December on the Farm 2014

Welcome the light and rain!

Down in one of the reservoirs

 Well, it's been a heck of a ride folks.  From no water, to wishing I had tanks to put what's falling into!  We had a good 5 inches.  The creek is running.  A darn good sign if you ask me.  I know, we need more.  About 40 inches more to make up for last year, but I'll take what I can get and be happy about it.

December 15 out my back door

Just before this rain, I got the favas and lupini's in .  (Edible lupines).
I'd planted faro, but I suspect the little tweeters got it all.  They ate the lettuce too!   But turnips, parsnips, radishes, greens and other crops were planted before the deluge, so I'm hoping that turnips don't come up in the driveway!

It's halfway through December and I'm just thinking about what to plant next year.  It's been unseasonably warm.  There are still flowers on beans, and limas and tomatoes in the field.

Last spring I had one extra Sungold tomato, so I put it out my backdoor.  

About August, Zack had enough of it blocking the path, so he and Julia hacked it back.  Well, here it is December and it's flowering and making fruit.  That's a first.

We actually harvested the last of the melons on Thanksgiving and hope to serve them up on Christmas.  So you see, seed choosing is not as easy as it once was.

Will there be bugs?  I'm thinking, no frost, lots of moisture....ewwww...there will be bugs.

I've selected some peppers, tomatoes and eggplant to start for January.  Now I have to move onto broc, cauli, cabb, chard, leeks, onions and more peas.  I planted peas in early November and they're up, but I really want to plant more.

I'll have to rummage the seed storage and see what's out there.  We had a lot of problems with brassica bugs at the end of the season, so I'm thinking not as many rows of those.

Speaking of brassicas, here's a couple of interesting monsters.

I'm thinking these are cauliflowers.  Ones that I harvested and left the plant in the field?  Or some new Caulette?  Flowerette?  Cauliflowerette?   Never seen these before.  But then again, I've never had mosquitoes in December before either, so, I guess everything is new and different.

Thank heaven for rain.  Thank you thank you, did I say thank you?  I'm eternally grateful, as hey look at the garlic!  And many thanks to Joseph for so carefully growing garlic for us.

Joseph, at Lofthouse Gardens grows great garlic.  I love his big, easy to peel delicious garlic.  The cloves he sent us were huge!  Now, if it dries a little, I can weed, otherwise, I'm just not going to worry, the garlic is loving the rain.  On the left, the grapes have not dropped their leaves so I haven't even pruned them yet.  Well, January is coming.  In the back of this photo you can see the favas peeking out.

There's still kale and chard in the field, so we are still eating home grown greens.  I may dry some of these and make kale chips.  Might as well, heck I don't have anything to do besides can, cook, bake and clean....

Zack besides working his regular job has been helping me do tool repairs.  Man, he's great at this.  It's one of those jobs that I keep putting off, which results in a barn full of shovels with no handles.

Take a look at some of these poor tools.  These two sledges were really sad...nails put in them to hold the heads on.   They're gorgeous now.  Cleaned up with new handles. 

And just in time to deal with the Eucy tree that bit the dust, a newly repaired splitting maul.  To be fair, I did not break these tools.  I tend to break things like forks.  I've broken the same fork three times.  It's embarrassing.  In the summer the soil just gets so darn hard, that I break them.  

My days of using mauls and sledges are gone.  I content myself to breaking simpler things like pitchforks.  I took the after picture before Zack had time to polish up the metal.  But I was just so tickled.  Nothing better than a barn full of tools that work, even if I'm getting too old to swing some of them. 

Hope your days are Merry & Bright.  I'm just singing in the rain!