So Much to Do!

I'm sure some of you are like me, it feels like you always behind because there is just so much to do. Spring and summer tend to fly by with all the attention you give to planting, weeding, watering.....and weeding again. Spring and Summer is also the time I move and stack the coming Fall/Winter firewood into shed One. Once in awhile Sue gets into the firewood action as you see in the photo.

Fast Forward: Sorry I let the above entry slide so long - its now 10/22/2011

Sue and I have certain tasks we share and ones which each of us handle pretty much on our own. The weeding we share because it without it the garden areas can simply be over run. Sue pretty much handles the watering chores and I pretty much take care of tieing-up the plants needing support structures. Sue and I share brush removal, though I handle the cutting down of small trees, she helps me move them to the firewood cutting area. Spring and Summer zoomed by this year but May, June and the first half of July were cooler than usual, and we had much more rain. This did not hurt the root crops but the bean, summer squash, table grapes and to some extent the tomatoes were held back. The tomatoes got a needed boost at the end of Summer and we did somewhat better than we feared.

The biggest change in the garden this Summer has been the installation of several raised beds. After trying to trap voles and failing miserably, it came to me that with digging front feet they would not be good climbers, so a raised bed might be good. But then how to keep the voles from tunneling under? Well, to the rescue came hardware cloth, in 1/2 and 1/4 inch mesh. I constructed the beds to be 36 inches wide, to the outside edges, the width that the cloth normally comes in. I built nine beds, using 2X10 Douglas Fir planks.

The harvest at Summer's End was decent for tomatoes, beets, most of the carrots, parsnips, strawberries and cane berries. The apple trees produced some fruit but the trees are still young, as are the blueberry shrubs, so the crops are still small. We did have some summer visitors, daughter Meghann and her two boys stayed one night, granddaughter Meghan stayed several nights and got to meet her two Moriarty cousins, Devan & Bria and he aunt Sasha. This Summer was fun and we learned lots and added to our homestead.