Ahead of the Curve

What to do on a final long weekend of summer that we have no plans??  Yes, that's what I said, nothing, I think a first all summer long.  Once in a while when we begin farm tasks we will have a single, super productive day, that makes us wonder how we could have gotten that all done.  Well this non-committed weekend was four full days of just that!

It is now only September fourth, and I feel like we are well on our way to having our Fall farm prep not only under control, but in several areas complete.  Many of the chores that we got done, we are normally still struggling with come November and the turn to colder weather.  It was hot and muggy, but we got the chicken coop mucked out and B expanded and got everything incorporated into the compost area.  A large portion, our biggest yet, will be ready to top dress all of the beds later this fall when we put them to sleep for winter.  All we need are the fall leaves and we will have next years compost well under way! 

We harvested about a quarter of the tomatoes and they are finishing a final ripening on the porch table to be processed and canned this week in the evenings.  While B was turning compost, I closed down the front porch, just leaving our fall items and the table.  As you can see we are set for all of the fall loveliness.  The honey collecting supplies, mums, decorative gourds, and egg collection baskets, and oh that fall light is starting to appear!

If you noticed something in the background of the last shot, it is the new raised kitchen herb bed.  we got it finished this weekend and will be planting herbs and spinach in it in the next week.  Now we can transplant what we want from the former herb garden and work on the foundation of the greenhouse. We decided that if we completed the foundation of the greenhouse this fall along with all of the other harvest and garden wrap up chores, that we would work on the structure itself this winter in the barn and hopefully have it up February/March (depending on this year's snowfall).

Before

Finally, we removed all of the overgrown hedges from around the front of the house.  It's amazing how much larger that made the house look!  The next step is weed barrier and bark all the way around the porch.  Then next spring we will divide our hostas and plant them strategically around the porch.

After

So, I'd say that we are well into prepping for fall, and I am very excited that we are running ahead of the curve this year... I wonder what else we'll get accomplished?