Garden Update/ Successes & Failures, New Coop Interior, Great Score on New Tableware

 

Garden Update/ Successes & Failures-

It has been a really crazy summer for everybody in our area with gardening. We had cool weather with rain, then heat. We got into a pattern of monsoonal moisture which is a blessing especially living in the high desert. Sadly it brought lightning and we're having terrible fires. Also that rain makes every single weed seed sprout! Just trying to keep things weeded was really insane. We did have a few good ideas though since we were desperate. We had some leftover weed barrier and there was a really bad area right in front of our blackberries that's a walkway. So I suggested to Dave that we throw down the weed barrier and cover with bark dust. We did that, problem solved! We did a lot of extra watering with the 100° days off and on, it just it was so hot. Good news we've had some nice big tomatoes coming off of some of the plants. The flip side is we got almost 1/3 of our usual Early Girl tomatoes, almost no paste tomatoes, and very few cherry tomatoes. Our Siberian black prince tomatoes and cukes all went crazy! Almost 5' tall!

We try to grow mostly Heritage but I do the others just for a quicker Harvest. So I do have lots of fresh tomatoes in the freezer that are vacuum sealed. We had a really good crop of pears. I made several giant crisps out of those. I gave the rest to my two daughters since I still had some canned ones left from last time. Froze a lot of peaches! I may do some canning this winter when things are cooler and it's quieter. We did get our first new black currants that we planted in our front yard as a shrub.

We've had some kind of disease or fungus in our front lawn resulting in a big brown patch. I contacted the Master Gardener program for help with that. At first I thought it's because we cut down our really old apple tree and it has full exposure to the sun burning it. But then it spread and spread. I spoke with them and sounds like a fungus hitting the valley. Will take a sample in. Sounds like we'll need to re-seed. So with gardening there's just always ups and downs every year. Another reason why we try to plant a variety of veggies and fruits. If you have a failure over a couple varieties you have some backups. We did get about four or five apples off our brand new baby apple tree! Looking forward to having more apples next year. Herbs did great and got a new pump for the pond-

New Coop Interior-

The chickens are doing really well in the new coop. We decided to do a second coat of paint since it weathered a bit in the Sun and winter is around the corner. Here's some photos of the inside to show you the layout, which is a little different. We did the same footprint but because we did the flooring and foundation the way we did it's a little bit narrower. After I saw another blogger had this idea we built in a little mini-enclosure inside the coop for either sick chickens or new chicks. For new chicks it would obviously be when it's warm enough for them to be out there and the temporary situation. The girls love sleeping at night up in the nesting boxes. They were used to being up on a shelf by the upper window, but we put the new (used) window down low this time to avoid falls. Everything else is going well with the coop through good ventilation and everybody was happy this summer. Super grateful that we have our huge maple tree in the backyard, gives us lots and lots of shade! Here's the main area, feed and water on the left, floating perch on the right-

New temp enclosure for chicks or ill birds-

Window above nesting boxes and enclosure-

Naturewood first batch

Great Score on New Tableware-

A couple years ago I had stumbled on a stoneware pattern that I really loved on Facebook Marketplace. Sadly I just couldn't afford it at the time. I left Facebook for a while and then went back recently to follow local businesses and have access to Marketplace. Then I spotted the Pfaltzgraff Naturewood stoneware pattern again! And the price was way down, not sure if it's the economy? To make a long story very short I was able to get a great price on a set from two different sellers. The first seller had mixed in a second pattern called Perennial Flowers which coordinates with the Naturewood. After doing some research I decided to sell those on Marketplace. It's actually a quite expensive pattern since it was only in production for about 5 years. Long story short is also I may wind up actually making quite a chunk of money on this as it is very valuable, and I am selling it for a really good price. Will be listing it in a day or so. Worked out great!

Naturewood pattern