8:22 AM  [20 Oct 2008 | Monday]

Brrrr!

17 F this morning at 8:00 AM. Snow is predicted for Wednesday. Did I till the garden this weekend? No. I did manage to chainsaw wood.

9:07 AM  [19 Oct 2008 | Sunday]

Fat Frost Lady Sings

This morning at 8:00 AM it was 20 F. That is what we call the really killer killing frost. That's it, shows over, get everything out of the ground because it's going to snow any minute. We've had some very cold mornings already. On October 7th it was 26 F, yesterday morning it was 26 F at 6:00 AM. Last weekend the leaves were in full color in our valley and this weekend they have fallen, for the most part. I went out and mulched the leaves with the lawn mower. That will probably be the last mow of the season.

Last weekend my wife and I harvested all the potatoes and there are tons of them. This is the biggest harvest we've ever had. The most successful kind were the German Butterballs, which yielded about three buckets worth. There was such an abundance I overlooked a bucket that stayed out in the garden all week and was out for Friday night's frost. Yikes. I've kept them separate and we'll see if they were hurt, so far several of the small ones are ruined, but so what we have tons more. The All Blue's planted from the previous year's leftovers yielded almost 2 buckets. The Burbank Russets did okay but they seem to attract some kind of borer that climbs right in and destroys them, not all of them, but more than any of the others. The worst performer was (were?) the Red Golds. About a bucket. Some of the plants were very scrawny all year. In their defense whoever we bought them from did not send very many. 2 rows maybe, 3 rows of Russets, 5 rows German Butterballs, 3 rows All Blues. Some of the rows were longer than others.

I harvested the dried pole and bush beans yesterday and took down all the structures to prep for roto-tilling. The carrots are still in the ground. All the beets are out except for some strays. Purchased a 54 pound bag of winter rye as a cover crop, we're not convinced that will do it. They only sell it in 54 pound bags at Brookside Hardware this time of year so I don't know if I can commit to another.

The lowest garden still has scorzenera, parsnips and carrots on one side and a mish mash of bolted lettuces and an aggresively invasive weed we think is coltsfoot that is threatening to take over the entire plot. It's a weed that grows on the side of the road and is one of the first flowers you see in the spring, the flower resembling a small dandelion. There are still some cabbages and kale out there as well. We'll see what happens today.

12:34 PM  [04 Oct 2008 | Saturday]

Pretty Bad Frost

This morning at 7:45 AM it was 28 F and the lawn was covered with frost. 28 F is not what you'd call a devastating frost but the garden is definitely on the ropes. The only thing surviving now are the nasturtiums. Friday we picked the rest of the onions and a lot of beets. There is a critter that's been nibbling the tops of our beets all year and it's a pity to see the way some of them look but many are intact and edible. Our cat had an encounter with the beast about a week ago. We heard intense shrieking in the bush and when we came running the cat scampered away. After inspecting her and seeing no injuries we came to the conclusion she was going after a rabbit. I've never heard them shriek before, it reminded me of raccoons battling.

I've also started harvesting the potatoes, just the Russet Burbanks so far and they look good although some of the huge ones have these carbuncle looking potatoes growing off them. As if they were clay potatoes and someone was sticking little potatoes on them. Still have to get the carrots and the rest of the potatoes. We went a little overboard with potatoes this year but those we don't eat we'll just plant again next year.

8:16 AM  [26 Sep 2008 | Friday]

Rainy Reprieve

No more frost so far. This morning at 7:00 AM it was 50 F and raining. Rain predicted for the entire weekend. The fruit trees are producing like mad. Tons of apples, tons of peaches, we have pears but so far they don't taste right. Sort of hard, sort of small. But we are heading into what promises to be a warm spell so maybe they mature some more. These late September early October warm spells can do all sorts of interesting things with whatever has survived the early frost in the garden. The trick is to get the root veggies out of the ground before the ground really starts to freeze. And I'll have to dig that roto-tiller out of the shed, make sure it works and till. I think the cover crop for the winter will be winter rye again, unless we can come up with something else. The leaves are starting to change now. They've been dropping off the maples for the past two weeks but without any vibrant color. Just drying up and falling. But the color of the leaves on the mountain is starting to look good.

My wife is making many peach and apple pies. Yum.

7:25 AM  [23 Sep 2008 | Tuesday]

More Frost

7:20 AM  [19 Sep 2008 | Friday]

First Frost

This morning at 6:45 AM it was 32 F on the thermometer behind the house. Outside there was a lot of frost. It seemed like more than it should be, almost like a hard killing frost. My neighbor came by with lettuce yesterday and told it would frost tonight but I didn't think it would be so bad. When I looked at the delicata squash this morning it looked like it might have damage. All the flowers looked dead. I should have brought everything in but I was in denial. I've seen it dip to 32 F before with no problem but it was always earlier in the season. We have a peach tree out there loaded with peaches, hope it's okay.

Also the dehumidifier in the basement is running like crazy.

12:51 PM  [04 Aug 2008 | Monday]

Paint My Veggies

12:56 PM  [28 Jul 2008 | Monday]

Off to Deliver Vegetables to the Catholic Worker

We harvested vegetables this morning and made our first delivery to the Catholic Worker on 1^st St. in New York City. This is one of our favorite things to do with our surplus veggies. We brought pole beans, two cabbages, beets, cucumbers and of course summer squash green and yellow. They accepted them with open arms and we are in the enviable position of not watching our vegetables rot or get tremendously huge. That's still going to happen, it's unavoidable. Our neighbor's garden is on a tear and they had to leave for a week.  There's no telling what their squash will look like when they return. We have carte blanche to harvest their blueberries from their unbelievable stand of blueberry bushes. I've never seen so many blueberries in one person's yard and they seem to be immune from the Japanese beetles and black bear. Why the black bear don't attack these bushes is anyone's guess. It's the same stroke of good luck that has kept the deer out of our garden for these past 17 years.

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Someone has been nibbling our produce and I saw the culprit scurrying out of the garden the other morning. It was a rabbit. We rarely see rabbits where we are and always assumed they were getting gobbled up by the local fox population but I saw the varmint exiting our produce hell bent for leather. There is another suspect as well, we have a ground hog that has taken up residence in humble our guest house. I should say under the guest house. I have not run into this creature in a while though. The ground hog managed to eat beautiful red native bee balm that our neighbor gave us. No animal has ever eating the bee balm in our yard but I guess since it was so close to the entrance to its house, it figured what the heck. It also ate the sunflowers but did not touch the cosmos or the hollyhocks. Sadly the hollyhocks and grape vines are being mercilessly attacked by the Japanese beetles. This year I'm not using the Japanese beetle traps because I thought they were attracting more to the area, so I'm daily out there with a small bucket of soapy water and positioning it so they drop in. The beetle traps are a problem. Last year we were called out of town unexpectedly for two weeks in August and when we got back a bear had broken into the garden and attacked the Japanese beetle trap mistaking it I assume for a bag of garbage. If you've never used one of these traps you've got to keep in mind that at the height of the season they will fill up in two to three days and if you don't dispose of them they will stink to high heaven.

The garden is going great guns right now. Tons of veggies for the picking. No need to visit the grocery store except to satisfy my meat eating ways.

We also had five inches of rain last Wednesday, no flooding in the root cellar and on the July 26 we experienced an incredible thunderstorm that crashed all through the night knocking out the electricity for about three hours. Very hot weather in the later part of July. >>

8:34 AM  [09 Jun 2008 | Monday]

Almost There

12:45 PM  [04 Jun 2008 | Wednesday]

Where We Stand Now