The garden, while wild, started really started struggling during the month of September. It was still scorching hot, and rain continued to be rare. We made a joint decision to water both the high tunnel and the front yard garden less as our harvest slowed down. It didn’t make sense to pay an astronomical water bill when we were maybe harvesting a handful of vegetables every week.
I will say that my favorite thing is still going on a walk through the garden at sunrise. Not only is it beautiful, but it puts my mind at ease. As a family, we can be pretty bad about feeling like we need to be busy. Writing about the garden, and taking pictures of it, really helps me stop to appreciate the beauty we are surrounded with.
Front Yard Garden
We still have some plants going strong in the front yard garden, the most prolific being our loofah plant, our pumpkin plant, and the jungle that is our tomato beds. Soon, I will start gathering the mature loofahs to dry so that I can share them with a friend who makes soaps. The process does not look as easy as I initially thought so I’m hoping I can dry enough and not lose all of them to mold.
Okra production really started stalling as the weather began cooling down. I took this picture at the beginning of the month when our plants were still cranking out massive amounts of pods.
Our vine peaches, while drought resistant, began dying off fairly early on. We were, however, able to collect several full buckets. We have had a really hard time finding recipes to use these up and are not a fan of them raw. We did make a delicious compote that tastes just like apple pie filling, so these will always be on my must-grow list.
Like we had hoped, our tomatoes really bounced back. We don’t have many red ones yet with the exception of our cherry tomatoes (hopefully they turn before our first freeze) but most of our plants are loaded..
While the bees became scarce this month, our flowers continue to bloom and attract pollinators.
Besides being excited for the Loofahs, my next big harvest will be my Roselle. I go into more detail HERE, but in October the calyces will be ready to pick and I’ll dehydrate them to replenish my winter tea stash.
We had resigned ourselves to only having two pumpkins midsummer as the plant was just not producing. Now, it looks like we could have anywhere between 5-10 ready to go sometime in October.
High Tunnel
My project for the high tunnel this fall was to amend the beds again to hopefully increase our plants’ productivity. The noodle beans have started producing and we’ve been collecting a few handfuls every other day.
The squash, however, have been a total bust. They bloomed for a few weeks but we have yet to see any pollinators in the high tunnel. We will most likely pull them soon and plant some kale that we started inside.
We’ve yet to get any peas but I wouldn’t be surprised if they start blooming in within the next few weeks.
On the Homestead
We started the slow process of cleaning up the garden and clearing out any dead plants. Our chickens have been wonderful helpers with this. We have a few that roam around, and they’ve helped with pests as well as eating any produce that we missed or is a little too ripe.
We don’t say much about our cat, Raven, but he’s a big reason we don’t have mice in our garden. He stays inside during the day and will paw at the door at night until you let him out.
We’ve still been working on socializing our rabbits. We have found that our male rabbits are much more friendly, while our female rabbits have been more aggressive and prefer to be left alone.
Looking Forward…
Our goal for October is to finish planting in the High Tunnel, harvest our remaining plants, and do a good clearout once the weather cools down. Because the area we put the front yard garden in floods, we will work on diverting the water to the side and lining the perimeter with stones to help with some of the wash-out.
What’s on your to-do list this fall?
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