Ending and Beginning

Ordered from Johnny’s today:

Kakai Pumpkin for Seeds Item No.:2860 Qty:1 Price:$2.95

JTO-99197 Early Blight-Resistant Tomato (F1) Item No.:2240 Qty:1 Price:$2.95

Golden Purslane “Goldberg” Item No.:386 Qty:1 Price:$2.95

Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard Item No.:701 Qty:1 Price:$2.95

Forono Cylindrical, deep purple Beet Item No.:2044 Qty:1 Price:$2.95

Waltham Butternut Item No.:671 Qty:1 Price:$2.95

Copra (F1) Onion seed Item No.:487 Qty:1 Price:$1.95

We have lots of seeds left over from last year that we plan to use; the ones I ordered today are to make sure we have enough of the favorites and for new things I wanted to try.

Also dug 20 gallons of coffee grounds into West beds, along with a few gallons of kitchen scraps.

Harvested, cooked, and ate more delicious collards. Used two of our beautiful onions from storage today.

The butternut are very good. I was concerned that they weren’t quite ripe when I picked them, but they’re good and sweet.

Mowed grass, raked leaves and grass clippings, put all that in the garden and dug it in.

Dug 5 gallons of coffee grounds into ex-butternut bed.

Dug 3 gallons of kitchen scraps into ex-amaranth bed.

Cleared more brush from between the road and the fence, where the hazelnuts are planted. Also watered the hazelnuts since it’s been drier the last couple of weeks. The farmer with the corn across the street from us was out cutting it today.

Dug another 30′ row of potatoes today. Will I get the last two rows dug before the ground freezes? My will to get it done is low, and it hardly seems worth it, considering  the low overall yield and the fact that almost half of them are damaged by the little hole-digging worms. M has been working both Saturday and Sunday for a couple of months now, and it seems extra-hard to get anything done when she does that. She’s supposed be done with it now or soon.

Most of those worm-damaged potatoes have large parts of them that can be used immediately, but they’d never keep. I still haven’t come to the row where we planted the purchased seed potatoes, still digging up just the red ones.

The weather looks like it’s going to hold for another week at least, and it seems like it’s quite a bit warmer than last year. But it’s November now and pretty much anything can happen. It’s been quite wet since the last week of September.

Dug 20 gallons of coffee grounds into garden today, plus some leaves from the yard. Should have a lot of organic matter in the soil to set the stage for next year.

Made two new 2′ x 8′ raised beds today using those solid plastic/wood composite deck boards. Those are the Cadillac of raised bed frames: at $15 per 8′ board, that’s about $38 per bed. There has to be a cheaper long-lasting alternative.

Also dug another 5 gallons of coffee grounds into the garden.