Last Delivery

A few more June’s Corner Garden bags to fill and deliver

It is hard to believe that tomorrow is the last delivery of the season. On Monday, I was really happy we had a dry day to harvest and deliver orders. It was even a little sunny, so I didn’t mind sending Jonas off on a trek to make the Sauvie Island deliveries, while I made the ones in North/North East Portland. I don’t know that we will be so lucky today and tomorrow. With the daylight coming so late in the morning, I will go out this afternoon to do most of the harvesting for Thursday’s orders. We’ll see if the rain keeps up. I’ll finish up harvesting with the greens in the morning.

The kale will stay for the winter

What next after the last delivery? First, on Friday, I am taking a class through the Washington State University, Clark County Extension, on High Tunnel Vegetable Production. The farm we are in the process of buying has two hoop houses/high tunnels (here is the first thing I need to learn: Is there a difference between a hoop house and a high tunnel? Is it the size or something else?) Even though we have grown in our two hoop houses here the last several years, I keep thinking there is more I need to learn.

Next will be packing. Though there is still a lot of clean up to do in the garden to get it ready for winter, I will be a bit more focused on packing up our household for the move. It is a good thing Jonas is still here to work in the garden. I don’t think it would be possible for me to do both. We’ll try to watch the weather, so on rainy days it is hoop house/inside work and on dry days it is outside work for Jonas. For me, I’ll work outside on the driest days and inside, packing, on the rest. Of course, I can’t forget the book work I need to finish up, too, on those inside days.

The cover crop, seeded earlier this month, has germinated and is growing, along with some chickweed

The outside work of putting the garden to bed has already started. I got a few beds seeded with cover crop earlier in October. I hope to do more, but it is not looking good. With the soil so wet now, it is hard to have a bed well prepared for seeding. Luckily, many of the beds will keep their crops for winter (kale, cabbage, Brussels’s sprouts, chard, chicories, etc) and they will just need some leaf mulch under the crops. The rest that don’t get seeded with cover crop will get leaf mulch, too, for soil protection. But first, we’ll compost all the crops that are done, put away trellising, cages and irrigation lines, and clear as many weeds as possible before the mulch goes down. There will be more weeding in the perennial beds and bark mulch to spread there.

The girls are ready to leave the comfort of the coop run and pasture for some free ranging

Finally, the girls will be excited to find out that they get to free range again. Soon, they will be able to go down to the grass by the road, where they usually find lots of worms. They will get back to their original job, too, to help clean up the garden beds, where they find not only worms, but other good grub.

The last delivery is tomorrow. I am sad about that, but also ready to put the garden to bed, and excited for what is to come next.