Around The Homestead ~ Harvesting Potatoes & Garden Clean Up

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I’m sitting here relaxing as the thunder growls in the distance and the rain pours down.  I love the sound of rain, always have.  I don’t know why I do.  Perhaps it goes back to being a child.  I loved rainy days because it gave me a good excuse to curl up with a cup of tea and a book or two.  It’s been a long time since I could sit down and read a book from start to finish in a day.  Children’s books don’t count! LOL

This week we have been busy in the gardens.  We have finished harvesting the potatoes now.  The first few rows of the garden yielded well, but the second half was very low.  I think it is because that side of the garden is much wetter  then the first half.  I found a lot of rotting potatoes.  Hubby figured we have enough to get by to January or so.  Thankfully another homesteading friend had a bumper crop and offered us potatoes.  Thank you!

Hubby tore out our old raised beds near the greenhouse.  I can’t believe it’s been 5 years since we built them, it seems like just yesterday!  Then tilled up that area, they’ll need to be tilled again because it’s pretty rough there.  We want to cover it with cardboard and woodchips hopefully this fall.  We did keep a small area of the raised beds under the trellis.  I’m planning to transplant my climbing rose to that in the spring.  In place of the raised beds we are putting in a number of trellises.  This project wont get done until the spring, but I’m looking forward to it!  We are also doubling the size of our green house.  We were given some more sliding glass doors and they are perfect for the roof.  We are just waiting for the tomatoes in the green house to finish before ripping that wall out to extend it.

Our tomatoes didn’t produce anything this year, they were started to late considering the cold year then were hit by blight as soon as they did start to produce.  We have pulled the cages out and need to finish the clean up in that garden.

We also had our first frost this past Thursday.   We covered up the zucchini as the plants were still doing well.  The frost hit the gourd plants and cucumbers that were   just about done anyway.  Surprisingly it looked like the pole beans missed the worst of it.  So if the weather stays nice for a bit longer we should get some more beans.  They are covered in tiny beans!  We also picked up some garlic from a farm stand and hope to get that planted soon.

How’s your garden doing?  Is it all put to bed or are you still harvesting?

Kim

Kim Mills is a homeschooling mom of 6 and lives on an urban homestead in Ontario, Canada. Blogging at Homestead Acres she enjoys sharing tips to help you save money, grow and preserve your own food.