The Days Are Getting Shorter

An early morning view where our driveway crosses the railroad on its path to the highway.

Sun rising over the trees as seen through the
Crepe Myrtle at the edge of our front porch.

My early mornings sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee in hand are little cooler these days.  As I quietly sit and wait on the sun to rise in the east I have time to count my blessings and say thanks for my family, life and friends.  With the shorter days come the migrating birds and if we are lucky a rare glimpse at the migrating Monarch butterflies as they seem to float and swirl southward to their winter home in southern Mexico. For now I am content with the the occasional howl of a coyote in the distance and the arrival of the birds that are beginning to visit our feeders.

Peppers in our small raised-bed garden are ready to
be picked and turned into old fashioned pepper sauce.

Last night we had fresh collard greens, field peas and corn bread for dinner.  Good old southern comfort food seems even better this time of year.  Tonight we will be welcoming a traveler to our home.  Vanessa Kersting, our friend from Australia will get in tonight. She is already in town but will be coming to stay whit us, in her home-away-from home, for a little less than a week. I already know we will not want her to leave when she goes back to Australia.  I will write more about Vanessa later but so you will have some idea who I am talking about,  she is a Australian Christian music recording artist and now a member of our family.

Fall Gardening 

My simple welded wire greenhouse frame awaiting the first frost when it will be draped
with clear poly sheeting to protect my tender plants from the onslaught of cold and the
winter winds.

Our small fall kitchen garden  has been planted and beginning to show some signs that it might actually make it.  I am still having to water it regularly but I have late season summer squash blooming and actually coming to fruit.  There is broccoli, collards, mustard greens, artichokes (that are too late to make now) and spinach growing there.  If all is well, we can harvest squash until about Thanksgiving and the greens will produce throughout the winter months and into the early spring.

I have made a very simple greenhouse to cover the plants and protect them from the frost when it arrives in about three or four weeks.  I have done this in many different ways through the years and it always seems that that keeping the poly sheeting on it in the wind is the major problem. This year I made it very simple.  It is constructed of two pieces of 48 inch welded wire that I tied together with wire ties in order to make a tent-like structure out of it.  For now it is just keeping the deer and rabbits out of my tender green plants, but when the first threat of frost arrives I will drape it with poly sheeting which will be secured to the wire.  If my plan works, and it should, the plants will be protected from the killing frost for four or five weeks.  When the temperatures finally remain too cool, only the leafy greens will survive. It is my attempt to delay the inevitable coming of winter and the end of the 2012 gardening year.

Until next time...