Fall...

Fall has arrived!  The garden provided and we have a lot of canned produce.
I am researching and working really hard to salvage the rest of what we have growing.  It seems that we got a second growth period, because the first one was thwarted by the drought.  We FINALLY got a little bit of rain, and magically EVERYTHING sprouted and began growing again.  Now, I am being threatened with the first hard freeze and I am running out of time!
Braden and I pulled out 5 of the 28 tomato plants and pulled off all the green tomatoes.  My plan is to layer them in cardboard produce flats and tissue paper and store them in the basement.  I am told that they will slowly ripen and that I could possibly have fresh, red tomatoes through Christmas, possibly longer.  We will see...I will definitely make sure update with the results of that experiment.
Here is what we accomplished yesterday...

Five plants down...23 to go!  :)  As you can see, everything has grown and made a big mess, so we have a lot of clean up to do.  I am confident we will get it done, and if not...well, I will just turn the pigs out on it.  I am sure they would LOVE to help out! The ducks are a little annoyed - they like to forage in there and we really disturbed their favorite area!

Life on Farm

When I was a kid, I never imagined that I would be a farm girl...or that I would actually like it - PREFER it, even!
I grew up in a rural community - Bulldog City, America! - but the extent of my 'farming' was my dad's pepper and tomato plants, our cat and one dog.  That is it.  I cannot recall throwing a single bale of hay in my entire life, until I moved to Texas.  The place was awful, and I am not going to go into the whole convoluted background on that, but I planted my first garden and had my first chickens and ducks there.  I threw the hay and rode some horses....I fell in love.  I fell out of love, and came back home with my tail between my legs and a sweet little baby in tow....and fell in love again.  12 years later, here we are.  We have our own little piece of land, a few pretty great kids that are ok farmhands when they want to be, and a hodge-podge of livestock and other little creatures (anyone need a cat?!?!).  But, for right now, we are pretty proud of this....
Our garden for 2012.....

It is too big to get the whole thing in one frame, but you get the idea!
Have a great day!