SO BUSY

 We have been SO BUSY this past few days!

Before Kyle left for another trip to Florida

he built us 3 more raised beds.

And filled them.

He's amazing.

Next the the one we already had 

(we did a Florida Weave on the tomatoes to stand 

them up and get them out of the dirt...)

And then we planted the middle where the

onions failed, in radishes.

The next bed over is loaded with carrots.

The two outside rows closest to the tomato bed

is a mixed rainbow.

The center is all Imperator orange carrots.

And then final 2 rows are purple carrots!

The next bed over is Sugar Snap Peas

with more orange carrots in-between the rows.

We will need to get some trellis up for the peas.

Then the lone bed out front is Slenderette

green beans since we have gotten a

grand total of THREE beans from the farm garden.

The plants out there are COVERED in flowers,

but the grasshoppers have eaten too many of

the leaves and the plant can't generate enough

energy to make a bean.

So sad.

Next year we will have drip irrigation and

row covers to protect them from those 

munchers.

All the little orange pots around the edges are baby broccoli starts.

We planted 60 pots of broccoli and then another

20 pots of swiss chard. I have no idea what to do 

with swiss chard. Soni said we should freeze dry it

and sell it as chips like kale chips... only chard.

LOL.

Anyhow.

I've also been freeze drying up a storm.

These are zucchini slices with parm cheese.

And now that our cold snap is over and it's getting back

up into the high 80s and low 90s again,

Kyle built me an insulated "box" to house my

freeze dryer. It's up against the garage window and

we put a window AC unit in there.

The little dents are Beau footprints. Silly dog.

The wheeled cart just rolls right on in.

I just pulled out a batch of zucchini and cucumber chips.

The little remote control registered a steady 76

the whole time.

That's PERFECT.

This morning while on my Thursday phone call with Soni

I bagged them all up.

(These are the cucumber chips with a drop of ranch dressing

dried on top - they are delicious!)

After two runs, I have 22 bags of zucchini,

5 bags of cucumbers,

and 2 bags of "sample" zucchini with 

everything but the bagel seasoning

and a bag of "sample" with dried ranch.

(I don't like the one with dried ranch...

it has too much dill...)

I just finished defrosting the machine and its

cooling down now and I have 3 trays of

bananas and 2 trays of apples with pumpkin

pie spice sprinkled on them.

Those should be done sometime tomorrow.

And then I'm ready for this week's market.

And now...

I need to eat my breakfast and get out to the farm.

Oh, first I have to run by City Hall and pay my

water bill, find out about the pipe thing 

(they sent an email saying they need to know if

we have lead or pvc or whatever pipes... I have

NO idea and I'm not going into the crawl space.

I'll never get back out!)

And then I need to run to Gibson's Gifts

and get a box of envelopes so I can send

another check for a bill that can't be paid online.

(Welcome to the 21st century people!)

And THEN I can run to the farm.

There are zucchini and yellow squash that

probably need to be harvested.

And depending on how the ground looks

I might try to run a load or two of water.

But it's very overcast today,

so I won't be able to run the tank pump.

So ... we'll see. We have gotten over 

2 inches of rain in the past week so the ground

is dry on the top but probably we have some

good moisture down below.

Anyhow.

That's what my Thursday looks like.

Hope yours is AMAZING.