Wintering in takes some time.
September 8, 2010
The dark days are always on our mind, we never really prepare for summer – it just is – winter that is a different story.
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An ongoing chronicle of meeting the expectations of the land…
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Beautiful!
Is that a hardneck garlic variety in the picture? I cut all the tops off my hardnecks after a few days of curing… I like your system better.
ps Best blog ever! You’re my idol:) I’ve only got two acres (not complaining, just comparing) and a full time town job… Living vicariously through you guys!
tbirdsmomma, I hang the garlic in the barn until it is dry, and usually don’t cut the stems until I am ready to store it in onion bags in the basement for winter. I grow both hardneck and softneck, both do equally well here.
Glad you like the blog!
Wonderful pictures! Send that man up here when you’re done with him, I have some work that needs his immediate attention
Yup, it is that time of year, isn’t it? Can you believe that the rain has already returned?
Thanks for the beautiful images! You hay fields are gorgeous!
HD is almost finished with the roof. Great looking hay and the dogs have a nice place to play on it. Your photos sure say a lot. You have been really busy.
Those blackberries look delicious, are they destined for pie? And, how did you get the dogs to hold still long enough to get a decent picture?
For all of your hard work around your place, you still manage to take the best photos ever!!! Wonderful!
Clare, thanks I have to give credit to the daughter for the photos – she takes most of them.
Gorgeous shots. I could chow down on those eggs right now! We’re on the verge of planting our fall garden here in Alabama. Summer’s bounty is canned, frozen, or otherwise preserved. I’m taking inventory and replenishing firewood and other winter necessities. I never feel fully prepared for winter…
I know what you mean. I think about getting ready for winter all the time. This year I’m better prepared than last, and next year, I’ll be that much better prepared than this. February used to be known as ‘hungry month’, and it’s easy to figure out why. I don’t want any hungry months!
Gorgeous summer photos!
You know, although it’s ALL lush and wonderful, I think it’s the garlic I envy most. Am told it’s difficult here.
Well, no. ASKED if it was difficult and got a sharp “NO.” Then a slow tumbling out of conditions, and how you just have to understand it, and sometimes the weather…. and even the comment that she wished CA would ship garlic here, because the only other choice, really, is the stuff from China.
I translated that, plus the scarcity, to “yeah, difficult to grow in MI.”
Hayden, I am sure garlic will grow fine in MI, depending on who you ask around here too, the answers are the same, NO, and then well, maybe but it’s hard… . I think the hardest part about garlic for gardeners to wrap their minds around is the crop spans two growing seasons. Meaning if your garlic bed is not the best weed-free, fertile, amended ground you have, you will have a hair pulling experience. That being said, once you get a variety or two that you like and are successful with, if you continue to save your best bulbs you will be rewarded with great harvests. I plant both hardneck and softneck and I always have plenty. Find a farmers market and see what varieties they are growing locally and go from there. I can’t imagine how many herbicides are applied to garlic fields to keep them clean in a conventional farming situation and from China even more, probably. Blech.
Wonderful photos! You are so right…we must prepare for winter, the rest of the time is a time of joy.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Do you ever use pesticides of any kind.
Looking at some of your beautiful garden pictures…..I had so much trouble with garden pests this year & last…..that I’m wondering if others are using pesticides? Very defeating.
Donna G. once in a while I will use BT for cabbage worms, but only if we have a real problem. This year I saw quite a few moths but very few caterpillars so I think the birds are doing their job eating the caterpillars – I only saw 5 in 48 quarts of blanched broccoli. That doesn’t bother me in the least. I have found that where my soil has good tilth and enough compost the vegetables do well and are naturally pest resistant. The more stressed out plants are the more they are susceptible to insect predation. But I know what you mean, about being defeated, we have been battling rabbits, voles and deer – they can do a lot of damage in one day.
A visitor to my garden this summer asked, “What do you do for pest control?” and I was like, “Ummmmmmmmmmmm…” (apologetically) “Nothing.” I am knocking on wood here, but I have, so far, never had a problem with pests either (watch all my veggies be overrun next year… Though I don’t grow cabbage or broccoli so haven’t had to deal with their critters).
I like to think that interplanting a variety of kinds of plants, having healthy living soil, rotating crops and keeping lots of “wild” areas in the yard keeps everything in balance. I have only been gardening for about 5 years so I’m sure I have the odd infestation in my future, but so far so good.
We did have several snakes living in the garden this summer (including adorable babies — I think the nest might have been under the pea bed) and while some might consider them pests, I thought of them as my slug-munching allies…