Carefully crafted gardens are starting to close... [View all]

This homestead has been busy. Too damp conditions necessitated us to pull our potatoes early it was a good year got about 50 pounds, russet mainly. Raspberries were phenomenal with a couple months of about a pint or more a day, birds got their fill too.

Green beans are slowing down so are the snow peas and cucumbers. The story of the zucchini is different. It seemed to be growing ’funny’, more upright than I’ve ever seen. Digging through the plants I found that one was a yellow summer squash. One seed must of been in the seed pack by mistake. Oh well just a little different.



The real garden story this year is the Butternut Squash. It’s a very versatile vegetable and it lasts a long time. This March we finished the last one from last year’s harvest. It helps that it’s one of our favorites, so I planted some in a straw bale, some in our fenced garden and some in a planter that was outside the greenhouse by the compost pile. I figured that would get us a generous supply. I had some seeds stuck to my grubby hands when I was finished planting so I clapped the clean by the compost pile. A totally unexpected garden.

Well….guess they love growing in compost. This is one side. Compost pile is in front of those logs.



This is the other…the planter is under the very yellow leaves. Steps are for rolling up the greenhouse door.



Here’s some of its fruit…this ones about 18 inches long.







I tried to trellis the squash this year it worked out quite well for this one and the fenced garden. The straw bale garden Butternuts didn’t do so well.

In the fenced garden.