Farmer Friday

cucumbers and melons

This has been a hard sad week with the sudden and unexpected death of my little brother last Friday. So I have spent a lot of time staring off into space, forgetting what I was going to do next and sometimes just crying. That said the garden grows and life goes on.  The chickens and garden gave me something to focus on this week. There were squash,  cucumbers and cantaloupe. 

Tomatoes and squash

There were even four big tomatoes. 

Spaghetti squash, almost ready

There will be an abundance of spaghetti squash. 

Black Copper Marans eggs

One of my oldest Black Copper Marans hens is laying again so all of her eggs are going in the incubator for now. For what it's worth the egg on the right is about the right color; the other two are washed out in the pic.

eclipse picture

I watched the eclipse like everyone else although I couldn't really see anything. 

Red Kuri winter squash

There are some Red Kuri squash finally. This is a new one for me and taking its time to put on fruits. 

bean stem

empty bed, all done

I cut down the old bean plants and stripped off the few good pods. Some of the stems were really thick. I left the roots, hopefully covered with nitrogen fixing bacteria, to rot in place. Later this week I'll pull up the drip lines, tidy the edges with the rake and pile on some more compost. I think I'll have time for some salad turnips and baby mustard greens before it's time to plant garlic. 

The cucumber and melon arches in the creek side garden are made of scrap fencing and are not up to the weight this year. I will have to use cattle panels next time since these are collapsing.