I royally burnt out.

After the no water situation which lasted 3 days shy of a month, I lost all steam. All I did in the garden was pick tomatoes and stew them up to put sauce in the freezer. I did not make my cold frames, nor did I sow any fall lettuces or anything for that matter. I didn't plant garlic, which I will regret when I have none next summer to pick. But i'm not going to dwell on it. I have already started planning for next year. 

The main emphasis for me is to keep it simple and easy. I don't need the extra stress that I seem to cause myself, so everything i'm doing from here on out is going to be questioned first with "Is this the simplest way I could do this?". First off, I have eliminated mulch from my life. Not that I don't think it doesn't look good, its just that free ranging chickens like to distribute it all over where you don't want it. So I scooped it all up from the beds around the house and from around the ponds. I will be replacing it with rocks around the ponds, which goes well with the hens and chicks plants that I am trying to get going there. We shall see what happens with the beds around the house, hopefully I can get them going nice and full with perennials so you wont see the ground anyways. 

Second on my simplifying plans I have started my list of vegetables to start for selling. Last year was a seat-of-the-pants type selling situation. I planted left over seeds that I had on hand. Now I have a pretty good feel for what people want, which for one thing is peppers. I have chosen a good variety, I will have some hot, some sweet bells in a few colors and some for drying. 

My list for things to grow for home is going to be less adventurous. I am slowly starting to go against the inside crazy person who feels that at the beginning of spring I will want to do all that is necessary to produce the fickle things that I wont eat five bushels of. Another thing I did learn is that I will be using row covers to keep out the damn cabbage worms that ruined my life this year. They ate the cabbage and the cauliflower and the broccoli. And in return I ate a couple of them, which I will consider the first and last time that will happen. The covers are pretty cheap, at 15 bucks for a 6' x 50' roll. 

Third, the garden has been put to bed for the winter, I covered all the beds with shredded up leaves. Next year I am going to try not even using the broad fork to turn the soil. I keep reading how you shouldn't upset the balance going on in the layers of dirt so I will just dig holes to put the seedlings in and let it go. Less digging, easier for me. 

Buckeye Rooster and Hen

Forth on list are the chickens. I want to be able to raise babies so there doesn't need to be constant purchasing. We will be getting a new flock of Buckeye chickens, which is a heritage breed that started in Warren, Ohio in 1896 by a woman named Nettie Metcalf. They are very rare and critically endangered. The reason I have chosen them is because they were bred for our weather, they have a very small pea comb so you dont have to worry about frostbite during the winter and they are a good weight for a dual purpose bird. I plan to get a rooster and hope that I get at least one broody hen so we can have our own chicks. I look forward to hatching out some babies and watching them be taken care of by their mother. Then we wont have to buy them to keep a flock going. It will also be easier when they all look the same, then theres less of a tendency to get attached to a certain bird. 

The hard part of the new flock is the old flock. These freezer bound birds have been giving me about 1 egg in the last week and maybe one more before that. Im not sure if they have went through a full molt or not, they sure haven't looked like any pictures of molting birds I have seen so who knows. They will quit laying when they molt and a bit after. But the light has also grown so short that that could be a reason also. The easter eggers haven't given me an egg in so long I cant remember when it was. It was before the other girls quit giving up the eggs though, I do know that. Im trying to get in the habit of thinking about chicken soup when I look at them. 

Last on my easy list, I am going to try my hand at some winter sowing this year. Its a system this lady made where you put containers out in the winter with seeds and soil and the seeds start when they know its ready. Then you have also taken care of hardening them off at the same time. I am going to try this with the veggies and perennials that can be done this way and see how it works out. There are lots of people who have succeeded with this method at the garden web site, check it out. 

 http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/wtrsow/ and http://www.wintersown.org/

I will add some pics in the next post, Im trying to figure out my blue tooth on my phone!

I feel horrible about the long absence!

I have honestly been wanting to update for ages now, and it seems as if every time I get ready to I find something else to do. It has been a very busy summer around here and the garden is now at the point where I am ready to start some fall planting. I am going to post some pictures as to what has been going on while I was not blogging and then I will be ready to get back to some regular postings!

First I will start with the garden, I dug up all the sod in between the beds and put down weed barrier. We are going to put gravel down over it. I read that if you put any material that eventually breaks down like mulch that weeds will just grow in that.

The various squashes have taken over in this corner. They are actually planted on the outside of the fence but grew so quick I couldnt keep them shoved through fast enough and when we went on vacation they just went nuts.

Here is the area where I planted extra peppers and melons. I didnt get around to weeding and then just figured I would let it go. The dogs love to get in it and root around.

This is a super huge keeper squash.

This is a nice dinner of stuffed tomatoes. I put couscous, onion and peppers inside with the tomato pulp. Then I put a slice of tomato on top with some cheese. Good stuff.

This is the fresh blackberry pie I made for a reunion, it was pretty good I hear, I haven't ate the piece I brought home yet!

And vacation! We went to Summersville Lake, west virginia. It is the 4th time we have camped there. It is a very nice lake with clear water, you can see so far down that you can see the bottom in areas where its 20 feet deep. If you scuba there is clarity to 40 feet. We had nice weather, hot days for swimming. There was some rain too but not so much that it ruined anything. We actually kept swimming through a couple good rains. 

Here is our camp site.

Here is our favorite swim spot that we can get to without the boat.

Red efts. There is a tree on the site where we camped first several years ago that these live under and on. I took the girls to the site and was just saying "Last time there were these..." and looked down and there they were. We had a fun time playing with them. There isn't another spot in the campground where I have found them living at, it must be the perfect spot. We were joking that the tree was like the tree of life in avatar! 

This is a spot where people jump from a lot. There is a spot right to the left of the waterfall. And then there is that open spot all the way at the top on the left where there is a clearing. My sisters boyfriend jumped from there this year and then asked what a broken tailbone felt like soon after!

A turkey vulture that was hanging out above his home in the crack below. He looked very ominous.

We found out our herding australian shepherd is actually quite the water dog. She was dragging back honest logs, not just sticks! She swam circles around us while we floated in the water, I don't know if she just really loves to swim or just wants to be by us? I have to think she just loves it, I have never seen her so tired in my life. She was falling asleep sitting up, and that hasn't happened since she was a puppy.

Here is a picture of our log face. It got changed up everyday.

Well now we are back home and all settled in with all the laundry washed. I will be back to more frequent posting! 

Things are growing :)

Zucchini, I actually ate this today. It was 3x the size since I had taken this picture last week.

The lettuce, some is bolting, I give that to the chickens.

Ruby chard.

Romas.

Tiger like.

Black trifeles.

The ill effects of all this damn rain.

A baby seeking refuge from Mabel.

I ate this today also, it had also gotten very large and was almost starting to open. There are nice shoots starting on the sides.

Dinner.

What the garden is looking like right now.

The berries, and Molly.

The birdhouse gourds.

I set up this fence so the gourds can travel up over the chicken run.

This is the overflow area where I planted the extra tomatoes that didn't sell. There are about 4 growing that were there from the old compost pile. Also a couple of squash or gourds, I can't quite tell yet. We have almost 90 tomato plants this year. I know......

These are the cherry tomatoes, they will get as tall as the roof on the deck.

The greenhouse is finally empty.

If I posted as much as I wanted to...

Its really redundant to say how busy I have been. If you have or ever had a garden you know now is when there is so much to do. It is finally dying down a bit. Heres a couple pics of the tomatoes.

The sales of plants is now over and I have to say I am pleasantly surprised at how much I sold. I will for sure be doing this next year with a couple of changes. First off I now have a good feel for what people are looking for, so I have a mental list going of what I will be starting. Second, I will probably only sell at the end of the driveway. I'm sure by next spring I will want to cart the plants across the county to sell at least once but for now I say no, it's so much easier to just leave them out there. Third, the plants will be out a lot earlier. I've told a lot of people who stopped that they can look for it next year so it should turn out well. And finally I will place signs at a couple more intersections. Some people said that they usually go down another road and they just happened by, so more advertising.

I feel a small victory for turning on people to some new tomatoes that they had never heard of and it was nice to know that people appreciated the heirlooms and organic plants that I had. There will be a nice list of heirlooms for next year and plenty of peppers. Everybody was looking for those peppers, I felt bad telling everyone I didn't have them.

There was a small amount of tomatoes and broccoli left. Im sure someone would have bought the toms but they were at the point where they needed potted up and i'm just not into that right now so they are all getting planted. I just have a few left to put in, and this means that I will have tomatoes for sale later on in the season. I want to take them to the farmers market and see what comes of that. Or theres the table at the end of the drive, that sounds even easier.

On to the next project, i've been reading lately about keeping rabbits for meat. I'm not sure if i'm one hundred percent sold yet but I really like the idea of it. They don't take much space, are relatively inexpensive to feed and make babies like, well rabbits. Theres a couple breeds that seem to be the most popular to keep, I feel like I should opt for the less attractive ones as if that will help the processing process. Rabbits have a tad more protein than chicken and a bit less calories, that partnered with the amount you can process a year and the amount of space they take up it seems like a likely addition to our baby homestead. Any other option for meat besides the chickens just seems like too large of an animal for us to take care of, it may just be fear but keeping a couple big pigs just seems a bit out of my realm right now.

I stopped at a cool place near my house called Highmill Park. They have a CSA for veggies and meat,also have all kinds of animals, ducks, chickens, rabbits, sheep, alpacas, pigs and i'm sure there were more I didn't see. Heres their resident handsome man, he was shaking his feathers at all the chickens who would pass and not a one was intimidated or really even seemed to notice him. It was sad and very funny all at the same time. Check out their site at HighmillPark.com, they also have a blog. 

And I will leave today with this cute pic of mama and babies and my vets place.

Beautiful tuesday evening

After the sadness of losing one of the girls a couple weeks ago I just about fell over when I seen another one of the hens sitting still on the ground in the run. Well, its been two days and i'm not so sure whats wrong with her yet but i'm working on it. She may be having problems with her crop, which is a sack all of their food goes into before it moves on down the line. Once I figure it out completely I will update on what that is. As for the time being she is comfy in a cage on the porch until I can see if she lays an egg or what the heck ever.

Heres a doozy for you, this egg was inside of a whole other shell! When I pulled it apart it looked like it may have been 2 shells and then the whole egg. Weird.

Now for some of todays goings on, just some random pictures of the garden.

Heres a nice close up of lucy. 

Frank, the worlds worst housed cat.

Lettuce

Fresh salad, greens and eggs from the yard.

Broccoli

Mabel playing keep away.

The garden gnome watching over the plants for the evening.

"The" List for 2010

Drumroll please!

Herbs-Genovese Basil, Cilantro, Oregano, Rosemary & Sage
Beans- Beer friend soybean & Sequoia
Beets- Chioggia, Detroit dark red & Pacemaker III
Broccoli- Green sprouting calabrese, Thompson & Veronica
Cabbage- Gonzales
Carrot- Red core chantenay
Celery- Utah Improved
Cucumber- Agnes pickling & Satuski Madori
Eggplant- Black Beauty
Leek-Scotland
Lettuce- Black seeded simpson, Looseleaf blend 5, Mesclun blend 6 & Romaine roman emperor
Melon- Hales best jumbo & Sugar baby
Onion- Rosa di milano & Talon
Pea- Burpeena early & Dark seeded early perfection
Pepper- Large red cayenne
Radish- Cherry Belle & French breakfast
Spinach- Baby leaf hybrid & Viroflay
Squash- Luffa seven happiness, Emerald beauty hybrid & Sweet keeper
Tomato- Amish paste, Brandywine red, Peacevine cherry, Zebra cherry, Japanese trifele black, Old german, Persimmon, Tiger like & Yellow Pear

You may notice that a lot of my choices are heirloom, I want to try and do some seed saving this year. A lot of my choices are organic also, although I didn't note them I suppose I could.
There are some seeds that I have left over from last year that I need to gather up also. I think I may try to winter sow some things from them. I will use those seeds instead in case things go bad so I don't waste my precious new stock!

I'm including some old garden pictures for fun (right now its under about two feet of snow!). Since these were taken I have put in a border around all of the beds with landscape timbers. I think I will let the grass grow in the paths now that there will be an edging to weed whip around. I spent a lot of time putting down cardboard and wood chips trying to smother it. I think I will just let nature takes its course with the grass from now on. Plus it did look nice having a green blanket pathway, and it also felt good on the feet. These are from the first year of my garden.