We have finally finished digging all our sweet potatoes.! We figure we got over 10,000 lbs. We have most of them cured and moved into the cooler, just have a few more crates to move over and they will all be done and we can turn off the big green house.

We got our herb bowls and rosemary starts, stevia and succulent bowls moved into the little green house. Have been having trouble with the heater in there, but think we finally got it going.

We got the glad bulbs dug and I think we have double what we started with.  So next year will have lots to plant and hopefully have lots to cut! I also planted just over 200 tulip bulbs and am forcing Paper Whites in pots to hopefully have at the winter market, maybe in time for Christmas?!! I had someone give me a bunch of daffodil bulbs at market last week so need to get them planted tomorrow.  It's nice here today up in the mid 70's. We've only had one light frost so far and it did not really do much damage. Got the basil, but the basil was pretty well gone by then anyway.  Last week I cut a bunch of oregano, zaatar, sage, and fennel seeds and got them dehydrated. I'm now working on drying summer squash, peppers, green beans and eggplant.

Greg got the sweet potato ground tilled up last Friday. Now need to get the tomato field cleaned up; cages pulled up, plastic and drip tape pulled up and then tilled.  We got much needed rain over the weekend so hopefully the plastic will come up easier.

We just keep plugging away and one of these days we'll be done and able to sit back and relax! Ha;Ha!  We are already receiving new seed catalogs and I have already placed my order for next years ginger and turmeric seed stock!

It's official! I'm not a very good blogger! It's been over a year without a post, but we are still alive and kicking.  It's been a busy year like always. We had a very wet Spring and early Summer. We had lots of rain all the way up to July 1st. Then it quit and we haven't had more then a few tenths since.

potatoes in cooler

Since it was so wet early and strawberry season was quite good and busy, we didn't get several things planted or what we did get planted drowned. Things like summer squash, winter squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, beans, corn, etc. you get the picture.  The things that did real well were our potatoes, I know surprising, but after last year that was a great boon!! We have around 17 varieties this year and they produced the most and biggest potatoes we've ever done. We also planted in new ground that Greg tilled up last fall and put cover crops on.  Our hoop house tomatoes did real well. The outside ones did poorly, as they got blight. Our hoop house strawberries did well as did our ginger and swiss chard. We are just digging on our ginger and it is beautiful and big! The turmeric is looking good but still needs to grow some more. We lost all of our garlic as Greg got quite sick this Summer from Ehrlichiosis, a tick born disease and was out of commission for awhile. Plus in the mid to latter part of June when we should have been digging we got a 7" rain. So what garlic that got dug was used for this years seed which we got planted last week.

We are about done digging our sweet potatoes which are doing fairly well. We have about 6 rows left to dig. We've been curing what we dig and then moving them to the cooler.

The trick now is getting them all to fit in the cooler! Greg spent yesterday afternoon designing and building wooden crates that better utilise the space then the round tubs we had them in. He still has more to build but we still don't know if they are all going to fit!


So that it is it in a nut shell. I'm busy dehydrating things trying to get ready to put together my soup mixes, herb and tea blends. We still have all the Fall clean up and tilling to do. I need to dig up all of my glad bulbs (all 500 of them) and store them for the winter, but I am still cutting a few. That was a new venture this year and I think they did well.

Well that's it for now. Hopefully I can find time and remember to get on here more often!