As many of you know, our next door neighbors occasionally drop off free range eggs for us. We had no way of reciprocating until the section of lawn we dug up, fenced in, and planted for a kitchen garden last Spring began to produce something. It’s producing loads of stuff, but the only things harvestable so far are peppers and a couple of varieties of summer squash.
Finally, yesterday, I was able to deliver a boxful of garden produce to our neighbors. They tell us their zucchini yield isn’t so great this year, so I tucked in a couple of stuffable sized ones, a yellow squash, some sweet banana peppers, some pepperocinis, and a giant fistful of jalapeños. Also threw in a pint of red raspberry syrup that we only processed and canned last week. I’m not sure about the alleged pepperocinis; they look more like cubanelles.
My neighbor didn’t see me cut across his front yard to drop them off by the front door, because he was going out to their pool with two little girls, but on my way back, he saw me, and waved. I waved back, and semi-yelled the 50 yard distance at him that I’d left some veggies by his front door.
FWIW, I rather like it that we don’t as a rule trespass on each other’s property, unless there’s a reason to do so, and we’re both pretty easygoing about it. For the sheep shit delivery, we gave him permission to drop it off behind the barn, so that’s not even trespassing. They only keep chickens next door; the sheep are over at the B&B farm they own a few miles down the road. When it’s been aged, it doesn’t stink, and it’s great fertilizer.
This is shaping up to be a fantastic year for the winter squash varieties that we grow: sugar pumpkins, banana, and butternut. All make either good soup, or mash for “pumpkin” pie, because of their low water content. Our cucumber and canteloupe production is still questionable, but mostly because either a rabbit or groundhog made it in there to nibble off chunks of them two weeks ago, and they’re still recovering. The potatoes are looking really good, too. Everything’s happy with the load of sheep shit. We do grow our veggies organically, but since we’re not a working farm selling “truck goods” to anybody, even at a dinky roadside stand, there’s no point to getting government certification to prove it.
On a different subject, my other half hitched up the big trailer and picked up a barely used 5′ wide box blade (sometimes called a box scraper), yesterday, for a little under half the cost of a new one, and got the better part of the rocky spur of our driveway that leads to the barn regraded. It’s like having a whole new driveway section. We questioned whether either one of our tractors had enough horsepower to pull it, instead of a 4′ wide one. Turns out both do, but when you’re regrading something, you’re going to do it in first gear, anyway.
Mmmm butternut squash. The only thing good around here to buy right now is SWEET CORN! Lots of trucks all over selling it!
The corn we get is delish, too, but it probably comes from down South, because none of the local stuff will be ready for another 3-4 weeks.
We didn’t plant any this year, but I do have one lonely stalk growing in my herb garden. I’m sure it came from the birdseed I put in the feeder, and it’s almost surely field corn, or cattle corn, as i call it. Edible, but waaaaay starchy.