Tomatos from the garden have been absolutely delicious this year, SO much better than store bought.

Ever since we installed the first three raised beds there has been a significant issue with water/mud pooling around the beds.  We decided to take the bull by the horns and install three 60ft french drains.  This ended up being quite a job over two days by me and Patty.  We rented a trencher and that ended up being the easy part.  Backfilling the trench with gravel, pushing the dirt back in and removing the extra dirt was back breaking, even with the help of the tractor.  We finished and I think its going to make a huge difference.  I ended up with enough dirt to also fix up one of the culvert crossings over the barn pond branch.

Now to assemble, install, and fill with dirt the six new raised beds!

Had Mom and Dad down for an overnight and celebrated his birthday a few days early.  He was ‘tractoring’ fully time both days, I think he put in somewhere around 19 hours across the two days.  Sure does take the load off me so I can concentrate on other stuff.  Here are a few pictures of the days.

I’m not a good photographer but I did stumble upon this scene in the bean fields while on a walk with my Mom and though it was pretty cool.  Having a glass print made.

Beauty in the Soy Bean Field

This is a good reason why you should always carry a gun when out and about at the farm.  My Dad was bush hogging on the tractor and came across this coyote which was acting strangely.

We’ve had the place for seven years now and this is the first time we’ve had any type of crop from the peach trees.  Most summers the insects or disease wipes out the entire crop, but not this year.  The peaches were small, but once ripe they were really juicy and sweet.  Should have pruned these better last winter and definitely should have removed some of the fruit early on.  Of course I put absolutely no chemicals on them.

Bending under the weight, should have trimmed them better last winter.

First harvest

Two lovely peaches from the orchard

We used these peaches for a batch of kombucha

Peaches from broken branches and the ground. This is actually the second load, dumped in the woods for the deer.

The deer LOVED the peaches