The August Garden

I stepped out back this evening to commune with the bees and sulk over the state of the garden. It's been quite a few weeks since I put any real work into it and it sure enough shows. The expanse of lawn in between plots was newly mown but the plots themselves... Oh my.

The goat pen stands empty and overgrown. The girls are off at the farm being bred for (hopefully) Spring babies.

I posted a shot of the garden from this exact spot about 6 weeks ago and it was gorgeous. Glorious even. Now it just looks sad and neglected. I was able to unearth some squash from that mess but the squash bugs pretty much decimated my zucchini and yellow squash.

The basil bed is unruly and completely misbehaving.

As are the hens when I let them out for their evening romp.

When you walk thru all that mess you have to watch out for pumpkins. Everywhere bits of orange peek through the grass. I'm having a lot of success at growing them this year.

I've already picked 10 and then I found these last night. There are probably 10 to 12 more still on the vine and I'm hoping they hold off until the appropriate season for harvesting.

Out of 30 plus tomato plants about 5 are still hanging in there. We have had a very wet very cool Summer and I'm not sure if that was the cause but there was an awful lot of root rot going on.

Last night's harvest is still sitting in the basket in the kitchen. I've got plans to go rip whole basil plants out of the ground and make as much pesto as I can. We are eating tomatoes with every meal because we just aren't getting enough of any one kind to process them. I thought I would be more upset about that considering all the work I put in, but it worked out because my plate is very full right now and I think adding one more task (especially a large one like canning) would do me in.

Around The Tiny Farm

Oh I do love these two girls. Although we are done with milking for the Summer, they still get plenty of attention. Seriously? Those faces? They just beg to be scratched.

Volunteer pumpkins coming up out of the compost pile.

Bees enjoying the pumpkin blossoms. Do you think pumpkin flavored honey is a possibility?

Lots of things are growing! Exploding basically. I'm pretty sure we planted way too much. It's a good thing I've got friends and family to unload this stuff on.

The bunnies were getting to my carrots so I went ahead and pulled them all. Not too bad for my first time I suppose.

July

This morning I went out to tend the animals and check the garden. I toted my iphone along to snap a few photos of the first of July. Welcoming another hot hot Summer month in the South.

I posted the following sunflower picture to Instagram along with the caption, "Happy July."

What I didn't post was a picture of the dead hen I found in the chicken pen. I don't know how she died, all I know is that it was a very unexpected portrait opportunity of death that I was not willing to document. I don't share a lot of the things that go wrong when raising animals or plants for that matter. For all the gorgeous garden pictures there are a thousand I could have taken of half eaten plants, flooded gardens, sick or dead livestock. But I don't and you probably don't either. People want to see the pretty. They want to keep that ideal of homesteading, tiny farming, large scale farming, CSA, etc. etc. etc. in their head. So we fill our Instagram and blogs and Twitter with the lovely filtered view of living in the country or wherever we have chosen to eek out a simpler way of life.

Just remember that the screen provides a pretty narrow view of reality.

Eats Day 6 & Fall Garden Hopes

I have really noticed a major increase in energy over the past day or so. I put it to good use with a 3.5 mile run at 7 am, followed by working at our business for about 4 hours (our monthly organic delivery came!), did some major major grocery restocking, came home and proceeded to build a raised bed in the backyard.

We have lived in our home about 5 years and have had variable luck with gardening. One year we had more squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and jalapenos than we knew what to do with. This year, everything I planted was killed by a late frost, and everything I replanted became so overgrown with weeds that I gave up. Before I went on vacation I noticed a few squash plants holding on but by the time I got back they had succumbed to the heat.

I have been dreaming of a collection of raised beds for some time now and yesterday I got out the tools and scraps of wood from our shop and got to work. Hopefully I can get some stuff in the ground to have a small fall crop. Turnips, and kale, maybe acorn or butternut squash.

A few of my hens were hanging around watching me build the raised bed.
Chickens are actually really sweet.



Tired and glad I was able to construct a box without my husbands help, also very glad I didn't lose a finger to the saw.
Or break my wrist with the drill.



 

 

After the run, I was starved but had to rush to open the store. My sweet husband made us a big Sunday breakfast and called me to come home and eat. We live very close to our business so I was able to run right over and enjoy having someone else cook for a change. Funny thing was, he made Paleo pancakes and instead of using coconut flour he used shredded unsweetened coconut. They tasted fine but the consistency was off. He kept commenting on how they weren't cooking right and then I noticed what he had used. It was comical but he was very adamant about how I should start labeling my mason jars better since we have coconut in 7 different forms in our house. Shredded, flaked, fresh, flour, water, milk, and oil....all coconut!

 

Breakfast was still delicious. I topped my pancakes with a bit of organic blueberry jam and a splash of maple syrup.

 

 

 



For lunch I had some Wild Planet sardines in marinara sauce, with pickled asparagus, and a nectarine.

After this amazing lunch I pulled the dutch oven out of the well....the oven. It had been hard at work braising some ribeyes. Benefit of having a grocery store....lots of meat to eat!

I shredded it and nibbled on a little and then put it away for dinner later. I had a spoon full of Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut butter and a bottle of GT's Kombucha. I fixed dinner for the family but skipped it myself. I just wasn't hungry. Energy and not feeling hungry all the time? Well, its pretty awesome I have to say.

Giant platter of meat. Yum! We now have emergency protein for days.