Rained most of the evening and well into the night. Hens are moulting, but the Marans keep on laying at full speed (the SLW have slowed for the moult and the EEs have quit laying, for the most part). Nectarine tree is sporting a few bright orange leaves. Pumpkins are sitting in front of the grocery stores. Must be October! Many blessings for a fine October season, everyone!
-Karla
Thanks for the new thread, Karla.
We had a bit of a drizzle during the night but it has stopped now. It's cool out this morning. Been in the low 40's the last few mornings.
Its has been so dry here the leaves are turning loose. We won't have much fall color this year.
A friend brought us a truckload of fodder yesterday for the horses. They attacked it.
I am going to sell one of my goats. Dusty will not stay in the fence. I have had to chain her inside the lot.
Cajun, when we had our 2 goats, the one getting out was the one being bullied. She didn't wander off, though. She'd just lay on a nearby haybale.
No rain on the radar, but it sure looks like it's going to rain. Completely overcast. Guess I'll be running soaker hoses again today. AND getting the hoophouses up. Two more weeks on the CSA deliveries and the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are still producing.
Adding to the saga of my heatpump problems....the new thermostat isn't working. Can't change the setting on it and the heat never did kick on overnight. Always something.....
I second that, thanks for the October thread! How can it not be a good month after the poor summer we saw.
MsRobin ~ NO heat? And nobody to cuddle with? I am sorry. Get out those Pecan Sandies! Wasn't your husband sick earlier in the year when he was in Utah also? Might be an allergy to something there. If so, I am a believer in taking locally harvested honey to build up an immunity to the pollens in the area. It was a gradual change but has really helped me. Glad to hear your CSA is still going. We look forward to hearing how successful it was for you.
Cajun ~ I can't blame you for wanting to see your goat. I would hate to have to keep her chained and am sure she will do better in a different environment.
I cannot believe how loaded the four tomato plants are that I put in two potting soil bags. The plants are over 6' tall. I don't think they'll be moved into the GH this fall. Lots of small maters.
Robin, there may be something to that. Marble, the queen bee, does bully Dusty when they are in close confines but I haven't seen her do it in the lot. I think she just likes to go afar. She doesn't leave either but we live too close to the road to chance it and there are coyotes and bears here. She wouldn't last long on her own. I don't like having her chained up but it's the best I could do for now. I worked on the fence yet again today. I have them confined to a small lot and took the majority of the fence off the grid. It's charging reaaly good now. I also reinforced the fence in every concievable way. I will turn her out after I get back from town tomorrow and see how she does. If she gets out again she is history. I shouldn't have any problem selling her. She is young and very pretty.
I'd love to see some pics of your garden at this point. I was really impressed with all your work when you were putting it together. I remember you had problems a while back but it sounds like you rebounded with the CSA. That's great. I was hoping it would be very successful for you. I love eggplants but have never had any success with them.
Bummer about your thermostat. Don't you hate it when new stuff doesn't work!
Pod, what kind of maters did you plant in the bags and how did you stake them? Pics please. I might be able to do that in the spring in my square foot garden. I am reading up on SFGing right now. The man who wrote the first book on it has revised his ideas a bit. I was looking at it in TSC but it costs $19.99 there and is a hardcover. I got a paperback copy at Dollar General for $5. I am really having to scale back but I refuse to give up.
I think this would be easy for you to do nearby the house. You handle bags of feed and hay so I know you could get this set up and then it is easy to maintain. No weeding required.
I am going to link you to the tomato bags in my journal so I don't bog this thread down with photos. Let me know if you can't access it...
http://davesgarden.com/community/journals/viewentry/313543/
As I don't have an original thought, I will also see if I can find the link where I got this idea. LOL
Oh, and one more thing. In any containers, they do require fertilizing. I add diluted fertilizer with water one time a week.
Here is the link that got me started....
http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/projects/tomatoes-grow-bag/
This morning, it WAS kind of chilly in the house, so I thought I'd try the emergency heat setting. It worked, so I switched it over to the regular heat setting and lo and behold, it worked. So I have heat.
Btw, the heatpump has been out of commission for over a week. I had made an appointment for the first available day when I would be home all day, as I knew it wasn't going to be an easy fix. I just threw another blanket on the bed.
Yes, Al got sick when he was out there last spring, too. Don't know if's because he is working the night shift and not eating right, or the climate change. He's been on nights on most of the jobs the last couple of years and gets sick on every one.
One tunnel is up. Ended up making it 10 1/2' wide by 40' long. It was a regular Kodak moment, me trying to get that big sheet of plastic up in the wind, but I finally got it. It remained standing through another hour or so of strong winds, and is still standing 6 hours later. I must've done good (patting myself on the back). Will work on putting up a couple of more tunnels Wednesday.
Garden looks pretty rough. But I'll take some pictures this week.
Cajun, when I started reading your post about the price of the SFG book, I was going to tell you I saw it at Dollar General for $5. But you already found it!
The secret to eggplant is putting it in pots and getting them off the ground, like 4' or so, like on a deck. Mine are all in 18" high pots sitting on the ground and I still battled flea beetles all summer, but I still got a good crop. Leaves aren't so pretty though.
Off to check out Pod's pics....
It's 3 am.....
I didn't make it to bed early, as planned. There was a movie on the Starz free weekend that started at 11pm and ended at 1:45. Good thing I stayed up to watch it, because then I noticed the weather monitor showed it was 33 outside. I grabbed a flashlite and checked the regular thermometer on the deck and sure enough it was 33. Figure by 5am, it will be 29-30. So after digging out sheets and blankets, I just finished covering peppers and eggplants. Didn't get the tomatoes behind the peppers covered, nor the okra and beans, but there are 12 tomato plants and a row of okra in the tunnel. I drove the van over there, so I'd have lights, and yes, there was already frost on the windsheild. Hopefully, I got the plants covered in time. Will have to do this the next two nights, if I didn't already lose the plants, because I won't have time to finish putting up tunnels till Wednesday. Sure wasn't prepared for frost this early! Just have this week and next left on the CSA.
Always something....lol
And when do you sleep??? I suspect if it doesn't stay below freezing for too long you will be o.k. Glad too the heat is working at those temps. Brrrrr!
High 40°s right now and I'm wondering why I was ready for that sweltering summer to end. LOL
Robin, isn't there something about turning on the sprinklers on frosted plants before the surrounding air warms up? I forget exactly what I did read about that tip...
Podster, I DON'T sleep much.
Looks like everything came through okay. The beans and tomatoes I didn't cover don't look too bad. I just didn't want to take a chance losing the other things. I thought about turning on the sprinkler, but the rows I wanted to protect were spread over a 100' length of the garden.
The tunnel held up well and was nice and toasty this morning. These are plans I used to get me started ( http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/em015/em015.pdf ) but I didn't do the ends this way. I just put a T-post in the center of each end and cut my plastic long enough to fold over the post, so I could clamp the plastic to the posts with plastic grip clamps.
Looks great! Glad nothing became toast... frozen toast, that is.
Inside of tunnel, with 2 rows of tomatoes on the outside rows in the front half and 1 row of okra in the center row in the back half. Will be planting or transplanting some other stuff to the empty rows.
Most of the 4 rows of peppers, with the summer tomato plants behind under the wood frames.
Last pic...my pots of eggplants. These 4 pots each hold 25-30 gallons of soil and each pot has 4 plants. Have buckets with small tomato plants next to the eggplants. On the left is my waterbed with various ornamental plants. Lost a few of those recently, when I kept forgetting to add water to the waterbed. This will all be inside the carport frame greenhouse, when I finally get around to getting it put up.
Thanks, Darius.
Cajun, this pic is for you....Lucy (our first goat) was good about staying close to the house. However, she would follow Samson (our dog) anywhere.. who took full advantage of that fact, and would lead her off to ditch her. Each of the 3 times was a little farther than the one before. Last excursion was 5 miles down the road. They were quite entertaining in the yard.
Pod, thanks for the link. I put that site in my faves. I will try some maters like that. How big is the bag in pounds?
Robin, so glad your plants are OK. Your place looks very productive. Those hoop houses are quite an undertaking. Don't think I could manage it but they sure do look great. I can see where they would really help things.
Thanks for the goat pic. Too funny about your dog. Sounds like he was trying to get rid of the goat. LOL
Cajun, he definietly likes being an only "child".
My turn to take snacks for class tonite. I baked Turtle Cookie Bars, Strawberry Cheesecake Cookie Bars and Cinnamon Apple Pie Cookie Bars. I love sweets, but let me tell you, these were rich even for me.
Another frost warning for tonight and tomorrow night, then in the upper 40's and low 50's for several nights. Guess what I'm heading outside to do now? I'll definitely be getting some more tunnels put up Wednesday. If I can get the carport frame moved to where I want it this weekend, I'll order the coverings for it.
The tunnels looked really professional MsRobin. I am impressed and you garden still looks good. Not even weedy. You deserve a gold star.
Cute dog and goat photo. We had a momma dog that took puppies off to lose them. Not too surprising that your dog would do that to the goat too.
Cajun ~ not sure how heavy they are. I will look tomorrow but I believe it says 40 quart bags, whatever that will convert to in weight.
Had a customer show me photos of a carport frame they converted to an outdoor kitchen. Pea gravel for the floor and screens all around. She had a gas range and water and table and chairs. Said it really saved on the utility bill this summer and they spent lots of time out there. Cool idea!
The Weather Channel is showing pictures of beautiful fall foliage out east and northeast. Probably not going to see much color here this fall, as most of the leaves have already fallen due to lack of rain.
Cajun, don't you have a wagon to move stuff around? I can still lift up to 80#, just can't carry anything over 20#, without getting winded. I also have a 2 wheel shopping cart and 2 luggage carts that I zip tied milk crates to.
Thanks, Podster. I was THE master over most of the garden's weeds...except for the front 20' where all the squash were. There's probably a few squash lost in those weeds.
Oh, I like the idea of the screen walls. I didn't see the screen sides for those carports, but I did find the white vinyl sides with windows. Those were pretty cool looking.
I agree on the wagon Cajun. I use the wagons daily and I hope if you (Cajun) don't have one, you can find one. I started with a little red wagon and now also have a sideless garden cart like yours above without the goat of course. Both of mine were used and I run the wheels off of them. Even DH will say go get your wagon. If nothing else, I can sit on it and rest. lol
Don't know if the screens were homemade framed or bought. I'll ask when I see them again.
Still low 40°s this am. No frost yet.
I have a big wheel barrow with dual wheels and I ave a hand truck. I move the eed with the hand truck.
Glad to hear you have "wheels". We need all the labor saving ideas we can get, to make our chores easier. :)
Last night of frost here for a few nights. Got everything covered early this evening. Going to put up another tunnel tomorrow and harvest everything outside of the two tunnels, that hasn't been frostbitten.
I need to look closer at that tunnel link. It looks cool.
Cajun, the tunnel is really easy to put up. Everything is light weight to handle. The hardest part is pounding the rebar stakes in the ground and that isn't all that difficult. The most time consuming part was throwing the string ball back and forth across the top of the tunnel and tying it off. It costs about $55 for a 10' x 20' tunnel, if you just use clamps to secure the plastic on the ends.
Going to wait till Friday to put up the tunnels. I'll cut the pipes today, though, and get everything moved over to the garden. Lowest night time temps forecast for the next week are 45.
.The weather has been bad, with tornado warnings/watches out where Al is in Utah, and it reminded me that there are several of the regulars from that part of the country that are missing from this thread. Hopefully everyone is alright.
It's beautiful outside already...sunny and 64. I need to pick vegetables to deliver today and it's so much easier in nice weather.
We got our first frost last Friday... about 2 weeks late for here. Which is a boon, as it's been a lousy 'mater year, so we got a few more. Not enough to put up, but it's a nice change on the sandwiches.
It has been the year of the greens... 15 pints of chard, dried kale, frozen chard pies, chard lasagna, kale & 'tater soup and more stir fried chard than you can shake a stick at. I feel about chard the way most folks do about zucchini this year! LOL And it's still coming on! Think I'll dry some, as well as more kale.
Got a back deck done w/a ramp for the big dog who had to have knee surgery this summer... no way I was carrying her up the back stairs! We'd like to try & get it covered before the snow flies, but that's looking less & less likely. We've got a rain gutter on that side of the house now, so will be able to collect that as soon as I get the tank & build a pad for it. Hoping the 5000 gallon one will fit.
We made a hay run last week, so the hay shed is full & ready for winter. I've been splitting firewood every morning, but we're behind on that. So glad the really frosty weather is holding back. While I was splitting wood this am, heard & saw the sandhill cranes overhead... it's fall for sure!
Welcome back! I found you on the "other site" while lurking but it's nice to have you here again.
Thanks, it's nice to be back. =0)
Welcome back, Jay! 8D
WhooHoo! We got rain! it was only 3/4", but it was wet and steady for a couple of hours.
Cajun, I can't find the post where you talked about making cheese and using a piece of t-shirt material to drain. Did you make the cheese and did the fabric work? I made yogurt overnite and this afternoon tried to drain one container through a coffee filter in a sieve. It was still pretty moist after 2 hours, so I set the filter in a piece of cheese cloth, twisted at the top to squeeze. The coffee filter tore and some of the cheese came through the cheesecloth. I set it back up with a clean filter and stuck it in the fridge for now. It's kind of like whipped cream cheese.
Jayryunen ~ glad to see you back. I know one day the whole gang will be here. This month, Lizards_keep is MIA and Twiggybuds has been gone most of the summer. Congrats on the gutter for rainwater harvesting ~ that I would be ecstatic about. With a 5,000 gallon tank will it be used for the house as well or just garden and livestock?
4 inches of lightening and 3/4 inch of rain here on Monday nite that was sucked up by the ground which is still demanding more. We are way too dry. But I have the best crop of fall tomatoes with my fingers crossed that they will mature before the frost. The plants got too big to move to the GH.
Robin, you can't use cheesecloth from the supermarket... it's completely worthless. The REAL stuff is more like muslin. I've also seen pieces of old sheets, pillow cases, and I've used the backs of old broadcloth shirts. A T-shirt would work, though it's a bit more absorbent than the sheets, etc.
Naturally, when using these things, you'd want to make sure they don't have any detergents, scents, or softeners in them. So after washing them, hand rinse them thoroughly in warm water, maybe even a couple of changes of water, the last having vinegar or lemon juice added.
Once we designate a cloth for cheesemaking, it never goes through the washing machine again, just gets soaked in cold water, scrubbed out w/out detergents in water & vinegar. Then hung to dry. Try to clean the clothes right after using, don't let the curds dry on them or it takes a LOT longer to get them clean.
SO made apple pie for breakfast! Oh boy, life is good!!!
The new tank is just for the garden, and emergency water. I'm hoping to get up a new hoop house, but I think I said that last spring (?) so we'll see. But more water is definitely needed... we can get half our year's allotment of rain in one afternoon, so storage is key. Not to mention that what comes as snow!
Right now I'm just trying not to fall further behind... off to dry beet greens now...
Jay =-D
Hi, Jay, glad you are back. I've tried cheesemaking, am having fun with it. Not too much time on my hands right now, though. I spent most of yesterday working on the electric fence, the cows are on their way in early due to all the rain we have had this summer, so I need to get that working. The cows don't see how pretty my rock & pine log fence is, they just learn quickly that they can shove it over, so I added an electric wire & solar charger. Today I get to go down into the arroyo and work on the (non-electrified) fence there -- we had a super rain/wind storm last month that pushed big heavy juniper branches (used hopefully as an additional cow-barrier) onto the fence so it is down, major work needed today. The rest of my time is spent weeding the lavender field (yes, I now have a little lavender farm) OR fighting the county -- they intend to allow a wind farm developer to put up 90 (NINETY) 450' wind turbines immediately across a little dirt road from some of my neighbors' house -- They are in cohoots with the multimillionaire rancher who owns the land.
Ammo for your battle... apparently because wind is so fickle, and the fossil fuel generators have to run to back the turbines up, a wind farm (and probably PV field as well) actually causes MORE CO2 to be released, as cycling the generators is not as efficient as running them constantly. Don't you love that?
Hear they're going to put in a 1500 acres solar field somewhere in AZ... do they have ANY idea what a devastating environmental impact that is going to have? All those nice advertisements of solar fields... ever look at the ground underneath? It's a gravel parking lot.... 1500 acres of level gravel parking lot. And how do you suppose they plan on keeping the weeds down? OH yeah....
They've talked about putting in a turbine field between here & Santa Fe... haven't heard anything recently, but they did it the sneaky way... offers & contracts to individual land owners, some desparate for money, divide & conquer.
Alternative energy... just an alternative way to get XXXXXXX
Just came in from picking the veggies for my last CSA delivery this year. Already had potatoes and onions dug and cured. Today's boxes will also include lots of hot and sweet peppers, both green and red tomatoes, parsnips, leeks, eggplants, okra and swiss chard.
Thanks, Jay, for that info. I think I'll pick up a bandana when I'm out today, to be used exclusively for cheese making.
I remember now that Cajun used something like a piece of pillow case. Anyway....I got the one cup drained well enough, then stirred in a little salt and some Italian Seasoning. Roasted a few tomato slices and ate the cheese on crackers with a slice of tomato on each. Pretty tasty. I thought the cheese was a pretty tangy (almost sour crean tasting), so will have to work on my seasoning. I'm just going to work on mastering soft cheeses first, before I move on to the hard ones.
While I was out by the garden today, I went back to the greenhouse to grab the onions and noticed I had a snake about 15" long in my 75 gal rain barrel. Thought it had drowned, but when I stuck a stick in there, it turned toward me/the stick and looked like it was hissing at me. Luckily for me, that water was really low, only 6" or so in a 30" deep container. He'll still be there when Hubby returns. lol
Jay, came back inside for lunch and found the "revised" draft of the wind energy ordinance from the county in my email -- hearing is next Thursday. P&Z has changed nothing about the setbacks, as the commission requested -- still 750 feet from a 40-acre private parcel, 1/2 mile from a residence. etc. etc. Sick-making.
What you say is all too true -- we who have been fighting the county on this have presented those facts plus many, many, more to the P&Z dept, and Bd of Stupes, who sits impassively and ignores us. They are like Lily Tomlin's Ernestine of the phone company, "we don't care, we don't have to." Plus the fact that OUR tax money pays these developers big time to do this to us, and when the subsidies & tax rebates go away, they will fold, leaving big ugly machinery useless. At least then they will be quiet, which is NOT the case when they are operating -- regardless of the lies the developers give the public.
Re the big windfarm planned for AZ, that's true -- they plan to blanket Northern Arizona, including along the road to the Grand Canyon, with wind turbines. In my county, they will surround every town & rural residential community. A place known for its peaceful, serene beauty, forever ruined. We won't get gravel, just dirt, that will blow towards us like another dust bowl.
The rancher is not only a multimillionaire, he has resented our community since somebody started a subdivision here, 40 years ago, and he covets our good well water -- his is "so brackish the cows won't drink it". He doesn't run his own cows, re leases the land to other ranchers. His intent is to drive us off our land -- he is Good ol' Boys with the county officials, and they are blind to anyone's rights except the rancher's, who is exercising a right he does not have -- the "right" to build monster machinery in the middle of a residential neighborhood. This new ordinance will override the zoning laws that we thought protected us.
Excuse me, I need to go throw up now.
I was talking about a solar farm, not a wind farm (boy if that ain't spin, I don't know what is... farm, my mother's Aunt Fanny) & I guess I was just bein' optimistic about the gravel. =0(
Remember talk of national sacrifice zones in the 70's?
Yup, sick making. Very, very sick making.
Aren't you glad you've only got a couple decades left to live? =0( Can't imagine what this place'll look like in 50 years.
