Gardening in Late October

We still have fall gold raspberries! And many, not just a few here and there.

I need to cut them back but I am waiting for frost. I may start cutting some back now and give the goats a treat.
The peppers are also going strong, as well as the marigolds and, of course, the swiss chard.

I don't remember the garden looking this great this late in the season.

Working on More Firewood

We still have a big ash tree that came down in Sandy that we hadn't cut up. This was the one tree that was ours that fell onto the game land. Most of the other trees that fell down were game land trees that fell onto our property.

Sunday we went a little bit into the game land and got out the easiest to harvest rounds. We cut about 24 large rounds, each one must weigh close to 80 pounds.

We also moved some other logs to where they will be easier to get to once the new fence is up.  The tractor sure did help with moving some of the larger logs.

All this work is for next winter. Hopefully, we already have enough for this winter.

It's Beginning to Look Like a Hayloft

Yesterday we got 30 bales of hay from my favorite Mennonite feed guy. Thirty bales is about what our trailer can hold.

We might be able to squeeze a couple more bales on.
The 30 bales we got, along with the three we had before, don't look like much in the hay loft.

We were able to back the trailer right up and load right into the loft. Only problem is the height of the loft. You have to move the bales around on your knees. It looks like we can easily fit another 30 bales. That should get us through the winter and maybe even to the next hay season.

Fall Flowers

We still have some flowers blooming this late into October. The Purple Coneflower is always one of the last to stop blooming.

The cosmos are still going strong.

And Sunday should have been the last day for the dahlias. The forecast was calling for a low of 32 degrees and that should have finished off the dahlias. But we seemed to have missed and frost in our little valley.

This hydrangea will be beautiful for a while.

Hay Loft

Now that the outside of the barn is pretty much finished, Alan started work on the stalls and hayloft.

We'll be able to store up to 70 bales of hay/straw above the stalls. Having to take bales of hay back to the animals in the dead of winter is a thing of the past! Now I can stock up in the fall and have enough to get through winter. And the new hay loft is useable just in time. The winds Sunday did this to our old hay hut.

Fall Garden Chores

The weather forecast is calling for a low of 32 degrees tonight; probably our first frost and freeze together. Therefore, it was a fall chore day in the garden.
There was an annoying little garden that paralleled the vegetable garden and was overrun with lily of the valley and had many small peonies that haven't bloomed for me yet. I have been wanting to move them to a better location and today was the day. Hopefully, they will like their new location and bloom. I think the lily of the valley was a bit too much for them.
They don't look like much now, and I don't even know what color flower they have, but they should like the front flower bed better.

I received my bulb order and spent some of this afternoon planting 25 asiatic lillies and 100 crocus bulbs. The crocus bulbs were for naturalizing in the front yard. It doesn't look like much now but come late March, early April there should be 100 yellow, blue and white crocuses.

The vegetable garden got some attention today as well. This bare area is now planted in cereal rye as cover crop.

The greenhouse needed a little attention too. This tape is made for repairing the greenhouse plastic. This plastic has seen 2 growing seasons and just needs a bit of mending.

Achy muscles tonight!

Squash

This year I grew a long neck squash for use in butternut squash soup. It did very well and grew all over the fence around the garden. Sunday I harvested 18 squash.
Here are a few:

Now its time to make soup!

More Cover Crops

I am very happy with all my cover crops.  The crimson clover is coming up nicely:

The daikon radish and oats likewise are doing well:

We had a few days or rain which spurred on the germination of the newly planted Austrian Winter Peas and Winter Rye.

We pulled out the corn and readied another spot for more Winter Rye:

My hope is that the garden is as productive, for itself rather than my family, this fall and winter as it was during the spring and summer growing season.

Garlic and Shallots

Yesterday morning, while Alan was cleaning the chimney and wood stove, I planted garlic and shallots. Garlic is fun to grow and I have had success over the past few years. But last year was my first year trying to grow shallots and I only got 7 small bulbs; and they were barely bigger than when I put them in the ground. After researching, I think I planted them too deep.

So we try again this year. I have planted some of my garlic, some organic Inchelium, the shallots I planted last year along with french shallots, and some elephant garlic.

From left to right: shallots, my garlic and elephant garlic, 2 rows on left-Inchelium garlic.
In the fore ground are the saffron crocus bulbs I planted a couple weeks ago. I waited too long to get those in the ground so I probably won't get any saffron until next fall.

First Fire of Fall

This morning we had frost in the field that faces north. Luckily, the vegetable garden is across the little creek and faces south and didn't get frost. But the nights are getting colder so Alan wanted a fire in the wood stove tonight.
He spent this morning cleaning the chimney and stove and replacing some of the door gasket. And now he gets to enjoy the fruits of his labors: