Growing Wild

Well it's been a while since I've posted but I wanted to share some photos of my garden

From Ginger's Farm Photos

As you can see the crows have been having a blast eating the corn ... All those bare spots are where they snipped off the shoots to get to the kernel underneath.

The fields just started to sprout weeds this week after a good 3/4 inches of rain this weekend. ... And boy are they making up for lost time.

I did however come up with a pretty good way to keep the deer off my pumpkin & squash ....

From Ginger's Farm Photos

I used nylon netting - such as you would use on a wedding dress or a ballet tutu - and covered the top of the squash garden.

I have to keep going out to stretch it over the ropes, and it has gotten rips, but the thing that amazed me is that the pumpkin keeps trundling into it - it grips into it like peas to a trellis and they keep sending their runners underneath to try to climb the hill... but this would mean they will get mowed over which would be very bad for the plant, so I have to gently pull them up and send them back the other way into the garden ...

I had worried that having them under the mesh would prevent the bee from pollinating the flowers ... But today I found this:

From Ginger's Farm Photos

Look! Look! There is swelling starting behind the flower! Sweet!

Now to figure out a way to keep the raccoons, birds, and deer from eating it until it's ready for picking!

Meanwhile in the green house ...

From Ginger's Farm Photos

I finally have baby carrots ... They are all orange instead of the red, yellow or white I was expecting. I didn't think carrots "mated" but perhaps I'm wrong ... if so I would suspect that they would revert to the original type they were originally crossed with ... kind of like hybrid corn - some is so unstable that if they get pollen from another type of corn, they become field corn.

Speaking of corn .... what little crop we get will be coming in very late this year. I suspect somewhere around mid-September early October ... depending on the weather.

Bright side:
we will have sellable crop after the stores run out
The days will be cooler while I prepare it for freezing
It should tassel after the worse part of summer so it doesn't tassel too early

Dark side:
the kids will only be able to sell on the weekends or after school.
Those pesky animals will be trying to steal my corn for their winter stocks the same time I'm doing it.
We run the risk of the corn not tasseling at all because of the day light/warmth issues that come with the fall.

Personally I'm hoping to avoid schmutz ... it's a black fungus that occurs and can cause unusual growth of the cobs. The infected plant needs to be rep Ed completely and disposed of in such a way as not to infect the soul .... so no putting it in the compost bin or just tossing it to the side of the field ... I think of it a corn-cancer, but I've heard it's a delicacy in Japanese cooking.

Well have to go ... Didn't realize how late it was.