Goings on in the fall garden

rainbow chard, planted in July is going strong

Packman broccoli, in flower.  This attracts a lot of bees and other pollinators

My lettuce and spinach patch, now about 30 days or so old and we are picking from it.  Cut and come again style.

My root trio- radish, beet and carrot.  Radishes are about done, beets in about 30 days and carrots for winter.

This radish is starting to bolt.  Its easy to tell from the broken leaves (usually its one big leaf, lobed leaves are for bolting radishes)

same trio bed with radishes removed.  It really loosens the soil nicely for the beets and carrots to grow

from near to far: turnips, rutabaga, kohlrabi and spinach....all 30 days in

hard to see but if you look closely I've got onion seed sprouts started here to overwinter for spring next year.

Spring lettuce gone to seed.  Also attracts pollinators and provides me some seeds.

anyone know what this is?

Getting things together

I finally sorted my seeds and found out that I have no less than 6 varieties/packets of beets, 3 of the same variety packets of spinach, 3 each of pea types and green bean types....what I'm saying here is "Hi, my name is Melody and I am a seed addict".  Kinda feeling like a hoarder about now.  A hoarder who will have a really awesome, yummy garden this year.
The house is still in the works.  We have an inspection coming up on Wednesday that will make or break the deal (not worried though).  If they find anything major we can walk from it.  Fortunately my husband and a friend who happens to be a contractor had already looked at the house inside and out (except the roof) and determined it looked pretty good AND there was an inspection from two years ago that a bunch of things were brought up and fixed at that time.
We are still undecided if we are selling our 9 acre lot.  On the one hand, its a great lot for growing hay, animal feeds and grains.  We could fatten up grazing animals over there if we added some fencing and there is a lot of wild fruits along the perimeter that are pretty awesome.  On the other hand though, its a monthly payment that doesn't really earn its keep now.  The money we pay into that lot every month could go a long way into the new house and its acreage.  Also the upkeep of the lot is a pretty decent task all by itself.  We had been relying on a local guy to cut the hay but if you've been keeping up with my blog you already know that so far that hasn't been really working out.  So if we keep it, we could really use to buy a tractor and hay cutting equipment.  More $$.
If we keep it then we really need to earn money off of it.  Enough to offset at least some of its costs.  Steers could pretty easily do that as the demand for grassfed beef is pretty good, we'd need to purchase though the livestock, fencing, vet bills and processor fees.  A CSA could do it pretty well too, but for that option we really do need a tractor.  An orchard could work, but there are a lot of apple orchards around here. Pastured poultry, maybe, but I'm concerned that we'd have trouble keeping them safe from predators when we aren't right there for them.
Sorry guys, I get to thinking on paper sometimes with this blog and just start rambling on.  I'll keep you posted as things get interesting.

counter offer

Their counter offer was terrible.  They barely left their original price and are refusing to make any of our requested repairs.  Mind you we haven't had the place inspected yet so there might be more needed to the place than what we requested.  I have a feeling that this may end up being a dead end.  We have a price in our heads that sounds just right for this house and they are still 10k above that price in their counter offer.  We plan to counter back but I don't think they will like it.

Tomorrow I go and look at another house, one that is in the running right up with the one we bid on.  Its in the next county....about a 1400 sq ft log cabin on 8+ acres w/ a barn.  I've heard from my husband that its a tad small but we should be able to work it out.  Its out in the middle of nowhere so I don't suspect anyone would have a problem if we added on to it in the future.  (One of the things I won't miss from our old cookie cutter, vinyl village home we used to live in...the one with a restrictive HOA)

My seed order arrived in the mail today and I'm feeling so charged for this spring's garden.  I need to start a few seeds soon for cold weather crops and artichokes but we have no place to set up the mini-greenhouse.  We really need to find a place soon!

its just about seed ordering time

Guess I should start planning next year's garden.  I think we will move it, shrink it and keep it simpler next year.  This year it was still too big even though I only used half the space Neil did from the year before but it was still too much to keep up.  I think I could probably use the larger garden next year but I'm hoping if I can do a better design job and really maximize the space and plants I'll have a better outcome. 

Gahhhhrlic and cake

I have all the garlic planted!  Yeah!!  I planted a little over 50 cloves in between our asparagus plants.  About 20 were from last years crop and most of the rest were whatever white variety was at the store this season.  I did also put down some store bought elephant garlic, but only about 6 cloves.  I totally didn't get an order in this year so here's to a little experiment :)  I plan to try more of these experiments next year.  I'll let you know how it goes.

I've heard from the bank that our appraiser has requested additional information from the builder.  Not sure exactly what that might be but I put in a call to our builder today to follow up and try to get this thing off the ground.  I had hoped that I we might be started by now since my mother is coming next week but alas, we have no progress at this time.

Speaking of next week, its my husband's birthday!  I'm making this cake King Arthur's favorite fudge birthday cake recipe  and it just looks so indulgent.  I may have to post pictures of it.  My mom is coming up from Florida on that same day and the following day we are going to see my sister.  Should make for an exciting week around here.

Here's the birthday boy and his biggest fan.

Planning for Spring

I'm working on our plan for the spring garden. Many mistakes were made last year we do not care to repeat. We over planted and were overwhelmed by a new baby. This year we plan to reduce the size, use raised beds and double dug beds. I ordered seeds very carefully to hopefully have enough to raise and save seeds for next year. I was very careful to order heirloom seeds and I probably need to go through my inventory and determine which varieties I have from last year that are also heirloom so they can continue to be a part of my collection for years to come. When I did my inventory the other day I determined we have about 100 varieties of fruits and veggies to work with. All I can say is awesome.