No pagan rituals around here but we do a lot of related activities like bonfires, taking nature walks, watching the sunset, and writing down blessings from the past year and lessons learned. I often feel that farming, gardening and raising koi are endless lessons.

Last month I judged the Upper Midwest Koi Club’s annual koi show in Minnesota. It was a lot of fun to hang around my old club. While the show is small, the venue is fabulous. It’s part of the St. Louis Park recreation center – an outdoor hockey rink that is converted to a dry space, spring through fall.

This month, I will be taking some of my koi to the South Carolina Koi and Water Garden Society’s annual show. I have registered for two 6-feet tanks so I really can only take four koi. Two large and two small. Some people plan for koi shows very carefully and know exactly which koi they are taking. I tend to have a list of show candidates and then we see who is easy to catch on Friday morning and who is looking good. I will feed the group lightly tomorrow and then it’s nothing to eat for the group until we pull out the four koi on Friday morning. You want the koi to have cleared out their digestive system so that the show tanks stay clean. (Kind of sounds like prep for a colonoscopy…)

The chickens have gotten over their summer time egg production slump. We are ramping back up to 9-11 eggs per day. It should go up a little more since I have four hens that should be starting to lay eggs. Blue eggs in fact. I have added some boxes close to the floor because there is one chicken that lays an egg in the corner of the coop. I think it’s a rustic rock hen and she sits on a roosting bar. Even with the lower boxes, she does not seem to understand that eggs are supposed to be laid in the nesting boxes. Some chickens are dumber than rocks.

The hens tend to look for mischief when they free ranging. They enjoy digging out new garden beds, digging around the compost bin, sneaking across the gully, taking my ripe figs, and harassing farm guests for worm treats. I will feel sorry for them when we travel to Europe for two weeks since the farm sitter will most likely let them roam around only a few times for 30 minutes (like prison breaks). I have even considered making them chicken tunnels to run around in the forest (something I saw on TikTok) but that’s too much work for us. They will just have to be unhappy.

My tea plants are growing very well this summer. I haven’t picked any leaves to process into tea since we purchased these plants a few years ago. I could harvest tea leaves up until November but the best time is the first spring leaves. Most of summer these plants have been growing in a weed patch. I was surprised how much they had grown when I finally got around to clearing this area.

The back maple garden is quite a chore. I always write about needing a team of gardeners or retirement so I can devote a few hours daily. I have opened some bags of mulch and the leaves get blown off the rocks occasionally. The maples from last year have all done pretty well this summer. The newer maples have struggled a bit in the heat. A little more attention and water from me might have helped. I’m counting on them bouncing back next year.

The maples are starting to turn a few shades browner, redder, orange tips and red tips. I’m expecting a colorful show in a few weeks. Crossing my fingers that the colors do not change while I’m away on vacation.

It’s a larger crop every other year for the black walnuts which means we have a ton of these large round balls all over the ground this year. They drop and roll, hoping you will step unfortunately and turn your ankle. If I’m feeling energetic, I might try to get a few black walnuts but it’s labor intensive and messy. I’m fine having the squirrels do their thing with these safety hazards. They also serve a dual purpose of something to throw at the chickens when they sneak into the maple garden.

Our hay fields were cut the first week of September. I always love how the farm looks when the hay is cut down. In late summer, the hay looks unkempt for weeks. Unlike the spring hay which seems to grow evenly, summer hay looks like someone with a bad haircut. The fall count was 112 large round bales. Someday the tree planter would like to get some attachments to his tractor to cut and bale hay himself. The cut hay also brings out a lot of predators. The first few days after the hay is cut, we seem to have extra buzzards, hawks and owls flying around.

Our old gully bridge we built December 2020 was not holding up to safety standards. One of the logs was rotting and the entire bridge had a bad cant to it. Tree planter decided we needed to make a bridge that would last. He ordered some telephone poles, spent a weekend putting in concrete footers and when we had farm visitors…he had help finishing up the bridge. The new bridge is four feet wide and quite sturdy. Our landscaper commented that the cement work was beyond necessary but it’s all good. This is the bridge we have to cross several times a day for the chickens and our vegetable garden. The old bridge was always a tad scary to cross in wet weather or if your arms were full.

This summer we finally decommissioned the old garden. It will become part of the hayfield this winter. We moved some perennial plants to the new garden and started planting seeds in the newly filled raised beds. I am now enjoying some second round harvests. In the new garden we started out with shade cloths on all four structures but took three cloths down with the shorter days.

We have recently focused on blueberry plants since tree planter loves blueberries. Next year we will have twenty two blueberry plants. However that doesn’t mean we will have a large harvest. I picked up six two-year old bushes from the blueberry farm and they came with the following instructions. “Spring 2026, when the flowers come out, strip them off, focus on letting the plant develop its root system and strong canes. Give each plant 3 tablespoons of an acidic fertilizer in April 2026. No hardwood mulch, only an acidic mulch like pine straw or pine fine. First berry harvest will be summer 2027.” Well that’s no fun. I’m not sure if I will follow those instructions for all of the blueberry plants.

Meanwhile, the second harvest is primarily tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini. The cooler weather crops are just starting to sprout – spinach, kale, cauliflower, broccoli , Brussel sprouts, assorted lettuces. I did find a small praying mantis among the carrots – but it has not done a good job controlling all the weird pests that have mowed down my early radishes. In general we’re good at growing green onions, herbs, cucumbers, tomatoes and zucchini in the summer. I thought I was going to have a boatload of delicata squash and acorn squash, but then the squash bug army showed up.

I am declaring war on pests. I think I need to buy neem oil in bulk. I am also going to look into different ways to control the cucumber beetle which causes bacterial wilt. We always wonder how farmers make it with the combination of weather and pests. Growing in a greenhouse or covered is one way to save your crops. Or you could try to attract predator insects. Or you can plant sacrificial crops. Hoping to get the hang of this sooner rather than later.

Most of the time we’re not even sure when/how these pests show up. I’m sure it’s the attractive butterflies that we see flying around, laying eggs that turn into these plant eating monsters.

Another garden project is growing beans. We usually plant green beans to eat fresh but I decided to plant beans that I would harvest the pods for use later in the winter. Another lesson that if you depend on what you grow to survive the winter – we would not make it, we would starve. My first round of beans have produced about 1 cup of beans. The second round might produce another 2 cups. Three cups of beans for the season. It’s amazing how much cheaper and easier it is to buy some products in your local grocery store.

We don’t hunt but we let two people hunt on our property. They are very excited with the photos coming off their game cams they have installed on the farm. There are five bucks and each hunter is hoping to bag one of them. It’s bow hunting season right now and guns start later in November through January 1, 2026. I’m betting these bucks will go into hiding soon. We believe they have a calendar hidden somewhere and will show up again once the hunting season has ended.

Next autumnal equinox I hope to write about progress against pests and not having to replant because the worms have eaten all the new stuff. Maybe I might have a surplus of squash to use for fall decorations. I can only hope.