80. Fall is Officially Here
Happy First Day of Fall! It has been a moody, rainy and cooler day here. Definitely puts me in the mood for the fall season. I was just talking with my sister in law the other day about how neither of us are sure how we are already at this time of the season. My fall garden is kicking into high gear and the summer garden is almost done.
As far as the summer garden goes, the only things left in my garden at this point are okra, zinnias and sweet potatoes. The okra will stay in the garden until a frost comes through which right now, is looking like the end of October. At that point, I will cut it down close to soil level and allow the roots to stay intact over the winter.
The zinnias will be coming out right before the frost comes in order for me to plant garlic. I actually had to order all new garlic seed this year because I forgot to save any back to replant and I have already used all of my crop from this past year. At least this gives me an opportunity to try new varieties. I really liked the red garlic I planted this year so I plan to try more kinds of that.
Sweet potatoes will need to be harvested in the next couple of weeks. Although they can wait until frost, I’d like to go ahead and get them out of the ground before that if I can. Side note: if you’ve never made a sweet potato pie from scratch with your own sweet potatoes, you’re missing out!
On Friday I spent some time working on cleaning up the garden. Some of the areas of my garden had gotten super overgrown with weeds and grass. I am going to have to make a different game plan for weed control next year, especially if I still plan on expanding the garden again. I finally feel like the garden is tidy again.
I also spent some time planting up more cover crops. Like I said before, this is one of my main focuses this fall because I want to have healthy soil and this is a great way to achieve that. I also got some spinach seeds in the ground. While these won’t be ready to harvest until late winter, it’s worth spending the time now so they don’t bolt on me while they are still young.
Last update for this week, we had our pigs processed. We had 9 pigs that were processed over the course of 5 days and all together they weighed over 3375 pounds! Needless to say, we have a lot of meat and a good amount of fat. I spent some time today rendering down some of the fat into lard that I can use in cooking. I have a lot more to go but it’s nice to start working on it as I have time.
Until Next Time, Happy Gardening!