Henny Penny Farmette

Each year on the first day of autumn here on the Henny Penny Farmette, I take stock of my fruit trees and vegetable and flower gardens.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac points to mid-October 2019 for early rain in Northern California, so there’s much for me to do over the next two or three weeks.

Nothing says “autumn” like ripe pomegranates

My chores list includes the following items. They’re roughly the same from year to year.

1. Gather seeds from self-seeding or heirloom, open-pollinated plants (flowers and vegetables) for next year’s garden. Dry seeds and store them for planting next spring.

Gather seeds from plants such as coreopsis, cosmos, and marigolds for drying for next year’s garden

2. Sow spring-blooming bulbs (such as daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, ranunculus, crocus, and buttercups available in garden centers now).

Siberian scilla adds a lot of color for a small grouping of bulbs

3. Turn soil and prepare beds for the cool-season vegetable garden (broccoli, cabbage, beets, and parsnips).

4. Inspect and divide perennials.

5. Harvest olives and preserve them.

Bartlett late summer pears

6. Pick late summer pears and ripe pomegranates. The leathery covering of pomegranates already may be splitting open and showing ruby red seeds. The juice of the seeds makes a wonderful jelly.

7. Check persimmons for ripeness. Pick if they’re ready. They might need another month.

Hachiya persimmons are delicious when they ripen to softness

8. Harvest and store pumpkins and butternut squash. Peel, remove seeds, and cut the flesh into squares for freezing.

9. Compost old garden vines and vegetable plants that are done bearing for the season. Check tomato plants infected with bacterial or fungal diseases and do NOT add any of these to the compost pile.

10. Begin the process of cleaning and storing gardening items not required over the winter.

11. Sow spring-blooming wildflowers in prepared beds.

12. Schedule time to prune back crop-bearing fruit trees (like apricot, peach, and plum).

I actually look forward to those chores. They’re part of the natural rhythm of farmette life. With a list and plan to get everything done, I won’t be caught by surprise when the weather turns cold, dark, and rainy.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you enjoy reading about farming, country living, keeping of bees and chickens, and gardening, check out my Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries. They’re chocked full of ideas, tips, and delicious recipes for country living.

Also, take a look at my numerous self-help and wellness books. All are available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, Walmart.com, and other online and traditional bookstores everywhere.

T

Packed full of ideas for creating the life you want

A special book that will be treasured for a lifetime of spiritual pursuits and practices

More than 150 rituals for sound mind, strong body, and meaningful connections to the people around you

My biggest issue with our 1,100-square foot house on the Henny Penny Farmette is lack of storage for all our stuff. Okay, so most of it is my stuff.

We turned a small, former chicken house into a shed, but it doesn’t offer much room

There’s no good place for the juicer, bread maker, mixer, taco press, deep fryer, sewing machine, dress form, extra dishes and pans, honey buckets, bee keeper suit and gloves, fabric and threads, boxes of jars with rings and lids, books, and art supplies. We keep moving our stuff around to accommodate other stuff.

Henny Penny Farmette honey bucket and jars to be filled

When I want to put honey into jars, make jam, or do a ceramics project, for example, the process of hunt and find becomes exhaustive. For a ceramics project, I have to track down the tile saw. In my closet, I’ve moved boxes of shoes to accommodate hammers, drills, a box of drill bits, an arm saw, a saws-all, boxes of screws and nails of various sizes, and power tools. Seriously. What woman in her right mind forgoes her collection of high heels for power tools?

My easel, oil paints, brushes, cans of turpentine, and canvases are all stored in different places around the house. Supplies must be found and laid out on the kitchen counter before work on the piece begins. The easel goes up and a time-consuming search begins for the canvases.

We’ve even gotten rid of furniture to make the space feel more open

The solution to the storage problem might seem obvious. Buy a shed. I did that. But it  didn’t turn out so great. I bought a ten-foot square wooden shed to assemble onsite.  It was duly delivered. But upon opening the box, we realized how inferior the building materials were. We could see it collapsing under the first hard wind and rainstorm.

Constructing floor struts

Hubby hurried off to the DIY store in his truck and brought home everything we needed to build a really, strong storage shed. He’s an architect and knows such things. So the piers were set and leveled. The floor struts went in and up went the walls. I’m confident that when it’s finished, it will be a great place to keep all my extra stuff. And my high heels can reclaim their space in my closet.

___________________________________________________________________________________

If you enjoy reading about home renovation, farming topics, gardening, and keeping of chickens and bees, you might be interested in my Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries: A BEELINE TO MURDER, MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE, and A HIVE OF HOMICIDES. Or, if you like nonfiction, self-help, check out my comprehensive list of books and information about me on Amazon.com, where I maintain an author’s page.

All available online and in bookstores everywhere