October On The Farm

Here it is, our third October on the farm just outside of Poteet, Texas. It is still hot, just like the other years but it is a busy time. We are trying to pick up speed for the upcoming Christmas season and the non-stop spring planting season that will start in January. Plus, we are still doing fall farm chores and planting fall crops. We have some in but we still need to add in broccoli and cauliflower for sure.

October On The Farm - 10/04-10/10/2021

October on the farm means pumpkins, apples, hay bales, and hot chocolate to me. What does it mean to you?

Monday, October 4, 2021 - October On The Farm

This morning, October on the farm was a bit cooler at 72° Fahrenheit. It will get up to 93° so it still feels like summer, which is typical of autumn in South Central Texas. We are mulching garden beds as well as planting some of them. Others still need to be weeded and then covered in weed barrier for spring planting. We have a big compost pile going.

I got a bunch of the weekend eggs ready to sell this morning. They were taking up a lot of room in our home refrigerator. I packaged them up and brought them over to the store refrigerator. Then I started setting out some fall decorations for outside in front of the store. I put out some indoor fall decorations in the store and I was still working on it when a couple walked in this morning and bought both the Texas Fall Seed Set Collection and the Texas Spring Seed Set Collection. They live in Universal City so they drove for a while to get here.

While the couple from Universal City were here, two men came in, a father and son who live in Pleasanton and they needed some more fall seeds. They each chose several and one also picked up some of our homemade dill pickle spears.

It was a great way to start off the week here at David's Garden Seeds®. I have some apple tart wax melts making the whole farm store smell great so come on in and pick up your seeds, eggs, strawberry preserves and more. October on the farm is a great way to welcome the smells and sights of October right here in our farm store. Come on over to 5029 FM 2504 in Poteet, Texas. We're David's Garden Seeds® and we've been in business for over 12 years, providing quality Non-GMO seeds for your gardening needs!

The bees and butterflies are going from flower to flower.

Looking at my zinnias out in front of the store, you would think that it is spring. The butterflies and bees are all over them.

Facebook and Instagram are down today. I was supposed to have a Facebook class with Christy Wright that I signed up for only she had to move it to Zoom. So I downloaded Zoom onto my phone and we did the class. While the rest of the world learned how to do Zoom last year, we were busy shipping orders out day and night so we had no time to learn how to do it. I am learning now.

Lumber was delivered today for more raised beds.

Home Depot delivered some lumber to us today but the spikes we ordered with the lumber were on another truck and it broke down so we will get them tomorrow.

David sent Matt into San Antonio for some supplies and his car broke down near I-35 this afternoon. He is waiting for his car to be towed and for someone to pick him up and bring him back over to the farm.

Jay went to pick Matt up and here they are unloading huge bags of seeds Matt bought in San Antonio.

The seed bags are bigger than they are!

David took Molly, our abandoned stray who is two years old to the vet because she was breathing heavy. Turns out she has a fungal infection in her lungs and she is in atrial fibrillation. David has been at the vet for over two and a half hours. $470 later and she is finally home and took her first pill.

It is interesting how you think things will work out each day, but there are always surprises. God holds us in the palm of His hands. There are no surprises to Him.

I made the organic chicken for dinner that we bought from a farmer on Saturday in Devine. It was so tasty, not even comparable with what you buy in the grocery store. Of course, it was three times the price that you normally pay and half as small but it was very juicy and flavorful.

Maybe next October on the farm, we will have our own meat chickens. I have been thinking about it.

Tuesday, October 5, 2021 - October On The Farm

This is our beautiful farm store at twilight.

When I woke up early this morning, it was 59° outside. October on the farm felt amazing. Unfortunately, the temperature will get up to 94°.

This morning, we continued to put up more fall decorations. I put together these two little flag stands with fall flags. Aren't they adorable? I wish they were taller.

Nacho is here today working on the fence with a helper. I think it will look good out back with a big privacy fence.

A new fence is going up across the backyard. It will make the dog yard bigger and it will also block the dogs from getting out when David takes them up into the "back 40".

David told me that we have some fall veggies growing. I took some photos of zucchini, squash, green bean flowers, okra, jalapenos, and purple bell peppers.

Look at our first purple bell pepper of fall.

Collard greens and some mint plants are growing in the greenhouse.

Pole beans are growing in the greenhouse and getting pretty tall.

Baby squashes are growing well during October on the farm.

We have okra growing and someone picked these right before I got there with my camera.

Here is a little zucchini growing in October on the farm.

One of our customers told me about persimmons and the weather for winter. I had never heard this before but she said once a persimmon ripens, cut the pit open and if it is a spoon, you will be shoveling a lot of snow. If it is a fork, there will be a mild winter. If there is a knife, there will be cutting cold winds. Isn't that interesting? She told me that the Almanac also has this information so I looked it up. This persimmon information is everywhere and I have not heard it.

Good news! We have our first two persimmon trees and one has two persimmons on it. I picked them and they are ripening the rest of the way on our kitchen counter. Once they are ripe, I will cut the seeds open and see what they tell me! I have not eaten a persimmon ever so it should be interesting.

I picked our first 2 persimmons off of the only tree that had them and soon they will be ripe. Then I will see about the weather in the seeds!

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 - October On The Farm

Aren't the colors of October on the farm just gorgeous?

It is 4:50pm as I begin to write on here today. Why? Because we were so busy! I added a lot of items to our website for sale and added them in the store as well. We made up germination kits for the show this coming Saturday and to display and sell in the store. These come with 18 pots, a seed tray, a dome, and our own germination mix. They are big sellers in the late winter and early spring as Texans start their tomatoes and other early seeds.

Garlic planting is all part of October on the farm.

Garlic In October On The Farm

We got in three types of garlic so we had to package that and add it to the website. So if you need garlic to plant right now, we have it. Just come in tomorrow and pick some up. We have German Extra Hardy garlic, German Red Garlic, and Music Garlic for fall planting. You can order it online or you can come by our farm store and get some. Last year we had four varieties, but we could not get our hands on any of those except for the Music garlic.

A local seed grower whom we met this past Saturday came by with her family and we did some seed swapping so that was fun. Then David showed them all around the farm. We have a lot of vegetables growing in the back right now. This lady brought us a luffa, all dried and ready to use. I have a few growing in the back but we have never done it before.

This is a full grown, dried luffa grown from a gourd. I have some out back growing right now. October on the farm...

Yesterday, Matt set up some fall blow ups behind the store next to the road. One was a Thanksgiving turkey. It lasted one day. The motor gave out. I will be packing it up in the morning and sending it back to Amazon. We have two other turkey decorations that we bought last year. Both are blow ups and both are dead. The wires have been cut on one. Who on earth would do that and why? They have been packed away in plastic bins and I just cannot imagine why any of our people would do that. So now, I have zero Thanksgiving blow ups for the front of the store.

Here is the now dead Thanksgiving turkey. How sad that his motor was good enough for just one day.

Thursday, October 7, 2021 - October On The Farm

October on the farm means we finally harvested several birdhouse gourds off of our vines out in the back forty. There are still a lot out there, but I have about 20 to work with.

Today has been a very good day so far. It is 3pm and I have been extremely busy all day long. I have been packing up for the event that we are doing on Saturday. It really isn't a show. Farm to Familia, which is an eatery and gift shop in Poteet has asked us to participate in a vendor day that they have each month so David said yes. David put up a triangle display in the store for me to load with seeds. Matthew is helping me fill it and price them. We will also take some plants, garlic, pickles, strawberry preserves, and chicken eggs, all made on our farm.

As I was loading the triangle display to see how much and what I wanted to take on Saturday, two ladies from over an hour away came to the store for the first time. We had a great visit and we gave them a farm tour. Thank you, ladies for stopping by. We hope to see you again soon!

It was 68° this morning when I woke up. It is now 89° which is cooler than what the forecast said so I guess we are getting off easy...

Back to pricing preserves and pickles for Saturday. If you are in Poteet tomorrow, stop by the farm at 5029 FM 2504. We are open Monday through Friday here at the Farm Store from 9am to 5pm.

Friday, October 8, 2021 - October On The Farm

This triangle display is what we were going to use at the event tomorrow.

Today was another busy day. I came over to the store to pack up everything that we are taking tomorrow to the Farm To Familia event. I took down all of the seeds that I put up on our triangle display, priced them, rubber banded them together, and packed them in boxes. I priced pickles and preserves and everything is ready to be loaded up in the truck tomorrow morning. Well, we will pack up eggs in the morning. David got me some dry ice. I let it absorb water and then I placed it in the freezer. Hopefully, it will keep the eggs nice and cool.

We went down to Farm To Familia today because David wanted to get a signed contract with a temporary helper business that someone down there owns. They actually gave us our lunch free of charge which was really nice. We had called it in ahead of time.

We have had several sets of customers show up to shop today so that was great.

In two hours, we have to take Kitty and two of our dogs, Lucy and Ethel to the vet for their yearly rabies shots. Unfortunately, we have a weird appointment time, at 4:20pm for three dogs.

Little Ethel and Lucy at the vet. They were panting continually, both a nervous wreck.

Kitty in her new carrier at the vet made so many hisses today! They were intimidated and never took her completely out of the carrier.

Then we took two of our dogs and Kitty to the vet for all of their yearly shots. Kitty hates the vet. So I carried her in her brand new blue cat carrier. As soon as she saw the first vet assistant, she hissed. She kept on hissing, even at me after it was all over. They took the dogs, one at a time, back for their shots.

Then it was Kitty's turn. They took Kitty back and she screamed and moaned and hissed at every turn. She is 12 now and is not at all tolerant of anyone outside of our immediate family. I feed her so she doesn't treat me like this. The vet said they did not even take her out of the carrier or take her temperature. They were a little scared, and rightly so. The vet gave her some three year shots. I had no idea they had these. So she will not have to go back for three years. I doubt she will live that long. She calmed down on the ride back to the house.

Isn't Kitty charming? She hates strangers.

Kitty hissed at me several times when her visit was completed. I was a bit afraid to pick her carrier up but I got her in the truck. She calmed down by the time I got her home.

I was up until pretty late tonight, packing and making sure everything was ready for tomorrow.

Saturday, October 9, 2021

Note the fog going on in the back as the sun comes up. Everything looked so awesome.

This October on the farm has brought us many days of the cows being in the hayfield. I have really enjoyed seeing them.

Six AM came quickly. I was awake a lot last night, thinking about what else I still needed to pack for the farm to familia event today.

When I went outside to feed the animals this morning, it felt cool and there was a lot of fog. Everything looked awesome. The cows were foggy. The sunrise was nice.

October on the farm can mean the cows are in fog in the early mornings. I love the look!

We finally got all loaded up and drove over there, arriving at 9am. The owners were not there yet. Then a worker showed up and said they were there late the night before doing another event and she would have to sweep before we could set up.

I figured it would take an hour or so for us to set up our displays. We were invited to this event by the owners of the business. We stopped doing shows three years ago because it is just too much work.

We were told that we would get the two tables by the door so we would not need to bring tables or a tent. The sweeper told me that was not true. Yes, all four of us were told that it was true when we went down a few weeks ago to scope the place out. We were shown exactly where we would be. But she said no...

So the worker swept and I tried to find out how we could move the tables. Then she told us that we could have one table only as someone else had the table next to ours. So we had completely unloaded two vehicles and were waiting there for a good 30 minutes. By the way, no other workers or owners were there at this time. There were other vendors.

Finally, David made the decision that due to a miscommunication, we would pack back up and leave.

We packed everything back up in our vehicles and left. We took the four of us out to breakfast as a consolation prize.

The chickens are still laying plenty of eggs, even though it has been miserably hot and humid. They are troopers.

After that, I started cleaning and rearranging parts of the store. Then I got to unpack every single thing I packed to sell. I got to put it all back. My feet are killing me after about four hours of concentrated work.

I also dismantled the grow tower as the plants were huge. I had good intentions of getting it planted today, but my feet were really hurting so I came back to my house. It is 3pm and I have not had lunch yet.

Anyway, I am glad we did not have to be there until 5pm in the heat and humidity. If anyone wants to invite us to another ill prepared event, no thank you. We have done it all and we are too old to be treated that way.

Tonight, we are having pizza for the Svengoolie movie so that should be fun! The movie is the original Frankenstein.

Kitty seems to be in a much better humor today. She is lounging on the carpet in my bedroom like she owns it.

Sunday, October 10, 2021

This October on the farm has brought us many days of the cows being in the hayfield. I have really enjoyed seeing them.

Good Sunday morning! October on the farm brings us a bunch of humidity today according to the weatherman. It is still dark out and the dogs and David are still asleep so I have not gone outside yet. I put on a pot of coffee and I refreshed my sourdough starter so sometime today, I will be making sourdough things. I was hoping we would feel a fine chill in the air today but it feels more like August than October.

We will be going to church today, probably the same one we tried out last week. It is amazing how many small churches are out in the country. We still love our church in San Antonio but it is crazy to drive an hour one way to go to church when there are some out here with people who are nearby.

Today, I think I will replant the grow tower in our David's Garden Seeds® Farm Store so I don't have to mess with it tomorrow. I also need to change out the bulletin board from spring to fall. I completely missed out on all of the summer themes.

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