I “heart” gardening in the cooler temps. No bugs, no humidity, not many weeds, and things still grow here. You may remember my many attempts at starting cole crops but the doggone chickens kept getting into the beds and tearing them up? Well, I still have a few brocollis, but not many. I doubt I’ll get them to form a head. That’s ok, because the greens are coming into their own. The Swiss chard looks like it’s growing in the Jurassic Period it’s so huge! And haha chickens, it’s in the fenced in area of the garden.
We had our first freeze on 11/26/2010. All of the zinnias and sunflowers are done. The basil is still alive, as are the peppers, but I’m thinking the freeze we had last night finished them off. I won’t know until this evening when I get home.
Here’s the harvest totals for the month:
Banana peppers: 4lbs
Cayanne peppers: 2lbs
Swiss Chard: 4lbs
Mizuna: 2lbs
radish, mixed: 3lbs
Eggs: 33
Chickens: 27. We should have 33 total. I have no idea where these wayward chickens have gone off to. If I had to speculate, I’d say a red-tailed hawk carried them off, or they got lost in the woods somewhere.
Future plans: We’re going to process our remaining roosters the week of Christmas, probably New Year’s Eve since that’s the only day off we both have from work after the Christmas holidays. After this is done, we’re going to install a higher fencing, clip the wings of the hens and remaining rooster and only let them out after I get home from work, around 4:00pm. I know this won’t prevent a hawk attack, but it will prevent them from pooing all over my carport, driveway, walkway, porch swings, and patio chairs. You’d swear with 1.5 acres of land they could poo to their butt’s content out in the yard. Apparently grass is not good enough for pooing. ::insertrollingeyes::
Looking ahead: It’s almost time to start spring seed crops. I’m actually just thinking about getting a few glass windows and setting up a makeshift cold frame and starting a few tomato plants in the ground instead of trying to baby them in cups and my kitchen table. I mean, volunteer tomato plants produced quite a bit last summer before the blossom end rot took over. I can’t wait to begin receiving my seed catalogues!
Here’s the link to my google document that shows my harvest tallys for the whole year:
So what’s growing in you area?
Dec 01, 2010 @ 19:59:02
Pretty much nothin’ is growing here. We had our first snowfall today and already have about 4″ with several more to come by weeks end. That’s OK…the pantry is full of home canned goodies, and the freezers are full of pastured pork, chicken, and beef. We’re good till spring!
Dec 01, 2010 @ 21:19:24
We’re getting snow up here. There’s still kale in the garden, and sunchokes and parsnips, but it’s much easier to hit the pantry or freezer until spring comes at this point. I did more some celery and parsley inside and it is still going strong.
Dec 06, 2010 @ 14:08:40
There’s this guy @ the farmer’s market who thinks he knows everything about everything and he’s very loud with his opinions. I was talking w/one of the vendors about my peppers and Mr. Loudmouth says “oh, those peppers are DEAD, DEAD I tell ya”. Well, dude, they aren’t dead, so haha. I hate “know it alls”.
Anyway, it’s getting into the 20s tonight, so they’ll die for sure this time. We may even have some snow flurries, but I doubt it.