Fall Gardens

Yesterday was the first day in a long time I've had enough time and it was cool enough for me to venture outside and work in the garden.  It is officially fall and the days have cooled to the point where temperatures are no longer in the triple digits.  Hot weather is really hard on me and I have a difficult time staying outside for very long in really hot weather like we have had the last couple of summers.  Sorry I keep complaining about that, but it is true.  

Now that it is cooler, I feel like I have a new lease on life and I started the day out yesterday by taking a stroll out to the field to see what Tom had been up to.  I found that he has been a real "busy beaver"!  First off, he has worked up the ground where he is going to plant garlic.  He will be planting it anytime.  I will write a blog entry on that and give some more detail of why it is always planted in the fall at a later date.

Next, I saw that he has planted turnips, radishes, lettuce and several other fall crops.  The black hose-like things are "drip" tape.  That is the best way to irrigate.  It conserves water by only  delivering it to where it is needed, the roots of the plants.

Heading back up to the raised beds, I passed the chicken pen.  They all ran over to see if I had any goodies for them.

Sorry, chickens, maybe next time.

Upon reaching the raised beds, I found that Tom had a nice stand of lettuce in one of them.  He had planted it a couple of weeks ago.  At that time we were still having temperatures in the 90s so he put the shade cloth up to help protect it from the sun.  Since then, he has pulled back the shade cloth and we can most likely go ahead and remove it at this point.  After all, tomorrow is October 1!

Seeing how busy he has been inspired me to get my act together and do some gardening myself.  There was an empty raised bed where tomatoes had been during the summer.  Tom had cleared it out several weeks ago.  So, I commandeered it and planted some arugula, bok choi and Chinese cabbage.  

These should have been planted several weeks ago, but my motto is "better late than never".  We'll just have to wait and see what happens.  If it stays relatively warm this fall and we don't have a frost until mid-November, then I may be able to sample the fruits of my labor. 

At any rate, the chickens were able to sample some of the "fruits of my labor".  While digging around in the dirt, I found some grub worms for them.

Sorry to gross you out.  I hate these little buggers, but the chickens thought they were wonderful.