Garden Clean-up and Fall Prep

garden, all cleaned up

Monday, August 19...

I'm just going to start off by saying I absolutely detest squash bugs.  I am not talking about squash vine borers, but squash bugs.  They multiply 50 times faster than rabbits and take over your squash plants before you have a chance to blink.  

The other day I noticed that the older vines were covered with thousands of these bugs and there is no way in those numbers I can possibly pick them off by hand.  Sunday Morning, I decided to spray them with a heavy saturation of sudsy liquid.  Unfortunately, it only killed some of the younger nymphs, but not the older ones.  So I got nowhere.  

After pondering my other options for some time, I asked Al if we had a torch.  Before long I was out there with a weapon of mass destruction (for a bug) and torching every squash bug in sight.  I knew I didn't get them all, but I didn't want to pull out the plants and have all of them run over to my cucumbers.  

Later, Al pulled my "fire ring" gardens out and tilled the whole area under.  Of course, this sends any living bugs off in a scurry and it didn't take long for them to start climbing up the tomato trellis.  Al mowed the end of the tomato trellis where I found hundreds more.  Those also headed for the remaining garden area.  We ended up pulling out the torch again to burn up what I could find, but once again, I knew they weren't all dead.  

I also pulled the electric fence up from around the garden because it was making clean up so difficult and the garden looked horrible.  I told myself to take a before picture, but I didn't. 

This morning, I was able to hand pick several and put them into a bucket of soapy water, which is a quick kill if you don't mind touching them.  (Interesting note, squash bugs give off an odor similar to a vanilla perfume.) 

tromboncino squash

After school was finished for the day, I decided to take advantage of the somewhat cooler day and get to work cleaning up the garden.  I pulled off all the burned squash vines, harvested the squash that no longer had vines planted in the ground, and trimmed off any tomato branches that suffered for being too close to the flame.  (It was a risk I was willing to take.)

I then pulled all the bean plants out, removed some of the cherry tomato plants since I have too many, picked what popcorn was in ear, and pulled out the corn plants.  I harvested a very measly second crop of potatoes which probably couldn't feed one person.  Then I worked on removing all the dead vines from the bean trellis.  

watermelon

Finally, I cleaned up all the debris and took it to the chickens for an evening meal.  They had a feast of tomatoes and green beans, as well as two small under ripe watermelons.  Which, by-the-way, I was able to harvest three more watermelons in the last few days, and one final one is in the garden still ripening.  These watermelon have been very good and while the family is not a big melon eating family (because they have seeds), I will be growing this type again.  Once this final melon ripens, I will be able to finish cleaning up the perennial garden. 

Meanwhile, the tomatoes slowly trickle in and ripen completely on the counter before I put them in the freezer.  It isn't as much as I would like to put away, but it is still a blessing after so many years of nothing.  

The pepper plants are abundant and I am pleased despite the fact I have more sugar rush peach hot peppers than I know what to do with, although not ripened yet.  The Jimmy Nardello are growing really well, and they are absolutely sweet! I am excited about trying the cachucha peppers, which I discovered are very slow to grow, but FINALLY are putting on fruit.  

The only thing left other than tomatoes, peppers, and a few cucumber vines, are the sweet potatoes, which aside from beautiful green leaves, don't seem to be producing any tubers.  I will leave them in the ground and hope for a few meals harvested from the many plants in the bed.

So next step is to decide what I want to grow in the fall garden.  I am considering more carrots, beets, peas, green beans, cabbage, broccoli, and greens.  On the other hand, I have considered not growing anything at all!  

Tuesday, August 20...

It isn't so much that I did something today, as I wanted to add to what I was writing.  Sunday, Al and I were able to get round bales to the female goats and the zebu. 

We finally got to moving (cleaning ) the chicken cages.  Initially, we thought these cages would work, but the biggest negative is how hard they are to clean out.  If there is one thing on a homestead that drives me nuts, it is having animals live in squalor.  We raise animals for a few reasons, and one of them is to give them a better life than those animals that are used for supplying the nation with meat.  While we aren't able to feed our birds organic grain, we are able to give them wide open spaces to free range and eat what nature intended. 

Because we took their cages away, I cleaned up the small coop for some of them to roost in.  Al fixed the next box in the same coop so eggs wouldn't roll under the roost.  

The younger birds were finally released from their tractor, but the older birds do not like them. So these birds stay in a small flock and sleep under the canopy of the grapevines.  Meanwhile, their tractor was converted into a nesting house to keep the nest boxes both sheltered and dry.  

The sheep seem to be doing pretty well and don't go through the pastures nearly as quick as we did with twice the number.  No kidding, right?  Unfortunately, I discovered one of the lambs out of Basil has bottle jaw, which is a result of infestation of parasites.  This is disturbing considering they were recently dewormed.  This means I will either need to let nature take its course, or treat them.  I prefer to raise animals with a high resistance to parasites and many homesteaders/farmers out there do the same.  If an animal can't stay healthy, they cull them.   I am still unsure of whether or not we will have any sheep ready to go to butcher this fall, but if not we will definitely do so in spring.  

The does, female goats, which were with a buck last month, will have ultrasounds done next week to see if they are pregnant.  If not, they, along with several others, will be put in with bucks come November.  Any goats which are pregnant now, will be due in December.  Our goal is to have milk year round so we don't have to buy it.  

Well, I guess that is about it.  Not too much news to add to the normal day to day stuff.