CHANGING SEASONS

PUMPKINS!!!  

Jim harvesting the great pumpkin!

Heavier than expected but very exciting!  

Have I mentioned that we LOVE pumpkins?

  

Yup!  We REALLY LOVE pumpkins!

We harvested three LOVELY pumpkins today and are so thrilled with them!   Have I mentioned how much we both love pumpkins yet??  Clearly we did not get our acts together in time to carve any of them, but I will probably roast, puree and freeze them for baking and such.

Jim setting up new receivers for hoops in bed number 1

Hoops are all in place on two beds now!  Jim in front of bed number 1

Trimming/Harvesting Chard in Bed Number 2

Today we finished moving the receivers for hoops on three beds.  We now have three almost ready for winter.  We need to put up the plastic sheeting on one of them to see how it will work tomorrow.   It was looking like a cold week with the first hard frost Monday night for a while.  This morning that changed to Tuesday night so we might have a little more time for things to ripen!

  

Harvesting carrots and a giant beet!

We had to harvest some things to make room for the receivers for the hoops on these beds. We got some lovely carrots!  A MONSTER beet! And some fabulous chard!  Nice to have enough to share with friends AND to make a lovely chard and potato soup with all homegrown veggies.

How far can a deer reach comfortably?

It turns out deer like grape leaves.  But only in the strike zone!  All the leaves are cleaned off the grape vine from about 2 to 5 feet off the ground!

Final zucchini harvest!

I harvested all the zucchini left on the vine except for one which was pretty small (well, by our standards) and I wanted to give it a couple more days.   I harvested the last of the green beans and yanked all the plants (green and red) and composted them.  We turned and amended the bean bed (number 3) and found it to be riddled with nasty grubs.  I just pulled and squished them as I found them but know there are many more.  Where oh where are those chickens when we need them??

If you look closely, you can see the 10 x 18 foot staked site of the chicken coop & run!

Speaking of chickens.... we staked out the coop and run this morning and are finally getting much closer to a final plan.  I'm pretty excited about this.  I think we will end up with a really nice, solid set up for the chickens.  I think the bees will have to go in a pen of their own to protect them from bears.  We had originally planned to put them in the run (as we have read that this is definitely  doable) but depending on how many chickens we end up with, I don't think our current design will have sufficient space and I think we will be happier with them separate.

Fall Colors (Maples)

Aspens Changing

Happy Halloween!