It has been a long week cutting back all the perennial flowers and pulling out the annuals. My husband's and my backs are achy from all the bending and the heating pads come in handy every night.
I cut back most of the Swiss Chard and pulled the last beets from the raised beds. We had the beet greens for dinner this week.
I washed and chopped the Swiss Chard and vacuumed-sealed three large bags for the freezer. I will use them for winter dishes that I normally use spinach for.
Meanwhile, my husband was at the horse barn getting me some manure to top-dress the gardens. I asked him to take some photos. When he brought the first round home, I asked him if they were out of the oldest manure. He said he did not see another pile. Well, this manure was not that broken down yet, however I mixed it into the raised beds pretty deep. I'm sure that by spring it will be just fine for the vegetables.
All year long, I save my egg cartons and paper towel rolls; I tear them up into small pieces to add to all the garden beds along with the manure. Here you can see some of it alongside the house where I grow hot peppers.
More of the same goes into all the raised beds too. This gets raked into the soil to break down along with the manure. I will also add some powdered eggshells as well. I know it takes years for the shells to break down but I also use fermented egg shells for quick release in the spring.
Back at the farm, my husband found the older pile of horse manure on another side of the barm. He loaded another round for the gardens and took some photos of the horses.
I'm so thankful that the farm lets us come every year to take the manure for natural fertilizer for the gardens. It has helped to make the harvest so bountiful each season.
After raking in everything well, we top-dressed the beds with the older mature as seen in the first photo. The only thing left to add is mulched leaves from the maple tree. Once they have all fallen we will mulch them with the lawn mower and add the leaves to the top of each bed. This should do very well for #amending the soil for the winter.
While cutting back some of the herb garden, this rabbit supervised me from the other side of the fence.
I have watched her grow from a baby in the spring and now look how big she is. She is used to seeing me and knows she's safe while I work in the yard.
The honeybee was busy gathering pollen from the last of the flowers as I cut the chard. It is so warm lately that they have still been able to collect pollen this late in the year. They are a gardener's best friend and I love seeing them all summer long. There is a man who has many hives less than a mile from where I live. I have a feeling the bees I see are from his hives.
This will wrap up this post for today my friends. May you have a relaxing weekend.
Until next time, this is Sunscape
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