Fall has arrived

 With the arrival of fall comes new chores. As the garden is winding down, I can now add debris removal to my duty roster. The picking of vegetables has slowed down so I don't have as much processing to do. Now as some of the plants die, I find myself still quite busy in the garden removing dead plants and cleaning the area. Everyday I also learn that I could have done a better job in the garden overall. I have never looked at gardening as anything more than an edible hobby, until now. As a dairy farmer, my goal was to produce as much milk as my cows could, without using drugs as a production aid. To achieve higher production, I needed to do a better job of growing, harvesting, and processing quality feed for the cows. Now, looking back on this years garden, I realize that I should be using some of the knowledge that I have about growing a crop.Getting plants to grow isn't all that hard. Getting plants to grow and produce a larger crop will take knowing what that plant needs to get the maximum harvest. What are the plants nutritional needs? What diseases are they suseptable to? How much water and sun do they need? Before the seed goes into the ground in the spring of 2013, I will know the answers to these questions. I hope to increase my harvest without increasing the amount of labor. Do the same job better and enjoy it more. Learn to grow a garden without any chemical help. I need to learn how to control bugs using a natural repellant. These are the goals that I have set for my garden of 2013.
  Now I know that winter will not be dull, I know it will be a time of learning. The internet makes it easy to find the information so I will have no excuse for not learning what I want and need to know. It's time for me to become a gardener, not just someone who has a garden.

Garden Thoughts

 As I'm making tomato sauce I'm thinking about next years garden. It may seem silly but if I plan things now, while the mistakes I made this year are still visible, I may be able to do a better job next year. I know for sure that I will need more room. I really over-crowded this years space. I also have to do a better job of protecting my plants from bugs and disease. In the past, I always relied on chemicals, especially when I was farming. Now I know that these chemicals are killing us and polluting the earth. It's time to learn a newer and safer method for growing food. Others have done this so I'm sure that I can also learn. They say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Well, I'm no puppy but I'll never be an "OLD" dog. This winter I will spend some time online doing research about new, safe ways to control issues in the garden. I used a baking soda and dish soap mixture this year for spotted leaf mildew. I was pleased with the results although things would have been better and the results better if I had started using it sooner. Everyday is a learning experience. We just have to be open minded and accept this new knowledge when it's presented. Then we need to learn how to use this new knowledge apply it to our own needs. Growing our own food is fun and we can control what goes into it. So the "no-brainer" for me is, grow it safer using more natural preventative methods to produce safer, healthier food. No chemical sprays. No chemical additives. I may not be 100% green but every bit helps.

Elaine's Birthday

 Today is Elaine's birthday.  The other day I asked her what she wanted for supper and what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday. She said she would like chicken baked with mushroom soup over it. I had planned on having chicken that night for supper so it was already thawed. We decided to have her birthday dinner on Monday night instead of tonight. Then she told me what kind of cake she wanted. She didn't want a homemade cake or pie. She didn't even want strawberry short cake. She wanted a store bought cake with lots of icing and roses.. So Monday night we had chicken and store bought birthday cake. Tonight we will have pizza and blueberry cobbler.
 The last 14 months have been a little rough. I wasn't doing well health wise and then Elaine started having problems too. We struggled through the fall and winter as my strength and stamina returned slowly. Then in late winter we learned, what we had feared, that Elaine had cancer and would need surgery. Now here we are, both of us have had another birthday. I'm feeling much better than I did a year ago and Elaine has had her surgery and recovered. And best of all, the surgeon was able to remove all of the cancer and Elaine is doing fine. Life is full of challenges and obstacles that we have to deal with. We know what we have dealt with in the past. The mystery is what the future holds for us.
  I know what's in store for today. I have okra to freeze, sauce to make, and a pizza and blueberry cobbler to bake. I better get started if I'm going to get this done.

Making Improvements

 My garden did quite well this year. I think it could have been much better if I had used my head a little more. I have been a farmer for most of my life but I didn't use that knowledge when it came to my garden. If I had gotten a soil test done at the extension service, I would have known that my garden needed lime. I always did soil testing on the farm, why didn't I even think about it for my garden? When planting crops on the farm,  seed spacing and row spacing was always considered to prevent overpopulating. I planted some things in my garden way to close. This caused lower production, smaller vegetables, and in some cases, latter blooming caused by lack of sunshine. I also made some other silly mistakes. I say silly because I know better. The soil here is somewhat heavy. Root vegetables do well in loose soil. All I had to do was take my hoe and loosen the soil every once in a while. Just like cultivating a corn field, it will slow down the weeds and loosen the ground so the roots can grow. I did this in the garden, just not often enough. My biggest mistake was planting things to close together which made it hard for me to work in between the plants. This also created a problem for sunlight to get to all the plants. The taller plants shaded the smaller ones reducing yields. I know better, just never thought about it when I was planting. Another big mistake was during the dry spell in June and July. I needed to water the garden every night and sometimes in the morning too. The problem came because I have village water here. With the hot and humid weather, the water authority increased the amount of chlorine they were using. Vegetables don't do well with a lot of chlorine. I need to make a rain water collection system and install a filter on my household water system..
  The most important thing that I learned from this year's gardening experience was THINK!!  Don't take things for granted, pay attention to the plants. These plants know how to survive in nature. With the right help these plants not only feed themselves, but they will feed us too. I need to put my experience to use and not ignore what I know to be the proper way to do it.

No Excuses

  I've been neglecting my blog for almost 2 months. It's true, I've been busy with my garden, canning and freezing this year's harvest, but that's not an excuse. That's why I planted a garden and that's a lot of what this blog is about, my daily experiences. So here I sit, at my computer, telling you what's happening in my life today in central New York.
  I can't work in the garden today because it's raining, so it's time to get caught up on other things, like housework. I'm doing laundry and making tomato sauce for supper. Actually I'm making zucchini Parmesan with the sauce. The tomatoes are still ripening and the squash are still  producing. The beans are done but what a crop they made. I have 8 gallon bags full of beans in the freezer plus we have had several meals with beans this summer. I sold some and I gave some away to friends. 2012 was a good year for beans. The fall peas are starting to pod and the fall beets are doing well. The garden of 2012 isn't done yet.
  This spring I bought 25 strawberry plants. I planted them in a poor location so I've been transplanting them. I'm up to 64 plants and still have more to go. I'm looking forward to the 2013 strawberry crop. I also bought a Doyle's blackberry plant that is supposed to produce up to 30 gallons of berries. Mr Doyle told me that I might not see 30 gallons a year, but if I followed his instructions, I would get over 20 gallons for sure. Time will tell.

  My latest project for the garden is building a greenhouse using my old 10'x20' tent frame and covering it with 6mil plastic. Once that is done, it will be time to build a tow behind the tractor roto-tiller. I bought an old tiller that has a bad motor. Now I'm building a drive system like the PTO on farm tractors so I can hook it behind and run it off the tractors motor. Finding affordable parts is the challenge, but I will keep looking. As I make progress on my projects, I will get pictures to include to show what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. The why of the project may be a mystery to some but to me it's simple, it will be fun to do.