I've been gardening for most of my life and have been a devoted fan of organic gardening the whole time. It just makes so much more sense to work in harmony with Mother Nature than to fight her. Besides which it is better for the planet and better for our bodies. Here you can see what I'm planting and harvesting, with gardening hints and resources thrown in for good measure.
Welcome to Harvest Monday, a blog hop hosted by Dave over at Happy Acres The summer garden is winding down and the fall garden is not yet started to any degree. It has been too blasted hot. We are back up to 100+ this past week, so I seriously doubt there will be any fall tomatoes other than a few cherry types. The heat is also slowing down bed prep and seeding of fall crops.
Eggplant & Jalapeno
Cucuzzi
There were a few eggplants and jalapenos and a lot of cucuzzi. A lot of my market customers have tried the cucuzzi and have come back for more so I'm happy for that.
The milk explosion continues
Egg production is still low
Esmarelda is still giving me 11-12 pints of milk a day and Bambi is still on her steady 6. The last new pullet has started laying so that makes 7 new steady layers. But most of the old girls quit when it got hot in the summer, then they started molting. Most of them are going to freezer camp as soon as it cools off enough to do that because I'm in the red every month for feed.
There are a couple of Legbars laying nice size light blue-green eggs and I'm seriously contemplating hatching chicks from them. Chicks that hatch in the fall tend to start laying in spring and lay well over the summer when the older hens quit and I have the biggest market for eggs. I'm still at war with myself over it though, will I have enough time and energy to raise them well. I don't know, I'm going to think about it some more before I actually do it. And I'm going to check with some 4H families if they'd like to hatch and raise chicks until they are big enough to sex, in exchange for some of them. I would pay for their feed in exchange for their doing the work.
Welcome to Harvest Monday, a great blog hop hosted by Dave over at Happy Acres I hope you stop by there and see all the wonderful gardens and harvests. Even though I got half an inch of rain, the ground was still powder dry under the surface. Which is why I tend to water even if it's trying to rain, because it almost never rains enough.
Esmarelda is still pumping out milk like crazy
Esmarelda, one of my Nubian dairy goats, has weaned her triplets and is making milk like crazy. 10 gallons in the past 7 days. While the kids were nursing I was only milking once a day and now I have to milk twice a day. The old girl Bambi gave me 6 gallons this week, milking her once a day.
Japanese eggplant
The eggplants are still going strong. I did notice as I picked this week that I must have missed some last week because there were a couple very large ones with dull skin. I decided to leave them for seed.
a handful of tomatoes
There was only a handful of tomatoes, most of which I ate with tacos.
cucuzzi
Cucuzzi is an edible gourd from Italy and it's been producing like crazy and trying to take over the whole yard. Too bad the goats didn't seem to care much for it, it'd be a great thing to grow for them.
Honey Nut squash
Last year my daughter brought me some HoneyNut squash she had been given. They are like single serving butternuts but much better and sweeter flavored. I thought maybe they were hybrids but when I looked them up online found they were supposed to be heirlooms. So I saved seeds and grew some. These three were on the ground so I picked them because I was afraid they might be get too wet and rot. The vines have quite a few more but I love these so much I'm pretty sure I did not grow nearly enough of them.
Cucuzzin obliterating the rest of the harvest
This weeks totals;
Eggplant 1# 14 ounces
Tomatoes 4 ounces
Cucuzzi 11# 11 ounces
Honey Nut 1# 1.5 ounces
Milk;
Esmarelda 10 gallons
Bambi 6 gallons
Eggs 54
Thanks for coming along and thanks Dave for hosting us. See you next time.
I bought a cheap greenhouse off Amazon. Over the summer I used it with shadecloth over tomatoes. I'm actually a bit paranoid to put the plastic cover on, for fear a heavy wet snow will collapse the lightweight frame.
I am soooo happy that the king snakes have found my place! I haven't seen a single rattler all year!
Bambi's hair is looking weird and she seems very itchy. This was the point when I started learning about copper deficiency in goats.
The little chicks are growing up
I planted out the greenhouse space with tomatoes in pots and buckets and had the most amazing crop ever.
Bambi didn't always want to let her kids nurse, especially the two smaller ones, Pinto Bean and Tiny Tim so they were getting bottles. My Farmer Boy came to visit and got to feed them for the first time.
Digger Dog was shedding out his winter undercoat
Three bucklings; Esmarelda's boy Jupiter and Bambi's boys Tiny Tim and Apollo. Tiny Tim weighed less than 4 pounds when he was born but in the end he was as big as Apollo who weighed 10!
And admire his brother and give all the goats some hay. Now time to get busy taking care of things torn up by the storm last night.
Oops tarp came loose and mineral feeder is full of water
Put a sliver of wood in the hole for the gate hinge. Hopefully it will quit twisting around and letting the gate fall.
Digger was on a roll this morning, went deliberately over to the roll of irrigation hoses to chew on them 3 times so he’s on a short leash for chore time.
Had a chopper flying crazy low zigzagging back and forth. Then they started following the power line on the ridge. Not sure what they were doing.
Baled water off Posie’s pen.
This area was the first to get perimeter fence and is where Giotto grew up. I was 4’ short of fence so used the pallet. It has stood there almost 9 years. I was very fortunate that Giotto was never a fence climber.
Fixing tarps over chickens
Mmmm. Itty Bitty Baby Greenhouse has some issues from yesterday’s wind.
Fixed up as good as I could get it. I noticed later in the day some other areas that need attention. Will try and get to those tomorrow.
Little chickens seem ok after being soaked last night when their tin blew off.
Digger is still on a short leash. Trying to chase chickens.
Poor little birds back door blew open in the storm Apparently this coop is beginning to come apart. I couldn’t get the door all the way back like it belongs. Will have to try and figure out what’s going on.
Working in the old chicken pens in the front yard. I watered this some yesterday plus I got .2” of rain. And look how only the top 1 1/2 - 2” is actually wet. Duh it up and watered some more.
Continuing to put Midnight’s twins in with Bashful for a couple hours before milking and she has gone from 1/4 cup to 1 1/2. Separating does not take milk from the babies. Milk is supply and demand. The more demand the more the doe’s body will increase supply up to the limits of her genetics, diet and environment. I will gradually increase separation time until we are at 8-10 hours a day. This will not hurt the kids growth, they are eating plenty of hay now and they will still be able to nurse the rest of the time.
Did all the usual things like laundry and dishes. Still need to take out some trash. Watered plants. Thinking about what I’m going to plant in the new spaces out front. Probably greens as it’s partly shaded- kale, collards, mustard, Swiss chard. Chinese greens like pak choy will have to wait for cooler weather.
#appreciation
Today I appreciate the rain I got and that the wind damage was limited here.
Up at 4:30 outside at 5:00 to hay the goats. Started a batch of soap and started laundry to wash.
The cheese I set last night is ready to drain.
Shade cloth up but I ran out of zip ties.
Found a chain for the gate.
Hung out the pile of udder washing rags I washed earlier
Took hay to my buck Bentley who is staying at my friends house for now. He got a hoof trim while I was there. Realized I was missing a meeting at work. Went anyway because I need zip ties. Meeting was over of course. Realized I had no cash and new debit card hadn’t arrived yet. So go home for $, go back and also get feed.
On the way home. It’s not even 10:00 am. It was actually reading 100 down on the highway.
Check on goats. Got a big piece of tin off the back of the pen so they have more airflow. Water goats and chickens while I’m out there.
Get to taste a White Marseilles fig for the first time. Yummy. Thomas Jefferson brought them to the US from France.
Finished this batch of soap. Unscented with colloidal oatmeal.
Check weather. Supposed to rain next weekend. But we have already exceeded the predicted high for today by several degrees. Afternoon heat check. Chocolate (in back) and Gazelle are fine. I have decided to move Gazelle along so message me if you want to know more.
Got the chèvre draining.
Put away all the milk things I washed last night.
Had toast and cheese for lunch.
Went out and checked on everyone again, filled up water buckets, wet down shade cloth and of course played with baby goats.
Feed & water chickens, pick up eggs. Get ready to milk. Midnight’s udder feels hard so I coax her the milk stand by carrying her twins. So then Chocolate and Gazelle are yelling because they want to go too. Midnight has the tiniest teats ever! They’ll get bigger but it was hard to get much milk out of her. She did super standing for her first milking and after they went back to their pen her boys were nursing. I hope that relieved some pressure. I’ll check her again in the morning.
Bambi is last in the milking line and I decided to move her and Bashful in together in the new pen. Bambi isn’t very nice to Esmarelda, always butting her around. I’m afraid if Storm and her kids get in the way the kid would get hurt. Anyway took some coaxing and manipulating with a pan of grain to get Bashful in. Bambi immediately began yelling and testing the fence and gate. Cross my fingers I did a good enough job.
I grabbed my clippers and trimmed some tree branches to give them something to do. But there was still a lot of yelling even past dark. On the other hand Storm and Esmarelda didn’t seem too concerned that Bambi didn’t come back to their pen.
By the time I brought the milk in the house it was going on full dark. So I filtered milk, washed up all the milk things, a few people dishes, got a bath and went to bed.
