I'd Rather Clean the Garden Than the House

I came home from church yesterday, ate lunch, called my mother, then headed out to the garden to decide what to attack. I ended up pulling out all of the Indian Stripe and Cherokee Purple tomato plants. I have plenty of those two varieties in the freezer because they ripened earlier. The Oregon Star paste tomato vines are loaded and I’m bringing in ripe ones daily. As we’re in for a week of nice weather, it’s worth keeping them going. I also left the Dirty Girl plant because it’s still producing.

The husband came out to see what I was doing. He pulled up the vines in the watermelon patch and gave the overripe and smaller melons to the pigs:

Having the garden right next to the pig pasture is very handy. Excess and overripe produce goes right over the fence:

We made piles of all the vegetation. It will decompose over the winter. We also covered the Oregon Star plants with a couple of concrete blankets to protect them from the frost we got last night. I don’t see another frost in the forecast this week, but I’ll keep a close eye on the overnight temps and cover the plants again if necessary.

I am going to have to do something about the grapevines next year. A week ago, they were loaded. I was waiting for the grapes to ripen. Yesterday, I discovered that they have been completely picked over by birds and my domesticated (wild) turkeys. The mamas with the three babies—now almost-grown juveniles—are still here, and we’ve seen them over in the garden. I got some grapes, but not as many as in past years. I need to make a note to put bird netting on the vines next August.

The animals have to eat, too. I try not to get too torqued about it. The turkeys have become part of the landscape to the point that Lila walks right past them in the yard. And now we have another mama with six poults hanging out here.

Digging potatoes is on the list for next weekend, and that will bring an end to the 2020 gardening season. At least when I clean up the garden, it stays that way for several months, unlike the house.

The pullets have started laying, right on schedule (full-size eggs for comparison):

Hopefully, we’ll get back on a regular egg schedule soon. Eggs are always scarce until the pullets are at full production.

I fervently hope there isn’t another chick shortage next spring. I don’t want to have to hatch out my own chicks again. It was a fun experiment that turned out well, but I know that it’s always going to result in more roosters than we want, and I don’t think my nerves can take it, LOL. Also, it messes up my system of knowing which chickens are the oldest based on breed. I’ve now got a bunch of crossbred hens out there.

I’ve re-written the to-do list and, as usual, I have plenty of stuff to choose from this week. The first task today will be bagging and freezing those chickens and delivering half a dozen of them to Jeryl as a thank-you for helping with butchering.