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Hi Everyone,
I started Monday off with one goal—get the sweet potatoes dug up before it rained on Wednesday. So as soon as Mom and I finished milking the cows we headed to the garden to dig up the potatoes. We had four twenty foot long rows of potatoes, and we had already harvested the first three or four feet of each row the week before and got one five gallon bucket full. I don’t know if the hardest part of digging potatoes is the digging or the rolling back of the potato vines. The vines get heavier and heavier the more into the row you get. It took us a few hours, but by lunch time all the potatoes were dug. While we ate lunch the potatoes dried in the sun and then after lunch I loaded them into buckets—they filled up four five gallon buckets. We then dumped them on some paper feed sacks on our back porch to continue to dry. Come Wednesday we brushed the loose dirt off of the potatoes and packed them in boxes and put them in the sewing room to store until we get around to canning them or eating them.
With the potatoes secured I could focus on transplanting herbs and lettuce into the first Market Garden tunnel. I transplanted parsley, thyme, winter savory, chamomile, and lettuce on Monday. Come Tuesday I headed to the Cottage Garden (our raised bed garden) and weeded the herb bed where I grow plantain. Weeds were taking over and the plantain was not growing very well. So a few months ago I had gathered some seeds from one of the plantain plants and planted them in a seed tray. They all sprouted and then I potted up 32 of the little seedlings and they were now big enough to plant out. So I cleaned everything out of the bed and then I put some chicken compost in it and then topped it with the new compost we had bought for the Market Gardens. Then I planted the bed with all new plantain plants. Over in the West Garden I finally got the spinach planted. I was supposed to plant it around October 15, but I didn’t have that garden area deer proof. When I did get it deer proof we were extra busy, but since it is still so warm the spinach will not mind that it got planted two weeks late.
Tuesday morning started very early—well we didn’t get up any earlier, but as soon as we were dressed for the day we hopped in the truck and headed out to vote. When we were going to early vote the van broke so we didn’t make it—so we “early” voted on voting day, as in we got there 15 minutes before the polls opened. I think that I was the sixth person in line. As the day went on, all we could do was to pray for God’s mercy on our nation. Things were looking pretty promising when we went to bed that night around 10:30. I usually do not get out of bed before 6:00 in the morning (except for on Sunday’s when we get up at 5:00), but I woke up at 5:30 on Wednesday morning and since the day was going to be so busy I decided to go ahead and get up and check the news for the election results. We were very grateful to see that Trump had won and that our state had voted not to legalize abortion. It will be exciting to see how things change for the good over the next four years—and we have heard that some good changes will be in the making to make things easier for us small farmers.
Papa was finally able to purchase the supplies for the end walls to the first Market Garden Tunnel, and on Thursday Mom and Papa were able to start building. They managed to get the framework up and the door hung on one end wall. While they built a wall, I built a tower—a strawberry tower that is. I had hoped to plant the strawberries last week, but I had no time with the prep for the dinner. Thankfully I was only a week late in planting strawberries—last year I was two months and they just never thrived. Out of 84 strawberry plants I think we only got to eat a handful of strawberries last year. It took me two afternoons to plant all 84 strawberry plants. Thankfully I had cleaned out the planters months ago, so I just had to fill them with dirt, plant the strawberries, stack the tray on the tower and then water the tray—repeat 13 more times. The GreenStalk towers have worked real well for us growing strawberries. When we grow the strawberries in the ground the bugs eat them, but the towers allow the strawberries to hang in the air where the bugs cannot get to them.
On Friday we processed chickens. Our Azure order arrived at noon—and since our family that helps us process chickens was picking up their order and ours, we had a late start with the chickens. That was okay because the packaging table was full of all the clean dishes from our dinner and starting late gave us some time to get the dishes put away. I made up for it when I told everyone that we would not be cutting any up—we would just package them all whole. Usually I have 20 of the chickens cut up into parts, but there were only 41 in this batch, and since we have lost so many chickens this year I decided that it would be better to not cut up parts this time. Nobody complained for that meant we got done early—and it gave me time to finish planting the strawberries.
I had a long “To Do List” on Saturday but “administration work” occupied a lot of my afternoon. Saturday afternoons are my best times to iron—but my Saturday’s have been very busy of late, and once again I never got around to it. I did manage to get the tablecloths from the dinner scrubbed clean and washed.
We have another busy week ahead as Mom and Papa work to get the tunnel end walls built so that the plastic covering can be put on before the first heavy frost of the year—which it seems won’t be anytime soon with all the warm weather we have had of late. Then we also have to get ready for our first photo day on the farm where we are inviting everyone to come to the farm anytime from sunrise to moonrise to take pictures to their hearts content. Then the participants can submit three of their best pictures to be entered in our first photo contest. You can check out all the details here. Hope to see you on the farm next Saturday with your camera in tow.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare