TIME WARP~ Thursday's Livestock and Garden Report ~ Week 9

there has not been much gardening going on this week, due to the several days of rain we've received. (which we're very thankful for!)

however, we did manage to get the remainder of the tomatoes in. you can see the upper garden here, along with a peek of the high tunnel. the last short row of black fabric is the sweet potatoes. there remains just a little bit of room for some beans.

a few weeks ago, we planted the high tunnel with tomatoes. amazingly, all the tomatoes were the same size when i bought them, but look how much they've grown in comparison to the ones planted outside!




both of the varieties in the high tunnel are an early bearing variety- early girl and big boy, so we should soon have some fresh tomatoes. you can already see some blossoms on many of the plants.


yesterday i staked and pruned the tomatoes. we've never pruned our tomatoes before, but thought that we'd try it for this year. i also staked the tomatoes, using basketweaving, an easy and quick method that i found here.


we did work one day down in the lower garden, tilling under some of the plants that Dave was certain would not make it. for some reason all the seedlings that we started were very small and leggy. hopefully we can perfect our technique for next year, to save the expense of having to buy hundreds of seedlings. we replanted peppers, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbages. (in the rain!)some of the carrots were coming up, so they were not a total loss. we also hilled the potatoes, and planted the other half of the sweet potatoes.




I'm almost out of room in the LG, but there are still some things that I'd like to plant: winter and summer squash, cucumbers, a sunflower house for the girls, and a row of sunflowers at the top of the garden.

the meat birds are growing rapidly, and we've decided to start butchering some of them next week, at 11 weeks of age. i miscounted how old they are, so they're actually one week older than we thought. we'll start with the bigger ones first, and work at it as Dave has off. and it will be none too soon, as they've devoured an entire ton of food! I'll let you know the final cost after they're all sleeping in the freezer...



that's it for this week. I'm off to stake tomatoes...