Farmer Friday

The last few weeks have been doozies. In fact this whole year has been something else. My culverts clogged a bit and I had some run off from the hill pen. You can see more of that in the video  below. 

I worked on new steps up to the hill pen. 

And it rained. A lot in a few days. I’ve gotten as much rain this month as I did for the whole year of 2019. 

So the goat pens flooded and needed mucked out. 

14 bags of bedding barely dried out the goat pens and the brooder coop. Most of the other pens had at least some dry space. 

I dug a little ditch around Caramel’s pen so hopefully the water won’t run in there again. 

There was so much water on tarps it was bending the kennel panels. 

View from the top. Took me all one day to bail water and muck out pens. 

And THEN!

It rained some more!

Since it was nice and cool I did make a pizza: Brick House Bakers pizza dough, home made mozzarella, homegrown tomatoes, basil, garlic chives with some figs from the Superior Farmers Market. 

Tons of weeds growing like crazy but so is everything else. A little birdhouse gourd. 

And a big one. 
Cosmos or maybe coreopsis 

Dahlia 

Tomatoes are starting 

Armenian cucumber 

A jungle out back

I got some of it tamed

Wild fungi

Another dahlia I love the colors, reminds me of water lilies 

Sorting out some Nankins. Nankins are little bantams that shouldn’t be too big. A young cockerel like this should only weigh about 20 ounces. Some of these are too big or don’t have the right coloring to keep for breeding. So I’m giving them away to 4H kids for showmanship birds. I have several pairs. Message me if you are interested and local

I did pick tomatoes and okra and a couple cucumbers but forgot to take pictures. Maybe in the morning. But I did get one of this weeks flowers. 

#appreciation

Today I appreciate we’ve gotten rain. I appreciate that despite the wildfires and floods I still have my house, my gardens, my animals, food in my belly and clothes on my back. 

Farmer Friday

Lancinato (Dinosaur Kale) and Rainbow Chard

The kale and chard in the low tunnel is finally taking off and ready to pick. I picked a mess of collards too.

Eggs!

While I'm still waiting for some of the older birds to start laying again, I still have a lot of eggs~ about 38 a day!

pallet fence

I got a little bit done on the pallet fence out front, but need to trim a couple of them to fit right. Hopefully when finished the pigs won't be able to get in the yard any more.

fence from the other side

rain clouds

I finally had some rain on Thursday, 1.5". Except for .1" awhile back that's the first rain since September. I hope we get more rain over the next few months, we are really behind. I got just over 10 inches for all of 2017.

Farmer Friday

We had a little rain early in the week. The garden got a whole .1".That was the first rain I've had since September 10th.  Last year at this time we were getting snow. It is just now barely freezing at night. This is the weather I expected in October so winter is coming later and later. No rain in the forecast for at least 10 days. We really need our winter rain, everything is still dry and brown so it's been a real battle keeping things going. The sparrows and quail descend in hordes to gobble up any speck of green they can find. Sometimes they find their way under the netting and devour the seedlings despite everything I do to foil them.

frozen squash

I have cleared out the last of the frozen squash plants and replaced them with spinach. Now if I can keep the birds out......

covering the greenhouse

I got the greenhouse covered with plastic the other day. I hate using so much plastic each year. Plans are to replace these structures with more permanent ones that will have solid but openable siding so I can do away with the use of plastic sheeting. In the meantime it does help warm up the house and it does produce a lot of food and seedlings.

Avocado seedling

The one good thing about our milder winters, my avocado seedling is still alive and doing well on the back patio.

steamy compost

I turned compost this week, getting ready to make a new pile. The pile in the front has cooled off and ready to use.

Lancinato kale

The kale has been struggling with the warmer weather. It encourages aphids which I blast with cold water from the hose. Hopefully now that things are cooling off it will grow better. A new set of chard seedlings are waiting to go out into the garden, while the collards are growing well along with the mustard. I don't sell much mustard (don't know why, they are delish) but the chickens really like them.

Monsoon Starts and Summer Planting

rain at Top of the World

Well our monsoon rains seem to have started in earnest. Normally it rains all around my place in early July and my garden doesn't see any appreciable amount until about the 3rd week of the month, but this year it has come a little early. On Monday the 10th I got a good amount, probably about .5 to .75. (remember when the javalina tore up the potato bed? They broke my rain gauge. I just got a new one which I will put up today) On Friday when I was driving back from Superior it rained some at Top of the World.

downpour on the Pinals

It was dry coming into Miami, but I could see the rain on the Pinals.

I stopped at my house to collect eggs and close the gates. Then the rain hit and I was stuck in the chicken coop for a bit. A lot of wind and some hard rain, but I'm not sure how much. Amazingly we are in for 30-80% chance of rain almost every day for the next 10. Of course just because they are predicting it, doesn't mean we will actually get it. I just hope it doesn't come down too hard and fast and run off.

In the mean time temperatures have moderated a bit. With higher humidity things aren't drying out as fast so less watering is needed. Also the rain has kicked things into gear. I predict a good squash pick this week again, as well as a decent amount of greens.

bed prep

So I have added some composted manure to the top of the potato bed. Since the rains started I have planted the whole 100 sq ft to green and yellow bush beans and covered the bed with bird netting. This bed was the last of the compost piles I made last winter and is still pretty coarse with a lot of wood chips still, beans don't normally need the nitrogen in the manure, but the wood chips will take up a lot of it while they are breaking down.

planting seeds

In the creekside garden I planted an empty bed. A row of rainbow carrots sprinkled with radish, a row of turnips, the last row with mustard and dill. I covered the bed with old window screens to keep out the birds and I hope, the grasshoppers. The turnips and mustard were up in about 3 days.

turning compost

I spent some time turning compost. The older pile was still chugging along at about 130 degrees. After turning it dropped below 100 then came back up to about 120. It is almost finished. Probably one more turn and it will cool off enough to use.

Hot compost!

The day after turning the new pile it went almost to 140. These piles are mostly chicken litter from the barn at mom's house which is mostly sawdust with some straw and wood shavings. I also add a little ruminant manure with alfalfa from my friends pile and whatever green waste I don't give to the chickens, like potato plants and horse nettle. Because of the fine texture of the materials it won't need to be sifted before use and will be perfect as a planting medium once it cools down.

Farmer Friday

Well it seems I'm pretty late for Farmer Friday. My Friday was off all day. I got up at 4:30 so plenty of time, but it seemed all of the chickens were out of water and the ducks too. That took sime time along with a couple of other small chores so I didn't get out to the garden until almost 7.

I picked 11 pounds of cherry tomatoes. 

Lots of squash in most sizes and kinds. 

Lots of squash, not as much as some weeks, they are still recovering from the wilty day last week.

Bird? Squirrel? I don't know

Grrr simething is eating the melons!  Not sure if this was a squirrel or birds. One is as bad as the other. 

some melons escaped pecking

There were some good ones to pick though they are on the small side. 

herbs and flowers

Herbs and flowers. Sage, Rosemary, parsley, basil for herbs.  Marigolds, dahlias, zinnias, yarrow for flowers. 

spaghetti squash is growing

Spaghetti squash are coming along.  There are some Trombonccino, a Honey Boat Delicata and Red Kuri down towards the end.

Just waiting for rain. It is so hot and dry things are getting crispy no matter how much I water. Had a few drops on Thursday but it barely hit the ground before it evaporated. We have chances of rain this week, but it remains to be seen if it actually makes it to my house. I do know I need to try and get a well in place before next summer.