skychaser
Well-Known Member
A lot of things can happen during a growing season. You expect a few things will go against you, but experience helps you anticipate most and avoid or get around them. But some things you never see coming, like this past week. We finally finished our tobacco seed harvest Wednesday, and we did it in the snow! Not quite the season ending I had expected.
All in all we had a great year! There we a couple of disappointments with some new plants we had never grown before, but most things did very well. The weather was kind to us all season. The spring was early and warm, and late summer rains and 3 extra weeks of growing season before the first frost gave us bumper crops of seed. But the extra long season also put the harvest 3 weeks behind normal. Usually we have everything picked by mid October. Not this year.
When summer did finally end, we skipped right past our usual sunny crisp dry days of fall and went right into the winter pattern with storms rolling in one after another off the Pacific ocean. Tuesday brought us our first snowfall of the season and we still had 9 varieties of tobacco left to pick. It was lots of fun getting those last ones cut and into the bins to dry. I only lost 2 fingers to frostbite by the end of the day, buts now its all done. Phew. What a relief. Nothing left to do now but dry, thresh, clean and bag it all. lol Usually we can get most of the drying done out side or in the greenhouse and other buildings, but not this year. Too cold and wet already. So there are tubs stacked everywhere around here with fans blowing in them. Our whole house has a hum to it.
The weather warmed a little and melted the snow for now. We have a day or two break before the next storm rolls to get a few billion leaves raked and spread out over the field so they can be tilled in. But first I have to go out and pull all the signs, stakes, sprinkler poles and fencing from the deer proof areas. And I have to put a new rock shaft control cable on my tractor. It busted on me a couple weeks ago. Got to have that repaired before the tiller can go back on. And it won't be long before it's time to put on the snow plow. There is always a big list of things to do around here. And most of them need doing yesterday. But at least all my seeds are in the bins now so I'm feeling pretty happy.
Sky
All in all we had a great year! There we a couple of disappointments with some new plants we had never grown before, but most things did very well. The weather was kind to us all season. The spring was early and warm, and late summer rains and 3 extra weeks of growing season before the first frost gave us bumper crops of seed. But the extra long season also put the harvest 3 weeks behind normal. Usually we have everything picked by mid October. Not this year.
When summer did finally end, we skipped right past our usual sunny crisp dry days of fall and went right into the winter pattern with storms rolling in one after another off the Pacific ocean. Tuesday brought us our first snowfall of the season and we still had 9 varieties of tobacco left to pick. It was lots of fun getting those last ones cut and into the bins to dry. I only lost 2 fingers to frostbite by the end of the day, buts now its all done. Phew. What a relief. Nothing left to do now but dry, thresh, clean and bag it all. lol Usually we can get most of the drying done out side or in the greenhouse and other buildings, but not this year. Too cold and wet already. So there are tubs stacked everywhere around here with fans blowing in them. Our whole house has a hum to it.
The weather warmed a little and melted the snow for now. We have a day or two break before the next storm rolls to get a few billion leaves raked and spread out over the field so they can be tilled in. But first I have to go out and pull all the signs, stakes, sprinkler poles and fencing from the deer proof areas. And I have to put a new rock shaft control cable on my tractor. It busted on me a couple weeks ago. Got to have that repaired before the tiller can go back on. And it won't be long before it's time to put on the snow plow. There is always a big list of things to do around here. And most of them need doing yesterday. But at least all my seeds are in the bins now so I'm feeling pretty happy.
Sky
