Record keeping (and some rambling)

We have very bad records for this year. Record keeping is one of the unsung but important things in food production - and it's hard to keep good records in your head. But without knowing what you did, what worked and what didn't work, you won't be able to reproduce success or avoid doing repeating something that didn't work.

Some things are burned into my mind; like the tomato ripening issues. While we hope that this year, with it's late cold wet spring and early wet fall, is not typical and we'll have decent tomatoes in future years, I still need to plant the tomatoes in a sunnier spot, with more space between them. I'm used to so much hot sun and no shade at all, it's not been easy to consider that factor.

But when we planted things and when they were ripe - like the existing apple tree here, down by the creek. It's an early type, the apples were ripe a while back, but now that it's been some time (in the time warp of September), I don't remember exactly when we noticed they were ripe...

Other than that... the turkeys are going to the processor this week, we just got the last of the first planting of corn in the freezer, there are lots of peppers to deal with, I have another round of tomatoes to can (sad though our yield is this year) before vacation. We planted a fig, a hazelnut, all three potted grapes, and moved the pawpaw, and finally got the big old Japanese Raisin in the ground - and all deer protected. We are hoping to get the bees dealt with in the next few days, that will be an adventure.

This past weekend was full of social events, a potluck at Seed Ambassadors (fascinating place! They have a seed company and a seed saving organization) on Saturday, and on Sunday, an event for the online farmer's market (Willamette Local Foods) that was cancelled but we didn't know so we had a delightful potluck anyway. So we didn't get as much done as we might, but we met lots of wonderful folks.