The Compost Bin

Just recently took the kids apple picking. We packed up the minivan, picked up Grandma and drove up to New Paltz, NY. We have local apple picking about 5 minutes from my house but we decided to make a day out of it.

My daughter eats more apples out in the orchard than she picks to take home, but we still got enough for a few pies and maybe some apple turnovers. The best part of apple picking is the snacks. Who can resist the apple cider doughnuts that these places always offer. They also had roasted corn on the cob. That's something I wouldn't associate with apple picking but it was delicious none the less. I'm a big fan of apple butter too. Unfortunately they didn't have any at that day. But that's okay because like I said, there's a place near my house where I can get it.

This other apple picking place that we go to has hot apple cider doughnuts that they serve with a scoop of ice cream on top. Delicious!

Nothing beats a brisk autumn day, hot apple cider and apple cider doughnuts with the family. Oh yeah, apple picking is fun too.

Well, I didn't break the 100 lb mark but I'm very happy with my first Great Pumpkin Season. 75 pounds is a good start and I also grew another one that was about 40 pounds. I learned a few things about myself and growing big pumpkins along the way so I'll be ready for next growing season.

The most important thing that I learned was that I have no free time and I need to think smaller. Plant less things in the garden and focus more attention on them. I was spread too thin this year and couldn't keep up with my weeding and trimming and other garden chores.

Next year, I won't have pumpkin vines growing into the neighbor's yard and I won't have tomatoes that clog up the paths between my raised beds. And I won't have thorny Blackberry plants growing next to the pumpkin vines so that I can't pull off the extra pumpkin flowers that are wasting the pumpkin energy that should be going into my 100 lb pumpkins! Next year will be different.

Oh, who am I kidding? Where's my Burpee catalog? Next year's garden will be bigger and better than ever! :)

Going to use this as source for the image in my masthead. New blogger does images differently than old blogger so I have to do it this way. I'm back dating it but it might show up in the feed.

When it rains a lot, my yard turns into Mushroom City. Well maybe not a real city but it definitely turns into a Mushroom Village. I suppose it's because of all the hardwood mulch that I put down on my garden beds and borders.