End of Summer: Tomatoes, Garden cleanup & Prep for Fall

Welcome back to the channel you guys. I'm Megan and on this week's video we are going to talk about some garden cleanup, processing and preparing some of the harvests that we've had coming in, and I'm going to share with you a new addition to the homestead. No it's not alive, but it is a very useful tool that was welcomed with open arms. I can't wait to tell you more about it. Surprise! This is our new, very welcomed, extremely useful tool. It is a solar powered automatic coop door. So the way it works is obviously it's solar powered, but it doesn't have to operate off of only light if you don't want it to. So it could open and shut based off of daylight, or you can program the timer on it for a specific time of day for it to open and close, which is what we're using right now. We recently bumped it because it's not getting as light as early, getting light as early. We bumped it down so right now at 6 30 it opens in the morning and at night I'm pretty sure he has it set for 9 30. I was concerned like the issue that I thought we were going to have was going to be at night that they wouldn't all go up because often you'd come out here at night to shut the door and they wouldn't all be inside. So I was worried the doors and closing they weren't going to all be in there, but it has worked out. They've trained themselves and everyone is inside before the door closes. And so this is super beneficial if you have to go out of town, if it's poor weather and you don't want to come out here at night, if you wanted to go to bed earlier and you don't want to come out after dark to shut the coop up. So many benefits and like I said we wanted one for so long and it was more of an investment that like we're talking like $250 for a door. But I guess things have come away since then and there are cheaper more affordable alternatives. This being one of them and it is working extremely well for us. One thing you will always hear me preach is to shop local and support your local farmers. It is truly not possible for us to raise everything and grow everything that we eat. So I'm grateful to know people who are raising things that I can't like these peaches. They are Virginia grown. I was able to slice and freeze up some trays of them to use for smoothies and such, but also measured out for cobbler so they'd be ready to go. This way with freezing on the tray I don't have a big massive frozen glob in the bag and they break apart easily. And of course I had to make a fresh peach cobbler because who doesn't love that. I used Paula Deen's recipe for this and it turned out really really well. So I will link that in the description for you. My family always loves a good cobbler and this one definitely didn't disappoint. So I didn't really start growing tomatoes like in a large quantity until last year. And I didn't have to really worry about any kind of fungus because it was so dry. We didn't have that issue. And I'll see other people talking about it and I'm like I don't understand why you have to do that but okay. Okay I get it now. So the fungus has set in here because of all the moisture we've had. And I wish now that I had been proactive. But I just didn't know. You learn when you learn. So I could have done a spray on these weekly to prevent the spread of that. But I'm hopeful that I'm going to get a pretty really like a good turn of these tomatoes out before they succumb to it. Because everything is turning right now. So fingers crossed and make a note for next year. Weekly fungus spray to help out the tomatoes if you're experiencing moisture. I've been saying that it's the season of yellow because basically that's what's the color of everything we have coming in. I don't have any large red slicers so. And here's an update on the dahlia patch. These blooms just don't get old. I get so much joy coming down here and looking at these. Clupping them and making bouquets. Sharing with other people. And my girls dance recital is coming up and I'm excited to make bouquets to take for them. Our family was able to sneak away for a few days to the beach and it was so needed. I will say though I am naturally a homebody. So by the end of the week I was totally ready to come home. So when we got home from the beach we resumed the garden cleanup that was supposed to have been started before we left. So we're cleaning out these cucumber plants that were just absolutely done. The heat took them out but we're very grateful for all the cucumbers we were able to get from them. And are hoping to have another planting coming up before our season is over. Colton is such a good helper and we got it all nice and fresh looking. The paste tomatoes started coming in while we were out of town. Of course been waiting forever for them to turn. So a lot of these right here had to come to the bugs. But it's okay there are more tomatoes coming. Even some little surprise cherry tomatoes that volunteered on the edge of the tomato plot. The peppers have been plentiful. The kids love these lunchbox peppers. They've all been yellow orange color so far and my bell peppers have all been either orange yellow or purple so far. I think I've got some reds that are turning that'll be ready soon. Very very grateful. Banana peppers too. And then as an additional side garden cleanup project I am working on taking out some of these flowers just so I'll have space walking through here. A lot of these are going out anyway phasing out. I want to be able to have space to get to all my fall gardening plants. I was looking at these and thinking oh I need to be careful because I do have to make my daughter's recital bouquets and so I didn't want to get rid of colorful things that I don't have planted elsewhere. So I was being picky. I have not thinned this as much as I do intend to but once we get those bouquets made I can come in here and go a little more hardcore. I do have to dry a few things out too. Have you ever dried out flowers before? Thank you so much for tuning in and watching this video. We hope to catch you next week so be sure to like and subscribe.