Sunday, December 20, 2015

December Picture Tour

Only two more days until the first day of winter.  So far this fall the weather has been relatively mild and most days have been warm enough to allow for going outside with just a light jacket.  Today is overcast and it looks cold.  But, in reality, it is not that bad and I decided to head outside for a walk around the farm.


I walked past the hoophouse.  Tom put new plastic on it this year and has piled bags of leaves along the sides to keep wind from blowing in along the bottom and for a little extra insulation.  He has all kinds of nice cool-season greens growing inside.  By the way, we did not rake all these leaves ourselves, but have recycled them from curbside.  It's a win-win.  Keeps them out of the landfill while giving us material for our compost making and valuable mulch material.


We still have a bit of garden cleanup to do.  Below is the pepper patch.  We grew several kinds of bell peppers this year, along with pimento, jalapeno, cayenne and poblano peppers.


There are a few green and growing plants in the garden, though.  These are turnips.  They don't mind the cold weather.  Both the leaves and roots of turnips are edible and they are quite nutritious.


Tom always plants cover crops during the winter to help renew the soil and keep it from blowing away in the wind.  Here is a blog I wrote about cover crops a few years ago, Cover Crops, and below is a picture of one of the fields with Austrian winter peas planted as a cover crop.


The peach trees are dormant now.  But, they produced some really good peaches this year.  Peaches are my favorite fruit and I am already looking forward to peach season next year.  But, for now the trees need to rest and renew their strength.  We humans could take a lesson from them.


Sally Dog went with me on my walk.  She enjoyed checking out the compost pile.  Not sure what she found so interesting, but here she is.
  

There was no activity around the bee hives.  Our beekeeper says the bees will venture out on warm sunny days during the winter, but today they were snug inside their hives.


On that note, I'm getting a little chilled and think I will head on back to my hive and get warmed up!


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