Preparing for Fall

Rain glorious rain.  For two days now we have been blessed with rain.  The fall tomatoes were transplanted into the garden in August and needed watering everyday through that month.  Our 'highly mineralized' well water keeps the plants alive, but they become anemic looking.  Pathetic really.  However, with these rains the plants are looking much better and already beginning to bloom.

As for the black-eyed peas...they were planted mid-August and came along very well, until the Vandals hit them.   It is interesting that for two or more years (even with the great drought of 08-09) the deer were not interested in the garden.  However, this year they found it.  It seems that due to a good spring the local doe population have all twined.  As a result they are hungry!  They ate corn, black-eyed peas, tomatoes, pumpkins and even the leaves off of the red okra.  Of course, I had to declare war!  After several attempts at reinforcing the fence, I settled on electricity.

Fence charger and insulators were less than $30.00, whereas a roll of barbed wire was over $60.00.  I already had the electric fence wire so it was a simple afternoons project to secure the garden.  I am pleased to report that the vandalism has stopped and we are well on our way to a good fall/winter harvest.

The pepper continue to produce at a good rate and should meet the expected goal of 320 peppers by the end of the season.  The sweet corn and Lima beans planted last week are already coming up.  The rows of corn should produce about 450 ears and the Lima beans about 250 pounds of beans.  This week the green beans are being planted in the garden.  This summer we harvested about 200 pounds of green beans.  I am putting in the same amount for the fall, so we shall see if we are blessed again this year.  In the grow beds we now have the starts for broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower.  These will be transplanted into the garden by mid-September for harvesting to begin in November.

Our table should be burdened and our pantry full for this coming winter.

SDG