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.

Post #200!! Fall is here. Orchard care and wood-chips

First off, last weeks preserving efforts

I finally tried the Mrs Wages Dilly Beans mix!  I used the best beans of the pick.  6 pints

I got 3 and a half quarts of tomato sauce.  If you look at the previous posting I had already made 10 pints of pasta sauce.  The remaining tomatoes were initially too green to use so i let them ripen and made them into plain sauce.

15 quarts of green beans!  I processed them an extra 10 mins to soften them up a bit more.

Blueberries

Well, i wanted to clean up the sawmill - there was a lot of debris, slabs, and sawdust cluttering the place up and its now cool enough that I could start milling some more.   So after I moved out a bunch of slabs and organized some pieces that I might feed through the chipper (I need more wood chips already!) I was able to get to the sawdust.  I shoveled out 3 front loader buckets full of sawdust and placed it on the blueberries - rather thick.

As a side note, I suspected that my sawmill base was out of level so i grabbed a carpenters level and checked it out after I had cleaned up,  The base was almost perfectly level side-to-side.  However, front to back it wasn't - and I think I initially set it up incorrectly!  I front-to-back is level from the top of the guide rail to the opposite bed flat - but i think its supposed to be leveled from one side flat to the other side flat!  I am going to have to check the manual to make sure.  

I have 22 plants and was able to get all but 10 of them dressed.   I will be running the mill more though soon so I will have plenty of sawdust in the future.

Wood-chips

I continued to place the wood-chips around the orchard trees.  I put a full front-loader bucket full around each tree.  I ran out of wood chips before i finished.  I am planing on chipping some of the mill ends next weekend.

I preferentially placed wood-chips around the plum trees since they are looking a bit harsh

Pumpkins are ripening!

I didn't have any decent pictures of these so I decided to take a few shots.  The "Cinderella" pumpkins are in the back nearest the house.

They are a striking orange.

A few spaghetti squash there.  Way more then I wanted.

I am trying to push these on people at work.  I have so much powdered pumpkin left from last year, I really really don't want any more!  Although i do plan on testing the new pumpkin type out and probably dehydrate and powder that.

Castor beans are ripening!

They are still growing too!  I need to put some sacks around the seed bunches otherwise they are going to exploded their seeds all over the place!  I want to have enough left for seeds for next year!  I have only managed to save 5 beans so far!

This guy is about 7-8 feet tall now (that post is over 6 feet tall).  Still shorter than the ones mom and dad grew - those would get 10 feet or more!

Harvest

I picked tomatoes, Kale, and broccoli before I left.  Sorry, I only got pics of the tomatoes.   I processed the broccoli (blanched and froze) and kale (braised it with sausage and onions - it was dinner) Sunday night and then sorted and processed some of the tomatoes Monday night.  I used the Mrs Wages chili mix again.  After reviewing how much tomato sauce I have in storage, i don't feel bad about making more chili base!

Before sorting.  I don't have all of them in there though.  I got the volunteers from the big patch and the front patch as well.

After sorting.  I am letting these ripen up before i process them into more chili base.

the chili base I made from the first sort of the tomatoes.  I was surprised at how much I had.  The mix is supposed to be used for 5 pints and I got 6.5.  I made chili with the left over .5 pint along with some of my old (2013) tomatoes.  It tastes great!

Finally, some real rain

Rainy day

It rained Saturday,  up at the farm.   I stayed inside and put the old canned goods on the oak shelves I made this spring.   I got them all on the shelves,  but with almost no room to spare.

The "clean" storage room where the canned goods used to be.  This became the storage location for the wine making supplies...

The wine making supplies used to be here in the guest room!  I may or may not move that dehydrator out.  

Orchard care

I finally got the spiral tubes that I had ordered and brought them with me this weekend.  I placed them on the fruit trees.    Well, most of the fruit trees.  Some of the cherry trees were too small.  I will have to trim the tubes to fit.  Hopefully I will get to that next time....

The orchard trees have white spiral protectors on now.  Hopefully these will dissuade the deer and rabbits from damaging the bark

I cut off the two dead dwarf apple trees that died this summer - if you are wondering why the trees aren't planted all the way tot the top of the orchard hill (below).    There are two crabapple trees (which you can kind of see in the pic below - they don't have spiral tubes on them - 3rd row from the left) that are looking rough.  I think I will replace them with new trees next spring.  They not only have bad bark damage but are infested with white aphids.

I put a full front loader bucket of wood chips around the newest apple trees (those that survived the summer anyways)  I want to put this much wood chips around all the trees to help keep insect damage down, keep soil temperatures under control and help maintain moisture.

Most for the cherry trees have spiral tubes now.

These little ones need a special fitting.  I also need to put wood chips on all of these.  I hope they survive the winter!  Wood chips should help I think.

Sweet pickled Jalapenos

Before I left the city I picked the jalapenos peppers.  I didn't grow as many as I did last year, so I only had enough for these three pints (I may have more - they aren't ripe yet - not sure I will bother though as I have so many canned from last year...).

So pretty!

These should be good on sandwiches.

More tomatoes for pasta sauce

I picked the tomatoes again - this may be the last time (I keep thinking that though - so we will see!). I got quite a few from the volunteer tomatoes in the front patch.  Almost a third of the juice that I made into pasta sauce came from the volunteer tomatoes!  I didn't get pics of the tomatoes that I processed into the sauce - they looked like the other tomatoes I have shown already!  I did sort the tomatoes though.  Some of these weren't quite ripe yet so I saved them to make sauce with later when they do ripen.

After the sort.  These will be made into sauce later when they ripen a bit more.

10 more pints of pasta sauce!  I used the Mrs. Wages mix like before.  Looking at about $7 worth of mix (I got the mix at Southern States on the way back from, they are a bit pricey)

Last of the Green Beans!

I went down to the beans patch to pick a few beans for dinner and after I saw how many (and how ripe they were) I decided to just pull and pick them all!

I started out just planning on picking a small bag full.

Then i got serious!  I ended up with two full grey trays of green beans!  I would not be surprised if they canned out to 12 or more quarts!

Other things

I harvested the last of the cucumbers.  Those plants are dead for sure now... or if not dead then at least not producing more fruit!

I also harvested more eggplant.  They were a bit on the small side.  The weather has turned cold (in the 50-60's this weekend) and things aren't getting big anymore.  Well, except for the brussel sprouts - they are looking good!  I got a little bit more broccoli - which I processed and froze,  I could have got more kale - but frankly I am tired of eating it and we have so much left in the freezer from last year!  I picked a few bell peppers to take back.  We really dn't need them though.  We already have 21 pints of sweet bell pepper pickles.

I was looking over the castor beans and noticed that a bunch of the seed pods were missing.  I at first assumed that the animals had got them.  I did find one pod intact and shoved it in my pocket so I could save some seed.  Well, as i was driving along to moms place I felt a "pop" in my pocket - starlted the heck out of me!  Felt like a little party popper novelty going off.  The castor bean seed pods acutally explode to distribute the seeds!  I did not know that! Very neat.  But i will have to put a bag or something over the remaining seed pods so that I can collect the seeds for planting next year.