I would like to start out by saying, WOW!  Being that this is my first year with a big garden, I gotta say, ” It’s a LOT OF HARD HARD HARD tiring, long, hot & dirty work.”  At the end of each day, I find myself exhausted!  Starting early, ending late and in the heat of the summer it is in fact torture.  Heat indexes here in excess of 100* and us without any air conditioning.  :(

We’ve been plugging along though.  At the Farmer’s Markets I’ve been busily selling baked breads as well as pounds and pounds of my famous Pinto Bean Fudge!  At the Thursday market at the Cocke County Farm & Garden I’ve sold lots of chicks and chickens.  I don’t have a lot of summer produce, as most of my cucumbers & tomatoes were destroyed by mice!  But I have a few pumpkins and spaghetti squash too.

It’s been survival for the poultry too, these temperatures are nearly murder for them!  Each day I fill up gallons upon gallons of cold water, two pools for the geese to swim in and my hose hand set on “mist” hanging from the clothesline.  The mister works so well to offer a cool breeze for those in the coops, and for the Hen House who run around free with the geese nearly all the time have lots of choices on places to stay cool.    The only good thing about filling so much water up and small pools is that I can dump them each day into my gardens, pots & tomato bags!  Which saves me from having to water, depending on how you look at it of course.

Inside the house not much at all has gotten done, as I said we’ve been without air conditioning, so the computer has had to stay off as MUCH as is possible.  Believe it or not, the monitor, power supply, computer and so forth actually put out a LOT of heat!  Heat that we did not need inside the house.  During this month even the nighttime temperatures were above 80* which is pretty awful for sleeping.   At night I would get as much done as I could, but in the end it wasn’t a whole heck of a lot.  So instead I have been educating myself on food and culinary interests, getting ready so that when our A/C does get fixed, I can really get to work on some new sauces and dishes!  I’m excited beyond belief to really get some new recipes online for you all to try.  I’m sure your going to love some of these things I’ve been working on.  There is still plenty of summer left to enjoy the fresh produce too, you’ll see.

Well, I intend to post more regularly again as the A/C is scheduled to be repaired.  YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!  We’ll cook, chat and get everything ready for fall and winter together!  This winter I have to think about how to keep my geese pond from freezing up!  Any suggestions?

Take care, and talk soon,
Dawn!

It’s hard not to feel how abundant life can be, even in these tough times.  These last couple of weeks have been consumed with canning, dehydrating and of course garden maintenance.   The cucumber vines are coming to an end with the heat, and due to my inexperience with giving them proper climbing structures.  The lemon cucumbers however are thriving in their location, climb very well and are not very heavy, although abundant with fruit.  The flavor is nice & clean and I am certain I’ll be planting these again next year and perhaps in my greenhouse!

Ripe Lemon Cucumbers are BEAUTIFUL!

I’ve decided to help my friend open a weekday Farmer’s Market here in Newport and that adds quite a bit to my plate, but I’m VERY excited to do it.   Cocke County Farm & Garden is where I get all my animal feed and raw grains and I couldn’t possibly think of a better location to have a small weekday market and fall time weekend market!  I’m happily preparing baked goods and home canned items to offer at that market along with fresh produce!

The mixed Australorps have hatched, along with a couple of the potential Olive Eggers.  I got a large percentage of blues, which is just what I prayed for.  Now if I can have a mix of boys and girls from those blues, I would dare say the poultry gods were smiling down upon me.

I have MUCH to get done today, I bought pounds of apples from our local orchard, Carver’s is only down the street a few minutes from me, and I have juicing, jelling and many jars of jam & pie filling ahead of me.  I have produce to pick and a market to get ready for, as well as a few signs to paint from some simple plywood to help out the Newport Market.  I have updated as much of the website as time allows this week, both mine & the Farmer’s Market site, so I will leave you with a few more shots of the ‘farm so you can enjoy them too!

Yellow Pear Tomatoes

I’m having a wonderful time this summer so far! Last night I put several quarts of pickles, relish & pickled slaw into the storage closet and I couldn’t be more proud! I’m currently picking twice per week, once for us and once for the market. I can see that very quickly I’ll have to step that up to 3 times per week minimum as more produce comes into season. Lemon cucumbers are doing so well and I picked my first one of those as well as a lovely banana pepper. I have no idea how either will taste, so I’ll try and remember to report back on that! Bell peppers are weighing the plants so much they are falling over, so I actually had to stake them as well. I have a GEORGEOUS Spaghetti squash in the back and it has several fruits on it for me to pick soon I suspect. I have seriously underestimated some of the growing potential of certain plants and overestimated on others. Next years garden will be so much neater, I can hardly wait!

I have 2 incubators whirring with mixed Australorp eggs and a few potential Olive Eggers as well and I can’t wait for their arrival in a couple weeks. A week later I’ll be expecting another dozen or so that are currently under a hen. It was her decision, really, I just went along with it.

The egg laying in general has slowed down a bit in the heavier Orpingtons, it is a bit hot. The last week has provided us all with suffocating humidity and seemingly lethal heat indexes. Our smaller grow outs, the splash & GLO chicks have moved up to the main bank of coops. I’ve been thinning out the flocks because in my early excitement as a chicken owner, I frankly got too many of the wrong kind of chickens for us. There was no way to know this though until I really got into it, had enough of the different breeds & types to know what it is we really wanted. I’m happy to report though that all of our chickens are getting wonderful forever homes where they will continue their lives as breeders of fine quality chicks.

Today is Friday and that means HARVESTING day! I get everything ready best I can the day before so it is easier to get out the door on market morning. This week I have very little to take to market as I put up a bunch of the cucumbers for our own purpose. But others have started bringing great amounts of summer type yellow squashes, cabbages & zucchini! When I don’t have much to sell, I can socialize or go with a basic setup and leave early or spend my time helping out. Its nice to have the flexibility to decide.

Well, on that note, I have to go! The cukes are awaiting me!!