Fall Season Underway

The strawberries around the county are growing, the citrus is turning sweeter by the day, and the vegetables are being harvested. I enjoy this time of the year. Holidays, baseball finals, (Go Rays!), college football (Go Gators), pro football (Go Bucs), and eating events.

Two pictures of our harvested crops!

We are still planting lettuces, cilantro, carrots, and onions. I started the red onion (Mars) in a tray and will be transplanting them out. I used organic soil and when they started to germinate out of the soil I top-dressed with an organic fertilizer (Sustane). I didn't have much luck with the horse poop this year. There was way too much wood shavings and it is having a very bad effect on the the germination of the seeds. I guess that they are drying out too fast. We are harvesting bok choy, oregano, mint, mustard, and collards. New this week to harvest are the citrus (Hamlins), dandelion, and parsley. The cucumbers are finished. I top dressed the entire field with an organic fertilizer (Bradfield) and weeded half of the plot. I will weed the next half this week and plant a few more things. The pest pressure is pretty light and there are ladybugs all over the place.

Pumpkin Recipe

One of our blog readers who also ordered some pumpkin seeds sent us a recipe for pumpkin soup. He says it's like Texas Chili, you can tweak to your own taste. Use one large pot (3-4 qt) filled with peeled, cubed pumpkin. Add 5 cups water and 5 cubes of chicken bullion. 1 large onion, quartered. Boil for 30-40 minutes. Puree adding add 1 stick margarine or butter, about 1 tsp fresh ground pepper and 1/2 cup half and half or whole milk. You can add garlic, parsley or other spices to change.
We still have seeds if you would like them. Refer to our previous post on how to get them.

Our new plot is doing alright. We have been harvesting cucumbers, mustards, mint (first harvest this week), oregano, and bok choy. I planted more mustards, collards, kale, lettuce again, carrots again, and cilantro. The older collards are starting to get bigger and will be harvesting soon. The cucumbers got hurt by an early frost last week. I'm not sure how much longer they will produce. I also planted a cover crop of a fall mix from Johnny's seeds and a crimson clover crop. I want to try the two to see which works best. That really was good for our summer crop. It helped me identify a real winner.

Harvest Starts Again!

We have started harvesting some plants. Nothing too big, but we have picked some arugula, cucumbers, mustards, mint and a bok choi. I have never eaten a bok choi before but it was really good. I put it in a stir fry with some leftover steak and it was really nice. It had a unique flavor but not too strong to offend.

Our seeds did not germinate like we had hoped and we had a lot of empty plot so I had to reseed were the water was reaching from the drip tubes. The tubes have worked well aside from that one point. The water travels pretty much straight down and not laterally to wet the row middles. If we were using transplants it would have worked fine. We have had some problems with grasshoppers and some caterpillars on some of the plants but we are taking care of them with pyrethren and bt sprays. In the next few weeks since the temperatures have fallen I will be planting the lettuces again. It was too hot for the a month ago.

We are also adding a composting toilet to the farm so I can rent out the mobile home that we used to live in. I am nearly finished with it and just need to add a door, a flap in the back for the waste removal, a hole where the waste enters, and some paint. I also would like to put some screen for the top for air flow.