Fall Harvest

When we harvest our garlic, onions, squash, and fruit (apples and pears) they go from the garden to our covered deck.  Then we have to take the time to deal with them, and yesterday we finished!  Yahoo!

We have 1/2 of a 5-gallon bucket of pears to dry and then are completely finished with last year's garden.  Our winter garden is doing well and provides us with stir fry vegetables and all of our salad greens.  We might get about month or so out of it before the deep freezes strike, killing everything but the chard and kale.

Our Fall Garden just after planting

We start our Fall-Winter garden plants in little starter blocks we make with a starting soil we purchase at the feed store in August and planted them in a bed I prepared in early October.  We have been harvesting greens for about three weeks and just started eating the lettuce last week.  It should produce into December unless the weather stays mild without the nighttime temperature going below 25 degrees, and then longer.

Carrot Bed and Fall Garden Bed all covered to protect from frost

We moved all of the garlic, onions and winter squash into a spare bedroom yesterday, a dry, cool place that will keep the garlic and onions until next summer, and the squash until January or so.

Garlic, Onions and Winter Squash put away for future use

I am still milking two goats, Surely once a day and Nettle twice a day, and are getting about 7 lbs. (about 8 lbs. per gallon) of milk each day from them.  I'm concerned about Nettle as she should have gone back into heat three days ago but no signs from her.  Did a buck get her when I wasn't looking?  If so, how and who?  They are in different pastures but have a common fence.

Quite a rainstorm yesterday with nearly an inch of rain at our farm - which is a lot as we only get 18 inches a year.  Yesterday was my day to clean the buck house and yard, two duck houses, the goose house and the chicken house - so I got a little wet!  Warm though, in the low 50's.  We still found time to take a walk with the dogs through the State Park that borders our land.  Mushrooms loved the weather, popping up just about everywhere.