Finally, mulching the garlic.
Folks!
Here's a chronicle in pictures of some of the goings on here at the BZ Farm starting in March 2022 and updated when we can.
Alternatively you can:
Plugging the garlic cloves into the dibble holes (eight-inch spacing gives the plants plenty of room).
AJ came by to help with garlic planting (Thanks AJ! Saved a lot of time). Here he's using a dibble and a measuring device to poke the holes for the garlic cloves to go in.
Here is Stephanie Smith of the Northeast Washington Hunger Coalition taking delivery of over 100 lbs. of our Candystick Delicata Squash to be distributed to 18 regional food banks (on the eve of the day President Trump and his MAGGOTS decided to use hungry families as political pawns by refusing to negotiate to end their government shut down and keep the SNAP program funded).
We were gifted one Filderkraut cabbage plant in the spring. Here's Chrys with the end result, destined to become sauerkraut any day now.
Garlic bed ready for planting.
Collecting cucumber seed. It's done exactly the same as with tomato seeds. Put them in a jar to ferment for a few days, stirring daily. Rinse off the viable seeds that sink to the bottom of the jar and dry them out for planting next year.
We had a bumper crop of Candystick Delicata squash this year. We'll have seed for these beauties ready for sale in the spring.
Trenching the pathways and adding the soil to the bed increases the fertility available to the garlic plants and helps with drainage.
Trenching the pathways and adding the soil to the bed increases the fertility available to the garlic plants and helps with drainage.
Spreading aged goat manure on the garlic bed.
Thank you goats!
Here's the mustard greens cover crop preceding the planting of garlic. The mustard is intended to reduce fungus that can cause the garlic to rot.
The little goat hutch has produced this much manure and bedding over the summer.
The peppers go into a 10% canning salt solution for six weeks.
Hot sauce in the making.
Hot sauce in the making.
A pretty little Cayenne pepper.
Finally the cabbages are hung in the root cellar to be replanted in the spring to grow cabbage seed.
Penn State green cabbage being saved for growing out seed next year.
Penn State green cabbage being saved for growing out seed next year.
Tomato seeds drying.
Thanks AJ for helping us gather and stack our firewood for the season.
We scooped out the seeds from some nice ripe Black Krim tomatoes (and some other varieties), made sauce with the rest of the tomatoes and put the seeds and a little water in jars to ferment so that the gelatinous coating on the seeds gets dissolved. After three or four days, stirring once or twice a day, the good seeds sink to the bottom. Then we scoop out the pulp, empty the seeds into a strainer and rinse them. Then we spread the seeds on Hippy Tupperware lids to dry. We'll do germination tests on the seeds this winter and if they pass muster, you can buy them from us next year.
A Black Krim tomato. Deeeeelisious! The variety originated in the Crimea.