come January I hope to start Bells of Ireland, Bachelor Buttons, Love-in-a-Mist, and Dill. This is my second year using flower planting info from a Cool Season Flower course. I have found it very helpful. I had great success with the snapdragons last year, and hope to branch out to a few new ones this year.
I hope that you have a wonderful week—Lord willing I shall be planting potatoes and onions and starting the Market Garden vegetables in the greenhouse by seed.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare Street