Dwindling Season, Melons Galore, Spokane County Fair

The chilly mornings are definitely portending the coming winter. Given how much shorter the season has been this year I am not feeling too bad about how much I have harvested.

While tromping through the squash in search of any worth picking I saw the rampant spread of the white mold fungus stuff that is attacking the plants. It works hard to kill off the leaves it infects and once it hits it is simply too difficult to eradicate in the dense planting I have.

The squash only had a 9 pounds though I could have picked a couple to make it 10 but they need more time.

Around noon R and I headed up to the melon garden and I found another slew of melons ready to pick. Thankfully I took enough boxes this time.

With the boxes of melons back at the house I got weights for them. The pear melons are finally starting to ripen and gave me 18 pounds. The last of the honeydew, at least larger ones, are now harvested and they weighed in at 29 pounds total.

15 pounds of the striped Tigger melons and then 75 pounds of the midgets. I decided to pick a number of the midgets that had just begun to turn ripe as they are some of the largest grown this year so I prefer not to lose them by accident if it were to freeze. I also picked more corn and a few small acorn squash.

Nicely I have 60 of the midgets that are going to the co-op this morning which works wonderfully since they are ripe but still firm melons and I would just have them going to waste sitting around here.

After I picked J up from school we all got ready and then headed to the fairgrounds. Thankfully the smoke thinned largely and we could actually breathe. We also hit the fair at the perfect time as there was no lines to get in or on anything. The boys got a couple rides which holy hell is it expensive for fair rides. $5 per person for a few minutes. I let them go to save the money and so I could get pics. When the boys are older we will get them the unlimited bracelets and they can ride till their hearts' content.

The boys really wanted in the monkey maze and they made sure to get their time in it. J didn't realize that the slide was the exit so both of them back tracked to the beginning entrance where I told them to go down the slide.

We got fair food and sat and ate at the tables and listened to the band playing. Once done we wandered the tables and booths. I stopped and talked with the guy at the USDA table for a while and found that the High tunnel program is still going on. I had seen this Post from Hive account@mountainjewel in 2018 and saved the post for the links to the program. It is still going on 5 years later and high and low tunnels are still being granted. I also found through our talking that I am doing most everything correct for building up my soil.

Now the forecast is calling for 42 F Monday night and widespread frost after 3am on Tuesday morning, so I still have time. Big thing is the peppers and tomatoes which need much more time and it would be good to get another 100+ cucumbers if possible before first frost. I have frost guard row covering but only so much.

This morning I head to the co-op to drop the 60 Minnesota Midget melons then my mom is going to watch the boys for us while we go to the Thrive Time Show to see Jim Breuer. There are a ton of other speakers but he is the main one we want to see and with so much still to do on the farm it is best not to take too much time away.