Porter tomato

Porter is vigorous plant about 5ft tall with 5 small tomatoes...but a bug found this one already. It's not like I have that many to spare, hopefully production is beginning to kick in now. I hope so, because there is only about 5-6 weeks left before first frost.

Chicken update

Had first chick casualty today, so the count is down to 29. Don't know what happened. I checked on them this morning, turned off lights so they wouldn't get too warm. Probably starting to get overcrowded, so I've moved them into outdoor pen. They need good air circulation. All look healthy, but the breed is strange in that they spend a lot of time sitting and not scratching....think it maybe due to their rapid weight gain.

Tomato report

Yellow Pear is huge with lots of green tomatoes, Rolf Red Heart is a wimpy plant with only 1 tomato....but did have setback with hornworm. Green Zebra is large but zippo blooms and fruit, Golden Jubilee is less than 4 foot with no fruit, Eva Purple Ball has no blooms or fruit, Juliet is over 8 foot tall and very vigorous but NO tomatoes, La Roma has no fruit and Viva Italia has 2. Supersweet 100 has fruit, red grape and red currant tomatoes have healthy big plants, no fruit, but all 3 were hit by hornworm. Cherokee Purple and Brandywine went in later and have the longest number of days to maturity, but no blooms yet.

The temperatures have been unseasonably cool with highs only reaching the 80s today, whereas the previous two weeks have been rainy with temps in the 70s and lows in the lower 60s and high 50s.....so NO excuses for dropped blooms!

Tree sale at Home Depot

A beautiful 40 gallon Red Oak for $150, and a 20 gallon Sweet Gum and Burr Oak for only $20 each.

Weeding peas

This morning I worked on the 30ft row of Sugar Snap peas, pulling back all the bindweed and seperating it from the individual pea plants. A lot of trouble, and I won't be able to keep up with it forever, but if I can give the peas a good start they will outrun the bindweed. My allergies are horrific today and that is all I plan on doing outside. We got warm, sunny weather again and the pollens or molds or something must be high because I am sneezing my head off.

Yellow Pear tomato

Baby pumpkin

Big cheese variety I think.

More fungi

A different mushroom than I've photographed previously

Bagging, Sealing and Freezing

Okay, here are the hardcore numbers. That entire grocery sack full of beans only netted me 7 one pound bags. Jessie and I cut up the beans and we didn't have discard many. If I am generous in my estimates, and say that we probably had already harvested about half again that much, we would have totaled about 10-11 pounds of processed green beans in our 40 foot row. If I wanted to feed my family one of these, (it's only 4 cups), a week for a year, I would have to grow 5 more rows for a minimum of 240 feet - and that's only for one serving a week!!! This was probably so much less labor than canning. How did women used to manage this?????

Cooling

Equal time in ice water stops the cooking process.

Blanching

3 minutes in boiling water

Now comes the hard work!

Wash, trim, blanch, ice and bag. Sounds easy, right?!

Sack of beans

Harvesting green beans

These are Contender beans that were planted on 9/25. This was the third picking, I picked a brown grocery sack full which represents about half of the harvest, and they were probably a little on the large size. I pulled up the entire plant at this stage. About 10% were too little to be of use, and about another 10% were no good with some kind of orange rust and were wilty. We've had a lot of rain, and the leaves were full of holes. I've seen both black crickets and the occasional grasshopper, but no bug holes in the beans to speak of.

Paul and I were trying to estimate how much it would take to feed our family of six for the year. To give a serving of one cup each three times a week, we were thinking we'd need to plant a 200ft row. That is five times what we had this year.

I also have a 40ft row of Blue Lake that isn't ready yet, but which is not looking good. I also have a 30 ft row of Kentucky Wonder pole beans, and I'm curious what the production will be like. Also if it will be less susceptible to the rust since the beans won't be resting on the ground. I know they will be easier to pick!

Goats like green beans

The does got all the plants when I was done picking green beans, and they loved them.

Pretty Spunky

Not a bad pose. She is a little more shy than Speckles, but she is turning into a very pretty girl. Her eye healed up beautifully after she snagged the lid on something about three weeks ago. Interesting thing about that was that the vet had us treat the lid with mastitis medicne, (Tomorrow).

All kinds of mushrooms

Here is another specimen I found growing in the wood shavings pile. We must be having Seattle weather, because we've had numerous kinds of mushrooms and I have seen several fairy rings...which I don't remember ever seeing before.

Taking down the shade cloth

I disassembled much of the shade hoop house. Mainly because its been so cool and rainy, and I think the tomatoes and peppers would benefit by more sun. Also, maybe more wind pollination and insect pollinators for the tomatoes which are huge plants, but slow to produce.

Fozzy the fuzzy caterpillar

Fall weather

We've been having some really nice, unusually early fall weather. The highs today were in the upper 60s. I saw many farmers out seeding their wheat today.

Heifer calves

Since Anabel preganancy tested positive, I moved her into the back pasture to wean her calf. I also moved the two younger jersey heifers (Spunky and Speckles) into the front pasture and out of the paddock.

Garlic is sprouting!

Broiler chicks

The chicks got too large for the tupperware in the garage, so out they went to a water trough in the barn.

Rain gauge

Abby and Suzette

With Anabel in the background. Both calves have some Jersey in them. Abby on the left is 1/2 Jersey and 1/2 Dexter. Suzette is 1/2 Jersey, and maybe 1/2 Brown Swiss.

Rain gauge

Long suffering Angelique

We practiced our blood drawing technique on poor Angelique.

Pretty Luffa bloom

Shrooms

Non cultivated, and not to be eaten!

Cuke

This Sumter cucumber has fruited and grown in cool rainy weather. Has a better taste than summer ones, but a very tough skin.

Roma

These tomatoes are slower than Christmas! The foliage looks great, and there are some baby tomatoes. I just hope with all the cool and rainy weather, that we will still get some decent fruit from these plants.

Kentuck Wonder

These pole beans are growing past the top of the 60 inch netting.

Butternut squash

It had sneaked out of the shade house and through the bean plants.

Blood sample

Had a HECK of a time getting this tiny amount of blood from Angelique. The vet made it look so easy! I think the problem was our syringes and needles were slip style and not lock, and the vacuum was making it impossible to draw blood. Poor Angelique was very patient and endured many sticks without too much complaint. Once we get this technique down we are going to start blood testing all the goats to confirm that they are CAE/CL free, and to pinpoint pregnancies.

Shots for goats

Finally vaccinated all the does with Lutalyse. The bucks broke through a fence about two weeks ago and got in with them. I don't think the youngest three does were affected, but I gave it to all the girls just in case. We don't want them breeding too young, we don't want winter babies, and we don't want to cross breed with closely related bucks and does. I hope the drug is effective. It's main purpose is to bring on ovulation, but it is supposed to cause abortion in a pregnant animal. (It did NOT work with our Jersey Anabel who was supposed to be 6 weeks pregnant from the AI process and ended up being 4 months pregnant at her check on 9/3/2009. Fortunately it does not affect the baby if the pregnancy holds.) Pregnant women are not supposed to handle this drug at all.

Sugar snap peas are loving the rain

Still raining

Giamongous grasshopper

Yuck

Beautiful pumpkin vines

Peas popping!

Jessie planted broccoli, red cabbage and brussel sprouts yesterday. We also put in 137 garlic cloves in a 4x10ft bed. It was an assortment of gourmet garlic that will do well in warm climates, including several creole garlics.

Lettuce weather

Jack Be Little pumpkin

Baby Butternut squash

Hornworm damage

Rainy days

Rain

Cornish Cross chickies

I bought 30 chicks at .85 cents each. Glad to say they must have been a healthy batch, because I haven't lost any yet.

Day one of my broiler project with 30 chicks.