Seed Catalog Time!

It’s time to order your seed catalogs for next spring! Nothing helps you get through the long winter like browsing through seed catalogs with a cup of hot chocolate, a pad & pencil and a dream of a warm early spring. I’ve created a list of some great seed catalogs and a link to their catalog request page (so you don’t even have to navigate through their site). It may not seem like the greenest thing to do but so long as you recycle your catalogs, it’s okay in my book. I love thumbing through the color photos of gorgeous vegetables and herbs and planning my upcoming garden by drawing it out on paper. I go to Google Maps and print out an aerial photograph of my property and draw my garden to scale. This is the best list of vegetable seed websites and catalogs.

3 Direct Links to Vegetable & Herb Seed Catalogs – All Non-GMO

Baker Creek – http://rareseeds.com/requestcatalog/

Seeds of Change – http://www.seedsofchange.com/garden_center/catalog_request.aspx

Seed Savers – http://www.seedsavers.org/CatalogRequest.aspx

I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to prepare the garden for next year! I’ve got a lot of work to do before the snow hits. I have to remove trellis’ and posts, dig up the onions and carrots (who are still sleeping tight underground), take in all the hoses and irrigation lines, cut down the skeletal remains of the veggie plants and compost them and turn the ground over. Ugghhhh…. Here’s what dire shape the garden is in now.

Coming up in our next blog; How to save your seeds for planting next year and Preparing your garden for planting in the fall (autumn) and winter.

Thank you all for making us the best small farm flog on the web.

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Let’s carve some pumpkins!

After planting, fertilizing, pollinating, watering, growing and harvesting pumpkins…..there’s just one thing left to do……… Carve ’em! and that’s what we did tonight and I took lot’s of great pumpkin carving pics:

 

What I’ve learned about carving pumpkins, Step by step carving techniques:

1. Cut the top off for the kiddos’
2. Draw your design on the pumpkin (do a couple on paper first)
3. Follow said design the best you can
4. Use serrated knife, steak knife to saw through pumpkin flesh.
5. Have the little ones pull out the pumpkin innards and keep paper towels on hand.
6. Follow said design the best you can
7. Turn the lights out to take pics
8. Strain out the seeds and make baked pumpkin seeds by drying seeds with a paper towel, spray pan with Pam. sprinkling seeds with salt, pepper and garlic. Put in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 min.
9. Eat seeds with cider.
10. Repeat.
11. Always remember that older people don’t like to carve a pumpkin for themselves but they do enjoy helping kiddos with there pumpkin.
12. take lot’s of pics.

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Quick, I need a Mycologist!!

I discovered six different mushrooms growing on the farm. I’d like to eat some, maybe put some on my pizza or in my omelet but knowing my luck, I’d probably end up tripping and spending the evening in my room underneath a blanket wishing the walls would quit melting.

So, I need to find a good reliable mycologist. Don’t worry, I had to Google “mushroom expert” to find the word mycologist I’d like to talk to one, I’m sure he’d be a fungi. I wish there was an App to take pictures of mushrooms and find out if we can eat them. If you’re a developer, call me I think we’re sitting on a fortune here…..

Separating edible from poisonous species requires meticulous attention to detail; there is no single trait by which all toxic mushrooms can be identified, nor one by which all edible mushrooms can be identified. (Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think all this rain has produced this mushroom epidemic. Here’s the creek next to us. It’s overflowing and the front yard is soaked. We got almost 5 inches of rain in the month of September, we average about 3.75 inches during that month.

Keep dry everybody!

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Just some fall pictures….

Storm clouds rolled in yesterday and it looked spectacular. The sky grew dark but the sun was shining on the other side. Made for some great pictures. Click on any image to see a larger version, so make a great screen saver. I do love fall.

I will be speaking to the Hudson Garden Club on October 20th at 7:30 about the farm, the blog and the benefits of organic gardening. It’s going to be a great presentation so mark it on your calender now, I’d love for y9ou to join me!  The program will will at Laurel Lake Retirement Center, off Boston Mills Road in Hudson. For more information, please visit the Club’s website at: http://www.hudsongardenclub.org/

 

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