Down in the dirt

 Unfortunately the tomato and potato crops were a bust this year. We got a nasty case of blight that quickly spread throughout the garden and caused all the tomatoes to rot on the vine. The potato plants all just wilted and died.

 With very little hope, I dumped the pots of soil where there should have potatoes still happily growing. The first four pots had empty potato skins and these disgusting yellow slimy things  that I guess used to be potatoes before things went horribly wrong. I had lost hope completely by the time I got to the last pot.

Behold my five potatoes! 

Lo and behold the last pot had just a few good tubers and a bunch of tiny mini-pots! At least my container potato experiment was not a complete failure. Next year, I think I will be doing some very proactive anti-fungal spraying. 

Front yard vegetable gardening

 Over the weekend I built two more raised beds from pallets for the front yard vegetable garden. We've got beans and peas out there, also tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots, squash, and potatoes. Eventually I'd like to have a full two rows of beds out there.
  Despite the face that we have about 8 acres of pasture, gardening in the front yard makes sense for us because it is away from hungry goat mouths and scratching poultry feet. This area also gets full sun all day long. It may not be pretty, but over the winter we made many a meal from the cabbages and broccoli growing out front.

 The potato plants are growing like crazy in the deepest and biggest containers I could get my hands on. I'm hoping we'll have luck growing them like this, though I suspect that we will end up with some oddly shaped tubers.

  I seem to be having a problem with some kind on fungus on the cucumbers and squash. I've been spraying them with a diluted milk solution that 'the interweb' swears works on this sort of thing. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

 Proof that I can, in fact, grow tomatoes. Every year, I dream of bumper crops of tomatoes that I can turning into a pantry full of canned sauces and salsas. Every year, our tomato crop just flops. Not this year, darn it! This year out motto is tomatoes or bust!

Home grown

Things out in the garden are doing well. The raised garden beds turned out to be a great idea with our less than super soil. I have been buying a combination of the cheapest dirts at Lowes (organic compost, hummus, and top soil) and mixing it with all the sheep and rabbit poop I can load into my garden cart and drag up to the front yard.  The neighbors probably think I'm crazy stirring up a giant pile of dirt and poop on a regular basis, but the veggies are growing like gangbusters. A couple weeks ago, we got to enjoy of the fruits (well, veggies) of my labor...

 Behold the brussel sprouts! 

I tried for years and years to grow these pesky vegetables and never had one lick of luck growing even one single sprout. I had actually sworn off the things completely, refusing to even attempt to grow them for many years. I would classify this stalk as a minor success considering it was the only one of the 6 plant I had out there to make anything resembling brussel sprouts. 

I also managed to grow a respectable number of turnips from seed despite my complete failure to thin the patch once the seeds had sprouted.

Our dinner that night was all things grown right here on the farm. One of our delicious chickens with steamed brussel sprouts and roasted turnips. It's a really good feeling to sit down to a meal where I know exactly how everything was grown and raised. Plus all this homegrown goodness just tastes way better than anything you can buy in the stores!

From Fruit, Wine: Muscadine follow-up, and some new projects!

Don't let the goofy label fool you; this is definitely not for sale!

All good things take time and one thing I've learned over the years is patience. Whether it's waiting for cured meat to dry, eggs to hatch, pregnant sheep to give birth ... the end product is always completely worth it.

Wine, however, really takes time. A lot of time. After about 6 months of fermenting, racking, and letting it settle, I finally bottled the muscadine wine. While totally drinkable at this point, many sources make it clear that muscadine wine is best after aging in the bottle for about a year.

With so much pulp from the fruit, it was hard to take SG measurements!

Not to let things go idle, I thought I'd make some small batches of some other fruit wines. Since we had a ridiculous amount of citrus and still had a bunch of ripe persimmons leftover, I put together a couple gallons of the persimmon wine and a gallon of orange wine. The left-most batch of persimmon wine was made mostly with peels and stems and was impossible to get a specific gravity measurement. As you can see, it was extremely active in fermenting and kept blowing through the top. I ended up combining both batches of persimmon wine and moved them to a bucket for primary fermentation.

I've since racked them over for secondary (longer-term) fermentation. You can see the sediment build-up at the bottom of each of the little carboys. Racking off the wine will remove some of the sediment and help to clarify the wine. After about six months, these should be ready for bottling.

Fruit wines are easy enough. Fruit, sugar, water, yeast, and some minor additives (to ensure a healthy ferment) are all you really need. I've been spending a lot of time reading through Jack Keller's recipes. Can you believe there's a turnip wine? I think I may have to try it just for the heck of it!

The bottles of muscadine are tucked away in the closet for long-term storage. I may crack one open in about 6 months to see how the flavor has changed, but the bulk of what remains after some Christmas gifts will be left undisturbed.

Do any of our wonderful readers make wine? I'd love to know what you might have going on right now!

Building Raised Garden Beds on the cheap

Well, at this point I think we can officially declare our original garden area a big whopping failure. The area I picked out didn't get nearly as much light as I'd hoped once the trees that border the back side got their foliage. Plus, I just could not keep up with the weeds in a space that big. At this point, the only things thriving in the giant, green, tangled mess is the asparagus patch and the peanuts which started as two tiny plants that now take up at least 6 square feet. At least the rabbits are enjoying the variety of weeds that I chop down in there for them on a regular basis. 

I decided to take a huge step back and try growing our food on a much smaller scale. There's a wonderful patch of the front yard that I'm SURE gets all day sunlight. Since the soil here on the farm is total crap (clay so thick you could dig up a handful and throw a vase from it), I decided to build some small raised garden beds. 

  

I started by getting a bunch of free pallets from my local feed store and dismantling them with the help of a jig saw, two hammers, a crow bar, and a dremmel. Let me just say that pallets were never meant to come apart. This was by far the hardest part of the process.

Next I built the boxes using the flat top and bottom boards as the side walls. I cut the thicker sides of the pallets to use as corner braces. I was even able to salvage some of the heavy duty corkscrew nails to reuse so the boxes ended up costing a total of zero dollars to make.

The next step was filling the boxes. I hate HATE paying for dirt, but the compost pile is nowhere near ready for harvesting so I settled on a couple bags of cheap potting soil mixed with lots of half broken down sheep manure (no shortage of that around here!) and some old grass clippings. A bit of shredded paper got into the mix too, but I figured it wouldn't do any harm.

Here is the first completed box with cabbages up front and some cucumber plants that I had started from seed in a pot a long time ago and forgotten about. As the weather seems to be finally cooling off around here, I'm not holding out a lot of hope for late, late season cucs. 

 First and second boxes all set to go. The second box is full of broccoli plants because I love broccoli!

I'm hoping to build at least two more boxes this coming weekend in order to grow mustard and collard greens (these are mostly used in the dog food), cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. I just love winter vegetables!

Is anyone else out there just starting their fall gardens?

Weathering Isaac - Pt 2

I woke with the dawn on Thursday morning and looked out our bedroom window. I didn't even recognize what I saw at first. Our bridge was under about 4ft of water, the creek that runs just behind the 1st pasture had topped its banks during the night and flooded our pasture! Even more alarming was realizing that the waters had reached our poultry pens. I shook Big Onion awake and we quickly threw on clothes and headed out back.

There was a good 1.5-2 ft of water flooding our pens closest to the creek. Big Onion came out of the silky pen with all four new chicks drowned. Bianca was such a good mother that she was trying to keep them warm even as the waters came up. Our poor little bantam chickens were barely able to keep their heads above water. We quickly bundled all three chickens in towels, dried them as best we could, and set them up in a raised cage in the poultry house.

The quail pen had some water, but I gave them some plastic pallets to climb on to get up out of the water and they seemed ok. When I went back to check on them later, the water had risen again and one quail had drowned. This was prompting enough for us to scoop up all 40+ birds and tuck them into another raised cage to dry off. Again there were a couple birds that seemed stiff and cold, but were soon back to normal once they got warm and dry. I have to hand it to those tiny birds, they never missed a stride through the whole thing. They stayed very calm, and many of the girls actually laid eggs while crammed into a rather tight space.

After losing one of the quail, we decided to just move all the rest of the birds out of the flooded pens. I think the chickens were happy to be on dry ground, but less than pleased that all 8 of them had to share one cage. They were also inexplicably terrified of the young Buff chicks in the next pen, all cowering in one corner of the cage behind their giant white rooster protector.

The adult turkeys and guineas were muddy and soggy, but their pens still had dry ground so they stayed put.

While all the other birds were doing their best to stay dry, the ducks and geese were pleased as punch with the pond we installed in their pen. They had 2 ft of water and were going to town splashing and playing in their new lake/pen.

In the morning, we tossed a wooden pallet in the pen just so they could get up and out of the water if they wanted. By afternoon when the waters just kept rising, we decided to move them to the relatively dry ground of the goat pen. Neither the ducks nor the goats were pleased with this decision.

Meanwhile, the wind kept blowing and the rain kept falling in waves. All day Wednesday we saw the poor sheep rushing out of their enclosed area whenever there was a break in the weather to get as much grazing as they could before the pouring rain would drive them back under cover. Thursday morning, their normal cover was under water so Big Onion walked them up near into goat pen, and we gave them some grain to eat.

 Well, after we moved the ducks up, we had to close the goat pen off to the sheep and just as we were headed back inside, it started to pour again. Pepper, our friendliest sheep, rain straight to us for help with the rest of the flock close at her heels. I did some fast thinking and with a call of "Sheep sheep!" led the girls into the nearby covered area where we keep the 4 wheeler. I was so amazed they followed me, even more amazed that they thought to turn to us for help in a time of crisis.

 Our second pasture beyond the trees under about 5-6ft of water. We would need a boat to get to the rest of our property.

You can actually see the current of water flowing into our pasture in some of these pictures.

One of the scariest things we saw checking out the flooding were these floating islands of red ants. They were also swarming all over the buildings. The surface of the water was also swarming with tiny little floating spiders. Big Onion and I came away with more insect bites than we could count every time we went out to check on everyone. We both ended up with angry red rings around our calves just at the point where our boots end.

Early in the afternoon we started hearing reports of a possible dam break in a major river that runs just a few miles from our house.  We had already spent the day plucking sodden distressed birds from the water and watching the water level in our pens go up and up. The radio was talking about mandatory evacuations and 17 ft of water. I'm not ashamed to admit I had more than one moment of panic that day. Big Onion and I talked about what we would do if we were forced to leave. Do we just open cages and pens and leave the birds and rabbits to fend for themselves? We talked about packing all the dogs and cats in his car and the goats into mine, moving the sheep to the higher ground of the backyard and just hoping we would have something to come back to.

I sat down with the handy deck of cards and started playing solitaire to keep myself busy while Big Onion tried to catch a little sleep. I kept telling myself if I could just win one game, just one game, everything would be ok. The power would come back and the water would go down. It took about 5 or 6 games, but I finally won one. I actually woke poor Big Onion up to say I had won at solitaire, everything would be ok! I kid you not, the words had barely come out of my mouth went the power blinked on! (Note from Big Onion: This is true. Creepy, but true!) We turned on the news and learned that we were too far away from the river for a dam break to effect us. Not long after that, the water levels started very slowly going down again.

By Friday morning, the creek was back within its banks and the bridge was miraculously still in place. We were left with a muddy, soggy mess of a barnyard. I actually had to go to work down in New Orleans, so poor Big Onion was left by himself to put new bedding down in all the pens and relocate the birds back where they belong. The last and biggest duck pen is still a mud pit so the waterfowl will be double bunking it for a while. We also have a lot of debris and fallen branches to clean up and some fences to repair. Unfortunately, my garden was all but destroyed. The corn, for sure, has seen much better days...

This picture was taken well after the storm had passed.

All in all I feel like we were extremely lucky. We lost a few young birds, but overall there was no major building damage, our house did not flood, and we came through unharmed with almost all of our animals healthy and safe. There is still a lot of work to do to get things back to normal, but I think we'll be ok.

Garden Fail

 All I can say is it's a good thing we have a knack for raising animals because where it comes to gardens, I seem to have at the very least a brown if not completely black thumb. It's bad enough that I had to resort to using the lawnmower to weed the damn thing.

Last weekend, I decided to mix up a batch of garden spray to try and thwart some of the powdery mold and various other ailments that seemed to be taking over the vegetables. It was totally a concoction of my own crazy imagination that included baking soda, cooking oil and dawn dishwashing liquid. I sprayed the garden on a hot, dry Monday. I had to work the following two days, which were also very hot and very dry. I also totally forgot to water the garden those two days. Well, by Thursday it was obvious that that my spray was a failure of epic proportions.

 I completely killed all of the tomato plants, 2 of the 3 squash were dead, and the cucumbers were totally toast. The pepper plants and the tomatillo miraculously survived, and I think just maybe some of the cantaloupe are going to pull thru.

 The good news is I did not spray the watermelons which are taking over a good chunk of the garden and are growing melons left and right. Oh well, I guess we can chalk this one up to a learning experience. Oops!

We got blueberries!

After much waiting and anticipation, the blueberries are finally ready for harvest!

We've been handpicking the ones that seemed ready, but that took forever. I decided that since so many looked ready that I would try the old spread the sheet, shake the tree harvest method.

Worked like a charm! 

 And Josie was more than happy to help me dispose of any over or under ripe berries that ended up in the batch. Afterall, her life's goal when the goats lived in the pen in the backyard was to get her mouth on those blueberry plants.  

After they were sorted and washed, I ended up with a total of 8lbs of sweet, delicious berries!! That is from just the four relatively small bushes that were already in the backyard when we bought the place. Most of them went into the freezer, but I think I'll be baking up a batch of muffins pretty darn soon. We are even experimenting with drying a few for snacking. 

We were so lucky that the previous owners of this place decided to plant useful trees and bushes almost everywhere. We have pears, muscadine, persimmons, and tons of citrus coming down the line!

Wins and losses

When you find yourself lawn mowing between the rows of tomatoes, you know you have lost the battle with weeds in the garden. On the plus side, dig the sexy, candy apple red mower that the Big Onion crew got us during their visit!

  Ever since we tilled the garden back when the weather was still cool and the prospect of keeping up a 50 x 50 plot seemed like a good idea, I have been fighting  an uphill battle with the weeds and grasses trying to reclaim the land. On the farm, it's hard to find time to tool around in the garden when there are living breathing creatures that need time and attention.

  We have collard greens, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, cantaloupe, and watermelon all planted and doing pretty darn well despite the weeds. We've even managed to harvest a few things already.

  Time to suck it up, pull out the hoe, and get to weeding!