Roma tomatoes ready for the dehydrator


Last night we were all sitting in our bedroom watching the Wisconsin/Ohio State game on ABC. My husband and son were playing mancala while I was watching the game. Carter looks up while the referee is announcing a penalty and says "Oh my gosh, look at his giant mole". Well it in fact was not a giant mole but his microphone headset and the foam end of it was some attempt at flesh colored. Now why did they do that? Why not just go with black? The color of the foam was close to the referees skin color and in fact did look like a giant mole. I hope that you get a good laugh from this, I certainly did! It is raining a little here this morning so I wont be doing any garden work like I had planned. I did get all of the cucumer and zucchini plants taken out of the garden. This was a chilly week too, with lows getting down in the high 30's some days and only up to the 50's-60's during the day. The garden has slowed down a lot, but that is to be expected for early October here in Iowa. The swiss chard I do have to say is showing llittle signs of slowing down. You can cut it off, leaving about an inch of the stalks and it keeps sending up new leaves. I think that I have cut the leaves off 3-4 times...I planted the seeds late too, I think maybe in June. I do need to get out and get some cuttings from the herb garden so I can have some indoor herb plants. Basil is very easy to propagate....you can take a snipping off a plant and stick it in some moist soil and it will send out new roots. Chives you can dig up the plant and seperate the plant. There are many others that you can either root by layering, division or taking cuttings. There are lots of sources online if you are interested just google "Herb Propagation". Of course you can start new plants with seeds, but if you already have the started plant why not use that to create another? Yesterday afternoon the man that farms the land around our house started to take out the soybeans. Soybeans and corn are the primary crops grown here in Iowa...Iowa is first in production of corn and soybeans. Some other crops that are grown here are hay. In 2006 Iowa farmers produced 5.6 million pounds of hay which ranked us 10th in the country. Iowa also produces oats, Christmas trees, honey, strawberries and even grapes. So, yesterday the beans started to come out. We thought that he would be harvesting soon since the plants looked very dry..a golden brown color. I was dreading the harvest since it seems to kick up lots of bugs, but yesterday was cool and there were not the swarms of ladybugs that we usually get. Just a bit of the field is done and with the rain this morning he probably will not finish today. I will get out and take a picture that shows what the bare field looks like once everything is harvested. Next year corn should take its place as they tend to rotate crops.