Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Canning Carrots

With the first frost heading in, we decided to dig up the carrots do some canning.


Mixture of Purple Dragon Carrots and Orange Carrots



The Dragon Carrots looked a bit like candy corn!

We were able to can 13 pints from the 4x4 bed



Monday, October 7, 2013

Cover Cropping Beds

Autumn is here, we took the dead corn stalks out of the 4x8 bed and brought all of the Red Beans in to dry. During the autumn and winter, we are trying something different this year. We planted oats in the 4x8 bed that will grow quickly, prevent weeds and provide more bulk matter for the bed.

In only a week, the oats are sprouting along with some straggler beans that fell into the bed. Beans will grow as much as possible and be cut down to replace nitrogen in the soil and also add some bulk to the bed to break down over the winter.


After the leaves fall and we layer the back garden with leaves, we'll also seed some oats and buckwheat for next year.  Buckwheat has been a great success in helping to bring insects into the garden when other plants aren't flowering. 

We have had above average temps the past couple of weeks and the plants kept growing. I'm hoping to have a couple of smallish pumpkins to use for seeds for next year and we are still eating the peas and carrots, tomatoes and eggplants are growing.


Late sugar pumpkins running up the Juniper Bush

Carrots!

After the potatoes were done - we planted peas

Finally some tomatoes!

Little Eggplants growing