Frosty Field

Last Red Rose of Autumn

Square Bales

We heaved and strained, pushed and wrestled
two giant square bales of hay
each one a thousand pounds of denseness
dried grass shredded and packed in massive bricks

nothing like those little square bales
I remember being delivered to the homestead
piled high on a wagon pulled by a wheezing tractor--
father and brothers tossing them higher and higher into a giant stack
that we would climb and tumble all over
and even somersault off (the things farm children do--
how we managed not to damage ourselves, I will never know)

one final heave and the giants were stacked--one on top of the other
out of the way in a corner of the long green barn
muscles strained and out of breath--we leaned on the bales and talked
marveling at the power of the machine that made those bales
compressing, packing into solid bricks
how much less space they take to store
and how they would be perfect to put on a train and ship out West

my mind went to forts and stacks and houses of haybales
and just for the heck of it we calculated out
how many bales we would need for a straw bale home
and what it cost and how long it would last
and how much we would save on heat--since goodness knows
with walls made of massive bales of hay
no heat would escape--ever!

Linked to Real Toads. 

(and this is the baler that makes the giant square bales.)

Edited to add a link about straw bale homes--not that we are about to build one--but sometimes it is nice to dream...Straw bale homes-an Earth Friendly Choice.)

A Touch of Fall...

blackberrry leaf

Hickory leaf

Calendula--blooms until the snow flies 

First Frost

A rose from my garden the morning of our first frost. 

Linked to Macro Monday. 

Sunshine after the Rain

Today has been a cold dreary, rainy, raw day. We are supposed to get a heavy snow overnight and I'm looking forward to it brightening the last of these November days. In the meantime I've spent a good part of the day inside in front of the wood stove sorting through photos. I cropped the above photo out of a corner of a failed macro I took a few weeks ago. It was taken on a pleasant evening with the temperatures in the 60's. The sun had suddenly come out after a drenching rain.

Sugared Rose Leaves

Linked to Macro Monday.

November Daisy

A lone wild daisy, still holding up her petals in the November rain.

Even a Mud Puddle....

...can be a work of art.

The Easy Way to Plant Potatoes

When I was growing up, planting potatoes was my father's way of opening up new garden space. My dad would winter the cows in the plot he wanted to turn into garden. A thick layer of straw, hay, and manure would build up on the ground over the winter. Come spring the cows would be moved to pasture and the plot were they had over wintered would be staked out in straight rows for potatoes. Planting the potatoes was as simple as tucking the seed potatoes under the mulch every 12 inches or so. Harvest was just as simple. Come fall, all we had to was rake back the hay and straw and harvest the potatoes that were laying under the mulch, but on the top the ground.

Now I don't have cows, but I can still plant potatoes using the same principle. This weekend I prepared a row in the garden for the potatoes I will plant next spring. I cut down the corn stalks that had been growing there and removed the bigger weeds such as yellow dock and thistles. The smaller weeds I didn't worry about. Then I put down about six inches of partially decayed wood chip mulch.

 Next spring all I will have to do is is tuck a potato under the mulch every 12 inches or so. No digging, no weeding. I may have to add more mulch next spring depending on how much the wood chips have settled. But that will be it.

Growing potatoes couldn't be easier.

You can do the same thing using shredded leaves, straw, old hay, or other mulch.

It was another beautiful day today with highs in the high 50's. The honey bees were out in my garden working the remaining flowers.  (Yes, we still have some!) This bee is on  a bok choy flower.

Linked to Homestead Revival's Barn Hop.

Melting Snow

We had our first snow on Thursday. It came down fast and furious for about an hour and covered the ground and trees and stayed over night. On Friday morning the sun came up and the snow melted and was quickly gone. Today was 60 degrees and I worked outside for much of the day in a short sleeved t-shirt.

Dandelion Haven is now on facebook! Click here to come over and visit!

Linked to Macro Monday.

Toto Blackeyed Susans

It was a beautiful 64 degrees today--and I even have flowers still blooming!

Silent Tree

A silent tree

under a half moon

against an October twilight

warm air

growing chill

I stop for a moment

on the edge of the road

to take it all in

then turn

and head for home

the ending to a long day

Linked to Skywatch Friday.

Thoughts on Squash Vine Borers

To celebrate the first day of October, I harvested my pumpkins. Successfully growing pumpkins this year makes me feel very accomplished. It is the first time I have had a pumpkin harvest from my own garden since I have been living in Michigan. In the past, when I planted them, the squash vine borers quickly infested the stems, and the plants would die a slow and horrible death, leaving me with one or two immature green pumpkins. This year though, I was determined to outwit the borers.

None of the research I did was encouraging. The consensus across the board was that no matter what organic methods you take, you are going to end up with dead vines and few, if any pumpkins. But, today I am here to tell you---yes, it is possible to have organically grown pumpkins and squash in spite of the dreaded squash vine borers.



Baby Bear Pie Pumpkins

In late June I set to work fighting the squash vine borers. The plants were about 2 weeks old. The three  most reasonable suggestions I had read where to lay foil around the base of the plants to confuse the borers, put oil on the stems weekly to suffocate the eggs, and to hand pick the eggs at least once a week. I decided to try a combination of the three.

I foiled about half my plants--I didn't do them all so that I could compare them with the plants that weren't foiled. I honestly don't think the foiling made any difference. It was a lot of work and I have decided not to do it next year.

Oiling the stems was a lot messier and more time consuming that I thought it would be be--but I was treating 12 hills of pumpkins, 4 hills of winter squash, and 6 hills of summer squash. It took me all morning (3-4 hours) to complete this task each time I did it. If you were just doing a few hills, it wouldn't take that long. At first I tried to apply the oil with a rag, but that got so dirty I ended up just using my fingers. Oil and dirt don't mix very well. I had very dirty, hard to clean hands and finger nails by the time I was done. I used a high quality olive oil--I was going to use cheap vegetable oil, but my husband pointed out that extra virgin olive oil is very hard to wash off of dishes, so wouldn't that be better to use? It wouldn't wash off so easily in the rain.

Before oiling the stems I inspected the plants carefully for eggs and picked them off. This was easy, but also time consuming. The eggs are small, but dark and are easy to see.

I oiled the stems and hand picked eggs once a week from June 27th to July 10th. When I went out the next week to do it, the plants were vining heavily and it would have caused damage to the vines to try to get to the stems.

The vines did eventually get infested with borers, but the oiling and picking the eggs off gave the plants a chance to grow and become healthy and vibrant before the borers started to sap the strength out of them. Most of the pumpkin vines did die the last few weeks of September, but not before 95% of the pumpkins ripened. As for the summer squash, for the first time since I've been in Michigan, I had too many of them. In fact, zucchini and yellow crooknecks are still going strong. I made a huge batch of zucchini muffins today as well as a pasta dish with yellow squash. I've filled a freezer half full of squash.  I've never had summer squash this late in the year.  



Pumpkins and squash lined up on our balcony.

The extra work and effort was well worth in my opinion. Next year besides oiling the stems and picking off the eggs, I want to try putting tanglefoot around the stems to catch the moths as they lay the eggs. This is my own idea and I haven't seen it any  where else. It will be interesting to see if it helps as well.

What about you--do any of my readers have a tried and true way of dealing with squash vine borers?

Linked to Farm Girl Friday, The Barn Hop, and Garden Life.



From the Garden this Week...

The garden is winding down for the year.

I picked the last of the large tomatoes and canned six more quarts today for a grand total total of 20 quarts. There are several plants of Italian Plum that are still ripening. Today I dehydrated a a few pounds of these in the oven. (I have an oven with a dehydrate setting.) I think that is what I will do with the rest of them as they ripen.

(Plum tomatoes dehydrating in the oven on parchment paper.)





Last Thursday I picked the four largest Kaitlin cabbages and processed them into sauerkraut. I haven't made sauerkraut for years, but it is a pretty simple process. The basic process can be summed up in one sentence: Slice, salt, and pack cabbage into jars then let it sit for week to lacto-ferment into sauerkraut. I did this many times when living on the homestead. There is always the chance a couple of jars will spoil. My four large cabbages made about 5 quarts. I'm a little nervous that I will end up with spoiled cabbage, but hopefully I'm worrying for nothing. I peeked into the jars today and the cabbage was bubbling away and smelled good, so it looks like the kraut is off to a good start.

One of the things I am loving from my garden right now is raspberries. An older friend from church gave me several starts from her raspberry patch that was planted by her mother in law more than 60 years ago. I have no idea what kind of raspberries they are, but they are the biggest fall raspberries I have ever seen. Very sweet, too, and more purple than red.

The tomatoes may not have done well this year, but the peppers and eggplants did. Today I froze 7 quarts of peppers. That should keep us supplied for chili, sloppy joe, and stews all winter long.

I'm completely sold on Fairy Tale eggplants. The compact plants produce dozens of small, sweet, tender fruits. They are so good you can eat them raw right off the plant. This is the first time I've had success with growing eggplants. I've been preserving the extra in olive oil with a bit of basil and garlic as they mature.

I still have some green beans to pick, lots of fall greens that I will be eating through November, carrots still in the ground, and several root crops to harvest. The pumpkins continue to look good and I am just waiting for the vines to die back before I pick them.

How is your garden doing? Are you still harvesting or are you done for the season?

Linked to Homestead Barn Hop.

Mini Cabbages and a Pumpkin Update

`You know how after you harvest the first large broccoli head, smaller shoots will grow in its place? Summer cabbage does the same thing. These four little heads grew in the place of a caraflex cabbage head I harvested back in July. Each of the cabbage plants have 3-4 small heads in various stages of development and will keep me supplied with fresh, tender cabbages through September and October. The beefsteak tomato in the basket with the little cabbages is for size comparison.

Remember my post on oiling and foiling squash vine borers? Well, though my efforts didn't stave off the squash vine borers completely, they had enough of an effect that I am getting what looks to be a wonderful pumpkin and squash harvest. I will write more about my thoughts on this when I make the final harvest. In the meantime, I am so delighted to have pumpkins and squash ripening in my garden. I even have enough zucchini for the first time since I have been gardening in Michigan.

Today because I am craving something made of pumpkin, I picked one of the kakai pumpkins. They are striped green and orange when ripe and have hulless seeds.

I'll probably turn the flesh into pumpkin pudding, and the seeds are roasting in the oven as I write. I'm impressed by the seeds-- completely hulless as advertised, plump, and lots of them.

Stay tuned to Dandelion Haven-- in the next few days we will be having our first ever blog give away. It involves a hand woven, wild crafted basket and something you can plant in your garden this fall (or eat, whichever you choose to do!).

This post is part of Farm Girl Friday at Dandelion House and Garden Life at No Ordinary Homestead.

Getting Ready for Fall in the Garden

You know fall is around the corner when mushrooms start popping up all over the garden.We had a long, hot, dry summer but the last few weeks have been cooler with plenty of rain and grass is green again and I have been spared from the task of watering the garden every other day.

 ...group of golden mushrooms...

 This weekend I spent quite a bit of time in the garden, doing clean up, mulching, and planting seeds. I planted several different kinds of lettuce, spinach, kale, and collards. This fall I want to try row covers to help extend the fall crop into November. I have never done this before so it will be interesting to how it works.

I also thinned the spinach, broccoli raab, and carrots seedlings I planted in early August for fall crops. This is the first year I have tried growing broccoli raab.  My spring crop was a complete failure. In fact most of the spring greens were a complete failure, except for the lettuce. Broccoli raab, spinach, bok choi, and mustard all got a few inches tall then bolted. It was a cold wet spring, weather that these greens usually like, so I was surprised. I'm hoping for better luck this fall!

Broccoli raab seedlings

I dug all the potatoes who's vines had completely died back. This was every thing but the Pontiac red potatoes. The Pontiac reds, which are a late storage potato, still have green leaves, but I pulled one plant anyway just to see what was going on in the ground.

Wow, the one plant had many huge potatoes! I was very impressed. In the photo below are 8 hills of Yukon gold potatoes, and one hill of Pontiac red potatoes. I turned one Pontiac red potato into scalloped potatoes for Saturday dinner.

I prepared the soil where I had dug the potatoes for planting garlic this fall by pulling all the weeds and tilling in a few inches of compost. With any luck I'll get my garlic in the ground next weekend.

For a while a little tiny woodchuck joined me in the garden. Actually, he was right on the edge of the garden, busily munching on clover and alfalfa. I know most people wouldn't consider a woodchuck a pleasant gardening companion, but he was so tiny and cute and has been the first one I've seen since one got locked in our large garage the first week we moved here and destroyed the insulation.



...a lunch of clover and alfalfa...

We may have to do something about him later, but for the moment, I just enjoyed him, and he obviously was delighted with the alfalfa and clover. He keep one eye on me the whole time, he wasn't about to to let that stop him from getting a meal.



It has also been a delight to watch the butterflies, of which we have many. This summer I have learned so many of their names. (I have plenty more to learn, though.) Here a Pearl Crescent pauses for a moment on a blade of grass.



A Pearl Crescent butterfly.

What things are you enjoying in your garden right now?

This post is part of the barn hop over at Homestead Revival.

Reflection in Still Water

This is one of the last photos I took with my new camera a few weeks ago. The camera turned out to be very frustrating to use--about 90% of the photos turned out blurry no matter what I did or what setting it was on. This was very frustrating, especially since one the reasons I had bought it was the many reviews by customers saying that it was a very easy camera to use and the pictures turned out great with little effort. I mentioned my problem to a friend who is a professional photographer and he said the problem may be with just this particular camera. He suggested that I try to send it back and have it replaced. So I put the camera back in the box and waited to hear back from the company. I finally heard from them today and we are sending it back for a replacement. So hopefully in a few weeks I will have the same model camera, but one the works the way it is supposed to.

Faces in the Cold

Two carved pumpkins

sit on the edge of the compost pile.

Crumpled and cold,

with gaping grins

and empty eyes,

they slowly sink

back into the the soil.

Old Oak Tree

A once mighty oak tree stands

naked and bare,

along a strip of golden prairie grass.

Trunk stripped of bark,

charred by flames,

now a home for woodpeckers

and wood boring insects.

But it still has a haunting beauty,

drawing those who pass by

to stop for a moment.

They stand amid the trampled grasses

under the dark branches

and gaze at the stark profile against the sky.