Homestead Happenings

Yesterday right before getting a little bit of rain we planted 8 potatoes in those tires I lined up in between my fruit trees. (yes 8 even though I have 7 tires) They are Yukon Gold's as I'm hoping for some nice potatoes out of them. It's also a trial on what I see/have seen from some other homesteaders using old tires to grow potatoes. Especially after any time I did a potato “bed” my chickens would get loose and wind up digging through the patch and eating them. Guess what chickens love potatoes.

My peas are starting to grow faster, and I am hoping for a good amount of peas off of them. My spinach is starting to set true leaves and the onions are coming up now as well. I am hopeful that I will be thinning the lettuce in a week. I had to rebuy my Dark Star zucchini as I could not find the seed packet, thankfully a lot of local stores carry Seeds of Change and they had them in the display. For the most part I do buy my seeds from Baker Creek but this one variety I happen to really like and Baker Creek doesn't carry it.

Yesterday had some interesting happenings on Craigslist here, I'm not sure if it happened near you or not. However, due to it being April 1^st some idiots decided to post some fake free items with other people's phone numbers. I was caught by one as if it had been real it would have benefited us a lot here. I do hope however the person didn't get many calls. I don't understand why people would do something so asinine though.

Yesterday we went and got another truck bed load of composted wood from the lumber mill (free is good in this case). We did mix in some of the sawdust with it to help keep it a bit more loosened. It will soon become part of new beds that will grow as time goes on.

...and speaking of that “style” of gardening I did find the video of Ruth Stout's garden on youtube. I had forgotten that someone did a video on here in the 1970's. I was very excited to see it, her methods are very simple and if you take hers and add in lasagna gardening and regular no till it makes wonderful soil.

We have a few days of rain ahead of us (yeah spring), so we'll be workign as weather permitts us to here.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Happy First day of Spring!

Well it's a lovely cold morning, so nice to have to light a fire on the first day of spring... yeah ...  Anyway. not much going on with the weather not co-operating.  WE have a winter storm warning which starts tomorrow...fun.  I did manage to get something done yesterday, besides laundry.

I went out and first I fluffed up the potato patch and then I planted my seed potatoes (we didn't manage to get the sun chokes again).  The one red potato I planted last fall is starting to  grow as well.  I did have a surprise when I got out the seed potatoes, they had all sprouted and had roots on them already.  So on the few I had to cut down to be smaller I cut them so that they would all have some actual roots on them.

Had some good news from the weather people the other day, due to all the precipitation we have gotten ourselves out of the "severe drought", and are now just listed as "dry"; I am hoping pretty soon we'll be past that too.

A friend of our's Mark Cheneil writer of the "Missouri Journal"  over on homestead.org is in the hospital, we all wish him good health; and to get well.

That's it for now...

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Weekend Wrap-up

 So over the weekend we did some planting, and removal in the garden. I went out and made the executive decision and removed my pea plants. Yes, they had a grand total of 4 flowers on them; however I did not think I could really leave them there when I really felt I needed to get the squashes planted.

All of my beans have sprouted, and about half of them are already on their second leaves; some have what look like the start of their flower stalks. I should be able to harvest more lettuce tomorrow, and I hope it's not bitter. I had picked some a few days back and it had a few bitter pieces in it.

I have planted 4 “hills” of summer squash, two of them are Lemon squash; and 2 are Dark Star. Dark Star is a zucchini type, these are one year old seeds so I hope they do well being they are planted in what was the bean bed last year. I have planted (well my son did) our pumpkins, Lady Godiva; as I want edible seeds and the flesh. That type is suppose to provide both and with the benefit of the hulless seeds. I have also transplanted my eggplants between where we planted the pumpkins, this is my first year of planting eggplants. I am hoping they do well as we do eat eggplants when we can get them.

I still need to go out and clear the unwanted plants from my potato bed, looks outside yep still raining. So I am hoping to do that tomorrow, along with pulling up more red clover for the chickens; and possibly getting out to the berry plants and trimming back the briar again. I had my girls get it a couple weeks ago and it's growing back pretty fast right now. We got some of the “grass” in front of the house cut this morning till we discovered the string in the weed wacker is stuck.

I am starting on a book that I am planning on writing a review on once I am done with it, I found it at the free store we stopped at on Sat. I found a couple of cooking and gardening books this time around, which is good for me. We re-arraigned our furniture/appliances in the house and got our open space back and moved our deep freezer to where we can get at it easier.

My tomato plants are finally taking off, and I hope to get the materials I need for the pots I am going to put them in. I am going to fill these large (bottom broken) tubs half way with straw then a mix of compost/manure/topsoil and plant the seedlings in that. That mix worked well for the tomatoes last year so I am going to repeat it.

That's it for now folks,

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Lots of Random Work

Good Mid-morning everyone!

I finally got our blankets out the clothes line... I had been putting them off, but decided to get them out today.. of course we are out of bleach so I tried peroxide on the white ones. We'll see if they get as bright as bleach, I don't like bleach and would love a few recommendations on an alternative for a -GOOD- whitener to use instead.

One of the girls informed me this morning one of their friends is selling rabbits, YEAH! Maybe I'll get my start on my rabbit breeding group even though I had given up on them for this year. I like rabbit meat, and they grow quick and convert feed to meat the best. I am planning on trying what Joseph Stalin over at Polyface Farms has done (I don't know if he still is though) and get them back to eating grasses instead of “bought” feed. It will probably take a few generations though, and I am willing to try it out till they are able to move to a close to 100% grass feeding. I know from experience that rabbits that are “pets” do still eat grass when given the chance. I personally think they just don't know how too eat it full time. I am also looking forward to the wonderful manure we'll get from it!

I picked up some humming bird food this morning, and I am hoping by next year my few shrubs that should attract them will be big enough to sustain them instead of me buying “feed” for them. I my opinion any kind of pollinator is a good thing, as long as it's a pollinator.

This morning I have also set up one quart jar of orange rosemary vinegar to “blend” over the next two weeks. I am hoping for some interesting salads from this, as it will be used in making salad dressings. I will test it in two weeks to see if it's what I want, if it's not strong enough yet it'll go back to the dark spot in my pantry. I cut the rosemary just before putting it into the vinegar, my little plant has so much new growth on it I do hope it grows big. A five foot tall rosemary bush would not bother me one bit. I think I know a few people who would agree with me too.

I am going to try tomorrow to get pictures of the potatoes that are coming up in the potato bed. I have also started clearing the area for my “sanctuary”, it's not going to be very big. It's also going to be a lot closer to the road than I'd like, however; it “feels” like the right spot. I am planning on setting out a circle with a brick outline and place a correct tree at the compass points (anyone got the list of the trees that would go there?), I need to look up the correspondence for it. I use to have it written down, but it got lost somewhere. I am hoping to find enough stone on property to make a small alter in the center for offerings. Then on the one end we will be making the “memory garden” for my dad and Silver's first wife. I can picture it in my head , I just hope it translates well.

Well that's it for now.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Earthday in the garden

Well it was such a pretty morning this morning when we got up we sat outside to enjoy the morning sunshine, before the kids went off to church. We also went out to see what our screening trees were doing, and right now the ones doing the best seems to be the poplar's and I was concerned about those ones. I had thought those weren't going to grow well, but they are “leafing out” the best right now. My willows are getting leaves, but very slowly.

I went out and finished “weeding” the garden bed that the green cabbage, lettuce, chard, onions, corn salad, and chrysanthemums are in, and then planted my bush bean seeds. I did pole beans last year, but they did not produce as well as the bush beans I have used for years. I do want to make a very good effort to grow Tiger's eyes next year, provided I can find a place that will sell me about a pound of them at a reasonable price.

While I was planting the beans I noticed that the soil is looking wonderful there, and the chicken manure is composting down well in the soil. The funny thing is, the area the most of our volunteers are coming up in that bed is on the end that had the worst soil last year. Seems I got the soil right in that section now. I did fin another volunteer today a bit farther down than the others. I have almost ½ a pound of my blue lake bush beans planted. I will be planting more once the other plants there are done growing and have been fully harvested. I did discover that right now I didn't need a full pound, but next year I will have a “bed” big enough for it.

I also went and set out the sprouted potatoes we have discovered in our potato bin. While out there I did discover that my seed potatoes are growing, and I had to do a quick check and make sure I did not step on any of them. Also I had to recover a couple I saw that were uncovered, as well as move a little of the straw away from one that was struggling a little.

The puppies my girls have been taking care of are supposedly leaving this week, we'll see if they do or not. I am hoping that we can do some training on the pups Paris had and maybe raise their value a little, maybe we can get a little money for them. Though Tink.. I'll save one if the little guy can have it yet.

That's it for now,

Be Well Be Safe, and Blessed Be....

New Plants are on their way!

Well... today is going to be a semi-long day. All the kids are off school for today as it's the end of the marking period. So grades are out too, which my kids are not terribly worried over.

We have peas sprouts, cabbage sprouts, onions popping up. Not to mention we picked up some red cabbage plants and some brussel sprout plants. Also... I received my plant investment from my mother and aside for the money I had set aside for Baker Creek (which went to something for a pick me up after some bad news) I have placed some seed, plant orders. We have a irs check coming..in the mail... after we discovered the bank wouldn't accept the check. We are going to use that money for a car when it gets here. Problem is we found 3 that we really wanted that we looked for when we thought it would be directly deposited. Then find out the bank wouldn't accept the check, it wound up be a big let down. One that required a “pick me up” meal. It entailed beef fajitas, followed up by chocolate cake for the adults macaroni for the kids. So the money I put aside for the bulk of my seeds will be coming out of the remainder of our irs check. I am planning to take Queen sized Tink with me when I go shopping (I hope we don't run them out of inventory grins).

As for the plants/seeds I ordered with the companies, now note I did buy plants from Burgess... aside from 1 due to it being the only place that carried it, the other plants are ornamental from them.

Burgess:

Screen trees/shrubs:

Russian olive (5 plants)

Hybrid Willow (20 plants)

Butterfly/insect attractant shrubs:

Old Fashioned Lilac (2 plants)

Pink Honeysuckle (3 plants)

Edibles:

Daylilies (20 plants?)

Dwarf Flowering cherry (8 plants)

Cold Hardy Banana (4 trees)

Luffa sponge squash ( 1 pkt)

Other:

Weeping Willow (2 trees)

Bushel Gourd (1 pkt)

Stokes Seed Company:

Ornamental:

Purple Millet (1 pkt)

Edibles:

Corn salad (1 pkt)

Blue Lake bush beans (1 lb)

Celery Root (1 pkt)

Raintree:

Wintergreen (4 plants)

Goji berries (1 plant)

Russian Tea (2 trees)

Rhubarb (4 crowns?)

I think this is a very nice start plant wise, the cold hardy banana is suppose to be edible, and with how we go through bananas. I do hope they taste good... we eat bananas like most people drink water. Burgess is the only company that offers it, so that was a necessity. We are getting a goji berry as I want to try them, I figure if they have an odd flavor I can always mix them into something and we'd get the health benefits from them. Anybody know if you can harvest from a tea plant in the first year you plant it?

I replaced the potatoes the former roosters ate today, then watered all the garden. Mind you, we were suppose to get rain for the last few days... it has all avoided us. I'm figuring that because I watered it will rain today. Had a funny moment while watering the potato pile, one of the kittens was trying to catch the water and not understanding why he was getting wet.

Well that's it for now, everyone have a good weekend!

Be Well, Be safe, and Blessed be...

Final Potato Harvest!

So I have managed to get all my potatoes dug up, take a look:


These particular ones are "German Butterball" they are an heirloom variety, and I do have to say that I really did prefer them to the ones that we planted from our winter sprouters. Also I liked them more from the "local" seed potatoes as the heirlooms produced much more as you can see in the vid. Now I am going to walk you through my "experiment" process with this again. For those of you who want to know about it.



This is what we had started with a, about one inch layer of composted goat manure on some cleared ground. The area was about 5ftX10ft. We planted first our "over winter sprouters" in the first "row" (if you want to call it that). That was a mix of russets and fingerling potatoes that we bought over the winter from both of the discount grocery stores we shop at.

Then we both ordered the Butterball seed potatoes and bought some local seed potatoes as we didn't know how well any of them would produce. Also as I have never grown potatoes before it was a trial in many ways for me. I now understand why I have heard people say that "anyone can grow potatoes". They are very simple to grow and I barely watered them





I hope you can see what's in this image, it's one of the "sprouter" potatoes coming out of the ground. Now I learned that it takes quite some time for them to "get moving", so if you have never grown potatoes; don't worry they'll come up.













Here is where we started putting straw down to cover the base of the plants. I waited for them to produce a good amount of leaves before I started doing this, as I did not want to smother the plant.













This is after I stopped layering the straw over the base of the plants, the potatoes made such a nice "mini forest" at this point. They were also very lush and I still was not watering them at this point. I only watered them once we started getting a week or more without rain.

I am wondering to some extent if I had watered more would the potatoes have gotten bigger? Also all around the "pile" Lamb's quarter started growing, so we had some extra food growing. Yeah for Nature's bounty!







This is from my first harvest in the "pile" as you can see the ground is a lovely dark color under the straw. The straw right before the ground level has turned black and is "slimy" to an extent. A good "earthy" smell started coming up when I was digging through this.

I will say digging up potatoes is like going on a treasure hunt...









...as you can see:

These were from my first harvest, and it is all we got from the store seed potatoes and the sprouters. Now, this does show that over wintered sprouters can be grown, they might not grow as much as "seed" potatoes; but some will produce. You can also see we got some russets and some golds.

That was about 5 Cups worth of potatoes we got in the first "half" of the "pile".









Of Course these are from the second half off my "pile", as you saw in the vid. I am very happy with how well the Butterball's did. I will be buying them again next year, I am thinking of keeping an eye out for winter sprouters again so we have some early potatoes. I am also planning on watering more regularly next year and see if they get bigger due to it.

I also learned that a thick layer of straw will help your topsoil, as it is really making the ground under where my "pile" was a nice and pretty section of dirt. We are going to apply this knowledge to the rest of my current garden space and our future large garden space. The plan when the "cleared" area gets the downed trees cut up and the brush removed we will cover the future garden space with either straw or hay.

Then we will leave it until the following spring, and it should get nice and dark below the straw from the local earth "movers" working their way through it. Also the fungus's that grow beneath the top layer. It is an interesting process to watch, the straw frost drops any seed it had and then we get grass growing. A bit of water and mushrooms grow, bit more water and mold will start forming in mats.

Insects start moving in making little paths in the straw to let more air and water pass. Earthworms start chewing up the lower bits of the straw leaving behind casings. Eventually all this together will make it into compost. It's almost like making your own leaf mold to some extent. I can't wait till I check out what has happened to it by next spring!



That's it for now,

Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...

Those ain't no small potatoes..

Got pics of my "potato experiment", experiment to me as this really is my first time ever growing them. Now I started with just a lay of composted goat manure and planted them right into the manure, a couple are "Sprouters" from my potato bin the rest are seed taters.

This is the view now:

Now I admit... I need to do a tad bit of weeding, and my youngest promised me she would do it... well.. she did kind of. She weeded around all the big potato plants, when I spread that straw this morning I stepped on one because I couldn't see it under the weeds! So later after we have our bath I'm going to go out and clear weeds... I hate weeding... Also there are about 2 that are on their second layer of straw already.. and those are 2 of my sprouters.

This is one that's on it's first layer:

Lovely isn't it? and soooo lush looking! Pity you can't eat the leaves as they look so bright green!

This morning we finished (kind of) a project for the dogs, a stack wood dog house. We were stacking logs on and off for one and the youngest dog kept knocking them over, and with what appears to be a typical week in Ozarks Spring.. (stormy) I suggested we finish it the best we could today. So we finished up the walls and used some of the paneling we are going to build the chicken coop walls with for it's "temporary" roof. I am hoping to get something better for the roof later.

Here it is:

It looks huge, but it's not really; the logs give it the impression of being big. Now we just have to hope the little guy uses it. the two females are using one huge dog house together, and probably consider themselves lucky as it has an old mattress inside it. It only has that as Paris prefers soft things.. I can't blame her really who wants to lay on the ground? They all spent the winter sleeping on our beds so now they are going to get tons of fresh air. Whether they want it or not.

Seedling Update:

4/20/2011 2 Scotch Bonnet (hot pepper)

4/20/2011 1 Golden Marconi Pepper (sweet frying pepper)

I do hope the other peppers I planted start coming up, we also have Dill coming up, Chives, and some random herbs as silly me; I forgot to mark the pots...*sighs* I'll figure it out when they get their first true leaves I guess.

I do hope everyone stays safe in this nasty weather that's been floating around.

Be Well and Blessed Be...

Early planting!

First I'd like to pint out the newest link on the side here, it's a map of the gas prices across the USA; so if you are going on a trip or are just curious you can take a peek.

This little onion sprout is on the edge of my potato "bed", I have spent a little time (and money) buying and planting some potatoes and onions today. The local grocery store had seed potatoes at $0.49 a pound! Well, even though we ordered some seed potatoes online today:

http://gurneys.com/german-butterball-potato/p/83382/

It's an heirloom, and a white medium sized potato so it should be good for us. Anywho... we got some Irish seed potatoes, and I cut and planted them today. Yes, I know it's a little early; but I want to see if I can get them to sprout this early. Also as I have never grow potatoes before I want to try out a few things I have read up on, one of which is growing them in cut grass or straw. This one I am trying this year, however I do have them "starting" in straight goat manure leftover from last year. As they grow we will add straw instead of dirt mounding them higher.

I have started planting my onion sets as well, yes again I know it's early. This is something I have experience planting since I was little, and again I want to see how early I can plant them here. I have only planted them on the outside of my potato plot.. kinda a way to show where the potatoes are and hopefully to make the plants unappealing to other animals. We will see if this winds up a good companion planting or not.

Now this pot (which by the way is from our holiday tree that didn't make it over winter), has some garlic that sprouted in my garlic container. We are going to see if they will grow or not. This pot again only has goat manure in it leftover from last year. We tried growing some sprouted garlic last year, but as it was planted in the clay soil it did not do well after a couple of weeks. We are hoping this will work better.

Speaking of pots, today at the MFA we picked up 5 cracked feed buckets that we are going to use as planting pots this year. At $3 a piece it was a very good deal, they only have one large crack in each bottom; which as we'd have to drill holes in them otherwise is a good thing.

Another good deal we have come across is for our toilet, as we are using a "sawdust" toilet we are always looking for cheap sawdust. Well there is a lumber mill near here that we can buy sawdust for $10 for a pickup truck full. well, all we need now is a pickup, until then we found out at the MFA that they have bales of sawdust/shavings for $5 for 7 cubic yards. We were paying $6 at Wal-mart for 4 cubic yards so it's a much better deal and 7 cubic yards lasts at least 3 weeks.

Well other than bread making, laundry drying and smelling this wonderful roast I'm making for dinner; nothing else going on here today.

Be Well and Blessed Be...