Fall is well upon us and most of the trees have dropped their leaves here in north-central Pennsylvania. The poplar trees hang on until the final end and give us one last blast of color before we settle into winter's dreary palette of grey and white.
As always, I'm behind schedule and am desperately trying to put the high tunnel garden to bed before the really cold weather sets in. Last week, I moved in about a half ton of composted horse manure and pulled out the very last of the vegetables I have growing.
I dehydrated the last of the parsley. I love the vibrant green that isn't found in commercial herbs. This is a blend of flat and curly leaf parsleys.
And pulled the last of the carrots. How about the vitamin packed orange color!?!
In another blog I read that one should try to leave the fall garden the way you want to find the spring garden. That's a pretty solid goal!
Here is a partial list of the chores still to be done:
Finish cleaning weeds, leaves, debris out of high tunnel.
Partially prune fruit trees in high tunnel so that they don't poke through the plastic roof.
Trim bushes out front so that they look neat for the winter.
Fix horse fence where the horses have stuck their heads through and pulled down the wire. Added to this is get horse fence electrified so that this problem doesn't occur again.
Cover swimming pool.
Move rest of manure to area of future you-pick outside raspberry patch.
Clean up bee yards.
And so on.....
The two little ducklings are all grown up now and looking for a name.
This one I think might be a male. He? has the temperament of a male duck but hasn't exhibited the behavior of a male duck... yet.
I love his coloring. For some reason he makes me think of a man dressed up in very formal dinner wear - maybe a tuxedo?
This one I think of as a female. She? is much more demure and timid than the male.
She has a very interesting defect. Her tail goes sideways. You can kind of see it in the photo. Instead of sticking out straight, it sticks out to the right. She's mostly white with a patch of black on her head and tail areas.
Does anyone have any suggestions for names?
