Midsummer

Am I crazy to be thinking of winter coming already?

I don't care, there's lots to get done before the snow flies!
There's about 2 months before the first frost, which is quite a while for the garden to fully grow up. I've got fence to build, water tanks to bury, and many other miscellaneous things to get done, but what else is new???

GARDEN
We got the very first harvest a few days ago, about a cupful of snow peas were ready for picking, and there are more growing on the three plants that I've got. I believe that I may allow the rest of the pods to fully mature and dry out, which will give me seeds for next year. The rest of my garden is well into it's summer growth, the 100 or so pea plants are shooting up, probably will have some peas to eat in a few days. My sunflowers are massive, leaves the size of my head, brocolli is healthy and big, beans are beginning to go, and we might get some cukes in a month or so.
One thing that I will say about my garden, I did not plant enough! I've got a planting bed that could probably support ten times more plants, and it's basically idle, just about 25 sunflowers in it, and a few really shoddy looking strawberries. Next year I'll have to use that bed to it's fully capacity.

I've been really thinking that I need to amp up my production for next year, and put a lot more space into the garden. I think I've learned the easiest way to do some rowcrops, which is to make a raised bed from soil and manure on top of a layer of newspaper, and mulch it with about 4 inches of cut grass. The plants will grow on the very top of the "mound", tucked into the mulch. Between the rows will be grass, about 5 feet of it, which I will cut and throw on top every couple weeks. I just don't know what exactly I should grow, but squash, pumpkins and watermelon sound pretty good. A decent sized pumpkin will sell in October for about $20, but they take a looooong time to mature, so I will need a greenhouse, and some soil blocks.
I'm thinking that I'm gonna need at least a full acre to do this, in addition to my current garden area. It will be watered with drip tape, and my hope is that the mulch will suppress most of the weeds, and whatever weeds manage to get through I'm just going to chop them with a whacker instead of pulling.
In any case, I will need to start making these mounds right now, rather than wait till next spring. The plan is to rent a Bobcat to move the dirt. I'm tired of shoveling.

ORCHARD
My mini-orchard, which consists of two cherry trees and about 12 saskatoons is actually doing well. The saskatoons are producing a most crop of berries! Maybe a half a bucket or so, but considering that I planted them this year, any kind of harvest is super! Next year, I'm gonna try and put about 200-300 of the same mature plants out there, along with a bunch of apple, plum, nut and other cool trees. In front of the saskatoons, I'm going to put either a thin row of strawberries, or asparagus, or even both. Somewhere around the edges, or even behind the big trees will be some raspberries, and down on the ground beside the trees will be tires or pots to plant squash or vine crops into. That's a few years down the road, the trees will have to be a lot bigger before that's gonna happen.

LAST WEEK
The bummer of this last week was the breakdown of my Corolla, which experienced a bizarre breakdown on my way to work. The engine is fine, but the steering and suspension are shot. I think we might be looking at $600 or better, and then I've still got to fix the brakes as well. I love that car, but I fear it might not be worth fixing : ( I've still got to tow the stupid thing from off the side of the highway, where it's been for a week now. Can you believe that there are no towtrucks out here??? Maybe that would be a good p/t business for me... The only way for me to get it is to rent a car dolly and tow it myself with the truck. It's actually a bit cheaper than a tow-truck, but I can't do it for a few days. Surprisingly, I'm not nearly as pissed about the breakdown as I could be. I was half expecting it, to be honest.
We've got a bead on a car, which we're actually picking up tomorrow from a nearby town. We've got a bunch of family there, so we'll make a visit out of it as well.
The car is a 1981 VW Golf, a hatchback diesel. It should improve my gas mileage for work by about 40% over the car, hopefully saving a bit of dough. It's a beater, so if it lasts me for six months, I will be content, but I'm hoping for a year or so, even if I need to spend a little money to fix the injectors. Those vehicles should be good for 500,000 km, and this one has half of that!

Anyway, the wife wants the computer, so I'll sign off here. Pictures to follow on the next post!