This week is the last full week our attention will be focused on the house going up for sale in Black Mountain. All I've been able to do on the farm is -ta da- get it mowed! And it looks pretty good close up too, not too rough and not that many scrub bushes. We did a quick walkthrough while Frank was mowing and a drive-by when he was done to take this shot.
Other than that, I've been in touch with the engineer at the DOT who is looking into whether I need a driveway permit before grading. I need to get the property surveyed soon too. It should be a quick job to get some pins in and fencing lined up.
Probably we'll get some standard livestock fencing, 4 ft should do it, alternating wood and metal posts. Likely it will just need to keep the local dogs and the neighborhood kids out. I doubt that there are many deer out there. Just whatever is living in the rough along the creek, and there's not much of that. Hopefully not too many snakes.
On the home front, I am trying to keep the initial plants healthy, but as the season winds down, I am losing too many of my starts to bugs, though these are mostly the ones I started in July. The ones started in spring are nearly all still doing well.
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| These I call the losers. Probably most won't make it to spring, but I will keep them in the group just in case I'm wrong. |
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| These are the early starts, around 20 of the first 28 that grew to at least 4'. I think of them as the winners. |
It's time to order more stalks to start in the spring, because I will have only about 40 plants at most that will make it through the winter. I think once I get them in the ground, the stalks will do much better than the ones in pots. I am now looking at these as a trial run, rather than the cornerstone of the farm. It's a little sad, but it's ok too. Plans can change, and agriculture is always iffy.
Speaking of iffy, we are in a drought period in WNC. I would rush over and pop these babies in the ground, but I have no way to do irrigation yet. I am thinking of a quick pond and a pump. That means I still need to wait for grading, probably next month.
Slow and steady can be pretty frustrating.
Enjoy this panorama of the valley taken on the day we stopped by during the mowing. We were standing in the back corner of the lot, next to the creek.