Symbiosis. What a great word. It means two or more entities working with each other. Our garden is becoming a symbiotic haven this summer.
Firstly I planted corn, beans and squash together under the rows of hay I had put down last fall. I am experimenting with the Ruth Stout method of no till gardening, along with the Native American 'Three Sisters' method of companion planting. I have also planted potatoes and onions under the remaining hay rows.
The corn is doing very well, as are the beans. The squash was a bit of a disaster as I only have two of the twelve seeds I had planted germinate. One thing I have notices with the corn though is that the row that is higher up the hill has grown much faster than the other two. There could be several reasons for this. One is that it gets all the run off from the field when it rains. Another is that when I laid the hay down last year, I used some bales of hay that had spoiled by being left out in the field on the top row. The lower rows had old hay form the barn that had gotten damp. Either way there is a definite different in the growth rate, but not the germination rate. I had almost 100% success rate.
The potatoes have also been very successful as far as plant growth is concerned. I have not harvested any yet so I won't know if the potato yield is successful. I have had a small problem with Colorado Beetle, but we now have a daily ritual where I shake the plants and let the beetles or larvae drop into an old drinks bowl. I then visit Henrietta and Penelope, or two barred rock chickens. When they see me coming with that bowl they start clucking and dancing which I can only think is a chickens way of salivating. I drop those bugs onto a bare patch of ground and they gobble them up in a second.
Doing this is not only a safe way to control the pests, but gives the girls a welcome treat. Symbiosis! I feel we have finally started to advance in our endeavors after two hard years of seeming to get no where.
The chicken coop is moved along once a week and where the chicken have been working that week is raked and then sown with oats. This is then covered with hay. Time will tell if this will work, but it is all part of my no till experiment.
All the seeds I have used this year have been heirloom seeds from Baker Creek and it feels good to know that if I get a harvest from them, they will be wholesome food with a really natural taste. We actually drove over to Baker Creek this Sunday and attended one of their monthly festivals that they run throughout the summer. It was well worth the drive and I encourage any of you if you live near one of the three locations to pay them a visit. You won't be disappointed.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Friday, June 20, 2014
Summer Success
I really must post more regularly on here as there has been a lot going on since I last wrote.
The rabbits have finally started breeding. Well one of them has, but unfortunately both times she has kindled on the cage floor and the kits have died because they were cold. Partly my fault as I didn't get to them in time.
Continuing my experiments with the Ruth Stout method of gardening, I had laid down four hundred foot rows of hay last fall. I planted potatoes in one of the rows and the other three I attempted a three sisters planting of corn, beans and squash. All the seeds were heritage seed from Baker Creek. The potatoes were from one of the local feed stores.
The potatoes started to grow really well and then we were hit with an unexpected frost one night which looked to kill about thirty potato plants. I trimmed off all the black damaged leaves and hoped they would recover. They did and I now have over sixty well established planted that I have hilled up twice with more hay.
The corn is doing really well also. Out of all the seeds I planted, about six have not shown. The beans and squash didn't do so good. For every corn planting there was a bean planted next to it. I have about fifty percent germination on the beans. The squash did very poorly and I only have a couple that germinated. I may need to start them off in pots when I do it next year. Actually I have recently learned of a way to use eggshells as seed starters and I will try that. You take the eggshell and carefully bore a hole in the bottom for drainage, fill it with compost and plant your seed. When you are ready to transplant them in the garden, you just squeeze the shell to crack it and plant the complete thing in the ground. This gives the plant lots of vitamins and calcium as the shell breaks down. The roots 'hatch out' the bottom of the shell. This idea came from a really cool family that post video on YouTube. They go by the username Survival HT. Thank you guys.
Talking of eggs, the main project this year was to start keeping laying hens. I built a chicken coop from plans I found on the net that use cattle panels bent over to form a Quonset structure. It has a wooden frame around the base and the two panels are attached to it. More panel is used for the ends and a door is built into one end. The whole structure is then covered in poultry netting and then tarps for weather proofing. It can be moved around the field so the chickens improve the ground it is on, they are then moved to a new spot and the first spot is now clear for planting. We were given two Barred Rock chickens by a colleague at work and we have had them for about two weeks. It took them just over a week to settle in but they are now giving us eggs!
As the laying program is now successfully under way, I am looking at meat chickens for next year. Again they will be on a pasture rotation system and after reading up on the subject, we have decided that the usual Cornish Cross chickens are not for us. If we are going to raise our own meat then it will be tasteful in more ways than one. The CC birds suffer too much when they get to slaughter weight as their legs are not strong enough to carry them around. This would make it impossible to use them in a pasture setting. Instead, we will try to get Freedom Rangers. These are colored birds that grow a little more slowly than the white birds. They don't get as heavy as the white birds either, but the taste is so much better. We may even try raising our own stock once we have the initial flock.
We haven't made any hay this year as we have so much still left from last year. The two year old hay is being used for the no till garden and if we run out I will just cut some from the field and bale it as I need it. I have a friend lined up to come and brush hog the field at the end of the summer. The reason for this is mainly to hammer the Horse Nettle population. This is a poisonous plant that is not good for livestock. We are hoping that cutting it just before it get to flowering, we can knock it back some. We will see if it works.
I eventually want to run some small livestock over the land: I'm still not sure whether it will be goats or hair sheep. Whatever it is, it will be dual purpose for bot meat and dairy. I'm still reading up on that one.
All in all, we are having a good year. There has been quite a lot of rain so far this year and it has definitely helped the plants to grow. Unfortunately it has also made the grass row and I hate mowing the lawns. Let's hope we don't get infested with the locusts and grasshoppers like we have done in the last two years.
The rabbits have finally started breeding. Well one of them has, but unfortunately both times she has kindled on the cage floor and the kits have died because they were cold. Partly my fault as I didn't get to them in time.
Continuing my experiments with the Ruth Stout method of gardening, I had laid down four hundred foot rows of hay last fall. I planted potatoes in one of the rows and the other three I attempted a three sisters planting of corn, beans and squash. All the seeds were heritage seed from Baker Creek. The potatoes were from one of the local feed stores.
The potatoes started to grow really well and then we were hit with an unexpected frost one night which looked to kill about thirty potato plants. I trimmed off all the black damaged leaves and hoped they would recover. They did and I now have over sixty well established planted that I have hilled up twice with more hay.
The corn is doing really well also. Out of all the seeds I planted, about six have not shown. The beans and squash didn't do so good. For every corn planting there was a bean planted next to it. I have about fifty percent germination on the beans. The squash did very poorly and I only have a couple that germinated. I may need to start them off in pots when I do it next year. Actually I have recently learned of a way to use eggshells as seed starters and I will try that. You take the eggshell and carefully bore a hole in the bottom for drainage, fill it with compost and plant your seed. When you are ready to transplant them in the garden, you just squeeze the shell to crack it and plant the complete thing in the ground. This gives the plant lots of vitamins and calcium as the shell breaks down. The roots 'hatch out' the bottom of the shell. This idea came from a really cool family that post video on YouTube. They go by the username Survival HT. Thank you guys.
Talking of eggs, the main project this year was to start keeping laying hens. I built a chicken coop from plans I found on the net that use cattle panels bent over to form a Quonset structure. It has a wooden frame around the base and the two panels are attached to it. More panel is used for the ends and a door is built into one end. The whole structure is then covered in poultry netting and then tarps for weather proofing. It can be moved around the field so the chickens improve the ground it is on, they are then moved to a new spot and the first spot is now clear for planting. We were given two Barred Rock chickens by a colleague at work and we have had them for about two weeks. It took them just over a week to settle in but they are now giving us eggs!
As the laying program is now successfully under way, I am looking at meat chickens for next year. Again they will be on a pasture rotation system and after reading up on the subject, we have decided that the usual Cornish Cross chickens are not for us. If we are going to raise our own meat then it will be tasteful in more ways than one. The CC birds suffer too much when they get to slaughter weight as their legs are not strong enough to carry them around. This would make it impossible to use them in a pasture setting. Instead, we will try to get Freedom Rangers. These are colored birds that grow a little more slowly than the white birds. They don't get as heavy as the white birds either, but the taste is so much better. We may even try raising our own stock once we have the initial flock.
We haven't made any hay this year as we have so much still left from last year. The two year old hay is being used for the no till garden and if we run out I will just cut some from the field and bale it as I need it. I have a friend lined up to come and brush hog the field at the end of the summer. The reason for this is mainly to hammer the Horse Nettle population. This is a poisonous plant that is not good for livestock. We are hoping that cutting it just before it get to flowering, we can knock it back some. We will see if it works.
I eventually want to run some small livestock over the land: I'm still not sure whether it will be goats or hair sheep. Whatever it is, it will be dual purpose for bot meat and dairy. I'm still reading up on that one.
All in all, we are having a good year. There has been quite a lot of rain so far this year and it has definitely helped the plants to grow. Unfortunately it has also made the grass row and I hate mowing the lawns. Let's hope we don't get infested with the locusts and grasshoppers like we have done in the last two years.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
A lesson in life
About this time of year, my life gets all consuming. It's the end of the school year and I always seem to have a hundred and one projects to complete before we can all relax for three months, or in my case, change jobs and become a full time farmer.
But yesterday I was given a lesson in life when I heard news that one of our eighth grade students had gone down to Little Rock to have tests for leukemia. This young lady is one of those rare students these days. She is bright and intelligent, quiet and well mannered, pretty without the trim and frills of the current fashion. All in all she is a super nice girl.
She will miss all the end of year celebrations, and she will miss the Eighth Grade Promotion where she should have received awards for her schoolwork.
Her father came into school today to let us know what was happening, and I was called to the office to speak to him. He had a favor to ask of me. As she couldn't attend the Promotion, could I stream it live so she could watch it while in her hospital bed? I have never meant it more than when I told him I would do my best to make it happen.
It's at times like this that a person starts to question the god he or she looks to and asks the question "Why her?" It's also at times like this that you rely on the power of prayer to help you come to terms with the situation.
But who are we praying for? Are we praying for the child that is hooked up to an IV that is pumping poisons into her body to try and kill the disease in her? Or are we praying for ourselves so we can come to terms with the fact we are supposed to protect these children and we failed?
Perhaps it's a little of both, and I must admit to not being a church going christian and announcing my faith very often. But it doesn't mean I don't believe in god, it just means I don't believe in church.
Today I received a copy of a text conversation between this girl and a friend and colleague who had taken it on to tell her how we all thought and send her some words of hope. I read that text conversation over and over again, soaking up the strength from their words.
Today I prayed. I prayed that she will make a full recovery and go on to be the woman she is meant to be. I prayed that I can fulfill the task her father asked of me. I prayed that her friends can find the strength to carry on with life and to be there for her when needed.
Today was a lesson in life.
But yesterday I was given a lesson in life when I heard news that one of our eighth grade students had gone down to Little Rock to have tests for leukemia. This young lady is one of those rare students these days. She is bright and intelligent, quiet and well mannered, pretty without the trim and frills of the current fashion. All in all she is a super nice girl.
She will miss all the end of year celebrations, and she will miss the Eighth Grade Promotion where she should have received awards for her schoolwork.
Her father came into school today to let us know what was happening, and I was called to the office to speak to him. He had a favor to ask of me. As she couldn't attend the Promotion, could I stream it live so she could watch it while in her hospital bed? I have never meant it more than when I told him I would do my best to make it happen.
It's at times like this that a person starts to question the god he or she looks to and asks the question "Why her?" It's also at times like this that you rely on the power of prayer to help you come to terms with the situation.
But who are we praying for? Are we praying for the child that is hooked up to an IV that is pumping poisons into her body to try and kill the disease in her? Or are we praying for ourselves so we can come to terms with the fact we are supposed to protect these children and we failed?
Perhaps it's a little of both, and I must admit to not being a church going christian and announcing my faith very often. But it doesn't mean I don't believe in god, it just means I don't believe in church.
Today I received a copy of a text conversation between this girl and a friend and colleague who had taken it on to tell her how we all thought and send her some words of hope. I read that text conversation over and over again, soaking up the strength from their words.
Today I prayed. I prayed that she will make a full recovery and go on to be the woman she is meant to be. I prayed that I can fulfill the task her father asked of me. I prayed that her friends can find the strength to carry on with life and to be there for her when needed.
Today was a lesson in life.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
We need eggs!
The title of this post was the exclamation Sophie made recently. She has become quite the cook over the last year, and if Momma is ever out of the house, then we know Sophie will take over the kitchen and keep us fed. But she does tend to go through quite a lot of eggs. So much so that we have now decided that this year's project will be a chicken tractor.
I've been looking at different designs over the last year, to see which one would suit us. It had to be cheap and easy to build, predator proof and easy enough for one person to move.
After a lot of studying, I have finally found one that matches our needs. Its a Quonset design using cattle panels curved and attached to a wooden base frame. The cattle panels supply the form of the tractor with finer mesh covering it to stop predators getting in. The nest boxes are attached to one end and there is a door at the other. The nest box end is also covered with tarpaulin to provide shelter from the weather for the birds.
As soon as the weather allows us to work outside again, then the construction will begin. It may be a little while yet though, as we are experiencing one of the snowiest and coldest winters for a long while this year. This may be a freak of nature, or it may be a sign of things to come. Either way, it has shown us some of our weaknesses that have to be resolved. We had a dam of snow still on the roof at the back of the house one night and it decided to pour with rain. Because the rainwater couldn't run down the roof because of the snow dam, we started to have drips coming through the ceiling in the living room. I had to climb up and release the snow from the roof, in the pouring rain at 11pm at night. Not something I want to do too often.
We are all looking forward to another year on the farm, and the adventures it brings us. Lots of new things to try and hopefully succeed at. If not, then we learn from the experience.
I've been looking at different designs over the last year, to see which one would suit us. It had to be cheap and easy to build, predator proof and easy enough for one person to move.
After a lot of studying, I have finally found one that matches our needs. Its a Quonset design using cattle panels curved and attached to a wooden base frame. The cattle panels supply the form of the tractor with finer mesh covering it to stop predators getting in. The nest boxes are attached to one end and there is a door at the other. The nest box end is also covered with tarpaulin to provide shelter from the weather for the birds.
As soon as the weather allows us to work outside again, then the construction will begin. It may be a little while yet though, as we are experiencing one of the snowiest and coldest winters for a long while this year. This may be a freak of nature, or it may be a sign of things to come. Either way, it has shown us some of our weaknesses that have to be resolved. We had a dam of snow still on the roof at the back of the house one night and it decided to pour with rain. Because the rainwater couldn't run down the roof because of the snow dam, we started to have drips coming through the ceiling in the living room. I had to climb up and release the snow from the roof, in the pouring rain at 11pm at night. Not something I want to do too often.
We are all looking forward to another year on the farm, and the adventures it brings us. Lots of new things to try and hopefully succeed at. If not, then we learn from the experience.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Hay. hay, hay
Last year we struggled in the heat to make some hay. This year I decided to try and make it easier for us all. One of the hardest parts is to rake up the hay and bring it all to the barn for hand baling. I decided to first of all, rebuild the baler so it was upright, to compress it easier and thus make more solid a bale. I then secured it to a pallet and then fitted sled runners to the bottom of the pallet. This way we could drag it with the lawn tractor and bale the hay along the windrows. This was a big hit with the family, and you can see a few pictures of this on my daughter's blog Two girls and a farm blog. The link is on the side. In the end we ended up with eighty five good looking bales.
The hay from last year is being used for rabbit litter under the cages. The rabbits are eating me out of house and home and do not care that all they are producing for me is a steady pile of manure for the garden. At the moment the buck is trying to do his part, but the two does are not recipricating.
The rest of the old hay will be used as cover mulch for a section of garden that we will be sowing winter cover crops, wheat and sumflowers. We have decided after breaking the tiller four times this year, that we will be practicing a no till garden.
We were recently given over thirty raspberry canes. I chose eighteen of these and planted them in the orchard. Tony's job each evening is to water these. Because of this, and wanting to set up an irrigation system for the orchard, I have been looking into using gray water from the washing machine. It would not be practical to fit a permanent system, so what we have come up with is to run a hose out to the patio, where we will have a barrel fixed to a cart. The cart can then be wheeled to the top of the orchard and connected to a drip irrigation system.
We have just started picking blackberries and this year I intend to put some by to make some wine. If we get as many as last year, we will have plenty to make wine, jelly and the family's favorite, blackberry cobbler.
The hay from last year is being used for rabbit litter under the cages. The rabbits are eating me out of house and home and do not care that all they are producing for me is a steady pile of manure for the garden. At the moment the buck is trying to do his part, but the two does are not recipricating.
The rest of the old hay will be used as cover mulch for a section of garden that we will be sowing winter cover crops, wheat and sumflowers. We have decided after breaking the tiller four times this year, that we will be practicing a no till garden.
We were recently given over thirty raspberry canes. I chose eighteen of these and planted them in the orchard. Tony's job each evening is to water these. Because of this, and wanting to set up an irrigation system for the orchard, I have been looking into using gray water from the washing machine. It would not be practical to fit a permanent system, so what we have come up with is to run a hose out to the patio, where we will have a barrel fixed to a cart. The cart can then be wheeled to the top of the orchard and connected to a drip irrigation system.
We have just started picking blackberries and this year I intend to put some by to make some wine. If we get as many as last year, we will have plenty to make wine, jelly and the family's favorite, blackberry cobbler.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Summer and wood chippings
School is out and we become full time farmers for the next three months. We have now got the rabbitry up and running with one buck and two does. They are New Zealand Whites and will be ready to start "working" in the next week or so.
Our garden has been converted to a no till garden. We recently aquired about three hundred cubic feet of wood chippings from a local tree service and three quarters of the garden is now covered. the remaining quarter was already planted, but once these have been harvested, then it will also get a covering. I have planted some shallots in the wood chippings and they are coming up nicely. We have also planted a row of sunflower seeds in the mowed area to the side of the garden by making a hole and dropping the seed in the hole. To my surprise they are also coming up. I am growing these for food supplement for the rabbits.The swale is working well keeping the garden moist. The bank infront of the swale has also been covered with wood chippings and we plan to plant peas in it.
Hay making has started and I have made an agreement with a friend to supply him with as much hay as I can.
Our garden has been converted to a no till garden. We recently aquired about three hundred cubic feet of wood chippings from a local tree service and three quarters of the garden is now covered. the remaining quarter was already planted, but once these have been harvested, then it will also get a covering. I have planted some shallots in the wood chippings and they are coming up nicely. We have also planted a row of sunflower seeds in the mowed area to the side of the garden by making a hole and dropping the seed in the hole. To my surprise they are also coming up. I am growing these for food supplement for the rabbits.The swale is working well keeping the garden moist. The bank infront of the swale has also been covered with wood chippings and we plan to plant peas in it.
Hay making has started and I have made an agreement with a friend to supply him with as much hay as I can.
Friday, February 22, 2013
A little soapbox time
As I have mentioned before I don't get involved in politics or religion, but when something makes me react like this, I feel I have to do something.
My wife likes to watch videos on Wimp.com, in fact we all do from time to time. Anyway, we were home from school due to a snow day and just wasting a little time on the computer. She then read the title of a video she was about to watch. "This video should be seen by the whole world". Okay, usually when you get emails like that it means that you are about to get attacked by viruses, but this wasn't an email and I didn't really want to be the only person in the world who hadn't seen it. Before I give yo the link to it, I must warn you it is not pretty. It shows baby albatrosses in the Midway Atoll, dying a horrible death due to ingesting bits of plastic. This is a trailer for the full feature film made by a guy called Chris Jordan. At the end of the trailer, he gives you the address of his website and yes, you guessed it, I went there.
The link to the trailer is http://www.wimp.com/beseen/ and the link to the website is http://midwayfilm.com/index.html.
I'm pretty certain that if you read my blogs, it is because you are the same kind of person as I am. You love nature in all its forms. You probably feel you have a responsibility to leave this planet a tiny bit better than how you found it. I know in this age, that is a hard thing to accomplish, especially when one group of experts tell you one thing, and another group tell you the opposite. But every now and then you see something that you don't need experts telling you what to think, because it's there right in front of you, and this was one of those moments for me.
What the hell are we doing to our planet when we dump all that crap into the oceans. If you watch the videos on Chris' website, you will see some guys cleaning up a beach. They shovel loads of stuff onto the sidewalk and heave old fishing nets that have been discarded by commercial fishing boats. As soon as they finish, one of the men takes the camera down to the wash line and already there are loads of small pieces of plastic being washed up onto the sand.
In another clip, a wildlife officer does an onsite necropsy on a corpse. In that one bird he pulls out about six bottle tops, as well as other unidentified bits of plastic. Bottle tops are the most common item found in these bird.
I have never been a fan of bottled water. At all the meetings I have ever had to attend, there are always bottles of water handed out, as if it is more of a corporate badge than a source of hydration. If I have ever wanted a drink, I have always provided my own bottle that I filled up from the faucet. After all, that "spring water" they pass out is probably from the same place I got mine.
It is reported that there is a flotilla of plastic and other garbage floating in the Pacific, the size of Texas. We have got to stop crapping on our planet and ruining it for future generations. We have got to clean up our act and start being responsible for our actions. The technology is there to convert plastic back to oil. Oil that we can use elsewhere, instead of further messing up the planet with deep sea drilling and fracking. The main problem with that idea, as well as other cleaning systems is no one is making enough money out of it. We are just too greedy for our own good. When all the fish in the sea have gone, or are too poisonous to eat and the water is too toxic to swim in, then maybe someone will do something about it, because someone will be losing money.
It's time to wake up and smell the pig shit, because no one is smelling of roses anymore. We are all guilty and it's time to man up and fix it. No excuses.
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