Irene Visits the Farm

August 30th: Hurricane Irene did not do much damage here in Saco. We only got about two inches of rain in total. The pictures below show the only damage. A lot of small branches littered the yard and my third planting of corn suffered significantly. The biggest impact was the loss of a fairly large black walnut tree between my property line and the large Field Garden. It split off on the top and now needs to come down and be turned into firewood. It will be a challenge to cut down since the large upper part of it is hung up in a nearby tree. This project will be tackled in the weeks ahead.  I do have sufficient firewood cut, split and stacked for the coming winter.  This will start the stockpile for the following year.

I continue to enjoy a good harvest and a busy canning season. As of today the tally has reached 235 jars of various items, mainly jam and pickles so far.  My neighbor's peach tree needed to be completely picked before the storm hit as all the fruit was ripe and ready and would have been knocked off the tree for sure in the high wind. I turned this bounty into jam, peach butter and canned peach halves in syrup in addition to some baked goods.  I am looking forward to the next fruit harvest, namely the first grape harvest from the now three year old grape arbor.

The first ripen regular tomatoes have now been picked and soon a ton of them will follow.  The grape and cherry tomatoes are endless as is the neverending cucumber harvest. The green and yellow beans continue to flourish and the pepper harvest is doing well.  My sweet corn is being attacked by racoons as well as wind storms but I have enjoy a fair amount of tasty corn ears this year. I even managed to put some in the freezer for a mid-winter treat.