Almost Finished Planting

Hurray! I have just about finished planting all of the seeds and plants for the late fall and winter garden. Just have to plant the onion sets, garlic, leeks, scallions, snow peas and Swiss chard during the next couple of weeks. Thursday and Friday were spent seeding all of the remaining raised beds with the lettuce for the Crooked Cedar Salad mix. The spinach, carrots, beets, and kale that were seeded two weeks ago have all germinated well and are growing, The weather has been warm, but too dry, so I have been watering daily all the plants and seed beds. Today, Selvin's back felt well enough for him to change the oil in the car. Hopefully, he is on the mend. I dug a couple hills of sweet potatoes this afternoon and it looks like we will have a good crop. Next week, we will use the tractor to harvest them, which should be faster than digging by hand. I have been working on a website for the farm and it is coming along. I think that soon I will be ready to share the web address so people can visit it. Tonight I made western omelets, brown rice and quinoa (pronounced "keen wa"), and grilled salmon for supper, with zucchini bread and ice cream for dessert.

Back to Work

We have arrived back from our vacation and are very busy. We had a great trip to Alaska and Washington state. Alaska is an awesome place. It is so big and wild with lots of wildlife and different climates. Can't believe that it is now below freezing in many of the places that we were visiting just three weeks ago.
Here at the farm, plowing and planting have been the order of the day since our return. So far almost all of the collard, cabbage and brussels sprouts plants have been planted and watered in with the use of the drip irrigation hoses. It has been quite a job to get over 1000 plants in the ground in the past week. It is so dry, sure hope it rains tomorrow.
As soon as we got home, Selvin plowed most of the raised beds and Edwina sowed five different types of kale, the carrots, spinach and the four types of beets. Everything with the exception of the carrots are up and growing.
Carrots take a long time to germinate. They should be making a showing in about another two weeks.
Selvin is having some back problems, so now Edwina is learning to drive the garden tractor and the tiller.  Doing a pretty good job at it, too.
Edwina hopes to plow the rest of the seed beds tomorrow and finish the sowing of the different salad greens.
We're looking forward to finishing all of the major planting this week.

Taking a Break

Just wanted to let everyone know that we have decided to take a little break and will be back very soon with the day to day happenings on the Crooked Cedar Farm.

Planting day

This morning Selvin got up early and plowed and prepared two wide rows for planting. After breakfast he went over to the Feed and Seed store to pick up the broccoli and collard plants, while Edwina spread compost over the rows. Just finished up when a customer came by to pick up an order for okra.  Selvin arrived home with the news that we couldn't get a many plants today as we needed. We visited with our customer for a while and after he left, we planted out the two flats of plants that were available and watered them in. After lunch, two more customers came by to pick up their orders.  One of our customers was new to the farm, so we gave her a tour. We love to visit with our customers when they come by. Gives us a break and we make nice friends. The rest of the afternoon was spent just relaxing after a busy morning and week.

Sleeping In

We slept in a little later today thanks to the rain in the early morning hours. After the field dried off, Edwina picked four rows of butter beans and some eggplants that are hanging on in the garden.Selvin weed eated around the daylillies and loaded the truck with the remains of the woodpile and dumped it in the gully. During lunch, Edwina shelled out the butter beans while watching "The Young and The Restless" and packaged them up for a customer. We were featured in a local Blythewood newspaper, The Independent Voice of the People's Republic of Blythewood, Thursday, Aug. 19 issue. I spent the afternoon trying to figure out how to post the article to Facebook and will attempt to do so here. Thanks to Susan, a friend of ours for her help. After a supper of omelets, grits and watermelon, Edwina picked okra and Selvin checked the dryness of the soil to determine if we could start planting the broccoli and collard plants.http://issuu.com/crookedcedar/docs/vce081910pg5?viewMode=presentation

Thursday, Aug. 19

Our friend and helper, Kirby came over today to help get the rest of the stakes out of the ground and then Selvin and he loaded the truck with the old rotted firewood pile and took it up to a gully on the back of our property and dumped it there. This should help control some of the erosion that we have every time it rains hard. Edwina baked and iced two coconut cream cakes for a customer to pickup on Saturday ,after returning from a dental appointment. Took it kind of easy this afternoon and then went out to pick okra toward evening when the temperature was a little cooler. Just leftovers for supper tonight, but did have fresh baked zucchini bread and ice cream for dessert. We are addicted to dessert.

Summer garden clean up time

Today was another hot, busy day. We have been trying to clean up the fields and one of these duties is to pull up the spent tomato plants and stakes. Not an easy task, but we decided to use the tractor to help pull the stakes out of the ground. We hooked a chain to the potato plow and the stake and used the hydraulic lift. Worked like a charm. Edwina picked the last of the tomatoes, pulled up the plants, and then we raked up the plants and removed them from the field. We like to get rid of the old plants in order to keep down viruses and fungi that can damage next years crops. Selvin plowed where the 500 tomato plants had been and also some of the other parts of the garden where we will be planting the fall crops. Edwina pulled the irrigation hoses out of the rows  of eggplants and peppers and put them away. While Selvin made a trip to Columbia, SC, Edwina picked and prepared okra for the freezer. For supper tonight we had baked chicken, fried okra, brown rice and for dessert, the rest of the apple pie that Edwina made with apples from our trees. Tonight we had a really good rain.