Manure Tea Report

I found the perfect project for a cold Sunday afternoon. Today I made hot pink horseradish. This weekend it was time to put the garden to bed. I spent most of the afternoon dumping flower pots, chopping down sunflowers, rolling up chicken wire and filling the compost bin. The last task of the day was digging horseradish. I missed the opportunity last year and I was determined to put some horseradish away for the winter. My Dad used to make horseradish. I remember him grinding it on the back porch. "Mom, why is Daddy crying?" It didn't look like fun. Our horseradish was here when I moved in. We have a well established patch at the north end of the garden. I waited too late last season and I couldn't dig through the hard, frozen ground. The soil in that area is hard and thick but this year I had a secret weapon- the tiller. I mowed the patch down and zipped through it with the tiller in just a few minutes. From there it was just a matter of picking up the pieces. I bro

10/08/09 After several days away Lucky and I finally made it back home last night. We've been away most of the last two weeks so it was nice sleeping in our own beds again. I woke up a little before 6 am and thought I heard Lucky eating his Iams in the kitchen. It wasn't Lucky. As I walked into the kitchen I found an opossum having breakfast out of Lucky's dish. He trotted off towards the porch through the dog door. Lucky watched it all go down and didn't bother to react. It was like they were acquaintances, or at least familiar strangers. I expected a couple of "get out of here damn cat" barks. I made my coffee and started some long overdue housekeeping. The temperature is supposed to drop to the low twenties tonight. I had the day off so I decided to pick and put away the last vegetables of the season. From the edge of the garden ther e didn't appear to be much left. I found a few peppers but most of the tomatoes were mushy. A light frost must have