Autumn Is Here

And with it has come a precious new member of our family:

We think she's adorable! She is an efficient nurser, which is wonderful, but makes me wonder how much milk she is really getting, so we put her in a tomato crate on her Daddy's farmer's market scale, and you can see she's already well above her birthweight of 6 lbs 2 oz at 1 week of age. Good job, Baby!

Once I'm able to get back to normal activities, I'd like to get some bulbs planted for Spring. It's time to pick out more tulips, crocuses, and daffodils! Last year I didn't get them all in the ground, so this year I'll wait to buy until I know I'm able to get out and dig in the dirt.

For now I have this nice view from the living room:

And from the driveway:

I think there's something planted to bloom in every season now, which was my first goal starting out with this little perennial garden.

Mike's mushroom logs have exploded with mushrooms since the baby's birth, so he's been doing his best to get those washed up, cooked, or dried in between toddler and newborn duty.

The leaves are now changing, with beautiful yellow walnut leaves raining onto our yard with every breeze, and temperatures up to the 80s the past few days. The nights are cool, but no frost yet, although it did get close during one cold snap, and it looks like temps to the high 60's / low 70's the next week. I'm trying to take it easy so that I'll be well enough to take Autumn walks with the family soon! I hope you're enjoying your Fall, too!

September

Cooler weather

Just in the last week the temperatures have dropped. Some days were highs in the upper 50s, which felt quite chilly, and lows overnight in the upper 30s. It felt pretty sudden to be talking about possible frost already! Our garden season has been interrupted a bit by the fact that we are expecting a new baby any day now, but really the season is far from over, as the very tips of just a few tree branches are starting to change, so we still have the whole beautiful fall season ahead of us, as well as I'm sure still some very warm days.

Farmer Mike

Mike got to try out his dream of selling at a farmer's market this summer. He only sold a few times, and was limited to a less busy market on a weekday, but he learned a lot, and got to network with some other farmers to help learn the business in the area better. The moral of the story is that farming doesn't pay selling at small markets like this around here, even for those who have a much bigger business than Mike, so he will continue to explore options, such as a CSA (community supported agriculture). He also gained more knowledge of the varieties of produce that are more desirable to customers, at least at this particular market.

Another big challenge was pest and weed control utilizing organic practices. The Japanese beetles were a problem for awhile, and then after awhile the weeds just took over. He has some more ideas on how to do things differently next year. Here is the garden with the aisles mowed, which I think looks quite nice.

And here it is just recently, in need of a good mowing:

So what does it look like when you're getting ready for a farmer's market?

Stacks of homemade tomato crates, refrigerator full of produce, vases of flowers, and other clutter everywhere. I do think if he ever did this on a larger scale we would need a big room devoted just to farming stuff!

Some of the totals from his garden this year: 25 lbs of strawberries, 250 lbs of tomatoes, 10 lbs and counting of raspberries.

My perennials

I was blessed with a few afternoons to work on my little perennial bed. It has been missing the presence of Fall perennials, which I didn't get much of last year, so I got to do a little shopping and planting. Gardening is so much easier now that our little one absolutely loves to "dig in dirt." She gets quite upset when we tear her away from this favorite hobby. Now is also the time to be getting more bulbs for Spring, but that will have to be on the backburner until new little baby girl arrives.

the garden right now, finally mostly filled in

last year's mum on the left, a new purple mum this year on the right

sedum- this wasn't even planted, just tossed in a pot, but it bloomed!

 

 

 

 

 

late summer garden before the new Fall perennials were added

filling this bucket with soil is a very serious mission

found the mud

I will just dig in this pot of basil right here

 

For now

The current garden fun is mostly just harvesting raspberries every couple days (right now a pint every couple days or so), waiting for the last peppers to ripen before frost, drying beans, and collecting the last few zucchini, cucumbers, and whatever else happens to be hiding in the weeds!