I spent 3 or 4 hours both Sat & Sun this past weekend preparing the old beds for planting this week – I am going to plant sweet peas, a lot of greens, some herbs & some root veggies first. It didn’t take me long to fluff the soil & pull out the few weeds that have started to grow in the soil. It was an easy job & I really enjoyed it. In one of the beds I had planted some carrots that I had not dug up last year. I unearthed quite a few carrots to juice when I got home. They were so sweet & so fresh. I also dug up what I thought was a weed & it was an arugula plant that I had put seed down for last fall, so I took that home as well.

I also walked over to the corral to see if I could find some good dark soil under the mounds of hay that had been left there over the years for the cows who have been penned up occasionally. I found it. There is a huge mountain of soft soil under the hay/straw that is laying on top. I am really excited to have found this, and after helping take hay out to the cattle the past month, I now know where all these areas are full of beautiful soil for the taking. The new beds I make this year will be so lucky to get this local & organic soil!

It has been such a beautiful day – week, even. It was 81 degrees when I got to the garden today to drop off a bunch of stuff for the compost pile. I sat in the shade for an hour just enjoying the day & the birds & the blue skies and thought about how I lucky I am to have this garden space.

My parents and I came out to the garden on Sunday to clean up all the leaves & grass & set up the second compost bin from found wire. I am so lucky that they enjoy helping me, it would have been a lot of work to do by myself.

It’s almost time. Today the sun decided to come out after lunch & I thought it would be a perfect day to look over the garden, make some decisions about what to do this year & take Doc (my puppy) out there with me for a ride & some running around. It was gorgeous blue skies, sunny & around 55 F – no wind.. amazing.

I gathered all the cardboard that I had laid out in the fall that had blown all over the place, I found some fence wire & secured it for a pseudo compost bin, and started to pile up the grass clippings my parents & I saved from the ditch at the side of the road into it. I went to get the pecan leaves & shells that we collected from one of my parents neighbors so I could add them to the grass clippings, but when I went into the farmhouse to get the bags of them, every single bag was torn to shreds & it was/is about 2 feet deep of pecan branches/leaves in the farmhouse now. What a mess. I don’t know how long it is going to take me to clean it up & haul it to the garden for my compost pile. I also have no idea how many animals are burrowed into it, I’m hoping it was just a raccoon who wanted to eat pecans, and not a snake or possum or porcupine making nests in the leaves. I decided to leave that discovery for another day & continued on with filling up the new compost bin with the grass clippings.

I also made some decisions on how I am going to prune trees/bushes, work the soil, make the beds, where I’m going to plant things this year & so on. I even went as far as thinking about how I want the new fences to be (when I build a new house out there), what kind of plants & trees to plant & how many of the cedar trees I’m going to remove (all of them!).

I took my camera out there but alas, the battery was dead. It is charging as I type, and I shall take it out with me tomorrow to feed cattle & tomorrow or tue. to the garden.

This past sunday my parents and I decided to make the most of the nice day (40 F, sunny & no wind) for a drive around the county & a hike around the farm. The first stop was at the Cemetary on the South East corner of the property. It had recently been mowed which was odd to us & as we walked around looking at all the old & updated tomb stones, we saw a very new grave. It was for a 3 year old boy who had died Jan of 2007.

We decided to see where the road we were on would take us into the small village north east of us & after 20 or 30 minutes or so we arrived back at the farm house. The Llama was grazing by the sign & by the farm house although her herd was in the pasture to the south. She must have jumped the fence.

We then took a nice hike/walk by this little gorge or tiny canyon as my Mom called it. She had us walking among all the huge cedar trees & through & over a few fences before we got back to the truck. It was a nice day though & a lot of fun seeing parts of the property I didn’t recollect.

I have also procured quite a bit of leaves & grass clippings in the past few weeks. The leaves & pecan hulls were from neighbors of my parents & the grass clippings were dumped along the fence by the farm house. Not sure why someone would go the trouble of bagging & dumping a ton of grass clippings out there, but they did. I need to put together some wire cages to hold it in by the garden for compost. That is next!

After a week of ice & snow & fog, the sun is finally back out & the daytime temps are back in the high 40’s. I took a trip to the Garden with Doc (my english mastiff) in tow. Boomer (my french mastiff) who is in photos a few posts back, finally succumbed to cancer just before Thanksgiving.

It was so nice to be back at the garden. I have missed just sitting & looking at the birds fly around & feeling the sun on my face. I took some bird seed out & filled up the bird feeders including the new one I got for my birthday a week ago. The big tree by the garden had a limb split, so I will need to go back out in a few days with the right equipment to remove it.

As I was getting ready to leave Cecil (caretaker) drove up to feed the cattle & take them some hay. We talked for an hour or so – he gave me some info on the property sold across the way. It was split into two parcels of 80 acres. A man from in town purchased half & a man from the city purchased the other. They will only be one house I think. There was a stipulation from the man who sold it that no mobile homes would be allowed on it. I was more afraid of actual brick home development – but that isn’t going to happen either. I am so thankful.

I also told Cecil about my desire to learn more about the farm & the cattle & to call me whenver he needs help with the cattle etc. He is doing this mostly himself since the guy who was helping him has taken a full time job. Cecil is also in his 80’s – so he definitely shouldn’t be left to do all the work by himself. I am really looking forward to getting to know all the property & learn more about the equipment he has & what he does to take care of the place.

I went out to the garden this afternoon. It was very foggy, around 40 degrees & the fog started to “sweat” while I was out there. I put a lot of the tools & garden stuff in the old farm house, pulled up the last bit of plants still in the beds & laid out more cardboard.

I did notice that the trees that were cut away in the property across the road were removed so utility poles could be put in. I saw 2 of them. I don’t feel so uneasy about the new owners now. I think there will be 1 or 2 homes at the most.

The past month has seen an amazing pecan harvest around here. My parents & uncle trees have dropped so many pecans – I was given half a brown grocery bag of cracked & blown pecans. I did have to sort for shells, which I saved to put in the compost pile. Here is what I ended up with minus a bag in the fridge. The pecans in the green bowl are whole (not cracked) but they crack so easy. They are called paper shell pecans & it is no joke. They crack especially easy – you can crack & pull them apart with your fingers.

I’m going to be going out to the garden area over the weekend to scout good places to plant the new fruit & nut trees I have on my list – really looking forward to that!

Last week I was at the garden to have a great time and as I drove up I saw some city utility vehicles across the way from the garden on the property that just sold. They were cutting down trees which made me a little uneasy. Are they going to be filling that 160 acres with houses? Or just one or two houses for the 2 men who bought the property? Perhaps they are cutting down all the trees? Or perhaps they are just cutting down trees to make way for some utility poles they are going to erect to send electricity & phone service to wherever they are going to build the houses? Either way, it was a little distressing to be honest.

A few days later I went back to see what had been done & they had cut down a 10 foot wide path down to the pond about 100 yards back from the road. There is also a new gate across from our driveway. I just hope the privacy remains. I also picked all the green tomatoes & peppers that were left on the plants because we had a frost coming up. Many of them have turned already so I have been enjoying them. I need to finish preparing the garden for next year & paint the words on the sign. Luckily the weather is still beautiful. 76 with a light breeze today – beautiful!

Last night was beautiful. I was at the garden in the evening & took some wonderful photos of the full moon & the sunset. While I was out there taking the photos I heard this crazy noise which was definitely an animal (not machine) but I have no idea what it was. It was like this strange screeching/clearing throat noise that sounded way too deep/low to have been a bird. Perhaps there was some kind of a wild cat out there?

Last Sunday my parents joined me at the garden & my wonderful father mowed & weed whacked the garden area for the last time this year so everything is low enough to decompose over the winter under the newspaper/cardboard/mulch I lay down on top of it.

I am already thinking of what I am going to do different next year, what I want to grow more of, what I don’t want to grow & how I want to maintain the garden area from now on.

We had two days of rain since my last post – about 2 inchs total. I have found more cut worms on the tomato plants & they are hungry. I have removed about 7 of them. My mom tells me that when I was 6 or 7 my neighbor friend down the street and I would feed the cut worms to my friends chickens. I don’t remember that.

It is now the middle of October & I see a month has passed since I last posted. The garden is still flourishing & actually producing more tomatoes & peppers than ever. There are 6 little watermelon growing & a ton of blooms waiting to open. I don’t think they will make it unless our first frost is way off in the future. After this years rain deluge I won’t rule anything out.

Since I wasn’t able to dig all the beds I wanted to the past few months I have decided to cover the area with cardboard & some kind of mulch/compost through the winter. The field next to the garden was mowed down a few weeks ago & I am thinking of filling up the wheelbarrow a few times (100) with the cuttings & placing it all over the cardboard. I started yesterday & after two hours got some cardboard laid down.

Over the past month I must have made over 10 batches of pesto & dried a few lbs of basil & given quite a bit of it away. I still have plenty left to harvest before the first frost. I think I will dry a bunch & make more pesto to freeze for the winter.

We had a few rain storms over the past month & one brewing when I finally took the dogs out to the garden. I will be taken them out a lot more now that I have a better way of bringing them out on my own. They really love going to the farm & it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be keeping them out of the beds.

There were also beautiful sunsets and sunrises that I was able to witness at the garden. I can’t help but take a ton of photos and just stare at the sky instead of work in the garden. I feel like I am missing something if I don’t take it all in.

It seems the tomatoes are more abundant than ever now, not only are there more fruit on the vines but the vines have grown like crazy. I have had to put up more support for them & now that it is cooler again, I am finding more pests on all the plants. It is still in the high 70’s mid 80’s during the day so hopefully we will have another month or more to harvest the garden.