October 2011 Gardening and Homesteading Thread

[blue gecko]

October is a busy month here. Fall vegies have been planted and some will be covered with hoops and Reemay. I'll keep planting and getting the beds turned. The bermuda grass is a real pain.

The greenhouse has been cleaned out and the solarium as well. I'll be bringing in plants and situating them over the next week or so. I prune as I go and do a bug check. Even so there will be resident guests Seems like every year I get at least a couple of tree frogs who over winter with the plants. Its kinda fun when they sound off from time to time.

There is wood on the front porch ready for the first fire of the season and more that needs to be hauled in from the woods. There's quite a bit thats been cut to length and some of that needs to be split. Max and a few other volunteers have offered to come by and take care of that for me. There are trees down that have been drying since early summer and those will be cut up soon and stacked for late winter wood. Its a labor of love!

I've been doing some deep cleaning and conditioning the wood furniture and floors. Wood heat is hard on them.

One of the things on the to-do list is weatherstripping. You'd think it would last but seems like every year some of it has to be redone.

Its a busy time of year!

[blue gecko]

Today has been a good day for the homestead. There is now about a cord of wood on the porch! Another 1 1/2 cords and I should be good. Almost everything that was cut to length was gathered. The next phase will be cutting up trees that were brought down last winter and getting them split and stacked for mid to late winter. Those are pretty easy to get my truck to for loading.

After that I stopped by the garden to check the grapes and they were ready! They are now on the kitchen counter waiting for something yummy to be made from them. This is the first year this vine has produced so its all very exciting. Eventually, there will be a nice little vinyard here.

I still have plants to bring inside but it shouldn't take long....I'm just not going to get it done today, I'm bushed.

[Ought Six]

The weather has turned dark, cold and rainy again. I brought my pot of stawberries in off the deck because they were just going moldy and rotting out there.

[blue gecko]

Its been pretty busy around here. The outside plants have been trimmed and brought into the house, greenhouse and solarium. Glad to have that job over. There's more wood on the porch and more ready to be worked up. The garden has been planted in fall and winter crops. Still have some reemay hooping to do but that will come. Today I made a Morel bed and with a little luck from time to time we'll get morels.