Winding Down

First noticed fall colors on October 14, and they continue to delight.  Laurie closed our market here at the farm on October 19, but we are still selling tomatoes and peppers and winter squash  at open air markets in Ambridge on Thursdays, 4 pm-dusk and in Beaver on Saturdays, 10am-1pm.  Produce available from other growers...apples, potatoes, red and green cabbage, kale, turnips, rutabagas, parsnips, radishes and more!  Tomorrow, October 28, is our last day in Coraopolis, 3:30 pm-dusk.
 

Much of Monday's market was T-shirt weather.  We had a special helper, our 5 year old granddaughter!  On Tuesday, filled with optimism, we loaded the trailer with empty buckets and headed to the field.  We returned about 5:30 pm with 600 pounds of tomatoes and lots of peppers.  Much of rainy Wednesday was spent wiping and sorting.  Market on Thursday was chilly, but mercifully dry.  On Friday, once again, we loaded empty buckets on the trailer and picked 300 pounds of tomatoes and more peppers.  Saturday morning the low temperature was a frosty 30.5 degrees.  Perhaps no more harvesting.

Today we did no farming for the first time since June!  After church we enjoyed an omelet made with our peppers...hiked through fields and woods...savored coffee and worked a crossword puzzle on the veranda...watched the sky and the trees change color as the sun set on another spectacular fall day!

Ripe, ready, and ...

Wet.  Gathering squash might have been on the docket for today, except that it rained all morning at market and all afternoon, too.   Now there's puddles and mud all through the pumpkin patch.  Maybe this week it will dry off.  

Getting ripe!

Still puddles in pumpkins

Rain overnight and this morning have topped off the puddles in the pumpkins.  Even with this wet weather we have a few plants producing.  Maybe they will ripen by October.

Nevermind!

After 0.6 inches last evening lake pumpkin is back.

Drying off

The puddle in the pumpkins is no more!  The plants that did not drown are vining across the rows.  Mom said today she did NOT wear boots to pick zucchini. 

All the rain did make some great corn, and we are starting to have some of everything, including a few tomatoes and peppers.

More rain!

The rain continues.  Over 2.5" so far.  Good for the corn, but maybe we should have planted rice here instead of pumpkins. 

Summer fields

Blue skies...a welcome sight in this rainy season.

Tomatoes, 2000 of them, with 1000 stakes and first string.
Solar-powered electric fence (foreground) keeps out deer.

Sweet corn much taller then "knee-high by the Fourth of July!" 

Puddles make it difficult to harvest summer squash.
Make a tasty, colorful medley using 10 varieties.

Pepper patch with a few skinny yellow hot bananas. 

Cool weather crops on white mulch,
to provide cooler soil, conserve moisture and grow cleaner produce. 

We are harvesting Lettuce II now.
These 2 rows of Lettuce III will be ready soon. 

Candy onions love these warm rainy days.

Broccoli (foreground) coming soon!

Pumpkins planted ... and watered

Mom and dad got the pumpkins planted.  Now it is raining!

Nearly there!

A solar panel runs an electric fence to keep the deer out.
Lettuce will at market on saturday if mom can drag dad away from the Red Power Roundup in Ohio.
Zucchini is still tiny, and I ate the two largest ones.

Plants in the Ground!

Yesterday mom and dad braved the heat to plant lettuce and cabbage.  The white plastic is to reflect summer heat for these cool-loving crops.  Dad was able to adjust the tractor speed so slowly that mom could plant both sides at once without stopping or getting off and going back to redo them!

This morning I was off work and helped to plant the "vine crops" : zucchini, cucumbers, melons.  We also added a few (about 30 plants--that's a few) acorn squash and small butternut squash at the end. They will come in earlier than the rest of the winter squash, which is still in the greenhouse.

Things are being planted in the Flat Field.  You know it's western PA when we can specify which field it is by calling it the flat one.  It's a ways from the house, so for irrigation water dad has the plastic hose running from the house.  It snakes down the hill and around to the fields he will be planting this year.  In this picture, trees obscure it, but the farmhouse would be at the extreme right side, up the hill.

Speaking of snakes, do you see what I saw in the lane on the way back from taking these pictures?

There he is!

Getting into the swing of spring

The peppers, eggplant, cabbage, and early tomatoes have been transplanted.

The next set of tomatoes will soon be ready to go.

Dad has been getting his tractors and equipment ready, and ordering supplies.  He has already plowed a field for the first planting of corn.

Growing in the greenhouse

The first set of peppers have sprouted and are beginning to grow their true leaves.  Four flats of onions are standing like blades of grass, 244  per flat (less a few misses).  In the germination chamber, the rest of the peppers are sprouting, plus early tomatoes and some cole crops.  A flat of lettuce and one row of basil are growing also.

GREEN in the woods

Walking up an old logging trail in the spice woods 

Evergreen Hemlocks

Ferns stayed green all winter

Shelf fungus highlighted by green algae

Green grass in a wet valley

Large cushion of haircap moss

Lycopodium or ground pine has spread throughout our woods

Lichens beneath woodpecker hole

Lichens growing on downed tree

New holes by woodpeckers