Better late than never

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, to be gone so long.  Life happened.  Not much has changed here on the farm but I thought I would let everyone know we are still around. 

 

 

I had some success with my tomatoes until the hornworms and drought hit.  By the time, I figured out that hornworms were eating my tomatoes, they were almost too far gone to come back.  We picked them off by hand and sprinkled Sevin dust around.  I know that is a dreaded pesticide but I was a little desperate to save my tomatoes.

 

 

This season we had planted three different types of tomatoes.  Cherokee purples, Rutgers, and Red beefsteak.  For flavor, I must say that I liked the Cherokee purples the best.  For durability and continued output, the Rutgers did great but the tomatoes got smaller and smaller as the season went on.  I have a feeling the drought may have been the reason though.  I do not think I will try the Beefsteak tomatoes again. I had only three of those but they did very little and the tomatoes that I did get had no flavor.

 

I got one very small cabbage from my nine cabbage plants.  The flea beetles got the rest along with my Brussels sprouts. There was nothing but skeletons left no matter what I did to try to save them. My broccoli gave me several small heads that I was able to put in the freezer.  I got three quart bags out of all nine plants. 

 

This was a good experiment to see what I could do.  I know what I can plant but that I need to amend my soil in all of the boxes and tires.  I will need to add some sand and composted manure to all my raised beds.  All of the beds have settled down and now the soil in them are about 4 -5 inches below the edge of the boxes.

 

Here are pictures of the boxes as they are now, getting ready to add the amendments and let them sit over the winter.

 

 

Along with working on the raised bed garden, we are about to finally start our chicken coop.  Some friends gave us an old metal storage building.  We were also given an old metal chicken nesting box that has 14 nest boxes in it.  All we had to do is clean it up and put new bottoms and landing bars on the front of it.

 

 

The Blacksmith has already put new roosting bars and a new bottom in the bottom boxes.  He still needs to put the individual bottoms in the top boxes.  These will be a little more tedious to do.  Each will have to be measured and cut individually.  We will mount this nesting box inside the metal building. 

 

First, before all that we are going to build a small raised deck to lift the building up off the ground about two feet.  We also located a gentlemen that recycles metal and has used metal fence posts for sale.  We bought our first bundle of those to fence our chicken yard in with.  Once we have everything together, I will post again to give an update on completion.

 

 

 

But, while we are getting the materials together to do all that we plan, I am enjoying our fall weather and the beauty of God's handiwork.