Late summer usually means fired up tomatoes, squash consumed by insects, and a push to plant for fall. This year, we're getting a surprising spurt of production. Plentiful rain helped, but so did Amanda's mid-summer planting

We're still figuring out what tasks we should hire professionals to help us do and which ones we should do ourselves. This program lays out the factors we consider when we're thinking about hiring someone to help us with a project

We're transitioning to the fall, which we love. It's more pleasant to be outside, the weeds and bugs slow down, and we get to grow vegetables like collards and kohlrabi that just don't work in central Alabama in the summer

It's hot in August, but winter arrives soon, and we'll need warmth. We've neglected to build a supply of seasoned firewood, so we're playing catch-up. We'll use the sun for drying, and we'll use wood sparingly until we're sure we'll have enough

Growing fruit is an exercise in delayed gratification. After four years, the fruit trees are maturing and we are beginning to see real abundance of apples, pears, figs, muscadines, blueberries, and persimmons. Still waiting on the peaches and plums

In central Alabama pears usually outperform apples, So plant only pears, right? If we had followed that advice, we would have missed out on a delicious, abundant apple harvest this year. Our best crop ever, yielding 4 1/2 gallons of apple jam

We love squash, but it sure keeps us humble. This week we offer some perspective on squash formed over our five years of planting it, nurturing it, watching it die, and every now and then, enjoying its delicious bounty.

It's the middle of the summer in Central Alabama, and that means it's the peak of pest season. Stink bugs, squash bugs, vine borers, grasshoppers, not to mention poison ivy and plain old weeds, all make our farming work more interesting

We're back now from a one-week stay at the lake. It was beautiful, and we had fun, but we're not rested. We returned to the farm daily to check on the vegetables, the fruit, the chickens, and the dog. What should we have done differently?

We look beyond the national Independence Day to explore what we're doing to make ourselves more independent. How are we doing on planting, harvesting, preserving, limiting waste, living frugally, and building community food systems?