October 29, 2016

Yesterday was a busy, busy day and I didn't get a chance to work on this post...so here we go!

FALL GARDEN

Finally got the fall crops into their new space outside of the Hoop House. This happened one week ago and everything looks good - except for my Chinese Cabbage. I need to figure out what sort of bug is eating the leaves on that one.

Experimenting with a low tunnel

Lettuce, Spinach, Chard, Bunching Onions, Beets and Purple Broccoli!

We finished up planting the rest of the crops in one of Mary's boxes so I have a couple of places to pay attention to. It will get harder when DST ends. It will be dark when I leave for work and when I come home. I will be going into weekend gardening mode I guess. The good thing is that I will the week of Thanksgiving off so I will have all sorts of time to play around in the mini gardens.

DAHLIA LIFTING

This year was the second year for the dahlias so I decided that getting them out of the ground would be a good thing. We'll store them and then early next spring we'll divide them and get them ready to plant again. Next season they will be planted in another part of the back yard to add some interest to the view. We don't get to enjoy them nearly as much when they are in the garden, so the back yard will be perfect. 

Getting them dug up seemed to go quickly - so quick that I didn't have a chance to do a plant myself. That was a little sad because I like to dig them up too! Oh well, there will always be next time.

These tubers represent two different plants. The one on the right is clearly a mutant! It might have had 4 or 5 stalks coming out of it with each one just filled with big beautiful blooms. 

We'll turn this part of the garden into raised beds for next season. It will kind of match what I started on the other end of the garden. Then this will be mainly vegetables. There is still a lot of grass that can be turned back into garden space and it may be what will happen next season. 

MORE HARVEST

The weather has been very mild, mostly wet, but there hasn't been a frost yet. Yesterday, I was able to get a harvest of the Shishito Peppers. I thought for sure that those were done a couple of months ago when the weather was so warm and the buds all died off. I put water on them now and then, but then things changed when the rain started up again. Imagine that...a little rain and these plants found new life! 

Today I looked from a different angle and there are still peppers to be picked! If we don't harvest the rest that are on the plant, I might let them go red and then save the seeds for next year. I already did some of them, but I already don't remember where I put those seeds. 

Before I pulled up the cucumber plants I spied a couple of good sized cucumbers that were very ready to be picked. They were delicious!

CHICKENS

Just this afternoon it occurred to me that we could buy young laying hens instead of getting chicks to raise up. While cruising through Craigslist I found a listing for a place in Woodland, WA just north of us that have a variety of pullets which will produce eggs sooner than if we were to get the chicks from the farm in Tangent, OR to raise up.

My plan is to still get the chicks (Cornish Cross) to raise for meat at the Tangent farm, but the layers might be coming from Woodland. We'll just have to decide on what sort of coop to build and get some poultry fence to define their space and we'll be good to go! We'll have eggs before we know it.

My first choice is the Australorp, but they are a little spendy so I think I'll go with a Rhode Island Red for now and then add the Australorp at a later time. Both are said to be good layers and when they start to get too old for egg laying they will be make a good broiler chicken in the freezer.

ALL IN ONE

The last tray of seeds that we started for the fall crops got a little confused. Some how one of the blocks got 3 different seeds. One of two things will happen - survival of the fittest or a new plant...

Behold the Broc-On-Chard or a Purple Broccoli, Onion and Swiss Chard. Since this is a year of experiments - why not put it in the garden right? 

WHAT THE...??

I have not mastered taking photos with my phone...

October 21, 2016

Seriously - not a lot happened this week. Besides the sweet FREEZER that was a freebie from down the street nothing else has been notable. The week has been a little challenging and man, I'm tired today!

The Top 5 of the Week

THE GARDEN

Last weekend the weather forecast called for high winds and rain for most of Saturday. It was windy and it was rainy, but not nearly as much as the storm was supposedly going to be. Girls Breakfast Club finally happened and on our way to drop off our friend I mentioned to Mary that I would be spending some time in the garden pulling up stuff that need to be piled onto the compost. Once I put that out there Mary decided that she would come over despite what the weather report was.

All of my ground cherry plants, beans and outside tomatoes were pulled up and composted. I took the two sugar pumpkins that were orange and put them in the hoop house to cure out a little. Transplanted the second round of purple broccoli and then called it a day. It was nasty out and it was getting unpleasant.

THE PROJECT

Later in the afternoon I went ahead and processed the 5 pounds of roma tomatoes and made sauce - my first time making fresh sauce from my own tomatoes from my own garden! I can't believe that I didn't try doing this before. I froze a couple of cups in a freezer bag and then made pucks with the rest by putting them into a muffin tin. Evidently they were hard to remove from the pan...I think silicone will be the way to go next time

THE HARVEST

Sunday afternoon I picked another pound of hoop house tomatoes. I'm hoping that there will be a few more so I can make some more sauce for the freezer. These are some good looking tomatoes!

For the longest time I didn't think that the tomatoes would actually pollinate - so we set up an oscillating fan. I think that might have been the early problem...maybe not. Maybe I was just impatient. Either way, the fan was a good decision to see that the plants would be pollinated and to keep the temperature down a little. 

There are more tomatoes that appear to be ripening - especially the crazy Mortgage Lifters. We went from having 3 or 4 to already picking that many and a couple more that turned red. AND there are more on the two plants. We'll see if they ripen. If not - there may be fried green tomatoes on our menu in the near future. There is always something new to try.

THE FLOWERS

Way back when, I grew lots of flowers. It was something that I REALLY liked. A LOT. 

Dahlia Garden from around 1998

The garden at one time was a lot of flowers and some veggies. One year I had all of the dahlias and grew a lot of favorites - zinnias, bachelor buttons, cosmos, sunflowers and whatever else caught my eye while shopping for seeds. 

At one time I thought that I might make something out of flowers as a business. I still like the idea of that, but along with veggies and some sort of subscription thing...BUT that is another story for another time.

This year is the 2nd year for my new round of dahlias that I ordered at the Swan Island Dahlia show Labor Day 2014 for the following season. 

At that time I chose a collection that would be good for bouquets. The first season only 7 of the 10 tubers came up. After receiving the replacements this past spring we got them into the ground and two of them came up. I'm guessing that the one that didn't come up just doesn't want to be in my garden so I'll just let that one go.

The dahlias will be cut down and then the tubers dug up and stored for next season. This is one of my favorite things to do - get more from a little. The only problem that I see for next year is where we will put them next year. There will be quite a few to plant.

THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIR 2017

I got the dates for the Mother Earth News fair for next year. Next year the fair will be the weekend of August 6 & 7 at the Linn County Event Center in Albany. 

It would be nice to take in more than a couple of presentations for the day. So we'll have to hope and pray for a cooler day. This year the temperature was hovering around 100 degrees and man it was hot. We'll see - the fair will be in the Willamette Valley and I'm not so sure that it will be much cooler in August than June. Meh, what do I know? I just love looking at all things farming.

That's all for now! 

CHICKENS!

From the time that I was in middle school until my mom passed away in 1986 we had chickens. It started off harmless enough - just 6 chickens (it might have been a dozen) and a rooster too. Yeah, okay...this is kinda cool. We don't have to buy eggs at the store! We just go out and check the nesting boxes and BOOM - eggs.

Well, after awhile a duck made it home with my dad. He "found" this big ol' ugly duck that turned out to be a muscovy duck. Yeah, I don't know how he got that thing home, but he did. The mill is located 5 miles from the house and he drove home with a duck in his pick-up. Yeah, just let that sink in. It wasn't the only critter that he brought home, but it was unique.

Anyway, I'm thinking that the whole collect the whole set mentality started after that duck arrived at our house. Over the next year or two more of a coop was built, more chickens of various varieties were added as well as other types of birds. It started with chickens, then the duck, then a couple other ducks to keep the original duck company, then geese, doves, pheasants...and a Peacock and peahen. To say the least, our house became a landmark. Not only did we have ducks and geese...there were more than one variety of breed. OMG - REALLY?

Okay, so fast forward to where we are now....

For a lot of years I always said that I didn't want to do chickens on our property. In the last couple of years my desire for home grown veggies has become more of a priority rather than a fad. I am interested in choosing "local" as much as possible, but sometimes it's not. Local can be within Washington or Oregon - because for us that is local. Ideally I like organic, but I'm not always convinced of the growing practices and that is just another post altogether. However, we have tried to do better as far as growing more stuff in the garden that we'll put on our table and choosing our produce as wisely as possible for the things that are not in the garden.

NOW...we shall add meat to the mix. A friend of ours was mentioning a book that she read and how chicken is the worst of all meat that is available at the store. I can see it, mass produced chicken in close quarters have to be "treated" with antibiotics and chemicals to make sure that the chickens are "healthy" for the consumer. You have to ask, how long are those antibiotics detectable in the now butchered chicken? Where did this chicken come from? Is it local? How about the food that is put in front of that chicken? Is it free of chemicals? So many things to consider.

Right now so many things are an experiment - growing stuff from seed, growing tomatoes in the hoop house, growing fall/winter crops. Why not add growing chickens for meat?

Why Not In-DEED?!

So, in the spring we plan to do a test run. Hopefully make this a small group project - and try to get some plump chickens into our freezer and into the freezers at homes of our friends! I have the breed all figured out, Cornish Cross.

The chicks at 1 day old (photo credit: Whitehurst Heritage Farms)

Nothing terribly special about these dudes.

I don't proclaim to know how to raise chickens, but I have more experience than those who might join us in this experiment. Also, I have NO IDEA how to raise a chick to maturity to graduate to the freezer.

The good thing is we have been following Justin Rhodes of Abundant Permaculture and he has excellent resources in different forms - we usually watch his YouTube channel. There is a film, there are plans for coops...a series of videos on chickens and also references that point to other people who raise the mighty chicken.

I have researched where to get chicks and where to rent the poultry processing equipment - research food and all that stuff too. Justin Rhodes talks of a thing called "magic water" that he thinks gives the chicks a jumpstart in their immunity.

This should be a fun experience. Growing veggies AND meat...

We Didn't Ask...but We Received!

We were out on a walk after I got home from work yesterday and I didn't notice on our way out, but on the way back to our house, I noticed that one of the houses across the street had a major appliance out on the driveway and the sign on the front of it said...

Those particular neighbors were not home, but we decided that we should take it...the sign said so!! While Tom went to the house to get the pick-up, I walked a couple of houses down to our friends house and asked for a little he-man power from Mike.

Oh man...check this baby out...

I seriously don't know how much this would cost, but man...free is GOOD! It is a Kenmore Heavy Duty Commercial model and it's BIG!

I haven't had a freezer this big ever - well, my parents had a freezer probably a little smaller than this on AND a chest freezer. 

This thing is a blessing and the fact that we hadn't think to pray for this (yet) makes it even more of a validation of what we have in mind for the future of our hobby farm and the potential for raising chickens for meat. 

Man oh man oh man...the first chicken we butcher goes to the people who gave up this freezer!

Oh yeah...making connections through home grown food goodness!

October 14, 2016

This week has been a fairly slow week around the property and the garden, but there is always something going on.

PRESERVING

With so many tomatoes I thought I would try pickling some of the Green Cherry Tomatoes. A few years ago I did a refrigerator recipe for pickled cucumbers - cucumbers that I probably bought at the store and they turned out pretty well. Fast forward to this week I recall a recipe that came from a Mother Earth News email and tucked that away for future reference and then there was a vlog by Bri (of Art & Bri). To be honest I didn't watch the video, but I decided I would try to find something that I could try and came across THIS one.

The recipe was straight forward and it didn't take much time at all. The first round that I did made a couple of quarts (the recipe is written for one quart).Then a couple of days later I decided to try another round in the morning before going to work.

These were processed this past Monday, October 10.

FALL GARDEN

The plants are ready, the space is ready, but we need to figure out how to put together a low tunnel - mostly to protect my plants from the critters that might be hanging around during the rainy season. At the beginning of the week we still needed the row cover fabric that we'll use to cover the row up. That has been purchased and we are good to go. However, life keeps happening and other things have been taking up our time instead. AND with the high winds that are in the forecast for tomorrow (10/15) I'm not sure that we'll have a lot of action outside. The plants will be fine though they are currently living in the hoop house and growing like crazy! I'll be happy to get them out though. These crops are my last garden experiment for the year and I would like to get it done sooner than later.

The front tray has my Flower Sprouts and the tray behind has Kale and Purple Broccoli.

Pac Choi

PLANNING

For 2017 I am hoping to do a little farm stand of some sort at the end of the driveway starting in the spring and continuing for as long as I have stuff to offer. So far my vision includes doing vegetable starts as well as a variety of pretty flowers and some common kitchen herbs This all in addition to growing our own food.

I have all sorts of ideas like growing item for salsa, salads, pickling. Also, I thought it would be cool to offer the veggies in "kits" for those salads and salsas etc. That's a different idea that I have not seen, not around here anyway and I'm hoping that I could make that my "thing." With so many neighbors that live directly across the street that have little to no yard, they might appreciate some fresh produce or even some flower and veggie starts to put in containers. Hmmm....

Next year will be all about MORE - specifically of the things that did well - potatoes, beans, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and the leafy items. Let's be serious, it's hard to NOT grow leafy items. Especially Kale. I still have the kale that I planted in late spring and I'm planning to add more - haha! I see more mashed potatoes and kale on the Winter menu.

Then number one thing on the list of things to do next year - chickens! I want to follow the Justin Rhodes way of raising chickens and garden prep and get some chickens. I'll have a few months to plan what type of chicken to raise (for meat and eggs), the kind of structure we want to house them in and where we want to get them started on the property. I suppose the first thing to do is figure out where to buy the little guys first. More research!

END OF SEASON

There are several items that are at the end of their season and it's time to get them pulled up. Last weekend I cleaned up the area that had all of the tomatillo experiment and just threw them aside. The Tongues of Fire drying beans that I planted midseason survived the heat and the deer and I got a few pods. Enough that I will definitely plant more next year for a larger harvest. The green beans have been done for a while as well as the cabbage. There are still a few items to clean up!

You would think that the tomatoes would be ready to go, but they are still hanging in there. There hasn't been a frost yet so the plants are okay. I'll be going out to see if there are any more perfect green tomatoes for pickling. The Groop House tomatoes are growing like crazy and I actually had to trim them back. Mostly so I could see where the ripening tomatoes were hiding more than anything. I have 2 or 3 cayenne pepper plants that have some puny little peppers on them so I might just go ahead and get those out of there. Those are just taking up space.

Mary planned to be over after we do our Girls Breakfast Club. We'll see if she really wants to come over while it's stormy out. High winds...I don't think even I would really want to go out and continue with my end of summer veggie season tasks.

DAHLIAS

The Dahlias hoo-boy. I want to lift them this year, but I'm not sure when that will be now that it is already mid-October. If I gotta wait until November I will, but I would rather get those out sooner than later. The purpose of storing the tubers...to double or triple the Dahlia garden and add another thing to sell. Nine out of the ten plants came up so next year we'll have a a goodly amount to plant. I guess we should prepare another area for them!

The life of a hobby farmer: there is always something new, always a project/experiment and there is always satisfaction with working hard with our hands and with each other.

There isn't anything else I'd rather do.

Growth!

Since some of the seedlings were getting pretty large, they have been transplanted into some 4" pots from plants that we had bought in years past. Yeah, I don't really like to throw away plastic nursery pots. Which is a good thing since I didn't really want to buy any either.

Last week on Wednesday the Pac Choi and Chinese Cabbage got the upgrade. A couple of the cabbage seedlings didn't look so great, but they got transplanted anyway.

I was amazed at the difference that 4 days makes. It's so crazy! The puny plants look pretty decent too!!

The top was taken right after the plants were transplanted on the 5th. Then the bottom was taken just yesterday after we arrived home form church.

Hoping that this week will be the week that we get many of the big plants out into the garden. First we need to get some materials to make a low tunnel over the plants after they are in the garden.

Okay...Update Day

Alright, I'm going to change my Friday post to my Update Day - even though we don't have a whole lot going on right now I kind of do.

Planting/Garden Update...

It has been raining here for most of the week. Not much was done as far as the garden is concerned. Although that is not entirely true - the space where I plan to put in the fall crops is ready to go. Maybe this weekend would be a good time to make that happen. We are still planning what to do, but at least that space is ready!

The seedlings have been growing like crazy and we went ahead and transplanted the Pac Choi and Chinese Cabbage into 4 inch pots until they get into the garden for real. I might have to spend some time cleaning up some stuff out of the boxes and planning where to put some of the plants and possibly sow some seeds just to experiment some more. Hoping that the weekend weather won't be as wet and that we could muck around looking at what to go ahead and pull up.

BUT here is what happened this week -

Pac Choi on the left and the other is the Chinese Cabbage

This was taken right after the plants got a good drink. The poor little plant in the upper right looked pretty bad. However, in 24 hours it looked so much better and bigger - like it might have grown! It certainly was much happier!

Project(s) update...

It's bubbling away like crazy and we have been having fun checking on it every few days or daily...yeah - it's more like a daily thing. It's just so cool to see it working away! I think it will take a good couple of weeks before it starts to look like the sauerkraut that I'm looking for. So far so good. I love to experiment!

I think it's been a while since the fence has seen any action, but it is slowly getting there. The portion closest to the house is getting closer to being tied in with the garage. It was the hardest section because of how close it is to the driveway. The far side of the fence will be a lot easier as it is between what we have cultivated as yard and where the field starts. We do need to do some planning as we hope to do chickens and would like to locate them behind the garage first. Once the fence goes in any chance to make a change will be considerably difficult to do so. Discussions shall commence!

Dreaming...(The dreaming -  oh my goodness)

I just picked up the latest Mother Earth News at Target this week. This is a great issue! The Urban Farmer (aka Curtis Stone) had a pretty extensive article on making this whole backyard gardening thing into a business of  sorts. Curtis Stone outlined 3 or 4  different marketing models for people (like me) who would like to take their hobby to the next level. Perhaps this could be a good part-time gig starting next spring.

Another cool thing that I saw in this issue was an article on Rocket Stoves. Goodness, it's not like we don't have other things todo or anything. I have had this vision to revamp the area that is between our yuck-o driveway and the house and make it a patio area. It would be a great spot to do a rocket stove for cooking dinner or just firing up on a chilly evening to sit nearby. Go here for an older article...

I have so many things that I want to do and the list just keeps getting longer. Too many resources with reading magazines, blogs and books on homesteading, market gardening etc. Also, watching Justin Rhodes and Art & Bri doesn't help one bit. There are so many good resources. Gotta ditch this 40-hour a week job somehow!

Hoping and praying that we can turn this hobby into more than a hobby!

Homemade Sauerkraut

When we put cabbage into the garden I didn't have much more of a thought than seeing if I could grow cabbage. How would anyone know otherwise? So, as I watched the cabbage grow throughout the summer I was amazed at how they went from these loose leaves growing into a head type of shape. We checked on it several times throughout the summer and I was getting excited about having three heads of cabbage actually growing in the garden!  

A few weeks ago we had some store bought sauerkraut which I like to cook up with some brown sugar and sliced apple to serve along side either brats or pork chops. It dawned on me that maybe I could make sauerkraut with my cabbage. So I started to search Pinterest for recipes and landed on The Prairie Homestead pin and got interested - in the recipe AND the website. 

The recipe was easier than I thought and required no cooking! Well, that was a happy moment for me because I have been known to make a mess doing anything new. The least amount of items in use at anytime is best for me. I still made a fair size mess, but it was fun!

I was a little skeptical that all of the cabbage would fit in a quart size mason jar. Seriously - there was a lot. As soon as I started mooshing the cabbage into the jar, my skepticism turned into surprise and I had NOTHING left in the bowl after spooning and mooshing. Well, I had some of the liquid left over which I used to fill up the jar a bit more before storing it. 

Now the hard part will be to leave it be until it's time to open it up to try it out. I will need to "burp" it here and there, but otherwise it's a waiting game. I better take a look at the part where it needs to be burped!

I am hopeful that this will turn out and that instead of buying pouches or jars of kraut I can just make my own when the hankering strikes. 

If you are looking for homesteading tips or cool recipes check out the website HERE. 

A Little Late or REALLY Early!

We ended up heading to the coast Friday and I had intended to do an early post on Thursday, but that didn't happen. Then I thought I might do a post when we came back on Saturday and then that didn't happen. Sundays are too busy to do what we think we might want to do so nothing again.

I have a total down day (mostly) today and am catching up on a couple of things. Posting here is one of them!

For some reason I thought about growing beans to store. So, after doing some research online to figure out what kind of beans to get, I finally decided on these beans that are called Tongues of Fire. I wasn't sure how to cultivate a dry bean so I just let the plants grow. As is turns out, it's not that hard and all I had to do is pick the pods when they are dry and brittle. They actually are still a little "fresh" after shelling them, but they dried up pretty quickly. Hoping that there will be enough still to harvest to make this year's effort worth it.

My fall crops are looking GREAT! I did transplant some of the seedlings into 4" pots at the end of last week and they are growing like crazy! The garden spot which I want to put my fall crops into is being prepared right now - I probably will get stuff in within the next couple of weeks. 

Took a walk around the garden and ended up harvesting a few items. This might be the last time I have a mini-bounty of items. I was surprised to find a few of the Shishito Peppers ready to pick. The few that I got will be it for the season. 

Since it took me awhile to find the plants that I did have I decided to try saving some of the seeds for next season. I haven't been able to find the seeds at the store and I haven't seen them offered in my favorite seed catalogs. Yet another experiment!

Look at this perfect tomato! I was getting ready to close up the Hoop House for the night and before I got to the door I spied this tomato hiding in almost plain sight! I never noticed it changing color - then BAM! Vine Ripened Goodness!

There are quite a few Roma tomatoes that are in different stages of ripening. I'm hoping for a lot at one time so I can make sauce - from my own garden to save for future use. 

As my summer crops are coming to an end, I look forward to getting the fall crops in and starting to harvest the greens in the weeks to come. The real test will be how many of my seedlings will survive the transition. This is my first time trying out fall crops. It has been exciting checking out the seedlings several times a week and seeing the growth. I am pretty confident with my skills with the summer garden. Now all I need to do is start incorporating succession planting. After I get that down I'll work on crop rotation. 

There is so much to learn! So much fun!!!