Niemela's Market Gardens: More geese, drip irrigation, a little extra ramble on love and hate, and other pictures...............

A while back, we saw an ad for some geese for sale. Being a guy who likes geese, and realizing their practicality, I got a hold of the person right away. Ended up buying five more, bringing the goose flock here up to ten. To me, geese are eminently practical- they prefer to eat grass, which grows in abundance here, rather than corn/soy/who-knows-what-else feed, like chickens. They are cold hardy, needing of course a good tight barn or coop for winter, but having no problem with wet cool spring and fall weather. And they are a joy to look at. Here are the new geese swimming in the pond at first, then being joined by the rest of the flock later on.

And a couple more pictures of them in the pond. The first one is of the flock cruising along tranquilly, the second of them excitingly diving under the water. There must be some message that sweeps through the flock- one minute they are calmly paddling along, the next wildly and happily splashing and diving under the water.

Cruising geese

Excited splashing geese

We've been real busy at the markets, so it's been fun. I enjoy meeting and talking with all our wonderful customers, it's such a joy to actually talk with the people who are eating our veggies. We have been planting more fall greens, and anticipate continuing to do so for the next month or so. Things like baby lettuce mix, spinach, arugula, radishes, winter radishes, turnips, and such. Many crops don't mind the shortening, cooler days of fall; indeed, many actually prefer cooler weather, so we are happy to plant them when they want to grow. Some crops like arugula and mustard, are so afflicted in the summer by flea beetles on our sandy soil, I usually don't bother with them until the pest populations start declining in the fall. Kind of a pick-your-battles thing. I let the pests win the first round, but I usually win out in the end. :)

In other things, we're seeing some color other than green in the outside tomato patch........such as these ones, which according to my records were supposed to be Rose tomatoes, but most certainly are not. I think I got them mixed up with Glacier tomato, a very worthy early tomato that tastes great. I think I'll grow more of them next year...........

Yum!

And these Sungold tomatoes, hanging like grapes. For those unfamiliar with the Sungolds, they are an orange cherry type, sweet and fruity, great on top of salads, or right off the bush. We should start having them at market very soon. :)

Sungold cherry tomatoes.

The black thing laying on the soil under the plants is drip tape, which is exactly what it sounds like. A thin plastic "hose" with tiny emitters, that slowly drips water out. They run under very low pressure, and are a pure joy to work with, mostly. A hard wind can sometimes blow them around, and if you hoe too close to them, you can cut a hole in them. But the positives far outweigh the small annoyances from time to time. They save water, can be turned on while harvesting is going on since the water is slowly delivered at ground level, and they don't spray water all over the leaves, thereby allowing even late evening watering. And there is the aspect of over-head watering from an open pond- the idea of blasting pond water over fresh salad greens is revolting to me. Drip irrigation solves that problem. What's not to like about it? I could even say I "love" drip irrigation, but better not since I would be violating one of the things I try to inculcate in the youngsters. Sometimes I have to remind them that we love things that have the capability to love us back. And if we strongly dislike something we shouldn't say we hate it. We like food, we like fishing, we like going swimming, we like many inanimate objects, but we love people, and we love God. We don't hate foods we're not very fond of, or beastly hot weather, or the mosquitoes that are constantly swarming above our heads. Hate is reserved for sin and the devil, love is reserved for God and our fellow man. So, I better just say I very strongly like drip irrigation. :)

Here's a few more pictures, before I call it quits for tonight-

Baby lettuce in the little portable greenhouse

The ones in the front need to be transplanted out Monday, the ones farther back in probably a week and a half or so. And the about 500 more that were planted on August 7, and are currently germinating down in the basement, even later than that. :) That's one nice thing about lettuce and greens- unlike a tomato or squash or cucumber, which need to reach a certain stage of maturity before being "eatable", greens are ready as soon as they're big enough to eat. If they are two inches tall, they are baby lettuce. When they are about 6 inches or so across, they are mini-heads. And when they are fully grown, they make wonderful eating as full-size heads. :)

Earlier in the season, I alluded to the practice of "potting up" mini-soil blocks to larger ones. Here's how it's done..........

Here's a lettuce variety we are trying out, called Mottistone, from Johnny's Selected Seeds in Maine.