Pumpkin Picking Time!

My mom showing off some of our pumpkins.

She thinks she is allowed to drive the tractor, but she isn't.

Sadly I do not think we are going to be selling any of our pumpkins, we just don't really have enough. We will probably keep them, and have lots of pumpkins to carve for Halloween. But we do have a bunch of pie pumpkins that I will be using to make pumpkin breads and pies. I will probably start baking my pumpkin breads and pies for Valley City Farmers Market, not this Saturday but the following Saturday.

We tried lots of different kinds of pumpkins this year, like white pumpkins, blue pumpkins (we only got one of these, not sure why we didn't get anymore, I know the plants came up ok, oh well), and Knucklehead Pumpkins which did really well for us we got more of these than anything else. The only thing that was disappointing about the knuckleheads is, they are suppose to have a lot of bumps on them, and most did not have as many as I had expected, they were still pretty neat though.

I wish we would have thinned out the plants a little or would not have planted them so close together. I think we would have ended up with a lot more pumpkins if we would have done so, oh well, next year.

Our Plans for Fall

Sadly were not able to get any of our fall greens and lettuces planted, but there is a reason for that. We are planning on building a hoop house in the location where we plant our greens. Yes we had to sacrifice planting our fall crops but it will all be worth it in the long run. We will not only be able to start our greens earlier, but it will also protect our crops from bugs. Which should make it possible to grow things that were either impossible to grow (pak choi and mustard greens) or very hard to grow (arugula, beets, radishes, and a lot of other greens) before.

I am very excited about our plans and can not wait to get started with them.

We are still hoping to sell at the Valley City Farmers Market, hopefully till the end. The following is what we plan to have available after a frost stops us from harvesting anymore warm weather crops.

• Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Bread
• Pumpkin Seeds
• Apple Bread
• Apple Pie
• Pecan Pie
• Collards
• Kale
• Leeks
• Yukon Gold Potatoes
• Corn Stalks
• and possibly some other things

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This year has been a really big challenge, the temperature for much of the season has been much cooler than normal. Making it difficult for crops such as eggplant, okra and caused most crops to be harvested much later in the season than normal.

We have also had issues with bugs that we never had before. We have always had trouble with flea beetles but this year was the worst yet, posing a problem for eggplant, radishes and our spicy greens. We also had major problems with beets and spinach which was something we never had a problem with before, leaf minors. In the past we were always able to pull beets with beautiful tops with hardly any problems, but this year was very different.

Another problem that we had this year was with rodents. Never before have we had our bean plants just cut off from the ground by rodents. The monsters also whipped out our beets overnight.

Considering how difficult of a year it was I am also very grateful for what we were able to harvest and the support of all our wonderful customers. Even though the year is not yet over, I can feel it coming to an end, since many of our warm weather crops are ending and the weather is getting cooler. So I just wanted to say thanks, to everyone.