Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Sprinkling Seeds and Piling Manure

Adam and I put seeds for winter crops in the garden bed yesterday morning. The weather was coolish and felt like approaching fall. A strong north wind and overcast skies made for a pleasant morning of farm work. The broccoli is in the far right row; the others are various greens, carrots, and a few radishes. Then we covered it all with dry grass cut from the field before. In late afternoon, the Lord watered it all for us beautifully!
Adam immediately put together this open-sided compost bin using materials that our good Mr. M. left around the farm. He was a collector of all things old, junky, and nearly-useless. Emphasis on the word nearly, because if we can use it, we will!
Adam hauled dry grass from the field on the tarp, over to the compost bin.
This is the same dry grass we use for mulch on the gardens.
He piled it in, layered with very-dry, very-old horse manure that's been maturing in the barn. As I said before, then God watered it all nicely so it wouldn't blow away.
He plans to build a line of these compost bins along the back of the property, which is the north side. The next one will have old shower doors as sides. These are the doors we removed from the bathroom, but Mr. M. had yet a second set of doors in the barn, for what reason we do not know.
Meanwhile, the peanut gallery was having a blast barking and playing in the patch of blue flowers on the edge of the pine trees.
I sat in a chair most of this time, gazing north through these trees across the big corn field. Some are losing their brown, rattling leaves. The wind was quite strong, quite pleasant. I love autumn! We're almost there. I noticed that our honey bees are flying across this corn field for food. Adam says they are going to a wood on the other side. Who knows what's blooming there that they want?
In the afternoon while I was at work, the first bag of wheat seed arrived. It's a 25-lb. bag of mixed non-GMO, heirloom seeds. Adam will wait until the temperatures are right to plant it, closer to the first frost. He's researched all the various pests and how to best to avoid their damage.
The mushrooms are drying. Isn't that pretty?

6 comments:

  1. Good, honest work! Well done!

    Love the mushroom pic.

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  2. Wow! I'm so amazed at your farm skills, MK! The shower doors are funny! More people SHOULD save stuff and repurpose them but you don't think about how to reuse old shower doors! Lol!
    Have you seen that cool video about gardening (an old lady who buries stuff in straw?) I'll try to find it.
    (BIG HUG!)

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  3. My goodness, you would think you two are old farm hands, not just newbies.

    Your weather sounds wonderful. It is still very warm and humid down here.

    Enjoy it all ~ FlowerLady

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  4. Things are really moving along at the farm. : )

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  5. I really like your resourcefulness, and it sounds like you've been doing a lot of research about your crops. The video that Pom Pom mentions sounds familiar. I hope she finds a link to it. I can just feel your contentment sitting under the trees looking across the fields. And I can hear the peanut gallery! :)

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  6. I love this reuse of things like the shower doors!!! Cool! SO nice sharing in this journey with you!x

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