Last of the elderberries? Tater picking!

Berry picking winding down!

We are not sure what the final yield is - somewhere around 25-26 gallons we think!.

Probably the last major picking of elderberries this season

Last picking for the weekend.  Didn't even fill the small bucket!

                           

Potato picking!

Wasn't right on my birthday - but it was close!   I picked up the potato plow I had ordered at TSC. After mowing the last bit of tall field grass I took the flail mower off the tractor an put on the plow!

LAst bit of mowing one before I remove the flail mower and put on the potato plow

Because there was so many weeds the plow did tend to lift.  When it lifted it would cut up a bunch of taters!  None-the-less, it was a heck of a lot easier and faster then digging by hand!  

Dirty taters fresh from the harvest.  This pick includes the ones I picked own at the city house

Washed, cured and sorted to remove damaged ones

Damaged potatoes will get used first - thinking of FDing some mashed taters!

More berry picking

Strawberries and blackberries are still producing.  We got a few.

Blackberries are slowing down.  Probably get a few next weekend too.

Some lathe work for friend

A friend of mine at work is creating a animatronic tree for halloween.  He needed a couple of shafts turned down to fit some flange bearings.  It has been awhile, but I got things running pretty quick. Unfortunately I only did one of the shafts!  I will take care of the other next weekend.

Video of the process.

Trimming around hazelnuts

While mowing I noticed that the hazelnut trees where getting a bit overwhelmed with grass and weeds, so I cleaned them up.

Some of these still look pretty rough.  I hope they all survive the winter.
I will try to make enough wood chips to help them out.

Trimmed around some of the elderberry plants too

Again, while mowing, I saw some plants getting overwhelmed by weeds so I made a point to trim around these elderberries.

The deer ate most all of the leaves off of several of these plants!  I guess this is payback for putting the electric fence around the beans!

Parrot Tree survives!

This is the tree that Tom and Julie gave to me to plant during the weekend of the reunion.  It was a bad time to plant, but since this tree is supposely a native to Iran (Iraq?) we figured maybe it would handle this heat and drought.  It initially looked like it died, but here I see some new green growth! Notice that some of the new growth seems to have been eaten!  Not sure if deer or bugs.  I might have to put a cage around it if its deer.

Several new branches of green!

Squash and corn harvest

More summer squash came in - so Katherine will be happy!  Also, a lot of the corn was ready.  I grabbed several ears and decided that I needed to go get a bushel basket!

We decided to try freeze-drying the corn to see how it turns out.  Also, we still have plenty of frozen corn from the previous couple years harvests and we just don't want to fill up the freezer!

The corn is under the cabbages

I had two full trays go into the dryer!  I filled the trays to the brim (note that this tray is not full).
I figure I got about 5-6 pints of corn.  Not bad for the crappy time I had with corn this year!

Tomatoes are ripening

The tomatoes that I planted are finally starting to ripen.  I harvest mostly romas, a few others were starting to blush.  I also de-weeded a bunch of the tomatoes and found a tomato worm!  I sprayed with sevin.

I put most of these tomatoes in the freeze-dryer with the corn.  I saved a few out to make tomato gravy for over some of the new taters!

I noticed that some of the vines were partially eaten, so I looked around and finally found the culprit! (there is a worm dead center of this picture - look carefully!).  I applied some sevin to the tomato plants.  I hated to do it - but these worms can destroy harvest fast!

Sweetpotatoes

Woohoo - they are blooming!  I am very hopeful to get a good yield of them this year.  I love them and they are a very good food.

Winter squash

I also noticed that some of the winter squash plants has little squashes on them! 

Hot summer weekend.

Mom, Tom and Julie pay a visit

I stopped by Mom's place to pick up a gas can and some stuff she had for us.  I kind of got concerned when I saw her car in the garage but couldn't find her anywhere!  I went around the property, in the house, up and down the stairs - no mom!  I got in my car to head to my place, contemplating calling my siblings to see if they knew anything, when I got a call from Tom.  They were headed over to my place for a visit (Mom was with them)! Whew!

So, anyway, here are some pictures Tom an Julie took while visiting me and mom's place.

Julie, cleaning around some of mom's grapes

Mom, lol, great expression!

Looks like mom has a groundhog.

On mom's porch

The metal arbor there is something I made for mom and dad quite a while ago

These sunflowers came up from seed that the birds knocked out of the feeder

There I am on the left!  Dear lord, I need to get a haircut and loose some weight!

Looking at my "big garden" and the apple orchard

A panoramic view

Looking out across the valley

Hazy, hot day.  Still a nice view.

Obligatory family shot.  Tom on right, mom in center.

close up

I have no idea what we were talking about.

Friday night

I made a pie!  I brought up most of the 11 quarts of frozen green beans (from the beans I picked last weekend from the paw-paw patch).  I needed to make room for the beans in the deep freeze!  I will have bok choi and broccoli and corn soon and I will need more freezer space.  All future green beans will have to be canned.

I made this blackberry an rhubarb pie to use up some old pie dough and berries/rhubarb from the freezer.  I need to make room for the new stuff!

Work on the farm this weekend

I mowed around the locust trees and the hill next to the orchard after the family left.    The next morning I woke to a thunderstorm!  Well, it was too wet to do much outside, so I sharpened some of my chainsaw chains.  

I was able to get out later Saturday to trim around the blueberries.  I wanted to treat the blueberries with epsom salts (they are deficient in magnesium evidently), but I couldn't find any at the house.  So I went to the local hardware store - they didn't have any either but suggested I go to the local grocery store.  They had it!  So I got a couple of the small bags and took them home.  I used 1/4 C per plant, as recommended.   I sprinkled it at about 8-12 inches in a circle around the base of the plant.

The blueberries.  They aren't dieing... but they aren't growing either.

After that I went out to work on trimming the old pea patch in the big garden.  It took a while with the weedwacker, but I subdued the weeds enough to cover the patch with black plastic.  

On the left - no more weed forest!  The black plastic should help hold the heat and hopefully destroy the weed seeds.

Garlic harvested!

I cleaned up some weeds in the front patch too.  Used the weedwacker.  I can finally get in there to de-weed the strawberries!  On the right there you see where I dug the garlic.

Ugh.  The poor garlic was essentially sitting in mud!  Its amazing I got this much from my plantings!

Cleaned up a bit and dried, it looks more appetizing.  I used some to make a nice spaghetti sauce.

And speaking of pies an leftovers.. Broccoli and Bok Choi harvest and freezing

I harvested some broccoli and bok choi from the big garden.  I froze 2 pints of broccoli an 4 quarts of bok choi!  Anyway, I had also brought a half bag of broccoli and cauliflower from the city that needed to be used. So I made another pie!  A pot pie of sorts.  Broccoli, cauliflower, chicken breast, cheese and a sauce.  It needed more sauce, but it was still good!

I almost didn't get a picture!  It was going fast!

Farm pictures

The front patch where the squash are.  I swear I think I see some SVB bites on the squash plants!  I sprayed around the base of the squash with sevin.  Mom suggested that - she had heard it somewhere.  We will see.

The buttercup squash are actually doing quite well!  Most of the squash are blooming now.  I didn't get a picture of the pumpkins, but I did see one about the size of a fist - I am sure there are more I didn't see.

Big patch.  More broccoli is coming.  I dusted with sevin before I left.  The sweet potatoes are looking much better!  Oh, and the eggplant are starting to bloom! Also, I picked about 20 lbs of cucumbers - they are on the left in the picture - outside the garden.

The corn is filling out nicely!

Cucumbers and castor beans on the left side of the garden in this picture.

I spraayed all the trees and the grapes with sevin and fungicide.  The grapes seem to be improving.  The peach trees are looking quite alarming though.  Not sure whats happening to them.  They seem to be loosing their leaves for no reason.  Too wet? Fungus?

I put out new Japanese beetle bags too.  The old bags were full and stinky.