Starting the Fall Garden

Now that we completed the unscheduled plumbing repair, it is time to start planting our fall crops. This is the area where we grew potatoes in the spring.

 

We dug them up and tilled this space again to use for some of our fall crops. We are trying to reclaim some of this area. It has been left to the weeds for a few years and they are very happy there. It has been tilled several times this year and we plan to use a heavy mulch around the fall crops in an effort smother out more weeds.

These corn stalks will be part of the mulch back against the fence area. It will add some good organic material as well as help with weed control. Or at least that is what we hope, we will see how it goes.

Some of the seedlings we planted last week are ready to go in the garden. It doesn't take long for winter squashes, melons and greens to be ready to plant.
 












The broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, snap peas, spinach and kale will be ready to plant in a few days. Today I thinned out the seedlings. It is good to know that the 3 year old seeds I planted are still viable. 

Now that I have rolled up more pots, it's time to start more seeds.

We are growing Detroit Dark Red beets for us, but I am also trying some Sugar Beets for goat feed. They are a mangel beet that has been used for stock feed in the past. They are also good for beet sugar which we will try to make if we have a harvest. We are planting collards, turnips and parsnips, too. This is part of our effort to grow at least some of the feed for our animals. We are very interested to see how these will grow and store over the winter.

And then we are trying carrots again.We are encouraged by our spring carrot crop even though they were rather gnarled up. We tilled this end of the garden deeper (thus, finding the grey water line), so we hope our root crops do better this time.

For now, the winter squashes are planted.

 











The Buttercup, Cushaw and Acorn are all tucked back in this corner. Since they vine out and tend to cover a lot of ground, this corner will be filled before long.

The melons are tucked in between the new overgrown strawberry bed and the potato patch.





We are planting potatoes that we grew in the spring. Since a spring potato crop is ready to harvest in June here, the potatoes don't keep all winter very well. We have wanted to try a fall crop of potatoes for a number of years. Here it is. We hope it produces well.

This is another area that has grown an abundance of weeds for the last few years.

It is very fertile since we 'stored' a load of  barnyard there a while back. We are going to try the pumpkin patch here with heavy mulch and cross our fingers.

The mixed baby greens (on the right) were planted in the herb bed between the green tea, lemon balm and oregano. It will be nice to eat a few of these, but I plan to dry most of them for the goats.

This area in front of the winter squashes will be for the beets, carrots, parsnips and turnips. Then there is the cabbage, broccoli, kohlrabi, collards and spinach to be tucked in somewhere. Oh, and don't forget the snap peas. They will be finding a home here as well. Yes, we do an intensive garden, using as much space for production as possible. So, it's always an obstacle course to get to what we are trying to harvest.

We will keep you updated on our progress with the fall garden as we learn to grow more food - for us and our animals.

Until next time - Fern