Early Autumn Harvest Photos

With two children in our lives, we are finding it difficult to find much time for the blog.  Please forgive the brief  posts, and enjoy the photographs.

Most of the photos are from our Zone 1 gardens to use Permaculture lingo.

This time of year, the peppers are finishing up and ready to be harvested.

Odin is helping to process a Luffa Gourd. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luffa

Shiso has been allowed to self seed and now is growing in most of our vegetable gardens.

Peppers, Aubergines, and Shiso out compete the weeds and taste great.

We have our composting toiled fully operational now and in daily use, creating amazing HOT COMPOST.

Steve and Barbara lent a helping hand this summer and we closed off another section of cleared jungle for a chicken run.  With 30 birds, the first run is a dust field now and needs to be replanted with a Nitrogen fixer, maybe alfalfa for the chickens to eat.

More Aubergines, yum-yum!

Well that is it for now.  More to come as time allows.

Adorable Little Thieves

"Red-Headed Thief" caught red-handed. This is the female Sylvia atricapilla. "Black-Headed Thief. This is the male Sylvia atricapilla." Tiny little things---amazing how they get here at all and from where? These guys got into the netting, but could not figure out how to get out. After untangling them from the netting, they were photographed and released. We do not know what variety of bird they are so far. If any of you know, send me a link and I will post it along with the name. (Thank you to Emily Harris Griffin for identifying our little culprits.) These little birds love to eat all of our lettuces, all greens from the Brassica family (that includes pak choi, broccoli, cauliflower, mustards, all cabbages, and much more), even the spicy mustard seedlings. As a non-lethal preventative measure, we put netting around and over the newly transplanted Chinese cabbages. Above the newly planted garden with netting is the cold frame in which we sow seeds and nurture the seedlings until they are transplanted. It is raised-bed garden covered with discarded windows. We built the stone retaining walls to take advantage of this protected space with full sun.