Fiacré's spade: Harvest update

It was certainly good to see the sun today! We had 7 days of rain last week. Fortunately, it was not enough of a deluge to flood the creek, but day after day of pissing drizzle can really get you down. The six tom turkeys hung around, looking damp and miserable. We don’t know what they were finding to eat in the lawn but they stayed busy.

Cruising the orchard fence

What are YOU looking at?

The turkeys have been inspecting the high tunnel. I found these tracks in the sand that Terry is putting around the edge of the high tunnel.

Turkey tracks in the high tunnel

I got a few weeks behind while I was doing the vacation posts. Prior to this last week of cold and wet, it was hot and dry. One day the turkeys seemed to think that we put in the solar panels specifically to make a shade shelter for them.

Hanging out in the shade of the solar panels

The meat chickens and 2-year-old hens went to freezer heaven on September 2. We moved the pullets into the orchard with the 1-year-old hens. They are still squabbling about position on the perch at night and mostly hang out in separate groups during the day. The pullets seem to have grown to full size just in the last week. Please admire the beauty of the silver-laced Wyandottes.

Silver-laced Wyandotte

I braved the mosquitoes to walk to my wetland restoration. It’s not going well. Reed canary grass has seriously taken over. I actually put herbicide on it in the spring. It was all for naught. The first year it bloomed, there was cardinal flower everywhere. This year I found this clump of three and one other plant. So sad. I love the bright red of cardinal flower.

The lovely red cardinal flower

My pollinator garden by the shed did quite well. For whatever reason, we did not see the diversity of butterflies we saw last year. We had an abundance of skippers.

Pollinator garden

Can you find the spider in this picture?

The spider's abdomen is the light yellow spot to the right

Great blue lobelia spontaneously appeared by the garden shed. It grows on the north side of the property, and I was excited to see it here. The stripes on the underside of the flower are a diagnostic characteristic.

Great blue lobelia

We dug the potatoes. They were larger this year than in previous years. These are the Norkota Russets, large enough for baking at last!

Norkota russetts. The one by the ruler is 6" long

The tomato harvest from the garden is done. This was our champion plum tomato this year.

Our champion plum tomato

The tomato plants look awful. We’ll be taking them out soon.

Scraggly tomatoes in the garden

But look at the tomatoes in the high tunnel!

Lush green tomatoes in the high tunnel

The tomatoes we are getting from those plants are beautiful. We hope to have tomatoes for another month, if we’re lucky.

Lovely juicy perfect tomatoes from the high tunnel

I planted some strawberry runners in the high tunnel raised beds. I forgot to water them the next day, and all the leaves wilted. I kept them moist, though, and was rewarded with new growth. Sometimes it takes awhile for the roots to establish.

New leaves on my strawberry runners

I was out grilling peppers in the mist one day this year and I noticed that I did not see any male hummingbirds. I put Jane on the research, and she discovered that the males do leave first, leaving the females and juveniles (which look like females) to bulk up for migration. I refilled my feeder when I learned that this is a critical time for these birds. Sometimes they eat.

Bulking up for migration

It seems like they spend more time guarding the feeder, like this one is. There is plenty of sugar water for everyone, if they would share. But they don’t. They’d rather spend energy chasing each other. Kids.

Perched above the feeder, watching for rivals

Terry discovered this hornworm on a jalapeno pepper plant. It is covered with cocoons of a parasitic wasp. The prognosis of the hornworm is not good. The adult wasps emerge through an escape hatch at the end of the cocoon. You can see it if you look closely.

A hornworm infested with parasitic wasps

We made sauerkraut on Friday. Last year, I harvested all the cabbage and ended up with 20 pounds of sauerkraut, most of which is still in the root cellar. This year, I weighed the cabbage as I picked it. Nancy went home with 10 pounds, and we had about 7. Much more reasonable.