Hello Everyone:Finally, some moderated temperatures. The tomatoes are starting to ripen up, the soil is retaining it's moisture a little longer, and quenching ones thirst a little easier.
Which makes no difference to Cayley, who has discovered the bucket of water in the bathroom that we keep in the event of a power outage that would prevent the well pump from operating. She's decided that the water here is superior to what we pour into her dish.
I didn't list them for this season, but there are a few varieties this season in addition to the Galahad tomatoes. I had some extra seed for Gardeners Delight and Gold Nugget cherry tomatoes, some Moskvich, and a few Gold Bison.
With the temperature extreme enough to affect fruit development, I'm glad to have planted such a wide variety. Some should be able to handle the heat.
The weather is not the only factor that will impact the harvests.The green beans arrived a little earlier than I would have liked, and did not coincide with the romano beans setting their first flush - hence no romano's in last weeks delivery.
They are in oerfect condition now - when the store is not ready to function and no other crops are ready for a full delivery.
So I've decided to leave the first round on the plants to see if I can get them to dry down for harvest with the kidney beans.
I tried this a few years ago but the weather conditions were very wet that season and most of them became moldy. Perhaps I can get the hot, dry weather to work in my favor for this particular crop.
The past two years, my chard crops have had a relatively low yield, so I planted two beds to ensure I had enough for this season.
For whatever reason, the chard is growing very well this year - I have twice as much as I need.
Success last March. I had a very good year for getting plants out of the nursery - very little earwig damage, no overheating or seed trays drying out. And success in getting the young transplants through the first few weeks when the mice find the onion sprouts exceptionally tasty.As a result, the green onions are doing very well.
Finally - some on-farm help. Here is an example of the dividends one reaps for avoiding pesticide.For the first time in several years, I have more than a coupe of potato beetles to contend with. I assumed that I would now have to spend a while searching the plants each day crushing eggs, larva and adults.
Within two days, I was finding lots of soldier beetles patrolling the potato plants. Here is one consuming a potato beetle larvae.
In Lanark: The Gypsy Moth population is between flight cycles. The larvae are developing and we anticipate will hatch very soon.We have set out some pheromone traps for the first few. As soon as the weather settles into a dry period, we'll give the trees another spray of bacillus.
As the apple trees were defoliated during the first flight cycle, I am not optimistic that we will have a decent apple harvest. The leaves have grown back but there will be few if any blossoms out.
Prepping the garlic. Now that the garlic is harvested, it needs to be bundled up and hung in the barn to cure.
This gives me an opportunity to examine the bulbs for damage - a couple were nicked by the harvest fork and the bundles that were temporarily stored in the barn overnight in whatever places I thought would be rodent free had a few bulbs that were sampled.
This work has to be done in the shade as direct sunlight will burn the harvested bulbs and decrease their shelf life.
I tried to tell Cayley that her behavior - specifically crowding into whatever activity I am in the midst of - is very dog-like.
Early evening is time for the chickens to go for a walk. They generally choose their route to places to find bugs (they searched out trees with lots of gypsy moth caterpillars or eggs and feasted on those), around old logs and long grass to scratch in.The yard is like a giant salad to walk through, nipping a dandelion here, a fresh shoot of grass there, and whatever other leaves and shoots they take a fancy to.
Julia follows them about and guides them away from the road or the growing field.
This is buckwheat. A marvelous cover crop - it does an amazing job suppress weeds and feeds the soil by concentrating phosphorus in the soil.
This is one of our growing fields in development. With some advice from Tom from Elmtree, I had planted peas, oats and jackhammer radish in the fields to prepare them for vegetable planting. Two weeks ago I cut down the cover crop and then seeded buckwheat and clover.
The clover will come up under the buckwheat. It will fix nitrogen in the soil, and it's long tap roots will also help break up the soil.Here is the second growing field of buckwheat and clover. There is a third field that will provide hay and or forage to cut and serve livestock.
Last week, while moving the temporary fencing around the field (to protect my cover crop from deer) I discovered a nest of yellow jackets in the ground.
After the swelling in my forehead went down, I took some old plastic and laid it across the nest. Judging by the amount of Yellow Jacket activity around the barn and behind the chicken coop, there are plenty here already. We use peppermint oil sprayed on surfaces and roof interiors to help repel them. They thrive in dry weather, so I anticipate there will be more nests popping up here and there this year.
Rising like the phoenix - the old tool shed from Stittsville. It's taking a while as I have other projects to see to, and I decided to turn the roof around. With the low end of the roof slope at the front, I found that shoveling the snow was a bit more laborious in the winter. Also, the rain barrel was always in the way.
When it is ready, this structure will be the temporary farm gate store. When the farm gate store is built,, this will become the prep station for cleaning harvested crops and packing them for sale and delivery.
The store and surrounding work area is mounted on a raised pad of sand and gravel. We have endless amounts of sand here and the gravel is coming from my work pad in Stittsville one bucket at a time.
All of these old stump logs will be used to border the work pad, holding the sand and gravel in place.
To ensure the logs don't rot too quickly, I am taking off the bark. That will be retained to use as fire starter in the winter.
When collecting firewood, I set aside some hollow logs. A neighbor uses these to make flower pots, and I thought that having a few of these around the prep station and farmgate store would echo the border of the work pad.
Most farms I have been to have a rough and ready look to them (particularly ours while it is under construction) so I take every opportunity to make things look like some kind of thought has gone into appearances.
Speaking of appearances, the zinnias are finally starting to bloom....