Carrots

 Just when you thought the growing season was over, and perhaps the MCF had even gone into hibernation...carrots!  The miracle of carrots is that you can leave them in the ground until you're ready to eat them, assuming they aren't so close to the surface that slugs get them first.

So about these carrots.  Hmmm, they're sort of round.  Nice and fat and tasty, but not so long.  I remember reading about carrots, and learning that the soil had to be loosened deeply or the result would be stubby carrots.  Well, I leave it to you to determine how much bother I may have/have not put into preparing the root bed...

18# of apples, step 2

German Apple Pancake

18 pounds of apples, step 1

Here is how the apple consumption is going: 

Apple crisp: 3 Crispin, 2 Cortland.  

Plus a Gala, Mancoun, and Crispin eaten.  

But then we went to a wedding and the reception was at an orchard.  The centerpiece had 2 apples in it, so we had to add 2 Cortland back to the total...

Apple

The Miller City Farm is on the road, out visiting other farms. (And Grandparents).  

Today, Owen's Apple Orchards.  At home, Maddy won't eat an apple unless its skinned and sliced.  But afield, after a hard day of picking, anything goes.  

Now, what to do with 18# of apples?

Beans

A mix of our home grown beans, after a night of soaking.  Mmm, they make good soup!

Lawn Annexation

The garden wasn't big enough.  Or at least the part of the garden that gets sun wasn't big enough.  And the yard had a barren area that needed some grass.  Time for a remodel before:

and after:

Sure, it doesn't look like much to you.  But now the garden bulges out into former lawn space by nearly 3 feet (or by two tomato plants, depends on how you measure).  At the same time, Maddy and Jules have more yard to run around in (not that Juliet is a very fast runner)

Whole Foods Parking Lot

Getting Bigger

Our first tomato to break the 1/2 pound mark, finally.  Weighing in at nearly 9oz is this freakish Cherokee Purple that looks to be a sort of double, except it grew off one stem.  These tomatoes haven't turned out as big as I had hoped, nor as purple as I expected.  This one even lost a taste test against a red tomato stolen off an untended vine down the street.  Argh!

M waters the Fig tree

I'm not wanting for help around the Miller City Farm.  Maddy takes a lot of pride in her fig tree, which seems to grow even faster than her.

Rain, oh no!

We've been enjoying a rain-free summer.  No front yard to mow.  Struggling weeds.  And for the tomatoes, regular but limited watering.  

Until this week that is.  Now we've been getting a preview of fall with cooler temperatures and occasional showers.  This was too much water for the tomatoes, which started to split.  I think the Cherokee Purples are supposed to turn, well, purple.  These still have green shoulders, but what was I to do when faced with splitting tomatoes?  So I picked these and was pleased to see that the green tomatoes haven't split.  

For dinner tonight: fish in tomato water