Thursday, November 10, 2011

Howdy loyal readers,

First of all, my apologies for not writing the last 2 months. I've been busy with some stuff.

So, getting right along to the garden!!
We have had a lot of changes since my last post. For one, a very light FROST actually hit some parts of the garden a week ago. So, it has cooled off substantially since the summer, which is good since it's already mid November...

What's growing: Carrots, beets, chard, boc choi, cabbage, broccoli, kale, turnips, sugar snap peas, lettuce, garlic, arugula, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, & tepary beans.

What's being harvested: Boc choi, okra, peppers, & turnip greens. I should be harvesting tomatoes right now, but since I am lousy at growing tomatoes, I'm not. I'm tempted to rip em all out, but there are a few little green fruits, so I'll keep them and see what happens. Sarah says my greatest challenge in gardening is my love of plants, which makes sense. I am so curious about what they will do, that I leave them in the ground even when they aren't really productive.

I've more or less abandoned the 'native prairie' in favor of a highly productive forage plot for the goats. This means I have overseeded the yard with annual ryegrass, including the area I had seeded with the native prairie mix. I decided to do this for a couple of reasons. First of all, the native area was totally infested with weeds, mostly henbit and mimosa, as well as some ryegrass that went to seed last year (so it was already there anyways...). Secondly, alfalfa is running at $15 per bale right now, and I am tired of paying so much for goat feed. My hope is to reduce costs a bit by supplementing with ryegrass this spring and maybe winter if it grows fast enough.

So, here are some pictures of the vegetables. You can see boc choi in the first one, tomatoes and kale in the second one, beets and carrots in the third.