Farmer Friday

BOxBR hen about 4 years old

My oldest hen is about 4 years old. Poor thing is about half naked from molting. So are most of the other hens. Egg production has dropped to zilch. The compost chickens haven't laid in a week or more and even the younger hens in the barn dropped from 8 eggs a day to 3.

I tried to get lots of chicks hatched in January so they would start laying by July and August to take up the slack but luck wasn't with me.

hello baby tarantula

I disturbed a baby tarantula hiding in the manure pile when I was getting some for the garden.

Some people pick them up but not me, scooped it out with a stick and let it go.

pretty pink Four O'Clock flower

sunflower

I didn't think that sunflower was going to make it. It was real puny for a long time. Even now it's only a couple of feet tall. Just tells you how bad the soil is.

tomato jungle, that's my shirt!

Some of the tomato plants are really getting their second wind with cooler weather and a little rain. Even a bit jungly out there. That's my shirt, looking towards my feet in the lower right corner of the picture.

cherry tomatoes and mini bell peppers

I picked produce in a drizzle this morning, getting ready for the farmer's market tomorrow.

rainbow carrots

The carrots that I planted a bit later are doing much better than the first batch. They got some potash fertilizer along with more water.I also redug those beds and sunk them into the ground.The carrots are growing a lot faster than in the older raised bed.

rainbow beets

I pulled the last of the rainbow beets from this bed. But I forgot to take a picture of them. They are so pretty, yellow, orange, red, pink! Just like the Rainbow Carrots. Next week this bed will be redug and sunk into the ground and planted to carrots.

hello Tinkerbelle

Tinkerbelle is a really sweet cat. She's funny, Lil' Bit is loud and noisy but Tink doesn't really meow, she just makes funny little squeaky sounds.

The back garden

The back garden, you can see all the weeds trees around the patio and invading it. The will be a winter job, getting the cut and dug out of the way.

You can't see the house because of all the squash vines. It is very dark and shady under there!

Then some beds of rainbow carrots. They have been a lot of fun to grow, with all the different colors.

back garden another view

beet seedlings

The beets seedlings I transplanted are doing well. They are covered with fine netting to keep bugs and birds out of them.

radish seedlings

The kale transplants are doing well and the French Breakfast radishes have sprouted.

These are under an old screen door and a really old piece of shade cloth. Soon to be replaced by fine netting.

luffa and pumpkin vines

At Mom's house the Luffa and Jack Be Little pumpkin vines are really taking off. By the end of summer they will probably completely cover the front of the barn. I love the cheery look of the lemon yellow luffa blossoms.

bumble bee in a luffa blossom

The bumble bees like them too!

A Little Catching Up

New Paint

I have been tired of the junk accumulating around the front door so last weekend I did something about it and cleaned things up. The pink hulk is actually two old pieces that were laying around rotting. The base was a potting bench my son built for me when he was a teenager. I cut off the rotten parts of the legs and replaced the top boards.

The back part was an old waterbed head board. I cut off the termite eaten bottom boards and set it up on shelf brackets attached to the back of the base. The pink paint was a mistint exterior paint for half price.

A couple of old wooden chairs were accumulating piles of stuff in the house. I washed them up, the white one is as I found it. The yellow one I sprayed with some outdoor spray paint. I love the bright sunny yellow color. The little table is actually plastic. It used to roll around on wheels but they have rusted up. The green paint on the top had begun to weather so I gave it a shot of purple in honor of my friend that gave it me, purple is her favorite color.

Thing 2

Two black kittens have been added to the menagerie, Thing 1 and Thing 2. They are so funny running and playing. At first Giotto barked at them all the time because they would run away, climb up the shade clothe and run along the tops of the kennels. They are both sweeties and fun. I hope they will start taking care of the rodent problem when they get a bit older.

Giotto

I had to replace my swamp cooler awhile back and of course my constant companion Giotto had to be right in the middle of everything, including the new cooler.

Giotto in the new cooler

The garden has grown some very pretty sunflowers but that is about it. Between rats, squirrels, chipmunks & moles there isn't much food to be had out there. Ah well, there's always next year, eh?

Harvest Monday

Mountain Rose Potatoes

I dug the Mt. Rose potatoes up this week. The vines were getting really wilted in the heat. I can see where if we had had a bit cooler and damper weather I probably would have gotten quite a few more large potatoes. But I got about 15 pounds from about 25 -30 sq feet.

Mt. Rose inside

They have pale pink swirls inside.

Mt. Rose and yellow potatoes

I cooked some up with the yellow potatoes I harvested from the pots on the patio.

Sunflower

A couple of sunflower seedlings escaped the birds and are blooming.

Black from Tula

Another first this week was a Black from Tula tomato. This variety is from Russia and I got the seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange.

Black from Tula

The bottom side did have a couple of holes, I don't know what caused them they were dry inside so not fresh bird pecks. This tomato weighed in at about 6 ounces.

Tula sliced

Having never had this variety before I ended up eating the whole thing. It was not sharply acid like some tomatoes but not actually sweet either. Very nice and juicy.








You can check out my post from yesterday, to see my poultry, melons, squash and more. Linking up for Harvest Monday, a great blog hop sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions. Hop over and check out what gardeners around the world are harvesting.