Most of our tomatoes however, went somewhere other than my harvest baskets. They were invaded and sabotaged by nothing more than our own chickens. No seriously, I have never grown this many tomatoes and who knew that 30 chickens and a couple turkeys could wipe you out. I was able to sell absolutely none at the farmers market. We planted 300 plants, give or take a few. Everyday it was like I was punched in the gut. I hated those chickens, and cursed them everyday. We ran out of money for garden fence and well, we learned our lesson there. Oh, and our tomatillos were very abundant as well. Until they reached full maturity and then they turned into a jungle that I couldn't even walk through. I planted them exactly as I read, however that didn't work out. Yet again, lesson learned.
The goats are doing wonderful. We did have scare with Red, she turned very ill. We fought mastitis for almost a month, two vet visits later, we dried her up. She is happy and healthy now, couldn't be better. I am now experiencing goat breeding for the first time. The girls have been in and out of heat, and well baby goat isn't all the way there yet if you know what I mean. He is just over 4 months old. He tries and keeps trying but no finish. If we go through one more heat cycle and no luck then I believe that we will be in search for man buck.
Our greenhouse covers went to pot. They were polywoven and every little piece of plastic popped out of both tops. No roof means no greenhouse. We didn't even have them for a year and they went bad. Next time 6ml poly. Luckily, when we first got the greenhouses this year, one had a faulty zipper, so I called the company and they shipped me a new cover. I had three, now just one. We put that cover on today in hopes for winter greens.
We grew 400 mums this year. Another lesson learned. Not that I have a hard time growing mums, just that Free range turkeys really like to dig out the plants and destroy them, almost all of them. Another punch in the gut feeling. We did manage to sell a few. We will be planting the rest of them and digging them up for next year.
Our beloved Max is no longer with us. He never came back one day. So, we found and adopted Cedar our new dog. He is wonderful and full of life, we love him very much.
Our chickens being the little destructive dinosaurs that they are are doing wonderful and laying anywhere from 15 to 18 eggs daily.
We renovated our cellar. Washed every single jar in the place. Steve deserves the credit here.
Added new nesting boxes for the chickens. Tilled new ground and planted green manure.
We are now getting ready for winter, closing down, sort of. We are lucky to still have one greenhouse in production. We are planting tomorrow, better late than never.
We are now enjoying this glorious fall.
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