Trail Seeker

It is raining today and if it sticks around our rainy season will be a couple weeks early. I really like fall until it starts raining, the cool days, the crispness of the air, the garden maturing and being harvested, and even the shorter days makes fall unique. Once the rains come, it is damp, overcast, and rainy for the most part till at least to mid May.

This is a photo of just a few of the squashes from the garden, both of these were from saved seed from last year. I would like to eventually move to heirloom seed and save the seed for the following year. Some plants are biannuals and to get seed requires they be kept over winter and the following summer.

This year the rains lingered on into June and getting the ground worked up was impossible. I actually started moving our my starts and seeding the garden near the end of June. I do have raised beds that some plants were planted but for the bigger stuff it just doesn't have room. This year I had started the corn in the green house and then transplanted them as soon as the ground got worked, it was such a success that I intend to do more next year. My wife planted some when the ground was worked and we are just now getting corn off of it. Usually we get a frost in mid september or a month earlier than the valley, but even though we got into the 30's, we managed not to have one which is good since everything is so late.

I have more elephant garlic than I know what to do with this year, I need to remember not to plants so many in the next week (any one need some?). I started a crop of fava beans this past summer for a cover crop and I have a lot of seed now to do a fall planting. I plan to work some into the raised beds. They not only add a lot of organic material they add nitrogen to the soil as well.