Always Something

[clarentine]

On a farm, even a small farm like mine, there's always something needing to be done. This weekend, we wrapped up preparations for the first frost, forecast for Monday morning. This meant checking windows in the chicken house, picking the last little bits of the summer garden, and laying in a bag of wood for this year's inauguration of fire season. We finished filling the woodshed last weekend, with the help of a neighbor and his wood splitter.

As if that wasn't enough, we also set the footers for the final three pairs of posts for the greenhouse. I was warmed at first with the digging and hauling at the start of Saturday afternoon's project time. By its end a couple of hours later, my hands were chilled and I was ready to head indoors.

With all of the produce gathered late on Saturday, I needed to find something to do with a bumper crop of tomatillos. I ended up making a small batch of tomatillo salsa and canning it - fabulously tangy stuff! The tomatillos were one of my test crops this year. They've earned their spot next year. I have one last batch of tomatillos to can up, and am looking forward to sharing their goodness this winter.

And now...it's greens season. I'll find out in the next couple of days which greens (seeded earlier this autumn) will be freeze-hardy.

Comments

[eseme]

We got snow yesterday! All day, but mostly slush where I am, up north got 12-18 inches! Craziness.

I love tomatillos in salsa...

[clarentine]

I don't think I'd ever had a tomatillo salsa, or anything with tomatillo, until last year. Instant love! So now I have a fresh salsa for when they're in season, and canned salsa for when they're not. *g*

It seems like everyone on the East Coast got snow but us. We didn't even get any rain, and I could have used it. I hope yours was pretty while it came down and not much bother this morning!

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I bought some tomatillos while on holiday. I dearly hope we can grow them here on our balcony. Green enchiladas, here we come!!!

[clarentine]

If you can grow tomatoes, you can grow tomatillos. I grew three different kinds, and all were tall enough to really benefit from a strong support; I used those circular tomato cages. Their flowers are really pretty.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me know about the flowers; I had no idea and will now be looking forward to them with giddy anticipation.

And hmmmm, the best luck we had with tomatoes last year was with the ones that sprouted out of our compost. Fingers crossed for better luck this year!

[clarentine]

http://www.southernexposure.com/husk-tomatoes-ground-cherries-tomatillos-ezp-58.html. Tomatoes are notoriously heavy feeders, so I am not surprised to hear they did well in your compost! We used to have volunteer tomatoes come up all the time in our compost when I lived in Florida. Those were usually the tastiest, too. :-)

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

What a gorgeous color those fruits are! And yeah, I think our tomato failure came from poor, too-hard soil for those we sowed ourselves. This year we were able to locate and buy some peat moss to lighten things up a bit.

We don't know anything about when to sow what here, but the gardener at the embassy told J that we can go ahead with planting just about everything. We held back on the corn, melons, and....um something else I can't remember off the top of my head...oh, yeah: okra.

[clarentine]

It must be incredibly challenging to move and change not just house, not just country, but hemisphere!

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Neither J nor I are gardening gurus to begin with, so yes, extra-extra incredibly challenging. :P But we are bound and determined to learn. No time like the present.

[gloria hannemann (from livejournal.com)]

Planting some veggies here at Tammy's ...finger nails too clean.

[clarentine]

Oh, yeah, I know that feeling. :-) Good time for some late season greens! Tatsoi, kale (Premier and Red Russian), and some fancy purple mustard for me. Oh, and the Senposai, which was not fazed by the cold snap one bit. Now if I could just find someone who wants to eat the stuff….