A rainy Sunday gives us a chance to sit down and catch our breath.

A few weeks ago we harvested our winter squash and melon field. It was a real mess.

Wading through the weeds to find the fruits. We grew acorns, delicatas, butternut, sweet dumpling, spaghetti, as well as several types of cantaloupe and a watermelon variety our neighbor has been saving for many years. The resulting harvest filled the back of the pickup but most of the squashes, and all of the melons, are damaged and unsellable. Ripening fruits are just too tempting for all the critters of the field and forest apparently. I don’t think we’ll be growing these again. It was too much work to prepare and plant the field for the amount of sellable product resulting.

We’ve been digging lots of potatoes. Digging them by hand that is. I think it’s time to invest in a potato digger implement for the tractor. And a root washer. And a root cellar. And a walk-in cooler.

Gavin brought home a disk that will help us prepare the soil. Thank you, David.

Tilling inside the fenced area for more fall crops. I’m trying to put everything inside the fence because deer have found the outside garden.

It’s been very dry here the past few weeks: such a change from the rest of the spring and summer. I suppose there have been scattered showers elsewhere, and there has definitely been lots of cloud-cover, but no rain here. Yesterday we finally had rain in the forecast again so we worked hard after we got home from market to get some more rows planted. Sure enough, rain came last night and will help these cabbages, brussels sprouts, and spinach get a good start.

It can be hard to grow Brassica transplants this time of year, when pest pressures have built up all spring and summer.

We had a lot of cabbage worm moths laying eggs on the Brassica transplants in the greenhouse. Before you know it, your beautiful transplants can be completely defoliated by these worms. Luckily we had wasps come and take care of the infestation. Nature balancing itself out.

Amazing to watch this guy at work! Thanks for saving our fall crops, Mr. Wasp!

So many butterflies on the joe pye weed. We have a beautiful edge habitat along the east side of the garden.

Also jewelweed that is as tall as I am! It’s very moist down between the bottom of the garden and the creek. The bald cypress trees we planted last spring are alive and growing in this area!

Another flush of shiitake mushrooms. I can’t wait to start more logs in the spring. The logs we inoculated this year are starting to fruit and we will work on re-stacking the logs this afternoon so we can get to the mushrooms!

Snails and slugs can do a lot of damage to the mushrooms. They like to eat them as much as we do.

First picking of another succession of green beans, and they are perfect!

It must be late summer if we have these trussed cherry tomatoes.

And the greens are rebounding somewhat as cooler weather returns.

Another week, another market.

High summer, and the bounty from our Piedmont soil.

Hope you are eating well in your neck of the woods.