Sunday, August 19, 2012

August happenings on Shelley Hill Farm

Okay, so it's been a while, but things have been busy, busy, busy like usual.  Liam's last baseball tournament was in Steamboat Springs, CO, at the end of July, and we had a super fabulous time!  They took 6th place out of 27 teams from all over the U.S.  Not too shabby.

Now, Liam is playing football for the first time ever.  He is having playing well and learning the positions he is put in.  They have just been scrimmaging with other teams and league play will begin in September.  Will keep you posted on that.

Below are pictures from the garden and such taken this morning.

So below, you can see that we are becoming inundated with zucchini!  Who doesn't.  I only planted three plants of yellow and green, but hmm, perhaps only two next year.  To the right of the zucchini are some beets that were ready to be harvested and I even got four carrots!!!  Woot!


So Mom and I decided to dig up one potato plant (Yukon Gold) to see if they were ready to be harvested.  Below are the potatoes from one plant, 26 or so, and hmmm I think we will be in potatoes for the winter big time as there are three 4 x 12 foot beds and one probably 6 x 12 foot bed.  YAY!!!


Squash that is growing, at this point, I am not sure what kind these are, as some came up and some did not.  I tried to look online at what I ordered, but hmm, guess I need to keep better records.  lol




Though I think these are small pumpkins below.


This would be the large potato bed of Yukon Gold.


Out of I think like 12 slips of sweet potatoes, only four survived and seem to have taken off finally now that the weather has warmed up.


The pole beans are doing their thing and just starting to produce!


The rhubarb we moved is doing very well, obviously, haha.  Gonna try to make some rhubarb wine this year.


These would be the yellow and green zucchini plants in the front and pumpkins in the back.

Harvested some of our red and white storage onions yesterday.  They are now curing/drying out.


These are the four turkey poults that we have left that hatched out.  One of the momma hens is sitting on 10 eggs that should hatch out beginning of September.




Mom, Raymond, Kara, and I repainted the chicken coop and feed shed a barn red and then I trimmed in white.  Looks very spiffy if you ask me.  lol


Also, Rob installed a feeder outside (gutter) as we were just putting food on the ground and when rain comes that would not work so well.  Rob will be making an awning for the top of the feeder so the rain won't get in.


This would be Mr. Marty patiently (yeah right) waiting for breakfast this morning.


And here are Gus and Ashley.  Ashley has definitely grown since we got her and she is becoming more approachable and less skitterish.


Here is the repainted feed shed.  Looking good!


These would be the last hatchlings of this year.  The dark ones will be meat chickens and the blonds will be egg layers unless roosters and then will be meat chickens.  There are 21.



This is the second to last group of chicks hatched out this year.  They are now 12 weeks old.  Again the darker ones will be meat chickens, as they are all roosters.  The light brahmas will be layers and hopefully a new light brahma rooster to replace Bob, because Bob has no game.  The ladies all run from him and his advances.  Don't know if it's his curled toes or what, but they want nothing to do with him.  He does manage to catch one once in a while, but really, he needs some help.  lol



We will begin picking blackberries very soon, gonna be making some blackberry wine also, can't hardly wait, but will have to as it will need to sit for a while.  :)


Just replanted this bed with green onions around the outside and three different kinds of beets on the inside.


These are our leeks.  We are putting paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls around the base to blanch them out so there is more white than green farther up the leek.  More to use then.


These are the peppers in this bed.  There are different kinds, orange, red, and Nardello peppers, which are orange and red, but longer and skinnier.  All sweet peppers.


This is the onion bed I pulled the other onions from above.  I tried to pull some of the bigger ones to give the smaller ones that I filled in the holes with room to grow.


This is dill, which we pulled right after I took this picture.  Hopefully will be getting some cukes this week to do some pickles.


This is one end of the tomato bed.  Again, I believe we put too many plants in one spot, did less than last year, though, but will probably need to do less again this next year.  There are Roma, cherry and many different kinds of tomatoes.  Lots of green ones, the only ones that have ripened so far have the cherry tomatoes.


These would be the cherry tomatoes below.


Thought the raspberries were done for the year, but here they go again.  Yay!


These are new starts below from back to front, of broccoli, lettuces, artichokes and Brussel sprouts.  We had four artichoke plants this year and got about 15 artichokes altogether, so was going to start more for this next year.


And these new starts are from back to front, Napa cabbage and lettuces.

This would be the corn down front.  I believe it is probably like 8 to 9 feet tall!!!  That would be the sweet corn.  On the right the shortest is the blue flower corn and then popcorn and then the sweet corn.


These are starts on all of them.  YAY, can hardly wait.


This the one apple tree we have that is producing.  The apples actually look pretty good even if the leaves on the tree don't.


This would be the one cluster of Asian pears that we have on the tree.


And last, but not least, there are 7 pears on our pear tree.


Just been busy weeding, picking and replanting in the garden.  Definitely been enjoying the warm weather.  Heading back outside to weed.  Will try to blog again sooner rather than later!