wow, a productive day at the farm

Today Mom and Dad came out and we had a really productive day at the farm.  We worked hard and will be stiff and sore but we got several good jobs done.  Ten days ago we had our lumberjack day and part of the results of that cutting and splitting and stacking is a pile of brush that we burn.  This year we rented a chipper/shredder and had hoped to chip the branches and use them for mulch instead of burning them.  It worked fine for shredding the bags of leaves but was just not strong enough to grind through the volume of branches that we have at the end of our weekend.  So, today was the day to burn the brush.  The accumulated brush was in a pile that I am guessing was probably 20 feet long, 10 feet wide and maybe 4 feet high.  We had a pile started where we had once burned before and I had been piling weeds and plant material that I did not want to go into my compost pile there.  The plan was to burn that and once it was hot we would feed the brush a few branches at a time onto the hot fire. 

Getting the fire started and hot was a challenge.  The last couple days have been cloudy and damp/rainy.  Even with Dad's 'encouragement' the fire struggled to get going and just when we were thinking that we were going to have to give up and try another day it decided to cooperate. 

While Dad encouraged the fire with various combustibles , Mom and I worked on pulling some nails from Caitlin and Robb's reclaimed lumber.  We had a nice little pile of nail free boards by the time we could begin dragging the brush to the fire.

We also worked on some landscaping around the house.  We decided while we were painting to pull out the old plant material from the front of the house, add some dirt to improve the grade away from the house and then put down plastic and a border and add some wood bark.  I am so pleased that we were able to get the smaller west side done and ready for bark.  

There are no before pictures but here are a few 'afters'.

8 or 10 nail free boards

The fire, winding down. 

Between the tree on the right and the white door there used to be a big pile of brush.

Ready for wood bark.

 I am tired but it is a good tired.  Thanks Mom and Dad for all the help today. 

 

update on the fall cleanup

I decided--just as it was getting dark--to run out to the cornfield to get quick picture or two to show the progress on the fall cleanup in the cornfield.  The pictures are a little dark partly due to the late hour but also it is a dreary, drizzly, foggy day.  I have been working to finish harvesting the crops, remove the dead plant material, build raised rows where they didn't get built last spring and plant a cover crop.  It is likely too late to get consistent germination of the oats yet this fall but hopefully having them in place now when the weather warms up in the spring they will start to grow and the garden will still benefit.

In the top picture you can see most of the garden.  Where you can barely make out the small black fencepost along the left edge of the picture is where the last two rows of potatoes are waiting to be dug.  That is all that is left to be harvested from this garden. 

You can see the posts that I have been putting in the ground down the center of the garden.  These will serve multiple purposes.  I have placed them every five rows.  I will put house numbers on them so that I can have a little easier time telling which row is which.  I also will mount sprinklers on top of them with a hose that reaches to the edge of the garden.  I can then hook up my long hose without dragging it through the plants.  I also plant to string wire between some of the posts to make some support for raspberry plantings.

The couple orange areas near the bottom right of the photo is leaves that are placed between the rows in the permanent walkways.  Other places I have used grass clippings but at this point i am using what is available.  We have lots of leaves.   

In the bottom picture you can see two green rows and these are the oats that were planted a while back. They are about four inches tall and so far there are only four or five rows that got planted early enough to germinate.  these rows have the grass clippings between them.  At this point there are 25 rows that are completed.  That is counting the the potato rows as done and I am estimating that there is room for another eight or ten rows on the far west end that i hope to get finished before the snow flies.  Getting them done this fall will sure save time in the spring.  They should just require a quick turn over of the cover crop, a little compost mixed in and ready for plants. 

In the back of both pictures you can see the stalks from the sweet corn still standing.  I am still hopeful that those will be dug out yet this fall. 

fall cleanup

It has been cool and wet lately making it challenging to get what I want to get done in the gardens.  Today I worked on removing the frost damaged tomato plants.  The heirlooms were the hardest hit so I am pulling out the plants and sowing a cover crop in the rows.  I am not sure if it is too cold and wet for the oats to germinate but I am thinking if they don't come this fall perhaps they will grow in the early spring.  The ten day forecast looks like 40's or near 40's most days for highs but some nights dropping into the high 20s.

I have been happy with the paste tomatoes and the Brandywines.  The plants are huge and the root systems are great.  There were enough red and reddish tomatoes still on the plants to fill a good sized laundry basket half full.  I guess I am not done canning yet.  Just about put away all the big pots and canning equipment.

The cherry tomatoes are still in pretty good shape and we are trying to rescue as many as possible while they are still producing.  They are another variety that I have been pleased with this year.  I am planning to save seed from these varieties and see if I can grow some in the spring again for next summer's garden.  What I will do differently is a better job of staking or caging them and to not plant them in adjacent rows.  I am planning to do a lot of research and planning this fall to incorporate changes and see if we can find a way to make it a little easier to harvest the tomatoes.

The big beef tomatoes were great.  The fruit was great tasting, did not have a lot of trouble with bugs and was nice sized except for the last of the season which were smaller.  They were tied to a fence and did really well.  The fence seemed to be tall enough and plants on both sides worked out pretty well.    I would do that again.  The indeterminate tomatoes tipped over the cages so I think that i will look at doing a taller fence for them.  Even the larger diameter cages did not support enough of the plant. 

Once the tomatoes are done I still have the potatoes and sweet potatoes to dig and then those rows need to raised.  Hopefully the weather will hang on long enough to get that done.  Other projects include digging up the sweet corn stalks and stacking them and pulling up the rest of the vines and the fallen fruit.  And then there is the potager...