Friday, December 3, 2010


It is brutal here this morning. The temperatures went down to 35F last night, and I am worried for the vegetable sets getting burned. Some have not yet been hardened off, so damage is likely. I will have to replace some of the more delicate ones. My goal is to get the frame for my cover built today.

Weather wise, today we will have abundant sunshine with a 0% chance of rain. Our High today will be 71F and our Low of 35F. was already hit at 5AM this morning. The relative humidity is 75% and the dew point is 32 F. The Barometer is steady at 30.16, which is a pretty high "High Pressure". Our winds are from the North/Northeast at 10 to 15 mph.
Our Sunrise will come this morning at 6:57AM. Our Sunset will occur this evening at 5:28PM.

It is my intention to finish the coop today. I need to build a door to the coop, some laying boxes, and a gate for Pinky the Pigs' fenced off area. I have to get the last of the raised beds planted, and I have to build frames for them, so I can cover them on cold nights. We have another cold front moving in on Sunday, so I have to get this done, or continue to loose sets. Once this is done, I must pack for our trip to West Palm Beach tomorrow. Saturday will be a long day, but we need to try to sell some glass.

Next week I will start on the floor system for the "Todd Shed" I have coming. We can use the additional 200 cubic foot of storage space (3'X8'X8'). This will only take me a few hours.

Todd came by this afternoon. He lost quite a few plants this morning. He said he turned on the sprinkler at 4AM, but the damage had been done. Very discouraging, going to all that trouble, and loosing all in one night. He is dead set on doing a raised bed similar to ours, and building a cover.

Well, here it is, 7pm Friday evening, and we just finished a wonderful meal Sherry prepared of roast chicken, sweet potatoes and peas.

I got everything in the pen done, except the fencing necessary to segregate Pinky from the birds. Sherry got the raised beds filled, and we planted the center one in seeds (no black plastic mulch on this one) which included beets,carrots, spinach, kale, Swiss Chard, and Sherry's herbs.
The forth and last bed was planted in potatoes, broccoli, and red cabbage. After all of this was done, I built "A" frames, attached them to the beds, and stretched clear plastic over the whole works. This will keep the frost off, and we are getting frost. I received an email from the ag-extension agent this evening: Beginning Sunday, and through next Thursday night, we will be getting some very cold weather. I will leave the beds covered until this passes, and probably through the first of the year, as the plants need to be hardened off.

We had a nice walk at the end of the day, and stopped by Maureen's to collect some tangerines. She has a really good tree that is throwing quite a crop. I have to make it a point to get over to the Homestead next week, and collect those oranges before they start to drop in the cold.

I am happy to have the pen/coop completed. The chickens seem content. Pinky the Pig seems to be enjoying her new digs. The raised beds are planted and under cover.
The yard is cleaned up, and the platform for the Todd Shed is my next project.


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