We went to the farm yesterday and continued to work on the garden. There is a lot to do to prepare for the next year. We decided to go get rocks from the dry creek to start building more raised beds for next year. This was a lot of work but fun to explore the creek area. Although many things died after the first freeze, a few things by the creek are still green. I had fun identifying different plants in the area and made a few lucky discoveries while searching for rocks. We found some wild persimmon trees and took some persimmons to plant closer to the garden. These are American persimmon trees so the persimmons are small and have seeds. The ones from the store are usually larger and seedless. We also found more pecan trees and took some pecans to plant as well. I found some wild onion or garlic growing by the creek also. I found some mystery seeds as well and am trying to identify them. While getting the rocks, we saw an amazing murmuration of some type of blackbirds. After finishing with the rocks, I did a bit of planting and watered the garden. I planted some nigella seeds which were actually from the grocery store so may or may not germinate. I put these on top of my bulb garden. I also planted some crape myrtle seeds spaced out along the fence line. I have read that these have a low germination rate but hopefully one or two will come up. The cat is doing well and her eye is healing. She will get fixed this week, too. I am beginning to plan what to plant for spring and have ordered some seeds, mostly wildflowers. The vegetable garden next year will likely be small. Once we move there full time, we can expand it more. For next spring, I want to grow vegetables we use a lot of. We eventually want to establish a food forest permaculture type of situation. So we hope to plant more trees and shrubs first. I also have a few packs of seeds left over from last year that I had missed the planting dates on. So these will go out in the spring. I already have pinto beans, dahlias, quinoa, gladiolus, cumin, cayenne pepper, and Serrano pepper seeds. I want to grow more herbs for cooking next year since I really enjoyed having them this year. I am also planning to save the seeds from my last pumpkin for next year since it was grown from heirloom seeds. I’m learning so much about plants and am really looking forward to seeing the garden in the spring.
Lisa Ledbetter 