Followers...

Well, fellow followers, I am getting trouble already, because it's been two whole days since I posted last. Well, to be honest, it was my sister who complained, (thanks for the support, sis!!), BUT as she signed the post in our famous family tradition - by calling me a name that should not be published on a public forum - I have chosen not to publish the complaint. Everyone else out there might get the wrong idea. Regardless, I decided I'd better get off my butt and let you all in on what is happening around this crazy farm.

It's been trying to rain here since yesterday. The operative word is TRY. We've been getting that crappy, misty drizzle that really does no one any good whatsoever. After it rained for 4 hours yesterday, I decided to start my fall planting, in the hopes that we will get a good rain very, very soon. Plus, if I don't do it now, I will lose my window of opportunity, and nothing will mature before it gets cold. When I dug into the soil, the rain had only penatrated about a millimetre into the ground. NOT an exaggeration. We need a REAL rain!! A torrential downpour, to make any sort of difference.

I turned the beds over, and planted one bed of walla walla onions (which I just read somewhere do better and are sweeter if you let them overwinter- this will be a total experiment), and 4 beds of little marvel peas, one bed of little sweetie peas (these are the snap variety) and a bed of mesculin mix. This should give me fresh salad almost all winter. When it gets cold, I will put a garden cloche over it, to extend the season.
I still have some more beds I want to plant over the next week, but there's only so much a gal can do in one day;-)

Tomorrow, I plan on introducing you to the farm dogs, of which there are 3 (currently, anyway!). There is a story I need to share about one of them, though.
Recently Boom-boom, my husky-collie mix was coming in with a stained green face. For 3 days in a row, her muzzle and around her eyes was green, green, green. I couldn't figure out what was doing this. What was she getting into that would stain her green? She is a very quiet, sneaky girl, so I had to spy on her to figure it out.
As it turns out, she has been going into the garden, and helping herself to all my tomatoes while they are still green! No wonder I haven't been getting many tomatoes! And I was blaming the deer! My dogs all have learned to harvest themselves- they pick their own blackberries, peas, and strawberries. Little did I suspect they would like green tomatoes! Naughty girl!

I picked myself enough blackberries the other day to make myself my first ever batch of jam. I am just going to do the freezer jam this time, because from what I can tell, it is pretty difficult to botch that up! When more berries are ready, I am going to try making some 'real' jam, with the canner. I've never canned before, so this should be interesting! I'll let you know how it turns out!