Fall Labor

Abruptly, after weeks of “abnormally” warm weather with a few sighs of cool days, we are faced with a freeze.  Such is the changing of the seasons in Kansas.  It is never a gentle slide into winter, but a series of puffs and gasps before a sudden collapse into a freeze.

The gathering in of the seasons is upon us.  Now is the time to move in the potted plants, harvest the sweet potatoes, and thank our birds for their lives before they are butchered and frozen.  We have planted cover crop in two places and it grows better than I feared (oh, birds eating seeds!).  Garlic cloves of many kinds and sizes have been planted, watered, and watched for signs of new life.  Soon, chicken coops will move closer to the barn for the more frequent attention needed in winter, and when we butcher the turkeys, we will butcher a flock of our older laying hens, as we have determined  we need to tighten up the operation.

I find autumn thoroughly rewarding: the harvest is collected, the labor of the summer slackens, all the projects begun in the spring now are fulfilled.  As the days grow shorter, there is finally time for me to sit on the porch and enjoy a cool breeze.  Oh, yes, and there is no better excuse to go to bed earlier and sleep later!

The light of the sun only now brightens the tops of the tallest trees, so I am blessed with a few more minutes of quiet before I must up and away for the day.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It’s Purgatory Ranch.

Fall Work

Last weekend, we cleared all of the garden except for the sweet potatoes.  James did some welding, which is pretty impressive, so he could mow, mow again, and till.  The wind picked up in the afternoon, so despite my original plan to plan a cover crop immediately, I had to wait a few days.

Our hope is to help eliminate some of the weed growth we have in the fall and spring, as well as to enrich our soil with nitrogen fixing legumes.

 I planted a fall manure mix that included hair vetch, winter rye, ryegrass, peas, and clover, and then overplanted with mustard.  I read (which means I have a good chance of being wrong) that mustard roots grow deep, even in clay, so they may help break up our hard soil.  The recommended tool was a seed drill, but I had to stick to the seed spreader, which is what I have.  I can live with uneven seed distribution.

In the end, the challenge was keeping the pesky guineas out of the seed.  I finally set up a hose to spray/mist all over the area, and that worked.  Now we've had a few days of rain, and I can already see sprouting!

In the coming week, I'll try to lay out the drip hose again in an unplanted area for the garlic crop!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.