Summer is gone

One of my real estate clients made the comment “I just don’t know how you can run a small farm, do landscape work and be a full time Realtor?”  The average American watches four hours of TV a day (from Big Site of Amazing Facts).  My wife, Pam, and I don’t own a TV, so there is the extra time for us to spend with our animals and in our garden.  

Right now it’s 5:23 am and I have been up an hour – my typical morning.  During the summer I’m outside by this time, but now I have another hour of darkness.  We go to bed in the fall/winter by 9 pm, summer 10:30 pm.  I’m sleep deprived all summer.

Certain things in life are non-negotiable.  On the farm, either Pam or I have to feed and milk the goats in the morning and evening.  During the summer Pam usually does it, fall/winter/spring I do.  I also have to let the chickens and ducks out, change their water and top off their food.  Evenings they have to be put away.  The vegetable garden needs to be watered daily – but that is about all.  Lots of other work to be done but we can adjust things to fit our schedules.

We had an interesting weather pattern this summer, completely different from the warm summer of 2009.  Just about every morning we were covered with clouds, with afternoon clearing.  I liked it but our fruits and vegetables didn’t.  Everything seems to be a month behind in maturing and the fruit is low in sugar.  September was one of the wettest on record at 2.6 inches.  At our farm we recorded 6.3 inches of rain in June through September – remember in the Pacific NW we have drought summers and we are in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, getting on average about 18 inches of rain per year.  Most of that rain falls between October and May, very little if any during the summer months.

Pam's garlic braids

10 lbs of over 30 harvested

Our best crop this year was the garlic – lovers of cool spring weather.  We grew five hardneck varieties: Italian Easy Peel, Georgian Crystal, Chesnick Red, Music Pink and Metechi.  We also grow softneck garlic that Pam braids for Christmas gifts to friends and family.  Garlic in the PNW is planted in October/November and harvested in early July.  This year I have given up on the Italian Easy Peel - the heads just have not been large enough for me.  2010 – 2011 garlic has been planted!  I double dug the bed last week, let it set for several days and planted Wednesday of this week.  I usually mix bone meal into the soil for forgot so today I’ll sprinkle some on top and gently work it into the top inch of the soil.  This weekend when Pam cleans out the goat barn she’ll spread spoiled barley straw on the bed about two inches thick.  Unless we have a dry May/June (usually we have a wet May/June), we won’t water.  Come spring I’ll weed and fertilize with a blend of organic fertilizer and then weed once more in late spring.  After that I let the weeds go as they won’t affect the garlic.  We harvest the garlic in early July and hang it to dry under our entry porch roof.  Last week I began the process of cleaning it up to prepare to store it for the winter.  Scrape off the dirt, cut off the roots and stalks, and put them in a onion bag, stored in a cool room indoors.  We feed the dried stalks to our goats – they think of them as candy!  What strange animals they are.  We love them!

Our 2010-2011 raised garlic bed