Harvest!
We’re finally getting some decent harvests! Everyday brings new vegetables & canning season is ramping up with tomatoes just around the corner…
Evil
There is a new evil in the land, and its name is Manduca Sexta, or horn worm for us mortals. These fat slimy caterpillars have started pillaging our tomato plants.
One of them bastards getting fat at our expense, what a cool pattern though, especially the eye.
All they leave behind are the skeletons of what were once beautiful tomato plants
We’ve been squashing them left and right but they keep coming and their camouflage is extremely effective. It looks as though spraying with an organic compound referred to as “BT” is the solution to our problem.
A sea of tomatoes
A few pics of all the tomatoes to come. Roughly 100 tomato plants, at 10lbs of tomatoes per plants, this means we’ll be doing some serious canning this year.
More cheapo frames – the tomato super-highway.
Flowers means we’ll be getting some yum-yum soon.
The plants that were planted the earliest of the season were given left-over scraps of wool in order to better retain heat & moisture. They are by far the most sturdy of all tomato plants. Lesson learned.
Look at ’em fancy plants, even I don’t wear such nice fiber.
Woodchuck
The neighbor’s vegetable garden has been ravaged recently by what he thought was a woodchuck. Now our garden is doing just fine but just in case I started reviving the old CCTV system. Bare in mind I have never had an encounter with one and only know what they look like based on the label of some mighty delicious cider.
Pictured bellow, said mighty delicious cider in action.
A casual look out the window and I see a fat cat inside my fenced garden. Thanks the the neighbor’s heads up & the power of delicious cider I know exactly what is going on: woodchuck, inside my fenced garden, having an all you can eat buffet…
I run upstairs to get a pellet rifle thinking it’s not worth alarming the neighbors with gunfire and that it will probably be enough to give it the scare of its life. Turns out the rifle it much more powerful than I had imagined and just drops the poor thing dead.
Sorry woodchuck…
Devastation
Rain
My beautiful wife having more balls than me.
They've already built quite a bit!
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The last harvest
With sub-zero temperatures just around the corner, it’s time to remove all the unripened fruits of our plants. Preserve will be made out of the green tomatoes.
and all that is left of the garden is a decrepit mass of dying plants
Fresh produce!
Zucchinis, tomatoes, eggplants, salads, pickles, pumpkins, potatoes… et cetera. The garden has been a frank success this year and for the first time since we’ve been gardening.
We have more than enough vegetables for our consumption. We’re canning some of them and although they won’t last us a whole winter a little more effort next year will allow this.
We also have 6 chicken, get about 4 eggs a day and are thinking about a goat.
I feel like we’ve taken a huge step towards self sustainability.