Indian Summer

Ok last post was catchup, but here's where the farm is at the end of September. This is rows 2 and 3. the center of the garden is open right now.

And here's the right half, rows 5 through 8. Look at how big those brocs are!

In fact, they're broccing!

This row has a complement of basil.

 While this one is enlivened by a zinnia.

 The datura is out of control in front of the rose. This flower had a giant bee in it. Seriously, the bee was as fat as my thumb, and nearly as long.

 I weeded and thinned the new broccoli starts, and they are doing really well.

 These cabbage and bok chois are bursting out also.

 We got some volunteer mustard around the edges of the lettuce bed. Notice the shadecloth on hoops.

 The shade seems to be working, because the lettuces are thriving.

Even with fall crops coming in strongly, we're still awash in summer crops, like zucchini

And tomatoes and peppers.

The Thai peppers are about ready for harvest.

 With it a little cooler, we got the rest of the trench dug out for the rest of the foundation.

 This was just a cool mural I saw downtown. I saw a gal taking a picture of ... a parking lot. I wondered what she was seeing and... I found out!

 Back at my house, I picked the pumpkins today.

 A few apples fell off, so I think they are almost ripe.

 The triambles ripen up slower, but I'm getting some nice ones.

 Including this tree-climber.

Fall Catchup

Yay for Tink Attack! Looking forward to seeing you soon!
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It's that lovely time of the year when it cools off at night, and still gets plenty warm during the day. It doesn't SEEM that hot... well not until you get out in the sun to pull weeds! We've been enjoying the farm daily. The fall crops are coming along really well.

These pics show how big the brocs were about two weeks ago. They're fully grown now, and already broccing. Above are the ones in 2a and below are the ones in 6b. I planted these on July 15, which was just about right. I wish I'd planted another set about 3 weeks later.

As it was, I planted these in 8 about late August. Here you see the first starts coming up, well surrounded by weeds! I weeded this all and transplanted them to space them evenly, and they look great.

This shows the cabbage and bok choi a couple weeks ago.

When it got too hot to farm, we cooled off at Five mile.

We got some nice grapes, mostly the ones that grew up in the tree.

We also made a big improvement to the chicken pen. We updated the watering system. Here Rick poses with the first iteration. We soon discovered that they were drinking more than we thought, and that container wasn't large enough.

So we switched to a five gallon bucket.

The water comes out of these emitters, and the chickens just peck at them to get clean fresh water. Buddy sent me a link to a chicken site, I clicked the ad and bought the emitters, and Rick got it all assembled, including doing all the complicated plumbing.

Tom and Nancy bought  a house in town. Whoo Hoo!  Here Nancy sings with the band on Rock Band night.

Back to harvesting... I picked a bunch of butternut and delicata squash.

We've also reeled in some giant zucchinis!

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What We're Eating
Zucchini Pancakes with Curd
Even a giant zucchini works if you peel it and scoop out the seedy inner flesh, leaving only the firm outer layer, then grate that on a box grater.

3 cups of grated zucchini

¼ to ½ cup feta cheese

3 eggs

¾ cup whole wheat flour

¾ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon each salt, pepper, oregano

olive oil

lemon or orange curd

Wrap the grated zucchini in a clean dish towel and squeeze to remove excess moisture. Put in a bowl and mix in the remaining ingredients.

Heat olive oil in a cast iron frying pan. Drop in dollops of batter, flatten slightly, and fry up. Drain on paper towels and cook the next batch. Serve warm or cold topped with a nice dollop of lemon or orange curd. It’s so delicious we wished we had planted more zucchini!
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Tink-a-lert

This post is not about farming but is 'planting seeds' for beers.  Tink is comin' to town! I will be in the Northstate around Halloween - so looking forward to dropping by and catching up! oxo Tink

Fall Plantings

The weather has been just delicious: up to the 90s in the day, but cool enough at night to open the windows. The a/c has been off for a couple of weeks. Yesterday it even clouded up and rained a few drops. Back on August 23rd, I planted this selection of lettuce seeds in trays in the shadehouse.

The Drunken Woman Frizzy Headed and the Buttercrunch both came up very strongly and very early. The others are germinating, but farther behind. So we got to work and cleared a bed to put the seedlings in. The new bed is actually 2B, because 1B is dedicated to pumpkin overflow. We put in sulphur, organic fertilizer, and lots of compost. We mixed our homemade compost with airport compost. We had lots of straw thanks to Rick C. so we freshened up the paths too. Notice the broccoli in the foreground. For future reference, we started them at just the right time (early July), and transplanted them at the right time (early August), and we hope to have lots and lots of brocs.

Yesterday was cloudy, so I took advantage of that and transplanted the Drunken Woman Frizzy Headed seedlings. They are just at one true leaf, but they were busting out of their pots! That took up about half the bed, so I'll plant the Buttercrunch in the back half. We had a lot of volunteer green mustard come up, so I transplanted some of them into that bed also. Then we prepared 3B to match, so it's ready to plant also. We're still pulling lots of peppers and tomatoes out of our tomato patch.

And in case I didn't have enough tomatoes, Dean brought me a huge basket full. I spent two days making sauce.

Our neighbor Linsey brought over some ripe peaches she had gleaned. Rumor has it they were delicious.

We had a lovely full moon at the end of the month. Here it is rising through the hawk tree. It's getting dark earlier now, so we are actually seeing the moon and stars again at the farm.

Rick C. bought a kayak and fitted it with a small electric motor. Here he is field testing it.

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What We're Eating
Anything with tomatoes! From a perfect BLT...

To a savory frittata...

To Flavor Bombs, picked and eaten fresh at the farm.

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