It was actually done before bed but I extended the dry time until yesterday morning as I had no desire to deal with it then. So first thing I pulled the trays and got them sitting on the stove to warm a bit as they were still -43F and hard to handle.
The extra time overnight made for a longer run time.
The tomatoes were a bit sticky still on the tray liners but they tomatoes themselves seemed fine. It took the trays about half an hour to warm up and I was able to bag them all in one bag.
It was pretty chilly in the morning so I waited for it to warm a bit before going up to the melon garden. It turned out to be a bit of a mess. All the Minnesota midget melons were ripe or TOO ripe and soft.
The gourds, squash, and pumpkins are plugging along nicely though and I should end up with well over 600 pounds from them in a couple to few weeks.
I pulled every single pear melon I could find and tossed them in the boxes in the truck. They are all garbage as they are huge, some rotting from sitting in rain water, or would be just not sweet and not good to eat. There were 2 boxes of no good mini melons and one box of okay. The only thing kept from the load was the top left box.
I got home and managed to weigh all the boxes. 207 pounds of pear melons and 48 pounds of mini melons all got dumped out on the ground for the animals and birds to munch on.
They then spent much of the day standing around the pile gorging themselves.
In the afternoon after picking the boys up from school I was in the garden and noticed how big some of the beets had gotten.
The golden beets are a really nice size.
13 pounds of beets including the tops are in the coop to get topped and brought inside today.
Then the tomatoes needed to be picked and there was a solid 11 pounds with 2.5 pounds of peppers. The tomatoes all went to paper bags to ripen on the table.
The freeze dryer needed to get going again as we had a pile of peppers on the counter. I managed to get 4 trays filled with sliced bell peppers and the last tray I diced up a bunch of tomatoes.
I don't exactly know if I have grain waiting but I have a bunch of barrels that they will need so I hoked up the trailer for this morning so I can take them all back on my way to drop off at the co-op. The winds are shit this morning so no flying my paraglider until tomorrow at Steptoe.
It's cooling off at night so the water is feeling quite nice now and we can get it back up closer to the 99/100F range.
This morning I am dropping barrels at breweries on my way to the co-op. I'll get gas on the way then once home I will have harvesting to do such that I can skip tomorrow, I have a harbor freight coupon for 25% off so I will be buying the portable garage for my plane and picking it up in Pullman tomorrow morning, and this afternoon I will call David to see if we are good for moving my plane on Sunday.
^Affiliate/Referral Link^
Fleming Family Farm
FLEMING FAMILY FARM, LLC
Sustainable & Organic Methods | Heirloom Produce
All images are original works of Fleming Family Farm unless otherwise notated and credited.
If you find this post useful or entertaining, your support is greatly appreciated by upvoting, following, and sharing!
Bitcoin : 1C6idTJBJ3CJJt9kHoKi4av1XLzg8eQ7rv
