The farmers market season is ended.

Thursday was to be our second to the last farmers market with the last being on Saturday but our weather has taken a turn towards winter so our Thursday market ended early and the Saturday market cancelled.  It was cold and windy with snow predicted.  The snow seems to have gone around us and after a cold weekend it should be a bit warmer next week  The garden crops have been killed by frost but there is still lots of clean up left to do.  A part of today was spent collecting the hoses and taking down sprinklers. I use a lot of hoses.  A couple of days ago Dad and I blew out the water line that goes thru the grove to the big garden. It is a two person job, one on each side of the grove with a lot of yelling back and forth.  We never seem to remember until to late that we could call each other on our cells instead of hollering. 

I dug up the herbs that I wanted to try and overwinter and moved them to the greenhouse.   I would like to make one more trip over the lawn with the mower.  After that the next big project is to clean out the barn.  We practice a type of deep litter method in our barn.  We cover the soiled straw bedding with fresh all winter and then in the summer (or more realistically the fall) the old bedding gets mucked out and we start over.  What often happens is that instead of doing it during the summer when the barn is not really used much, it gets put off until the last minute.  It is time to get it done.  I have a date with a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow.  The herd will be glad to get back into their barn. They are locked out and they do have other shelter available but they stand there by the door looking at me as if to say 'When can we go back in?'
 

Once the barn is cleaned and the outside work finished I am hoping to get some serious blogging time in.  I have recipes to share and stories to tell.  See you soon.

Lorri

Freeze warning issued

The weather has been kind of dreary lately, cloudy, cool, some rain, even some jacket weather.  But yesterday was a glorious fall day, sunny and short sleeves.  I spent a good part of it outside doing some mowing and some fall clean up chores.  Today isn't expected to be as nice but I will be outside most of today as well as a freeze warning has been issued for tonight and I need to harvest what I can just in case.  The rest of the ten day forecast appears to look like it will stay above freezing but tonight's predicted 31 degrees could be the end of my tomatoes.

I have been doing some work in the greenhouse.  I hope to begin seeding the greens this week so I am cleaning and organizing and sanitizing equipment.  Last year, I had purchased a pot of strawberry plants and I overwintered them successfully so this year I am hoping to expand that and try it on a larger scale.  This past spring my daughter bought some strawberry plants in little pots and we planted several together into four hanging baskets and they were outside this summer.  Some of them developed runners so I have separated them and put them in hanging baskets.  I also have a raised bed of strawberry plants that were given to me when a friend's patch was dismantled and those are also getting runners and some of them are trying to get a foothold outside of their wooden walls so I am hoping to get those relocated to pots for the greenhouse as well and today might be my last opportunity. 

It is canning season and my excess produce is making its way to jars.  I have been doing tomato recipes and some jelly.  As I move through the canning process I have been dreaming about an outside canning kitchen.  Earlier this summer I bought a vintage sink to use outdoors. 

My plan is this winter to get it mounted on a stand and plumbed for water from the hose with another hose to drain away the water and I will use that sink to wash produce.  I am also looking at outdoor cooking and propane camp stoves and flat top grills as there never seems to be enough burners for all of those big pots in my tiny farm kitchen. 

I am hoping to have a farmers market update post soon.  In addition to baked goods and produce sales I have been trying my hand at soap making and gluten free baking.  Lots of stuff to post about. 

Happy fall!

Joining Met Monday at Between Naps on the Porch