The fall just keeps getting more challenging between hot weather, the continuing drought and hungry deer. To keep the fall crops growing we have to water almost daily. Thanks to being able to give the plants a drink daily we have been harvesting a good amount of lettuce, kale and stir fry greens(tat soi, bok choy, and pak choi). However the deer have been eating the mustard’s, unprotected lettuce, radishes, beets, and collards. We have put up a variety of Halloween, 4th of July and Christmas decorations we thought might scare them but after a few nights they think they are invitations to dinner. We had maybe a half inch of rain in October one night. Due to the lack of rain our cover crops are barely doing a thing. I see some little forage radish leaves and that’s about it. Things like spinach wouldn’t even sprout.
Raised beds of cabbages, kales, onions and lettuces. You can see a bit of deer scaring/attracting tinsel in the left corner.
I know this is hard to see but it’s mustard that the deer really like and keep eating down to the ground. Normally we would have harvested bags of it but it’s all in deer bellies.
Our second digging of sweet potatoes was better than the first beds but still due to drought and deer was much less than the last couple years. We put deer netting over the beds but this year the deer learned how to stick their mouths under the netting and eat the leaves. We really wish we had motion camera’s to see that process.
Sweet potato Harvesters.
Proud Sweet Potato harvester with the biggest potato.
Kids having fun harvesting pumpkins and squashes.
Our handicapped beds with fall crops.
Fall crops in our greenhouse. We have our stir fry greens in here and they seem to really like it.
Tomato high tunnel going strong.
This is hard to see but we planted winter peas in both high tunnels as an experiment to enrich the soil over the winter and they are just popping up.
One of our best volunteer gardeners.
Two more of our extraordinary gardeners.
Saturday was our fall harvest party. We recognized 4 of our most devoted volunteers for all they gave to the garden this year. There was lots of great food and fun and games and fellowship.
I wish this pic was much closer so you could see more details on the amazing pumpkin on the left and the cat next to it that of our ladies entered in the adult pumpkin carving contest.
This spider web maze and corn shock tunnel of terror were great hits.
Pumpkin carvers.
Littlest pumpkin carvers.
Pumpkin Carvers showing great pumpkins.
Our Queen Bee and Cleopatra.
Mr. Bill’s amazing hayride!
In addition to the above we had more cooking sessions featuring our own produce and a canning session making pepper butter and pepper jelly. We harvested and sold lots of peppers, okra, squashes, and tomatoes. We’ve gotten the most figs we ever had thanks to the endless summer. We are still harvesting peppers and okra. Wow! So in spite of the Double D’s life is pretty good here around the Cumberland Gap. Happy Thanksgiving to all in Advance. Sue
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