homestead progress in photos

these tomatoes are queued for spaghetti sauce. tabitha is making it right now



yummy tomato sauce already for winter sauces.



there are two types of basil growing here. there will be pesto in my near future. some of this basil will be going into the spaghetti sauce that is in the process as i write.



this is a vantage of the tomato jungle. inviting and foreboding at the same time.



our bean arbor is suffering from the heavy rains. this is the second time that i have repaired it. next year it will be much sturdier--live and learn.


i moved this super heavy cast iron bathtub (aka cattle waterer) around to the upper side of the garden. initially i did it so that when we accidentally left the water running when filling it, which happened almost every time, it'd over flow into the garden instead of the woods.

the upper overflow drains to just above the freshly planted beets. the tub drain, needs to be done every week or so, is to keep the mosquito larvae from making more mosquitoes. something miraculous happened as a result. because the tub is in the shade and near her food nimue is now drinking more water. furthermore she is now making more milk with more cream. imagine that....



this is our Georgia flame pepper plant. it is a russian heirloom. it is heavy with fruit. we hope it is good.



we let our spring arugula bolt and it re-seeded this area. i love arugula. it goes perfectly with tomatoes. the larger plants towering above the arugula is okra. the kids love pickled okra.




this is my compost bin with completed compost. it was over half full when i filled this bin from the ones in the background.this is an example of this compost bin just after the transfer.