The Weekly Digs #181
In the Garden
The weeds took over my berry rows about mid summer and then they just stared at me every day when I walked outside. But there were always tomatoes to pick, or bugs to shake off into buckets, or something to preserve and I never picked the weeds.
Then they grew huge in the lush, amended soil. But over the last few weeks, I took on the task of getting those weeds under control so my berries could grow better. Since most of the plants are individual bushes or blackberry brambles, I put my push lawn mower on a super low setting and mowed all the weeds on the row and left the plants.
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It actually worked really great. Then we laid down cardboard, and when we ran out of cardboard we used contractors paper purchased from the hardware store to smother the weeds. Last, we added mulch.
Fall is a good time to sheet mulch and I hope to add even more mulch over winter to get it all to a thick layer so there are less weeds and less work in summer. We still have four rows left to do but have made good progress thus far.
It also is much more enjoyable to look out over that area and see it all neat and pretty!
This last week I transplanted celery into my caterpillar tunnel. I also planted spinach, yellow heart winter choy, north pole lettuce, and vates collards in soil blocks. Some of them will mature before winter, while others will be the first thing we eat in the Spring when the daylight hours start to lengthen.
Speaking of Fall, It’s officially that time of year! I have a love/hate relationship with Fall and Winter. I love the weather, the cooler temps, having less bugs, less humidity, and the landscape colors around us are just beautiful! I’m also ready to have a breather from the garden and preserving work 🙂 I love reading and finally have a little more time in Fall and Winter to do so.
However, going into this time of year means seasonal depression is on the horizon. Well at least for me it is. I felt it already coming on this week, and some days I could not stop myself from crying, and then I had a terrible time sleeping as well, which of course makes it even worse. I go outside and eat some holy basil when I think of it, because it helps a bit! I need to dry some still for winter! I had a really good and happy summer so I am at least grateful for that.
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Preserving
I picked up five half bushels of grapes from the local farm stand. They had a fantastic grape year so the grapes were cheap because of the abundance. We ate a half bushel fresh because we all love the slip skin type grapes (except for Cam, he doesn’t like the seeds in them)!
Then I started to juice the rest, our favorite variety is Sunbelt but we also got some Fredonia to try. We don’t make a ton of juice or drink it often. It’s a special treat to have with meals around the holidays. But we all love it!
So far I made 9 quarts. I have another 3 quarts I need to finish up tonight.
I also made a bunch of chicken broth because we butchered our chickens last week, then pieced some of them out into cuts. The carcasses get made into broth.
It was the first time we dispatched older hens in an effort to keep the meat. It was a different experience and much tougher to pluck them and eviscerate.
Since I’ve heard the meat on an older hen is generally more tough, I cut the meat into pieces and canned it.
- 9 quarts grape juice
- 14 quarts chicken stock
- 7 quarts diced chicken
New Chicks
We got more meat birds because our incubator kept having only a 50% hatch rate. They came in the mail this week but unfortunately we had a huge loss of birds twenty out of sixty didn’t make it. Luckily all the rest have thrived since they’ve been here.
