Cabin Crafted

Blog

  • Finally!

    This year’s garden has not been the success of past years. The peas gave us fresh peas to eat, but few made it to the freezer. The first crop of bush beans provided quite a number of meals fresh and some are in the freezer and the second crop is about to bloom. I hope the bean beetles are done with their work and will let this crop grow. This morning, I pulled the dry skins from the onions to prep them for storage. About 1/3 of the crop are already mushy and will go straight to the compost pile. A handful are salvagable if I use them quickly. But there are onions to go on the hardware cloth shelf in the non climate controlled part of the basement.

    The trash
    Use them fast
    Spread out to store

    Last evening after dinner, I went out to weed and harvest what I could. The ground cherries are forming and beginning to drop and as they do, they are being husked and frozen until there are enough for a batch of jam. The tomatillos are the same, forming and freezing until enough are gathered for simmer sauce and Tomatillo/Jalapeno/Lime jam. I planted determinate tomatoes this year as I started them to be controllable in granddaughter’s garden. The six I gave them failed and they ended up with indeterminate ones purchased from the nursery to have to deal with, but that means all of my tomatoes will ripen at about the same time. As they begin to ripen, they too are being frozen to make the skins easier to remove and to save up enough to can in batches of pizza sauce, pasta sauce, or diced tomatoes. The bucket was about half full of those goodies and several cucumbers. This is the first year we have gotten useable peaches from our tree. I brought in a basket full of them to eat and to make a batch of peach jam. After lunch, the canner pot was lifted down from it’s high shelf, the peaches peeled and chopped and 4 half pints of jam made. While it was canning, 3 pints of garlic dill pickle slices were packaged and they followed in the canner.

    The popcorn is tasselling nicely and the squash underneath look healthy. They are a short vined mini hubbard style squash, but they are all developing long necks which makes me question whether they were properly packaged, but they are a winter squash and should keep well.

    The one thing that is thriving is kale and hubby doesn’t really care for it.

  • Oh Boy, stick a fork in me…

    …I’m totally done. Done staining, done in. Last night was a sleep is optional night, I may have slept for 3 hours, but was awake when it was light and it was cool out, so I donned my painting clothes, dug through old deck stain until I found a gallon and a half of penetrating oil stain, grabbed a couple of brushes, stirred up the stain with the stirring attachment to the power drill, and tackled the coop. Here is a before picture.

    The wood was so dry it soaked up a gallon and a quarter of stain. My efforts put me in a rather uncomfortable spot trying to get the peak on the pop door side, it is too high to reach from the ground because of the slope. The step stool was not level, the end with legs pushed down into the ground. That end of the coop sits on several cinder blocks while the other end is only on a thin half block. And the pop door side is the side that has a fencing roof over the pen that doesn’t go all the way to the coop roof, just high enough for us to slip in to open and close the pop door. The sides you see above are the east and south sides and lack any real overhang. When the coop has to be resided in a few years, I hope we can remedy that.

    This is after on the west side. To do the coop, I had to hold the gallon can in my right hand while I stained with my left because everytime I set it down, the hens came running over to see what kind of goodies I had in the bucket. My arms are spent. Hopefully, my efforts will give this siding a couple more years before it has to be replaced.

    A google search indicates we shouldn’t let the dogs go across the stained porch floor for 24 to 48 hours and Ranger, the Mastiff is still resistent to going through the garage. He goes to the barrier at the porch and just looks at me like why don’t you move it for me. I would be happier if the dogs would learn to use the garage, utility room access and egress regularly, it would keep muddy feet off the front porch and the wood floor in the living room.

    Tomorrow we are expecting thunderstorms. If there is any energy left in this body today, the furniture will be swept free of spider webs and dog hair, scrubbed free of bird droppings and ready to carefully carry back on to the porch tomorrow between storms.

    I meant to get paint to repaint the old milk can that sits on the front porch and forgot earlier today when we went out for a little while. We also need to get paint to repaint both sides of all the exterior doors, it has been a decade since they were done. That will take a whole day to accomplish and has to be done on a dry day that is cool enough to leave the doors ajar while they dry. It will get done eventually, but before cold weather so the house looks fresh and well maintained for the upcoming autumn weather ahead.

    The spider plants are back outside, tomorrow, the rest of the houseplants will join them. The fan is reassembled, the decorative birdhouses hung.

    And I climbed the 8 foot ladder to reach up and rehang my terra cotta Sun face that was a gift from my Sis a long time ago.

    We bought a new door mat and a matching 4 by 6 foot runner to go from the door mat to the edge of the porch to try to reduce the wear on that high traffic area. It can’t go down until tomorrow evening when it has been 48 hours since staining was done. New mats and furniture will complete the task and the porch will be usable again and the exterior maintenance other than mowing and weeding if it ever really rains again.

  • Hip, Hip, Hooray

    The deck stain for the front porch dries to touch in 1 hour at 50% relative humidity. It is a bit more than that here so it probably took a couple of hours, but many hours before last night’s much needed rain. Not enough rain, but some. Today’s rain chances dissipated, Sherman Williams is open for 6 hours on Sunday, and the stain was on sale, $16 off the gallon price, so a nice sale.

    Because the older cans were totally unusable, though they were very old. We used a bit more than half a gallon yesterday doing the rails, balusters, and kickboards, so about a half gallon left to work on the floor, so we only bought one more gallon today. After lunch, I donned my painting outfit and got on my hands and knees to brush the stain on the floor. The boards are 4″ wide and I was using a 4″ brush doing 3 boards at a pass. It took about 9 boards before my knees screamed and I sat, scooting back and forth across the 8 ‘ depth of the porch, moving backwards, every 3 boards. When I got to the post that marks the east opening of the rail, I shifted to the west end to work back toward the middle. As I ran out of the first can, my knees said no and scooting was inefficient and I remembered a square oak plant rolling stand tucked away under the hutch. It was perfect to sit on and push myself back and forth. It took about an hour and a half to get the floor done with a coat and it had to wait 4 hours before it could be recoated. The only areas that really needed two coats were the 15 boards that mark the porch exit and the 3 boards on the west end of the porch that gets full west sun year round. We had put a coat on those boards yesterday while doing the other work, so they got their second coat. After dinner, the heavy traffic entry area got a second coat.

    This presents a bit of problem as the dogs are used to coming and going through that door. The German Shepherd will go out the back door and down the deck steps or through the utility area and the garage if coaxed. The Mastiff will not do the open backed deck steps and he has been scolded so many times for going in the garage, he resists going through there even on a leash. A leash and a sliver of the chicken we were having for dinner and two adults managed to get him back inside. The dogs will have to take that route at least tonight and tomorrow morning before I am willing to remove the barricade that prevented them from coming up on the freshly stained floor. By Tuesday, I should be able to brush down the porch furniture and put it back in place, move the houseplants back to finish summering out there, and rehang the two hanging spider plants. I’m glad that job is done. The coop is remaining, but there are expected midweek showers, so it may not get done this week, unless it happens tomorrow.

    My conclusion is that knees and backs with more than 7 decades on them don’t like this kind of work.

  • Almost there, but not quite

    Up too early for a Saturday morning, but the young one had to be at Basketball Camp at 8:45 a.m. and it is a bout an hour drive over if there is no traffic, no accidents on the interstate, and they aren’t actively working on the expansion and sound barriers that involve the last 15 or 20 miles of the trip. Before we left, I had to make his lunch, pack a cooler with enough drinks and ice to last him til 5 p.m., get the 16 year old out of bed (no small feat in itself), gather laundry for a load, fix him breakfast that he could eat in the car. We made it and got back to the Farmer’s Market only a bit later than usual for a Saturday and yet many of the goodies I wanted were already sold out. Oh well, there will be another day.

    On our way home from the market, we stopped to get a few more paint brushes that hadn’t been in the oil based stain so we could start on the front porch rails, balusters, kickboards, and floor that still needed to be done with the latex stain. We don’t want to wait too long as it was freshly washed Thursday evening.

    Hubby and I got it all done except for the floor. He had to quit to go pick up the camper and when I opened the two old cans of stain, one was so separated it couldn’t be remixed even with the paint stirrer on the power drill. The other can that had never been opened except to tint it had sat too long (several years) and it was the consistency of set up pudding. We had one new can and used slightly more than half of it, so there certainly wasn’t enough to do the whole floor. We have thunderstorms, much needed, predicted for tomorrow, so I guess we will go get more stain on Monday and try to finish the job. What we got done looks good and the floor should be easier because it is flat and we don’t have to worry about drips or getting latex stain on the parts that were oil based stained. I’m hoping that by Monday or Tuesday, the staining on the house will be done for this summer. Still have the coop to go, but I will get my tall 16 year old helper to assist on that.

    I will be glad when it is done and this furniture put back on the porch.

    The pullets have been allowed to free range for the past few days. At first, they stayed very near their coop and pen. Today they have ventured over toward the house, especially if they see me come outside to set sprinklers on the flower bed and vegetable garden. I don’t want them to get as comfortable around the flower garden as the old hens did. I don’t need 13 of them digging up the bed. They are a prolific lot. I have gotten at least 8 or 9 eggs from them every day this week. That’s a lot of eggs, but there are folks that appreciate them.

    Here is a basketful, but not all of this week’s as a dozen and a half went to daughter’s house, there are a dozen in a wire basket, we have eaten nearly a dozen this week. The spindle and ball of wool were added to the basket for the last day of July spinning challenge. We had to put our spindle with something that was too many to count. I did this, then also did seashells, because there are too many of them to count. And here are gals that provided them right after they were lured in from free ranging this evening. They still aren’t real good at that skill.

    One more day of travel to and from camp and then some other chores can be done.

  • Freezer Camp

    Yesterday afternoon, Son 1 and Grandson 1 arrived. Son 1 only to stay one night, but get a lot done. We had rented a 3000 psi power washer and he scoured the front porch floor and railing. They will be repainted with the latex stain this week to finish the summer maintenance on the house. The coop still needs to be stained and I will enlist the aid of Grandson 1 who will be staying with us for about two more weeks, going to Basketball camp this weekend, then here for fun and work. He and hubby returned the washer, purchased the Gatorade that I forgot yesterday, but he will need at camp, bought an ethernet cable so Grandson 1’s computer which does not have WIFI can be used to continue with what he learned at Coding and Gaming residential camps while he was back home for a few weeks.

    While they were out running errands, Son 1 and I set up a makeshift processing station. We had designed the perfect one a few years ago, but it requires a unit of scaffolding and a walkboard and we have loaned all of ours out to a friend trying to get siding and guttering on a house they are building.

    All 8 of the old hens and the two young roosters were slated for freezer camp today. I went to the Palace to grab the first one and in the flutter, they got the door open and one of the roosters escaped into the yard. I have never seen a chicken run so fast or so far. He took off across the east field and almost crossed into the next farm. After the other 8 were done, Son 1 and I decided to see if we could get him. He would run up into the rock piles, over into the woods with a 41 year old man and a 73 year old woman running after him. Finally laughing, we decided our chase was silly and we needed lunch, so we broke down the makeshift processing station and were hosing down the grill we use to heat the dunking pot on the side burner, tying up the bag of feathers and stuff, hosing down the area we used when Roo 2 crowed. With my hearing impairment and hearing aid, I have difficulty with sound direction and was headed down to see if he can gone into the Palace looking for his ladies when Son spotted him under the pullet’s coop inside the fenced and covered run. We quickly closed the gate, grabbed the big fishing/butterfly net used as a last ditch means of catching the last few and with me holding the one area that a panicked chicken can flutter between the fence and top, he caught Roo 2. If he had waited one more minute to show himself, he would have lived another two weeks until Son 1 returned. Instead, we worked together without our station to get him processed and in the freezer. As we were working, we realized that one of the hens was polydactile.

    She had the normal 3 front toes, but had two back toes, quite odd. In the past week, those 8 hens produced on 12 eggs total and ate 15 pounds of food, not economical.

    Last night I finished putting twenty of my squares together for the breed blanket. There are enough to do more, but I have to evaluate what fibers I have left, what colors they are to get the pattern for the last rounds. The next row will go down the right side in the photo.

    There are still two dyed squares and several gray and white squares remaining already spun, plyed, and knitted. I may use them randomly.

    Early in the week, I was able to purchase another Jenkins spindle in their newest design and size. It is so much larger than my others that it will take some getting used to and will probably be used for plying only. It is a pretty spindle.

    I tired from the morning’s efforts, need a shower and clothes change so we can drive to the “big city” as folks here call Roanoke to take Grandson 1 to his introductory evening of camp.

  • Sore, stiff bodies

    It is a good thing thunderstorms are forecast today and tomorrow as we are both too sore to stain today. My sore hip didn’t take kindly to the acrobatic contortions I had to do to stain the step stringers and the joist to which they are attached. The pecs and biceps are sore, and I don’t want to lift my arms above my head, but they will be okay in another day. We will finish the deck job on the next dry day.

    I went out to the garden late this afternoon to see if I could find another cucumber for a salad I saw online and came in with 13+ pounds of potatoes. I had 4 or 5 potatoes that had sprouted last late winter, most were Kennebecks, one was a red. I had a new deep bed I had made that was perfect to plant them. Each was cut with at least 2 eyes, cured for a day and planted. Once they sprouted, I put straw layers over them. A week or so ago, I dug under one plant to pull out a few small new potatoes for dinner one night. The dry weather had most of the plants drying and brown so with a garden fork, I turned the plants over. The potatoes range from marble size to huge. A few are burned with solanine but not so bad that it can’t be pared off. I don’t know if we can eat that many potatoes before they begin to sprout.

    That isn’t a bad return on about 2 pounds of potatoes.

    The new girls are really providing us with eggs now. A typical day I bring in about 9 eggs from them (only 1 from the old 6 girls). There are two more old gals in with the new kids, but they are producing 6 to 8 eggs per week. I should move them back, but I just can’t sort them out at night when the are perched and easy to approach. I love the colors, blue, green, tan, light and dark brown, and pink.

    After getting the upper and most of the lower part of the raw wood parts of the deck stained yesterday, I spruced up the flowers in the pots today. The geraniums are still looking good, the pansys that self seeded are hanging in and the Autumn Joy that has been in a pot on the deck for years thrives on neglect. The strawberry pot with “hen and chicks” and a red sedum is doing very well. The petunias and nasturiums were dead or looking sorry, so the healthier nasturiums were transplanted to a smaller pot, a red coneflower put in the larger pot they had been in and two other red annuals, Pentas, added to smaller ceramic pots that had been in the garage. It put some nice color in the back on the deck. The walled garden has Shasta daisies, Blue button flower, Sneezeweed, Rudbeckia, a sedum, and Dianthus all blooming. My little rose has a few more flowers and buds on it. The Baptisia (false indigo) has wonderful seed pods that as soon as they begin to dry will be cut, some used for dyeing, some for decorating. The comfrey really shouldn’t have been planted in that garden, it is spreading much too quickly. I think I will dig it out and move it to outside the fence in the corner of the garden where more is growing inside the fence. I will look for some fall blooming perennials or maybe more coneflower, the nursery had beautiful red ones today.

    I had finally convinced myself to get a table umbrella for this deck and had been looking at them for a while at Kroger. They are all gone. Unless I can find one at a reasonable price and color elsewhere, I may have to wait another year.

    It sounds like a lot was done today, but it has really been a day of sit and recuperate, even potting flowers and digging potatoes were done while sitting on the steps for the flowers and the side of the garden box to dig the potatoes.

    We will tackle the rest of the deck support staining in a few days, then enjoy having Son 1 and Grandson 1 here next weekend, doing what we can to get the rest of the front porch done.

    On the fiber front, I managed to purchased the newest style of Jenkins spindle a couple of nights ago. It is a larger spindle than I have preferred, but the weight isn’t too heavy, so I am hoping I will love it when it arrives. It is Manzanita wood. I have 5 of their sizes now, different for various fibers and spins. A variety of woods, all beautiful hand made wooden tools that provide me hours of pleasure and produces yarn that can be sold or used to weave or knit.

  • They say, “you are never too old”…

    I beg to disagree. The summer chore list was long this year. Many major projects needed to be done to preserve the integrity of our house, to have a garden that required less maintenance, and to get a coat of stain on the coop to try to extend it’s life. Spring was spent getting the garden ready with new boxes from reclaimed wood, filling them with soil dug from old beds, compost, and some bagged soil. Paths were lined with weed mat or cardboard and about an inch of mulch placed over it. The beds are fine and fairly easy to maintain as most are sturdy enough for me to sit on the side to weed. The paths needed several inches more mulch, but buying it by the bag is neither economical nor environmentally friendly, I need to find a load or two of woodchips from a tree service and have it dumped to move by wheelbarrow.

    The house needed all 4 sides of the garage, the east wall, the north dormers, and all surfaces of the roofed front porch powerwashed and stained, as well as staining all the raw wood from the deck rebuild two years ago. Son 1 and grandson 1 got it all powerwashed and Son 1 stained the east wall, the walls of the garage, and the dormers. Hubby and I got the garage doors done, but the porch was still in need. Thursday, we decided to try tobegin to finish everything but the railing and floor which take a latex stain, probably a mistake years and years ago. While hubby stained the posts, I did the ceiling. Friday, we set up again, and got the front porch log wall, the windows and door frame done. Today we started on the deck. Hubby did the upper work while I did the frame underneath and outside parts from an 8 foot ladder. Most of it has been done, but there are still the joists under the floorboards that were not on outside edges that probably should still be done, but it is going to have to wait for a few days. Our arms, necks, shoulders, and backs are screaming.

    We still need to get the floor done, the railing also. I guess in a few days, the remaining joists under the deck floor will get a coat of stain too. The chicken coop has had wood repaired, but it still needs to be stained too. The list is getting shorter, but isn’t done yet.

  • “Our Town”

    We live in a Village in a county of only about 15000 folks, but are closer to a town in the next county than to our county seat where Walmart has run most of the local business out of business. The town is a University town and other than a couple grocers, fast food, and CVS, it is locally owned businesses.

    Several years ago, Main Street and College Avenue were renovated, with brick sidewalks, old style lamp posts that each have two hanging basket hooks and a flag pole holder. In the spring, every post is adorned with baskets overflowing with flowers, the medians are planted with flowers and a crew maintains them with weeding, pruning, and watering regularly. The flag holders hold flags for various events. For the local high school football games and graduation, each has a flag that has BHS for Blacksburg High School. On national holidays, American flags are displayed. Virginia Tech flags for their home football games. International flags when the University is celebrating international events.

    This is the town I moved into while our house was being build and while hubby was still across the state until he retired. We consider it our town. It is where the Farmer’s Market is, where the restaurants we frequent are located, and a small single screen movie theater that has been there since my father was a student here in the 1940’s.

    This afternoon, we spent a few hours staining the ceiling and posts of our front porch and after all was done and cleaned up, including us, we went to town for dinner. About once a week since the weather warmed and we can dine outdoors, we have reinstated that into our lives. On Friday nights there is live music on the hill in the first photo.

    We love the local feel of this town and the opportunities for plays, concerts, and sporting events if we feel the urge through the University. The adjacent town to this one has all of the big box stores and chain movie theaters, so if we can’t find what we need in town, it is a short drive over.

    As we sat with our drinks, awaiting the service of our dinner, I pulled out a spindle and did a bit of spin in public time. My spindles are often pulled out around town for a spin time. Sometimes it draws a question or comment, sometimes I just see someone watching from a distance, tonight, one of the ladies from my spinning group and her hubby arrived to dine on the same patio. Small towns, the best.

  • Putting by

    An archaic term that means to set aside; to save. The term was used in many old households to mean storing and preserving of provisions for the cold non productive months. Before the introduction of home freezers, much of this putting by was drying, salting, smoking, fermenting, and canning with procedures that give the USDA shuddering nightmares.

    And now we have the huge grocery stores that ship in “fresh” produce out of season from thousands of miles away. Produce that has been genetically altered to make it shelf stable for far longer than it takes to move it across the country or from other countries to your table. And commercial canning allows aisles of produce of every description packed in metal cans lined with suspect plastics for your ease in food preparation. So many people, don’t even know how food is grown or where.

    I have always in my adult life had a garden of some sort, if only a few feet of tomatoes and peppers off the patio of a townhouse, and I made Pomegrante jelly once a year with my Dad, an afternoon that I looked forward to every year as we improved on the technique each year. But when we bought our farm property and I moved across the state to work for the last few years before retirement and to help with babysitting so Son 1 and DIL could work on our house, or spending an evening or weekend day helping put up interior siding, making floor wax, or other assistance I could provide, my outlook on food changed. During this time, I discovered a program that Virginia Tech was doing where the entire Freshman class was assigned a book to read for discussion. The year I moved, the book was the recently published, Animal Vegetable Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver about her family’s attempt to eat only local, seasonally available food that they grew or could purchase at their local Farmer’s Market. I purchased the book, devoured it and it changed my whole outlook on the food system. Son 1 and DIL had put in a huge garden on the farm, and once living here, I have added fruit trees, vines, and canes as well as chickens for eggs. I made a point to get to know the vendors at our Farmer’s Market, what they provide, how they manage their farms, and what will be available when. I maintain a much smaller garden than the kids put in, located many wild berry patches, learned to make soap and healing salves, and set a goal to “put by” as much as I can to reduce our footprint and reduce the amount of food and other goods that come into our home from thousands of miles away, packaged in containers that may or may not be recyclable.

    Not everything that goes on our shelves or in our freezer is grown here, but it is grown locally if possible. Meats, cheeses, vegetables I don’t grow, fruits when mine fail. Beans and peas are frozen in the spring and summer. Berries and fruit are turned into jams and sauces. Tomatoes are canned as pasta sauce, pizza sauce, or tomatoes to be used in chili or other recipes. Hot peppers are canned, pickled or dried to be used throughout the year until the next crop. Sweet peppers are diced or sliced and frozen. Butter and cheese are stockpiled during the productive season for the winter, most of the meats are available year round. We tend to eat more seasonally now, not to the extent that was accomplished in the book, but certainly more so than before I read it.

    Once of the produce vendors at the Farmer’s Market has a CSA program with different tiers. The one I chose, I get to select what I want in the quantity I want as long as I spend a certain amount. Right now eggplant is in season. I can’t grow eggplant to save me. Everytime I plant it, the flea beetles feast, so I buy mine from them. I’m not a fan of frozen eggplant, but making a casserole and freezing it, or fermenting a few jars of it when it is available is an option. The same for asparagus, I don’t like them frozen or canned, so they are enjoyed in season and a couple jars pickled for later.

    Last week’s CSA had two eggplants in my selection. One was made into Eggplant Parmesan made with locally made parmesan and mozarella. Half was eaten and enjoyed, the second half frozen for some other meal in the future. The second eggplant is being fermented to enjoy on a pickle plate or on a salad.

    The eggplant ferment needs a smaller jar. Off to the basement to see what is available. Not everyone can grow their own, but we can all make an effort to support what is local, to support the farmer’s you can get to know.

  • Slower start

    My Facebook memory posts for the past week have shown baskets of goodies from the garden, canning of berry jams, pickles, and other staples. We got peas from the early garden, but not nearly as many as last year for the freezer. I pick beans every couple of days, but only a couple hands full at a time so not as many of them going in the freezer. Some of my peppers aren’t any larger than the day they were planted and two died. There are two in pots in the herb garden that are doing great though. One bell pepper in the garden has a green pepper on it, it is a red variety, so I hope it will continue to mature and ripen. A couple of the hot peppers have started to get some size and I see flowers and the beginnings of tiny peppers. They will thrive when the weather cools some.

    This was a gardener’s mistake. Using the Square Foot technique and Florida trellis system, I thought I could put 3 ground cherries, 3 bush cucumbers, 3 tomatillos, and 3 Cilantro plants in a 4 by 6 foot bed. I’ve only harvested two cucumbers.

    The ground cherries don’t like to be trellised and have sprawled everywhere, the cucumbers are vining outward into the comfrey and the bed where I pulled the onions, and I can’t stay on top of trellising the tomatillos which are full of fruit and blooms. The cilantro was forgotten in the jungle and is about to set seed, so I guess I should pull it as I use very little coriander and I don’t want it to self seed there.

    The popcorn and bush Hubbard squash are thriving while the cabbage worms are doing in the kale and cabbage at the end of that bed.

    More of the pullets are laying each day and a few of them are getting some decent size on them. The two hens in with them layed 14 eggs in 9 days, today a total of 7 pullet eggs and 1 hen egg in the coop. The six mature hens in the Palace have produced only 11 eggs in the same 9 days total. It is frustrating to feed them pounds of feed each day and get nothing in return.

    The bean beetles are devouring the bean leaves, the second planting has all germinated and not quite as densely planted. Maybe a third planting will go in where the onions were, if I can get the cucumbers to redirect up the path.

    Though my beds that I made are nice and sturdy, there aren’t enough wood chips in the paths to keep the grass and weeds out. The new asparagus bed did not produce a single sprout, I think the crowns from Home Depot may have been old and dried out. The old bed is still thick with the ferns. I will make another attempt in late fall or early spring to move some of them to the new bed and try to finish digging the old bed out. It will likely mean no or few asparagus next year.

    I need to seek out a load or two of wood chips and hire a teenage grandson to help me spread them several inches thick on the paths.

    The walled garden is filling in nicely with the perennials that I planted there, but I am going to have to remove or at least thin the comfrey or it is going to take over and choke out some of the other plants. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to remove once planted.

    The cultivated berries are drying on the canes as fast as they develop. Though we are getting pop up showers frequently, it isn’t putting enough water in the ground. I will go to a local pick your own berries farm to put some in the freezer, probably not making much jam as I eat very little of it. The tomatoes and tomatillos as they begin to ripen will be put in bags in the freezer until there are enough to make a batch of sauce or salsa. There are many green tomatoes and the plum tomatoes are beginning to ripen. Since I planted determinate varieties this year, they will all ripen about the same time and when they do, the kitchen will become a sauce factory. With Son 1 and DIL having their own nice gardens now and a freezer for storage, I won’t need to can quite as much for the two of us.

    I think I am going to be overwhelmed with apples, pears, and the first peaches and as we don’t eat cobblers or fruit pies and there is only so much applesauce and pear sauce we can consume, there may be lots of fruit fall for the deer.