Before the Fall

Last Friday Fall finally arrived here in Florida. The night time lows dipped into the fifties for a few nights and the day time highs have been staying at 90 or below mostly. It was time to get with it if I was going to get any cool season stuff planted.

The first photo is going to be the cool season garden. If you can make out the little orange flags they mark off the area (click the photo for a larger version as usual). I never plant as large a cool season garden as I do the warm season stuff and this year will be still smaller as I hope to be busy with some home repairs and improvements so won't have time to fool with a bigger one. Still should get at least five good rows in. The chicken manure laced shredded paper I forked out of the hen house last weekend largely disappears once it's tilled in though you can still see bits and pieces just yet. This coming weekend I hope to finish the second chicken tractor so I can split the new flock between the two then move them both out into the pasture where I want them until the winter forage is ready sometime in December or whenever we finally get our first frost.

The second photo is the corn patch. It hasn't been tilled in over two years and the chickens being in there for months had really caused the grass growth to take off so getting that sod well tilled turned into a real grudge match. The new knee brace worked well so my knee isn't bothering me at all tonight. It's my forearms that feel like I went best two out of three arm wrestling a gorilla! I did eventually get the whole thing done front to back then side to side to bust the sod up. There wasn't a trace of moisture in the dirt.

Weekend after next I'll spread the lime on it that I forgot to put down before I started today then till it one more time then broadcast the winter forage mix I'm planting for the chickens. It's a deer feed plot mix of rye, oats, and wheat, all varieties known to do well in Florida. I wanted to add some winter legumes, but when I wrote my extension agent for suggestions he laughed. The perils of living on the sand ridge it seems. I'm sure they'll be happy with the green feed they get.

I'll keep the birds in there until after our average last frost date by which time we should have some green stuff growing out in the orchard and pasture. Once that passes I'll move them out, turn up the corn patch then plant it to... corn! I'm hoping that a winter of 45 birds worth of chicken flickin's will be sufficient that I won't have to do much fertilizing. Of course I'll have to battle the squirrels and coons like last time, but I intend to launch a few preemptive strikes over the winter towards that end.

Vegetable gardenwise I'm thinking mustards, turnips, Vidalia type onions, and I'm going to try carrots again. Our winter weather last year was so non-typical that I don't think they really got a fair chance to perform.

.....Alan.