August 29th, 2020 The Dog Days of Summer

Despite the heat, Summer is beginning to come to its inevitable end. Harvest season is upon us, not that we grew so much or didn't harvest things all along. 

Not much has happened here in the past few weeks that didn't happen before. So I won't bore the world repeating the mundane. Instead I took some pictures . . .

We have three people who took up the challenge of coming here to grow some food. Their gardens are growing like crazy. The above image is of Beth's Monster Tomatoes. She planted five different types of tomatoes from starts and the combination of good soil and sunshine has turned them into a huge harvest. 

Below is C.B. and Ellen's pepper plants. They used their plot just to grow hot peppers and last week took home about half of a paper shopping bag full of Jalapenos, Serranos, and others. They brought starts from the store and the soils did the rest, but they hadn't done much up until a week or so back.. What was lacking was heat. We had plenty of heat and they now have plenty of peppers.

Beth also planted two squash plants and they have been producing well for about a month. The above picture is her yellow Summer Squash and below is her Zucchini. 

Christina took a different path in her garden plot. She planted nothing but seeds and the explosion of growth has us jealous (pictured both above and below). She planted an eclectic bunch of vegetables and flowers all mixed together. This is the aesthetic sense we admire most. . .  A green mess full of food and color.

Last year we had a tree fall. This year we got rid of the very last reminder of it. We have begun clearing the land behind the Farm and so far we have about an eight foot path back there. The huge tree stump that remained from the tree fall went into the creek. When we repair the fence we hope to move it to the edge of the creek's high bank. At places the bank is as much as thirty-five feet behind the fence so we will gain a lot of space by moving the fence back.

Below are Ann's Romaine Lettuces. She also grows Butter Crunch Lettuces too.  We keep the lettuce under row covers to keep the squirrels from eating it all. So much so that we have taken a lot of lettuces down to the food bank.

While we were waiting for a building inspection I took the day to clear part of the old gravel parking pad out of one of the few problem areas in the Kitchen Garden. I took out about twenty yards of gravel, leaving a really dusty area behind. We are watering this area down to settle the dust and eventually we'll have all of our mulch delivered to this spot. This morning I had a very decorative water sprinkler turned on and it attracted our Runner Ducks.

Below is a gourd that Christine planted in her garden plot.

Above is another image of Christine's garden plot. It is a riot of growing stuff.

When we built our compost heap last fall I put some rotting pumpkin carcasses in with the weeds and stalks. So, naturally, when we spread the mulch we distributed a bunch of seeds. And now we have twenty or so pumpkins ripening in the Kitchen Garden, all of them doing well, none of them planned.

So far our corn hasn't done very well. But the Runner Ducks love hanging out in the corn on the hot days. And the California Poppies are really happy.

Ann's Sunflowers are a favorite of the local Canaries and Finches. She planted five kinds of Sunflower and all are doing very well. So are the two raised beds of succulents and annual flowers we put in last Spring. Two of the remaining Apricot (Asian) Plum trees we kept are at the corners of these two raised beds gardens. They are also taking shape well and should fruit next Summer.

The Peaches and Herbs Garden is doing okay. Some plants are better than others, but this is the first year of perennial and self seeding herbs, so next year will be much better. Our well has a large volume of iron in it. We filter the iron from the water we drink, but don't filter the water we use to water plants. So the  white patio furniture in the gardens, and anything else we have out there, slowly take on a lovely golden red color. The color doesn't come off on clothing or hands so we sort of like the Creekside Gold color we get over time. 

The Farmhouse build is going very well. We are putting a double layer of roofing felt on before putting the final roof covering down. This is all very high and steep work, but were getting it done prior to the rains returning next month. After stapling a layer of paper down we overlay it with another and then nail it down using washer nails. We then add a row of 2x3 boards to ease climbing and working on such a steep roof. We hope to have the roof "dried in" in a week or so.