Preparing For A Frosty Fall

Repairing the shredded roof before planting the fall seeds.

     Winter is going to be a bit unusual around here this year.  This year, we're not planning to stop the growing season with the first frost, and our garden isn't entirely "put to bed" like it has been in years past.  It just may be the first winter season that I can say I harvested fresh lettuce in January, or maybe, just maybe, it will all go down in a withered frost bitten heap by Old Man Winter's cruel icy hand.  Fate is funny like that.  You never know how she's going to act.  

     This year, with a new roof (due to the old one shredding during a wind storm in the hot summer heat), the greenhouse is ready for some late-fall and winter crops.  We, like usual, packed the greenhouse.  The three tomato plants, left over from summer, are blooming as they climb their strings towards the greenhouse roof, while the four cauliflower and four broccoli transplants came from a local greenhouse.  Everything else was set in as seed in mid-September with the hopes that since the greenhouse is touching anywhere from 70s to 90s throughout the day they will germinate just fine.

Tomatoes within inches of the roof in mid-September.

     A fair number of the seeds for our greenhouse came from relatives this year who were retiring from gardening and mailed their leftover seeds to us from halfway across the country.  It was quite the blessing, and the Mr. and I would both check the mail religiously, wanting to be the one to open the packages!  (We were truly like kids on Christmas morning.)  Among the crops we planted:

     Beet, Early Blood Turnip - SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE
     Broccoli, Arcadia - LOCAL GREENHOUSE
     Carrot, Royal Chatenay - LAKE VALLEY SEEDS
     Cauliflower, Snow Dream - LOCAL GREENHOUSE
     Lettuce, Four Seasons - BURPEE (FROM RELATIVES)
     Lettuce, Iceberg - WEEKS SEED CO. (FROM RELATIVES)
     Onion, White Lisbon - LAKE VALLEY SEEDS
       Radish, Champion - ROHRER SEEDS
     Spinach - (FROM RELATIVES) 

    Yes, the green was certainly packed to say the least, but at this point, would you expect anything less from one of our gardens?

Keeping It Warm

     After some research, we decided on a plan to hopefully keep the greenhouse warm:

• The main way revolves around two 55 gallon plastic drums filled with water.  Over the drums will be black plastic leaf bags (hopefully by early next week)  to help them attract the heat during the daily hours and slowly release the heat as the temperature cools after dark.  Currently the blue barrels are keeping it warm enough.  
• Most of the windows in the greenhouse are insulated double-pane glass.  Anything that is not, will have a piece of plastic tacked over it to help keep the drafts out by the end of September.  
• Put plastic over the screen door by the end of September.  
• Two basement vents that are activated by the outside temperatures will help to vent the greenhouse should it get too warm, and close to help keep the heat in as the temperature drops.
• The pathway is concrete pavers, which should hopefully soak up some of the heat during the daylight hours.
• All the plants will be mulched within the next week.  As the mulch decomposes, heat should also be released.
• All the cracks around the base of the greenhouse (especially in the back corner, which happens to sit over a filled-in groundhog hole) will also be filled by the end of September.

Adding the water barrels.  If there's time
before the temperatures drop too much, we
hope to get some insulation in the walls too.

     If there's time, we might add some insulation before the temperatures drop too much as well, and plywood the inside walls.  All of this will then be coated in a water-seal so when we spray the hose during the warm weather, we don't rot out the greenhouse.  The outside will be coated in water-seal as well, just as soon as the last boards go onto the bottom by our basil plants.

     At a little over 85 square feet, our fingers are crossed that all of this should be enough to keep our plants alive and thriving.  As this is our experimental year with the greenhouse, we have yet to see if our plans will work; however, I hope to keep everyone posted on how this progresses throughout the season, and maybe, just maybe, my dream of harvesting lettuce in January will come true.  

Canning Season

An evening's harvest

     Things are a little crazy around here as the summer harvest begins to come in, and the deep freezes and canning shelves overflow. We've just entered Week 3 of canning season, and as I was putting away some of the newly canned goods (Sweet Pickles from Week 1, and Bread & Butter Pickles and Sweet Pickle Relish from Week 2), I realized something... 

     No, it has nothing to do with the amount of cucumbers we're swimming in. Well, actually, I take that back, it just might. It also has to do with all the cabbage, tomatoes and peppers, and all the not-so-blank spaces on our canning shelves as we expand to can even more of our own foods each year. You see, we're not going to have enough room for all of our canned goods this year.

     I was concerned last week about running out of freezer space after having to dedicate another compartment to chicken scraps.  (Two whole compartments of one of our 15 cubic foot deep freezes are now almost full with vegetables/fruits for the chickens this winter, and before it's all said and done, a third compartment might be added as well to make sure we have enough for them.)  

     Now, with the lack of space for canned goods, some serious rearranging is going to need to take place, because figuring out where to store canned goods is not quite as easy as everyone thinks as this is our year's supply worth of food essentially being "purchased" at one time.  (Take a look at "You Plan To Eat All That?" if you don't believe me.)  

     Some days a weekend "shopping trip" to purchase this year's worth of food seems more reasonable.  I often wonder why it should take an entire "season" to can everything you need.  Why can't we just all jam it into a couple of days and be done with it all?  

Canning weekend of 2015

     Spoiler: Don't do this.  Once a year I get this brilliant idea and jam peaches, apples and tomato products into one weekend in August just to get them all over with.  Every year I come up for air exhausted and swear I'll never do it again.  This year, I've bypassed most of that stage and am making plans for a "relaxing" canning weekend containing all these products again from the fiery depths of my kitchen in August...

     This early summer has been the year of pickles for me.  The cucumber plants are (for once) doing what they are supposed to do, even though we have an outbreak of striped cucumber beetles to deal with.

Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage
fermenting to make Sauerkraut

     So far we have a batch of Sweet Pickles done, with another batch fermenting.  There's Sweet Pickle Relish canned (recipe here), and also a batch of the simplest pickle I can find: Bread & Butter Pickles.  To top it all off, Sauerkraut is also fermenting alongside the Sweet Pickles right now, and I'm about to have to thoroughly rearrange the kitchen for canning season soon as from here on out, it is expected that I will be canning (at bare minimum) one recipe each week until October.  That's at least twelve weeks of canning (and a lot more than twelve recipes worth of things that will need canned)!

     I'm not quite sure how many more cucumbers we'll need this year, so our chickens might get lucky and have some extra cucumbers to pick at instead of just cabbage heads, broccoli, cauliflower, beet tops and radishes.  I'm sure they won't mind.

The Plymouth Barred Rock also pecking at some Watermelon rinds.

In Other News

Did you say food?  Our Delawares are the least picky
chickens I have ever seen when it comes to food.  

     To complete the cycle of chaos around here, the Delawares are begging for their own pasture (and three escaped their run in search of grass when I went to change out their water the other day, so we really need to get their pasture done).  Chicken chasing is not all that it is cracked up to be.  

    With temperatures climbing into the 90s for almost a whole week now, they and the Plymouth Barred Rocks have been getting mud puddle filled runs to help keep them cool, and they are loving it!  They have also been keeping us on our toes as we change out their water multiple times throughout the day and keep an eye on whether or not they are getting heat stressed.  In all the twenty-two chickens seem to be doing fairly well considering the temperatures.

Baling Straw on July 4th before the rains came.  The Mr. is
sitting out there in the tractor, waiting to get a wagon.

     The Mr. has been helping out our landlord occasionally with the hay and straw harvests this year, and my cousin who was visiting from North Carolina and I got to watch everyone try to get the straw bales in before the rains came on the Fourth of July.  The rains, which were supposed to only arrive in the evening, came early (around 2 p.m.), and sent everyone, along with their wagons, running for cover.   Fortunately, we live in the country, and the July Fourth weekend also gave us 18 different fireworks displays, which we watched from the sand mound.

We will also be working on replacing the greenhouse roof
before winter as a windstorm late last week ripped it to shreds.

     As we started to harvest our summertime produce, we planted a late season crop of Incredible Sweet Corn, and are now planning for our fall crops in the garden.  Just this past week our seed starter trays were filled with Winter Dream Cauliflower, Sun King Broccoli, Red Acre Cabbage, Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage and Blue Curled Scotch Kale seeds.   The seeds are currently waiting out the weather on the porch, where I can keep them easily watered, and will hopefully be moved to the greenhouse once needed adjustments are made to it.  Soon we'll harvest the rest of the cabbage and begin planting some of our fall season seeds.

Crops Being Harvested

July: Black Raspberries, Blackberries, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Cucumbers, Herbs (various), Hull Peas, Lettuce, Mint, Mulberries, Peppers, Radishes, Sugar Beets, Tomatoes, Yellow Squash and Zucchini

Upcoming in August: Blackberries, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cucumbers, Herbs (various) Lettuce, Lima Beans, Mint, Oats, Patty Pan Squash, Peppers, Radishes, Sugar Beets, Sweet Corn, Tomatoes, Wineberries, Yellow Squash and Zucchini

Until next time, Happy Harvesting!