Fall garden cleanup started

Picked the Sweet taters!

I dug the potatoes in the big patch Friday evening.  That ground was fairly wet and HEAVY! UGH.  Sweet potato tops looked really good here, but the results under the ground were less than exciting.  I am guessing that there is too much nitrogen in that soil.  Also, the plants ran for about 4 feet in radis from the center of the plants!  It was a lot of digging for not many taters!

The potatoes on the right are from the paw-paw patch.  They looked better!

The nest morning I got up and dug the potatoes in the paw-paw patch.  I had less hope for them since the tops of those potatoes didn't look so nice and they were overrun badly with grass and weeds.  Well, I was surprised.  I got some fairly nice potatoes!  I am planing to pressure can the bad ones and try to save a few for seed potatoes for next year.  Next year I figure I will only put them in the paw-paw patch - on the upper side since that is where the soil is well drained.

Pie-time!

I am out of blackberries but I have some rhubarb left in the freezer!  So I grabbed a bag and got some frozen strawberries (purchased) and made a pie.  I was not real pleased with the flavor though - just didn't taste like I remembered them!  Maybe I will get enough strawberries from my own plants next year to make a pie.

Strawberry-rhubarb pie.

Castor Bean seed collecting

I cut the seed "spires" off of the castor bean plants and placed them in the dehydrator.  They were a bit damp so I wanted to get them dry to they wouldn't mold or rot.  I put them in the dehydrator at 90F and ran it all weekend.  I kept hearing them popping the whole time!

Those pods are prickly!  I had to use gloves to take the pods off the spires.

I took them out of the dehydrator an removed the pods from the spires before I left, but I will have to wait until later to separate and shell the rest of the beans.

More UTV issues

Actually, I guess its really the same issue again.  I took the beast out Friday evening when digging the sweet potatoes in the big patch.  When I got on it to go back to the house, the shifter was REAL mucky - not at all easy to move - like pushing through bubble gum.  By the time I got it back to the house I couldn't shift at all!  I parked it in "H" for the night.  Next morning I checked it out.   I remove the end of the cable at the transmission side and determined that the transmission was able to shift just fine - it was the cable causing the problems - AGAIN!  I didn't have time to remove the cable and look for the problem.  I will get into that later.  Just a reminder that I had just replaced that cable the year before last!

Garden cleanup

With the sweet potatoes and tomatoes done the paw-paw patch and the front patch (the un-fenced part) were ready to be cleaned up.  So I removed the black plastic (no small task!), picked up the rocks, and mowed over the patches.

I am thinking about using some roundup on the fence line now since there is no worries of killing any vegetable plants.  The grass in the fence lines can get rather nasty.

Tomato patch all cleaned up.  Took a while to get all the rocks off of this patch!  Not to mention all of the staples an paper holders ( those red plastic ones).

More maple milling and wood chipping (and general cleanup)

I got the top part of an old maple tree and milled it up.  Got some nice wood out of it - not as much as I got from the bole last weekend - but still a good amount considering its age and the number of limbs.  After I got that log out from in front of the barn I decided to mow where those logs had been laying.  I got in the with the zero-turn mower and got wedged between the big log and the old barn door.  Darned if the old barn door didn't break!  Almost in two!  I had one board holding the entire weight of the door - and it was bowing quiet significantly!  I rushed back to the house to get a jack and a come-along (not to mention screws and power driver) and went about straightening the door structure and putting some new support boards in place.  Fortunately things turned out ok and I didn't have to rehang the door!  Whew!

Door is restored!  Better than it was last year now!

Cleaned up the weeds and grass where the logs were laying

Just a few more logs to go! LOL

After milling and cleanup (and door repair), I was able to do some chipping.  I chipped a the scrap from last week and this week as well as some miscellaneous stuff I had laying around.  The maple scrap had an annoying habit of jamming the chipper - so I had to stop and clear that - 3 times!

I am guessing that I got at most 1 cubic yard of chips there.  On the lighter side I might have enough saw dust now to finish mulching the blueberries!

More harvest

I picked more Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and a cabbage this weekend too.  There wasn't as much broccoli, just enough to steam and eat Monday night for dinner - for one person.  The cabbage will be put to good use as slaw - I am sure.  I didn't get a picture of the sprout plants, but they look pretty much like they did last weekend.  

Cleaned Sprouts, ready for blanching

Frozen and vacuum sealed

A very pretty cabbage!  This was in the "flood plain" and barely survived!

Hawk?

As I was finishing picking the sprouts and cabbage I looked up an saw this bird - pretty sure its some kind of hawk - but I don't know what kind.  I wish I had my camera and not just my phone.  I could have got a nice zoom on him as he sat there on the dead limb.