Chance the Rapids

A year in review...

2011-12-01T19:14:00.000-08:00

I certainly didn't blog as much as I would have liked in 2011 (and to be honest, there's still time!), but it was a good year.

In case you hadn't heard, Texas is a smidgen dry.

Dry, and hot. We had something like 75 days over 100 degrees.

Now, it normally gets hot in Texas during the summer, but when the large high pressure system moved into Texas and refused to budge, we were stuck with agonizingly long, sunny, hot days with no cool spells to help. So we waited for rain, and waited, and then turned on the sprinklers for a little bit, and then waited...

And nothing ever came.

But, all was not lost. The potatoes grew very well. So well, in fact, that we're looking at selling 2012's bounty at a Farmer's Market, to make a few extra dollars. The peppers grew pretty well, and the onions did well. Everything else kind of died off.* While there is not much hope for 2012 as far as reversing this drought, I will plant again and hopefully God will bless us with some much needed rain. The rain barrels are full :-)

*The tomatoes I grew died off miserably in the heat, and to my surprise, came back to life in September! We didn't get a lot, but it was neat to see.

One of the major problems with 2011 was "what do we do with all this food!?" The answer is to preserve it for later, but we did very little preserving. That should change next year.

So, that's about it for 2011. I'm sure I'll post a few more times before the end of the year, because 2012 is nearly upon us and I have a lot of work to do.

There was one other little crop that did pretty well in 2011. It should be "ripe" in a couple weeks or so, and should weigh about 7-8 lbs., and be over 20" long. :-)

Hoss Wheel Hoe

2011-10-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

I want one of these so bad.

Transition

2011-05-21T16:14:00.000-07:00

The lack of money = the lack of opportunity

2011-04-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

It's a sad realization, but it is what it is. It seems that in every aspect of life, you can have A, or you can have B, but you can never have both A & B. As I continue to look for land (or land with a house) I'm finding that I just have too many criteria. Call me a dreamer, but maybe one of these days it will magically fall into my hands. If not, well, I'll have to compromise somehow.

The three major criteria I have are that: 1) I still need to work at my regular job, which means I need to be able to drive a reasonable distance to work. 2) I would like at least 5 acres (preferably 10), so that I may raise at least 1-2 small cows, along with sheep, chickens, turkey, and whatever else. 3) I need the land to be cheap enough that, when I add on the price of building a house, I'm paying about the same as what I'm paying now.

Obviously the last one is the one that jumps out to most people...many claim it to be impossible (maybe it is), but hear me out; Right now, I'm paying an annual property tax of nearly $4,000. There is a good chance I would not be paying that much out "in the country," and so when you divide, say, $1500/12 months, that knocks $125 off your payments.

Then, you look at the price of water, electricity, and trash, and you're down even more - perhaps $200 a month (in the summer at least). With wood heat, preferably free from my woodlot :-) you've knocked even more money off per month. So what I am getting at is that, yes, living in the country is cheaper per month, but buying all that land to being with is a very high expense.

So, getting land. I could compromise on one of the other two, such as less acreage, or moving father away. Less acreage is exactly how I got into this predicament to begin with, so I doubt I'll go that route. Moving farther away has already been ruled out from my dear wife, who doesn't like driving that far to begin with. So, time to either start saving money, or find a good deal on land / house building price.

Recently I found 4.3 acres in Venus, Texas, which was exactly in the area I wanted, and was very cheap. It also wasn't that far of a drive. . I could have pulled the trigger, but I didn't, because it would have meant compromising on land size, and the land was north-sloping. It was really hard not to buy that land, but, I'm glad I at least stuck to my "goals." I let out a big sigh, but I'm not sure if it was relief or regret. Dang that land was cheap.

Until another day...
Stephen

Pretty awesome little story

2011-04-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

http://thecontraryfarmer.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/the-man-who-created-paradise-by-gene-logsdon/

Gene Logsdon is awesome. It's long, but a great read.

Corn & Furrows

2011-04-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

I bought "Delectable" hybrid corn, and when I planted about 50 seeds in 3 rows, I was expecting nice results. I got nothing (okay, I got 1). What a letdown!

Now, I'd like to say this is some type of experiment I had come up with, but what it actually was, was just bad gardening. I am learning gardening, for the most part, from books and the internet. So when I heard to plant X" apart in rows spaced Y" apart, I did just that. I planted something like this:

Now, 3 weeks later with 1 single seeds sprout, I dug it all up and re-planted, but this time, I planted at the bottom of the "trenches" I had dug - so,like this:

Now, obviously my rows were nowhere near that high, but I had to use those exaggerated pictures to show you what I meant. I have found that the bottom picture (planting in the furrows) worked better. It seemed to retain water better, and did so without flooding the roots, because eventually the rows flattened out, and water didn't set on the bed.

Anyway, maybe that info can help anyone else. Perhaps the seeds being raised up on the row-tops, they just needed a lot more precipitation than what they were getting (which should have been plenty, but whatever).

The first garden-grown strawberry

2011-04-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

That.
Was.
Sublime.

:(

2011-04-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

I want to post. Boy, do I want to post. I just can't.

"Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorry that Heaven cannot heal."

So long, pullets

2011-04-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

The last of the illegal chickens are leaving today. It'll be sad to see them go, but it was fun to raise these little ladies from a day old. I can't believe when we got them, they were the size of a tennis ball. Here's a few pics before they leave.

(The chickens secret pen which hides them pretty dang well)

Bye ladies!

Egad! Giant Potatoes!

2011-04-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but these potatoes are growing to be monsters! Now, it could be that my first year growing them, last year, were just small. But I think these are just huge. One of them, for example, is over 2 feet tall, though I have "dirted" it twice, to keep the potatoes growing under the ground.

Here are how the potatoes are looking.

Here are the big ones.

Also in my pictures, you're able to see the garden hose irrigation lines I set up. Here are a few more pics, where you can see the total layout, and the fittings I used. Like I posted earlier - pretty simplistic.

The past 2 weeks, I've spent many hours in the garden. It's so relaxing to be out there, walking barefoot through the soil, picking weeds, the breeze keeping me cool even with the temps in the high-80s. It's one of the few things that is real work, but puts my mind at ease. I think the Vitamin D I'm picking up is also having quite the effect on my mentality - it sure is better than sitting in a flourescent-lit office.

Well that just about wraps up all for today. I'll have more later!

Borrowed from The Deliberate Agrarian

2011-04-03T19:33:00.001-07:00

I, in no way, want to take credit for this - I'll make that clear right off the bat. I just found this so enlightening and wanted to share with my readers as well. Herrick Kimball puts out a wonderful blog every month, and this was just a small portion of it.

Find his blog here.

Here is (a part of) what he wrote:

"Every so often I feel the need to reiterate and expound upon the differences between Christian agrarianism, which I espouse, and the industrial order, which I oppose. This is one of those times...

I see industrialism as a usurper, taking, reshaping and reordering all aspects of life as God designed it. The antithesis between God’s order and the industrial order is enormous.

Where God designed simplicity, the industrial order imposes complication. Where God established the beauty of diversity, the industrial order demands uniformity. Where God, for his own sovereign purposes, established inequity, the industrial order declares that there must be equality. Where God mandates decentralization, the industrial order mandates centralization. Where God has declared that man must work and live by the sweat of his brow, the industrial order endeavors to remove this requirement. Where God has said to look to Him as the source and provider of all good things, the industrial order supposes that it will supply all good things, and that all people must be dependent on the industrial providers. Where God thinks and acts multigenerationally, the industrial mindset cares little about the generations to come. Where God says for mankind to trust in Him, the industrial order says to trust in it. Where God has designed sustainability and economy within his creation, the industrial order disrupts, destroys, poisons and wastes creation. Where God created and defined what a family is and how it should function, to best serve Him, the industrial order has redefined and reordered the family, to best serve the industrial interests. Where God declares that a full and rich life does not consist in the accumulation of things and riches, the industrial order loudly declares just the opposite. And, finally, where God has declared what is good and evil and has decreed that there will be consequences for sin, industrialism neither recognizes sin nor believes it has any responsibilities under God."

Ugh, stupid blogger!!!

2011-04-03T19:33:00.000-07:00

I try to write often, but I've found recently that the "post at a scheduled" time button doesn't even work. I have several posts now that I thought were posting, but are still in my drafts. So dumb.

I'll spread them out over a few days. No idea why that feature stopped working...it was awesome :-\

Drip system installed!

2011-04-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

I'll be sure to get pictures later. Like most things, I did this in the dark, haha.

So, you can order 250 feet of soaker hose online, but you're going pay a hefty price for it (unless you get the cheap brand that fails after one year...no thanks). I have debated over what to do with watering, and I've thought of drip systems, sprinklers, soaker hoses, and just watering with a garden hose. Here's the pros/cons of each:

Drip System
Pros: Long, slow, continuous amount of water provided to plants. Can be placed right at root level. Saves money since no water is wasted.
Cons: Expensive to set up, lots of fittings

Sprinklers
Pros: Lots of water provided very inexpensively (since sprinklers are installed in my yard already).
Cons: Very wasteful of water, due to evaporation and/or wind. Water is provided from overhead, and must have time to soak through mulch into ground.

Soaker Hoses
Pros: Water applied at the roots. Long slow continuous amount of water provided to plants. Cheaper than drip system.
Cons: Some water is wasted, since hoses need to run between rows/plants that is just watering the ground. Slightly expensive. Requires lots of fittings.

Garden Hose:
Pros: Lots of water, versatile to move around. Very cheap.
Cons: Wasteful due to evaporation/wind. Annoying to drag a hose to each plant, and very time consuming.

So, what do you do? Clearly the drip system and soaker hose are the best approaches for the benefit of the plant, but are expensive. Well, luckily I am an engineer and can never settle for doing things the simple way. I built my own.

Home Depot was having a great sale on garden hoses, so I bought 300 feet (wow!) of garden hose, for $40. I created a unit of measurement, which I called a "link," that is a 15-foot strand of garden hose. Thus, from 300 feet, I have 20 links. Perfect, since I needed 17 links for the garden.

I also ordered (from Amazon) some 5/8" tees and elbow fittings for these hoses. I could have done without the elbows, but oh well. They were a couple bucks.

Now with my links all cut, and hoses laid out, the fun began. I tediously walked along and drilled a very tiny hole every foot (or 6", or 10" - whatever the spacing of the plants was). As of right now, I'm about 3/4 done. My back said "I'm through!" so that was it for last night. Then came the test. I plugged a cork in the end of each hose, and turned on the spigot. It took a little bit to get the pressure up to par, but it finally did, and then I turned it down a bit. I let it run for 30 minutes, under the mulch, at root level. Perfect.

In the end, I guess I could add up all of my expenses and it probably would be a little more expensive than the soaker hose plan, but it was a "custom" install, so I'm happy with it. And it's still a lot cheaper than those expensive drip-irrigation systems.

I'm pleased :-)

Now I have to ask, what will I do when I have a garden that is an acre or so, one day!? Yikes!

Some questions & tips

2011-03-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

Feel free to answer any of these questions, if you know the answer. I have a feeling on what to do, for some of them, but who knows - I've definitely been wrong before!

1) It would be nice if everything sprouted on the same day, grew & bloomed at the same rate, and was ready to harvest on the same day. Unfortunately that is not the case, at all. I have some potato plants that are barely peeking through the mulch (~0.5") and some which are over 6" tall and HUGE. According to my Gardening Guide (the best vegetable book ever written for Texans), I need to "dirt" the plants once they reach 5-6", with 3-4" of dirt thrown on the base of the plant. Like I said above, though, I may have one plant at 6" tall next to a tiny sprout. I've just started dirting the ones that are growing strong, and go back later over the ones which are lagging behind. It will be interesting, because there's only so much dirt to be thrown on top, lol.

2) The question that I seem to never get a straight answer on: If I'm planting in a ridge-and-furrow style, which I am for cucumbers, corn, beans, strawberries, and potatoes, where would you put the soaker-hose for watering? I've heard to lay it in the furrow, because it encourages the roots to grow down, and become stronger. I've questioned these people, as to how the seedling would get water to sprout, and how the roots would reach down (about 4-6") to even reach the water? I never can get a straight answer.

3) Here's a tip - potatoes can be grown in rows 2 feet apart, but that is probably about the limit if you plan on dirting the plants.

4) Hey, let's throw a random one in here...does anyone know how to keep chicken from drying out when cooking stir-fry, or in a crock-pot?

5) Though I don't have any pictures yet, I'll be sure to get some. I'm using 4 (or 6 if I can find another) T-posts and some binding wire, to make a growing trellis for my beans. Simply put a post at each end of the row (and more in-between if you have very long rows), and tie the binding wire between them. Add a turnbuckle on one end if the wires start to sag...I don't really know if the binding wire will sag or not, but I imagine (like most things) it will a little. That will just have to be a trial & error deal.

Other than that, the garden is growing VERY well so far! Almost all the beans sprouted yesterday, the potatoes are still huge, and the strawberries are taking off. The peppers have been planted, with some more to plant later. Corn still hasn't sprouted, but it's been so dry, I don't really expect them to until the middle of this week.

Thanks for stopping by.

What's been planted

2011-03-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

Corn was planted on Saturday. I planted three 15-foot rows, and I'll do three more rows in a couple weeks. I planted several varieties of cucumbers (bush and trellising), hoping to have better luck than last year. I also planted my beans & southern peas last Thursday. The garden is just waiting to explode with green!

The potatoes are doing pretty well - odd though. Some are HUGE and some are very tiny. They'll come up, eventually. Patience is a heck of a virtue when gardening. So is weeding, lol.

The strawberries are doing well, also, but I was hoping they'd be a little further along than they are. Part of that is likely due to lack of rain. It hasn't rained here in over a month and a half. I'm hoping to pick up some soaker hose on Friday, and rig up a watering system.

Last Saturday I was at Home Depot, strolling through the pepper/tomato plants, and I got to thinking "isn't it too early to plant?" After looking at the weather, I now realize that we had a very early last-freeze-date this year, which is great. Hopefully that doesn't mean we're going to smash heat records this summer, though.

As I mentioned in my previous post, things have been a blur of insanity lately. I wish I could get back to reading some books, that I've started and haven't finished. Seems like every time I get going, something comes up at work, or home, or elsewhere. :-\

Either way, I'm glad to be able to have the time I do to spend in the garden. So peaceful and eases a lot of stress.

Clearly a conspiracy

2011-03-18T22:24:00.000-07:00

It's funny how when I claim I will post more, I post less. I think the government is behind it...lol.

So, why the long absence? A variety of reasons, but most notably, the hospital. I've been at the hospital for about a week straight, because my sister had severe abdominal pain. I won't go into all the details, but let's just say that there are some EXTREMELY incompetent people working here in town, and at the third hospital, they ended up removing a cyst the size of a baseball, and her appendix.

So honestly, the garden hasn't been at the top of my list, in the season which it should be. Luckily I was able to take a few "sanity" days off from work and get it back on track. The potatoes were plated, as well as strawberries, and now the beans & peas have been planted. I slightly altered the layout when I figured I could add another row by merely knocking 6" off the pepper row-spacing. Big deal - the minute crowdedness that will come about shouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

The blackberry plants are flowering well, and the onions at the north side of the garden are growing strong. The south side doesn't get as much sun (yet) so they're not fully-growing. So far, 27 out of ~80 potatoes have bloomed, and that's likely due to the other half being the Yukon Gold (or was it Red?) that bloom later. The carrots have finally begun to sprout, but are still very very tiny.

It is a very warm Spring here, so far, so I'll probably plant the corn early next week, followed by Tomatoes and Peppers. I am beginning to think our last freeze already occured (pretty early).

So, back to work. Thanks for checking in!

Marching into the garden

2011-03-02T16:54:00.000-08:00

If you've read this far, I appreciate you not leaving after that terrible pun of a title.

So, I ended up going to Ace Hardware and renting a front tine (urgh, the rear tine was still broken so they are selling it) tiller. I brought it home, cleverly unloaded it by myself with a big board, and then started tilling away. What a great tiller! Very simple, no crazy knobs, buttons, etc. And it made quick work of the garden. I finished tilling all of the garden in less than an hour, so that was nice, because I only had to pay $8 :-)

Here's how the garden stands now. I'll try to get pics of the actual garden tomorrow when it's light out again. Needless to say, it's finally coming along.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Well that is all for now, because I'm running late for church. Thanks for stopping by.

And to end February

2011-02-28T18:00:00.000-08:00

February went out with a bang today, ending our weeks of 60s/70s temperature by getting down to 34 last night. One last horrah. Thank you February :-)

I have been reading through an incredibly detailed, incredibly useful link on Poultry. There is a lot more info than just poultry, but I'm not ready for that stage. Here's the link, start reading!

http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Poultry.html

I got in all my seeds over the weekend. All I lack now is the strawberry plants (set to come in & be planted this week), and I'll be all set. Also, 2 of the pullets will be going to live on a farm - literally, not metaphorically - today, and another 2 will be going to live with Tara at another time shortly.

The last thing for the week, probably, will be the renting of a rear-tine tiller from Ace Hardware. My front-tine tiller broke again, and I'm just tired of dealing with it. You can't beat $8 to rent a $400 tiller!

See you in March!

Random Thoughts

2011-02-24T18:47:00.000-08:00

I've now completed day 3 of the P90X workout video series. WOW. It is brutal, but I feel amazing already. And sore, very very sore.

I got my bloodwork results in today; all looks good! That's great to hear...now to eat healthier than I have been.

Another windstorm hit us today, but we lost no fence posts. Thank goodness...

The house next door to us sold. Maybe they'll be the bees knees and won't care if we have chickens? Heh...

That's really all for now...not too much happening. We did get a nice soaking of rain, so the potatoes have a nice kick-start to their growth. Can't wait till next week - the entire garden is getting tilled, and the Strawberries will be planted.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Exercise

2011-02-22T19:10:00.000-08:00

I had a doctor's appointment last Friday. It was the first appointment I think I've ever had where nothing was really wrong - I just went for a general checkup. That's not to say I'm not at the doctor often - if you know me, you know that I have many, many, injuries every year, and I practically have my own room at the local doctor's office and Emergency Room.

But this time, it was a little different. I turned 25 the other day, and decided that I would rather know now if I need to change something in my lifestyle, rather than finding out 5 years from now, sitting in a hospital bed. I'm not stupid; I know I don't eat the healthiest, so I figure my cholesterol is probably a little too high. Luckily my blood pressure is perfect, I'm not overweight, and I try to be very active. The thing that made me consider doing this was when some VERY bad storms hit while I was hunting one day. The lightning was frequent and getting closer. I decided sitting in a metal deer stand was probably not in my best interest, and took off running with my gear pack (it probably weighed about 20 pounds). The distance from the stand to the truck was a tad over 1,000 feet, or about 1/5th of a mile. I had to stop and rest on the way back to the truck - in doing so I was literally ashamed (not to mention scared out of my flipping mind from the lightning which had just hit 15 feet away from me). It was such a helpless feeling...I was so fearful for my life in this crazy storm, but I had absolutely no energy, no drive, to push and keep running.

I brought this up to my doctor. Sadly, I have been plagued by incredibly painful arches over the last year. He suggested trying one more thing, then going to orthotics; regardless, running a few miles like I used to is now out of the question. I'll need to work out inside the house, but I am not the kind of person who enjoys getting on a treadmill for an hour and mindlessly walking 5 miles. No thanks. But there is one thing I am now intrigued by - perhaps you've heard of it. It's called P90X, and from what I hear, it is a brutal kick in the groin. It's going to really suck the first 2 weeks or so, that is guaranteed, but after that I'm hoping it will help my energy level rise, as well as help me to be more active. I often think back to that day in November and feel how helpless I was, and I never want to feel that again. There's a lot of things we as humans have no control over, but I feel I should at least be able to run for my life.

I'll admit, this is a weird post. But you get what you pay for :-D

Peaceful

2011-02-21T17:46:00.000-08:00

When doing the nighttime chores (locking the chickens in, refilling feed & water, etc), I have found that, while it takes a few extra minutes, it's such a peaceful feeling to do the chores in the dark.

After a while, my eyes adjust to the starlight and moonlight, and the calmness sets in. All the animals have just about gone to sleep for the night, and the crickets play a song as the moon casts shadows in the dark.

Goodnight everyone.

Planting Dates

2011-02-20T16:48:00.000-08:00

As I was working all day in the garden yesterday, when I planted onions and carrots, I remembered that I had not posted the planting dates.

I like to plant onions, carrots, and lettuce earlier than this (February 19th), but oh well, that's just the way it goes.
Potatoes I like to plant between the Full Moon in February and President's Day. This year, that date range is the 18th - 22nd.

Strawberries will be planted March 1-8.
Corn, Beans, and Cucumbers will be planted sometime between March 20 and May 1. According to my 2010 gardening journal, I planted these on April 4th. It just sort of depends on the weather at the time.
Shortly after the Corn, Beans and Cucs, the Tomatoes will be planted between March 25th and April 15th.
Next, the Peppers will be planted sometime in the month of April, followed by the Southern Peas being planted between April 1 and May 20th.
Cantaleoupe, a big letdown from last year, will be planted sometime between April 5th and May 1st.
I don't have a schedule made up for the Fall planting dates, but I plan on getting one together soon. There are many vegetables that grow much better in the fall, here in Texas, thanks to the incredibly hot summer ending.

Some other gardening notes:

On the lasagna method, which I spoke about a couple posts ago, I have run across one negative...well maybe. Most tillers (at least the one I use, for sure) cannot till through all the hay, so you'll have to rake the hay out of the way, till, then rake it back on top. It kind of stinks, because I wanted to till the hay into the ground. But I guess having a thick layer of hay mulch will be pretty awesome.

Completely unintentionally, I "planted" a cover crop over a portion of my garden last fall. What actually happened was, I put down wheat straw, and the wheat seeds germinated, then grew :-) So after it started to grow, I thought "why not, cover crops are good." Well now that it's time to till it all in, I sorta wish I had a horse and plow, because this stuff is FIRMLY rooted into the ground. That's the point of wheat as a cover crop, but probably is not realistic for such a small scale garden. It took a long time to get it uprooted, and that was only about 20 square feet of wheat grass. Notice this clump of wheat grass - the root structure is incredibly thick and intertwined, and (you'll just have to trust me on this) is very hard to separate.

Planting Onion plants

I thought I'd write up a little how-to on how I planted the onion plants I bought ($0.89/60, not bad!).

First, I tilled the few square feet where the onions were to be planted. I flattened the ground so digging furrows would be easier. I then used my hoe, or my hands, to dig a furrow.

I took a handful of onion plants and started setting them in the furrow about 4-6" apart.

I then simply pushed the soil back onto the onions, which are now at about 1-2" deep in the furrow. I then compacted the ground around the stalks, to provide good root-to-soil contact. I did not do that last year, and I believe that with this tip, I should have a better production rate.

Well, that about sums up everything from this weekend. What a beautiful weekend it was, and it was great to soak up the sun outside. I can't wait to see what this year's garden holds in store!

Thankfulness

2011-02-18T20:22:00.000-08:00

I wrote out a long post about how difficult things have been lately, with such an incredibly large amount of work at my job. But then, I deleted it all.

I'm so extremely thankful for the opportunity to even have a job, much less make a great salary and so much more. Complaining just seems so wrong when there are millions of Americans without a job, a home, or money. So help me out - let's all be grateful for what God has blessed us with, even if at times it can be extremely stressful.

Shh!

2011-02-17T17:45:00.000-08:00

"We're not supposed to be here!"

Tilling around chickens

2011-02-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

Due to all the mayhem lately, very little has been done in the garden. The lasagna method of soil preparation seems to have REALLY worked well. However, for those interested in trying it, I do have a few suggestions.

Horse manure is great - there are far less weed seeds than cow manure. The areas with cow manure have considerably more weeds than the areas covered with horse manure.
The manure that you choose, try to find it "fresh." The manure I used had been composting for a couple of years. Although it is a great soil additive, it didn't really heat up, which is part of what you're aiming for.
The hay on top - use the best you can find. Usually it will be called "Coastal Bermuda." Buy a lot in the summer before the prices go up and quantities diminish near Halloween.
Be sure to spray it down with water if you haven't gotten precipitation for a while.
Use thick cardboard if you live in a very wet area. If you live in a dry area, use thinner cardboard. The wet soil will decompose the cardboard faster, so obviously the wetter places can get away with thicker stuff.

Now that it is nearly Spring, it's time to rototill all of this back into the ground. Problem is, there are chickens in the garden. They're not terribly easy to move, either. So I'll just have to rototill around them (I'm sure they'll love that). Actually I will probably lock them inside their coop so they aren't frightened. With the lasagna method, I shouldn't have to till too deep - probably just around 6-8". I had put around 6" of horse manure on the soil, then covered it with hay. It has now settled down to about 3" high, so that will give me a good combination of original soil and manure.

Obviously the most critical areas of the garden are the areas where things need to be planted immediately. Unfortunately, that's a TON of area. The entire potato area needs to be tilled by next Tuesday (2/22/11) and the Strawberries will be planted two weeks after that. The peppers, corn, and tomatoes have a while, so they aren't of immediate concern, but I think it would probably be in the best interest to go ahead and till them since I'm out there. Since I planted the onions last night, I will have to be very careful tilling around those as well.

Well, on to the hard work!

And now, for a recap.

2011-02-15T17:48:00.000-08:00

(Note that I wrote this post a couple weeks ago, so when I say "it is" it should be "it was" etc.)

Since Blogger was causing me so many problems, and it now appears to be working, I thought I'd give a recap of all the things I wanted to post!

Yes! We now have chicks! We went out to Terrell (about 30-45 min. east of Dallas) and picked up 4 six-week-old pullets, and 2 two-day-old Silver Laced Wyandottes. The chicks are currently living in a small brooder, and will "graduate" up to the bigger brooder in a couple weeks. The bigger brooder is being used (although a tad cramped) by the pullets, because....

IT'S FREAKING COLD! The temps in North Texas dropped...like a brick of lead in the ocean. I'd say the average temperature for the last day or so, and for the next couple, has been in the mid-teens. At night it's getting down to around 13* F, with a wind chill far into the negatives. The entire Metroplex is covered in a thick layer of ice (locally about 1" - 1.5" thick). There have been rolling blackouts, frozen pipes, and wrecks galore. Animals are living in the house, and going outside requires 10 minutes of preparation. The dogs are afraid to pee out of fear! Not only did all that hit, but, a portion of the fence fell in the storm (that makes 10 posts snapped and 15 fallen panels since moving in). Because of that, we couldn't house the chickens outside. They are illegal chickens, and if the neighbors behind us saw them, we'd for sure get written up and they would be removed. It sucks, I know. But those are the crappy rules.

And yet, I had jury duty. Not city, but county, which meant 9 hours of sitting and waiting in downtown Ft. Worth (only to be told I was dismissed, yahoo!). This just happened to coincide with Superbowl XLV being held RIGHT down the street, and mass chaos ensued all week. Remember the ice from above? I'm sure you heard about how big of a disaster the Superbowl was thanks to it.

So eventually I am working from home, during the "Snowpocalpyse." Going well until...bam! hit by a ton of bricks, aka the flu. I've never had the flu, and wow - the flu had my number. That number was 102, as in degrees Fahrenheit, for three days. Needless to say, nothing got done around the house. When we were finally able to drag ourselves to the kitchen, we found that the pipes had frozen (see Snowpocalypse, above). "Life is so cruel," we thought....

But now, life is back to normal (*is life ever really normal around here?). The pipes are unfrozen, there are illegal chickens eating bugs in the back yard, there are 2 chickens sitting on our dining room table, I no longer have the full-blown flu, and best of all, the dogs are no longer fearful of frozen pee.

Life is great around here.

Potatoes!

2011-02-15T17:25:00.000-08:00

My most favorite thing to grow, potatoes, will be bought today. To me, it's the "kicking-off" of the gardening year!

More to come later. Obviously there has been a big lacking in the posts lately (even after I promised to post more). Well there's...adequate...reasoning. But more on that later.

Blogger

2011-02-01T08:11:00.001-08:00

I am having a TON of problems with this website (hence the absence of posting for the last week). Nothing is posting when I tell it to post, and half the time the website isn't accessible. Argh!

Anyone else experiencing things like that?

Defining Liberty - A Short Essay

2011-02-01T08:10:00.000-08:00

Warming: This article may be hazardous to your health and readers are encouraged to not participate in such a dangerous reading activity ;-)

==============================================================

I see a lot of regulations these days, and my mind constantly retreats to a specific dream I once had. The dream was of a man and his wife, living in the foothills of a discrete mountain. He and his family had lived here for years, decades even, after his ancestors arrived in the push across this great country. He and his wife were happy people; they lived in a cottage they built themselves, heated their house through the cold winters with wood they cut and split, and ate the food they grew and killed on their property. It is obvious that this was merely a dream, because these people paid no property taxes! Their lives were a constant - never bothering anyone and never bothered. They just...were.

In today's world, however, this sort of ideology would never last. You see, one has to question, when skimming the news headlines for all of 15 minutes, how we as humans made it to the year 2011 without the invention of such institutions as the post-1920s American Government, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and similar agencies. Surely life before these came about, life was filled with terrible, disease-ridden people who lived only until they drank some raw milk, or perhaps burned an outdoor fire without a permit. Afterwards, they were sure to fall over dead.

Give me a break! People have lived for thousands upon thousands of years without these invasive agencies and will continue to once these agencies are gone. I don't deny that the agencies were formed in good reason, but the monster they have morphed into is an all-consuming, all-regulating giant.

Recently I began thinking, "what is true liberty?" Liberty is defined as: freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control. I much prefer an alternate definition, though: freedom from control, interference,obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.

When we think back to the American pioneers and frontiersmen, we think of men, women, and children who lived nearly as if they were the only ones on the Earth. I'm sure they had interaction with others, occasionally, but for the most part they lived alone, working to provide a better means for themselves. They used America's natural resources to provide sustenance and life - and they did so without applying for permits, taking OSHA approved safety courses on how to operate their tools/machinery, and they did so completely free of being told how to do it. Why is this so important to me, and others like me? Because at that point in time, and only a few years beyond it, did Americans exhibit pure liberty. I believe that if we, as Americans, want to regain control of one of our founding virtues, then we need to return to an Agrarian type of life. The caveat to this is that it would undoubtedly require work. Work is seen by the lazy as unnecessary - something that can be done by others. And because this laziness infiltrates just about every nook and cranny of America (more specifically the cities), America has very few options to correct it. I would like to venture out more into that topic, but I am limiting this essay to, mostly, defining liberty. I have a strong feeling that America will either be forced to enter an agrarian lifestyle, out of an incredible economic depression, or that America will become a country no longer based on independence and liberty, but rather on a Socialist/Communistic style of economy & government. I am not intending to make some sort of political statement; I just feel that in order to satisfy the overwhelming (and growing) lazy portion of the population, things will change.

Liberty was once at the core of the American soul. It was something that was respected and loved, but most of all, Americans were liberty. When the country at risk of being run over by tyrants, it was the liberty that kept them going, kept them fighting. Liberty was not granted to them by an agency. It wasn't something one could apply for and exercise at another's discretion. Liberty was, simply because interference was not.

The Most IMPORTANT Video(s) You'll Ever See

2011-01-22T15:08:00.000-08:00

That's the title of a video series I saw recently. Dr. Albert A. Bartlett is the professor pictured in the videos, and he is giving a lesson on population growth (among other details). Dr. Bartlett has made 2 notable quotes regarding sustainability.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

"Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?"

reference

I urge, no, implore you to watch these, as the subject of the video series has such an incredible effect on our future.

I was going to divide this 8-part series into 2 posts, one posted today and another posted tomorrow, but it's segmented kind of strangely, so I will post all 8 (which totals about an hour). I would recommend though, watching it over a couple days if you don't have a lot of time (like me).

An incredible passage

2011-01-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

From the current book I'm reading, The Great Frontier, by Walter Prescott Webb.

When these first men, many of them smarting under the man-made restraints of economics and religion, came to America they indeed and in truth entered a new world. It is with difficulty that I find language to express its newness to the children of civilization. In driving across the vast expanses of America I have often tried to visualize it as it was in this beginning, not the beginning of America, but the beginning of the European's experience with it. Even at the distance of four hundred years, more or less, I find myself caught up with the combined emotions of wonder, amazement, and awe. Here were new forests, new soil, and new streams; here was new silence and immensity, too silent and extensive to be broken by a single individual or by any number then available. How small man feels in such presence. But with this consciousness of insignificance goes that of elation which comes why man feels himself blended with nature where his vision is unobstructed and his acts unimpeded by other men. What men had done to him all his life now fell away in a single instant: nowhere was there policeman, priest, or overlord to push him around. All the barricades that men had placed around him came down, and he stepped forth freer of man than he or any of his fellows had been for a very long time. Then and there he took a long step toward democracy, not political democracy but psychological, social, and economic liberty without which political democracy cannot long endure. Though the European walls had fallen away, new ones rose around him, for he stood in the presence of a new master. That master was nature, the forests and plains, the streams and deserts, the wind and the weather. It is doubtful if man should be asked to change from one master to another with such contrasting temperaments. Civilization shouts, gives orders, writes rules, puts man in institutions, and intimidates him with a thousand irritating directives. In return it offers him protection, soul salvation, and a living if he can find it. Nature looks down on him and broods in silence. It never shouts, writes rules or builds prisons, and it makes no suggestion about destiny or the future. Its noises of running streams and wind in the trees are its own, not directed at but soothing to him because he heard them before he heard the noises of civilization. Nature makes no promises, writes no insurance, and cares not for the soul. It is passive, receiving whatever is given to it, never striking back for vengeance or justice. Thus frontier man became the only active agent on the scene, and his acts were unrestrained by other men. In Europe, the theme of life was man against man, man against civilization; but on the frontier the theme was man against nature.

Tranquility

2011-01-19T20:13:00.000-08:00

Some days, it's good to mix it up.

2011-01-18T17:01:00.000-08:00

Like when you decide, "you know, I think I'll dress very nice today" rather than tennis shoes and old jeans.

...

Then unexpectedly, government auditors show up at work to meet with you, and...look at that! You look like you knew the whole time. ;-)

by the way, great news! I got my computer working again, finally! So expect to see quite a few more posts now.

2011 Garden Layout

2011-01-15T07:37:00.000-08:00

The garden layout is finally done! As I've said before in past posts, I'm extremely (read overly) analytical about this stuff, and this is probably completely unnecessary, but hey - it gives me something to do in the months when there is no gardening to tend to.

You can find the 2011 garden layout link at the top of my blog, or by following this link.

You'll notice, there's quite a substantial size difference between 2010's gardens (a total of ~98 sq. ft.) and 2011's gardens (a total of 872 sq. ft.)!

12 days late but who cares?

2011-01-12T20:32:00.000-08:00

I am not one to make New Year's resolutions. I don't make them because I disagree with the whole premise of "I want to change something about myself, so I'll use New Year's as a starting point." My personal opinion is, if someone was really motivated to change something, they would do so any time of the year. But off my soapbox...it just so happens I have started really diving into some books/articles lately, and they are changing my long-standing opinion on many things. So having ranted above about not making resolutions, I change my approach and say that I am changing some things (but I promise, it's only because it happened to coincide with the beginning of the new year!).

I was reading an incredible article about the ~~failure~~ incredible short-comings of our public school systems (link here) and though the article is deserving of its own post, I did take one thing in particular from it that made me think. John Gatto writes:

One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible.

I cannot tell you how many times a day I will think or say "I'm bored." It has to be dozens of times, and Gatto's grandfather makes a great point - the only one who can affect it (most of the time) is me.

Another thing I'm planning on venturing into is risk. In many aspects of my life, I'm a very safe, life-in-a-bubble, kind of guy. I want to venture out and do things, but don't due to the risk involved. But forget that! Time to make things happen, time to see just what can be accomplished when I take a leap. After studying my ancestry for the past few weeks, I'm simply amazed at the incredible risk these pioneers took. Leaving family, likely never to see again, and moving to the middle of a hostile environment, solely so that they could be independent & free - not like what we think of today (our rights per the Constitution) but actually free. It sort of reminds me of the "if a tree falls in the woods..." question; if a pioneer lived somewhere, and he/she had no knowledge of governing entity, and vice versa, isn't that true freedom!?

Now it sounds like I'm campaigning for no government - I'm not. I'm just pointing out how risky our ancestors lives were, and how they knew a life that we will likely never see, and it excites me to find out a little more about it. After all, the name of this blog is Chance the Rapids! A metaphor for taking risks and living life to the fullest! :-)

I guess I'll finish the post for today with one last resolution. Thanks to all my blog followers (hopefully I'll have more in 2011!), and my last resolution will be to actually be somewhat-consistent in my blog posts. But, know that in down times, I'm going to have to blog about some random crap to fill the void!

Have a wonderful 2011, everyone.

Quiet on the homefront

2011-01-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

The snow came trickling down on Sunday...first a flake here and there, then, what felt like a blizzard. Although we were projected to get several inches, my area did not receive more than a dusting. Some areas, about 40 miles away, did get 3-4 inches, and lots of kids were making snowmen yesterday :-).

Because of the inconsistently cold weather, I haven't done a whole lot outside; though, there's not a lot to do anyways. Everything has turned that light brown color that winter brings, and though I love winter, I sure do hate that color. After numerous revisions to the garden layout, I think I've finally picked all the locations & seed varieties I want to order (I'm not liking the price, though, heh). I'll have to upload a diagram in a couple days. I should be able to take advantage of our short cold-half of Spring, when the greens are growing, by removing them and planting Cantaloupe. They wouldn't live into May anyways.

I also checked out the Farmer's Almanac for 2011, and saw the same prediction as 2010's summer - "Sweltering hot and very wet." I don't know...last year was hot, but not sweltering. And while it was rainy, it was only for about 3 weeks, followed by months of drought. Oh well, at least it predicted a low number of tornadoes.

Well that is all for now. Stay warm by the fire!

What I'm reading...

2011-01-04T18:16:00.000-08:00

This book is deep! I'm loving it so far. It's the first book in a while that has really challenged me - somewhat complex in it's points and reasoning, but overall very good. I'll have a full review later down the road when I finish it.

Have people forgotten?

2010-12-23T07:33:00.000-08:00

The other day I was thinking...does anyone really remember what this symbol above means? I can guarantee you that if you asked a group of 100, well over half would say "it means recycle!" Actually, I'd bet 80% said recycle...

Wrong.

In actuality, it stands for the "Waste Hierarchy," and as a hierarchy, it contains an order of importance. That order of importance is noted by the three arrows - Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle. You see, America has a problem (among a million others); Americans like to simply throw money at a problem to solve it. Many people are extremely lazy, but manage to pull in quite a bit of money working at their jobs. They can't be bothered by actually taking some initiative and working, though - that's what work is for silly! So, most people have twisted the symbol above into just meaning Recycle. By doing this, they are eliminated the more important waste management strategies, Reduce and Reuse.

Ask most elementary-age students what they think of when they hear the word Recycle, and they'll likely answer "collecting cans and taking them to the can recycle bins" or "collecting paper and putting it in the paper recycle bins," or maybe even "collecting plastic bottles and putting them in the plastic recycle bins." See the problem? We've taught the younger generations that the answer to America's wasteful tendencies is to pay someone else to process it into something else. I don't think it's necessary to tell you this, because it's pretty well known, but those recycling plants are not working for free - it costs more to recycle than it does to just trash it.

So how do we solve it? By reinstating the 3 R's - not a "recycling" program. Reducing our use of products is the most sure-fire way. The next way, most often overlooked, is Reusing, and that's my "specialty" of sorts. We can look around and reuse so much stuff that is being thrown away. (Before I proceed, let me point out that I am FAR from what you would call a "hippy enviro-nut.") These things are just too easy. In the last week, I picked up a ton of cardboard being thrown out. I ripped all the metal staples out, removed the tape, and laid down this cardboard in the garden to break down for next year. I also picked up a ton of manure, which was sitting in a pile, smelling like crazy, and running off into who knows where. It will be composted on top of the cardboard, with hay on top. It sounds crazy, but I promise you it doesn't smell at all. Then last night, I picked up a large plastic "house" type thing my friend was trashing. It'll be a perfect compost bin. And it looks snazzy too :D

So remember, the next time you're driving around and see 1,000 bags of leaves on the curb, stop and grab a few. If you see a large barrel being trashed, maybe you could use it for a rain barrel...heck it doesn't even have to relate to gardening. You can make millions of things out of barrels, scrap wood, etc.

So, I leave you with this. The real one.

So...so...exhausted

2010-12-18T20:01:00.000-08:00

Went and picked up another ton of horse manure today. I'm glad the garden is almost done, because this is backbreaking work. It will be nice when we have our own house and land and ... wait a minute. I'll have to do this all again. Agh!

lol

Good night all! :D

Seed buyin time...

2010-12-14T19:50:00.000-08:00

Well, there's a TON of stuff about to happen. It's all waiting on Wednesday (aka, payday). So not only have I listed off the seeds I'll be buying, but I've also added a few other projects I'll be diving into. They're not really related to gardening/homesteading, but what the heck, they're neat.

Seeds to buy:

Tomatoes
Roma
Brandywine
Perhaps a cherry variety (not sure yet)

Cucumbers
Marketmore 76 (slicing)
Double-yield Pickling

Beans/Peas
Mississippi Silver Crowder
Kentucky Wonder Pole
Dark Red Kidney
Black Turtle

Peppers:
Emerald Giant Peppers
Joe's Long Cayenne
Jalapeno

Potatoes
Yukon Gold
Red Pontiac

Corn
Silver Queen

Strawberries:
Jewel

Onions
Some Yellow variety, some white variety

Lettuce
Iceberg (head)
Little Gem (Romaine variety)

Broccoli
Any Kind

Carrots
Danver's Half-Long

Beets
Any kind

Another project I'll start tomorrow is building a smoker. I'll upload some photos of the process along the way...should be fun. It'd be nice if I had some chickens I raised, to BBQ in it. Argh.

Another thing on the agenda is to order my Mustang parts. If you haven't seen my other blog, I'm restoring a 1966 Ford Mustang Coupe, and I'm ordering a truckload of new suspension parts.

Last, I need to make a couple more trips out to Venus to get some more manure. Spring is right around the corner, and I'd better get the bed composted before it's too late. So hopefully by Sunday I'll be done with that, because things are about to get crazy.

Have a great week everyone :-D

An Amazing Resource

2010-12-06T19:28:00.000-08:00

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/

"PlantFiles is the largest plant database in the world, with information and photos for 183,506 different plants! View our 282,047 images and read our 112,742 detailed and helpful comments. Search for a plant by its common or botanical name using the green button below, or scroll down the page and browse through hundreds of popular cultivars, or search for plants by their characteristics (height, hardiness, etc.)"

This website has a TON of great information. If you haven't seen it before, I highly recommend checking it out!!

Back to it

2010-12-02T20:05:00.000-08:00

On the list for the next couple weeks:

Need to set up a little area where I can start some seeds. Last year, the tomato seeds and pepper seeds did not do much, at all. That's why we have nurseries :) But this year I have a secret weapon - Christmas Lights. More on that later.

While the ground is nearly ready for the garden there's a few other things that need my attention. I'm ordering 250 feet of soaker hose off of Amazon, which will be run all over the garden. I also need to build some trellises for the beans, and build the tomato cages. Whew that is going to be a lot of work, in the middle of a cold cold winter.

I need to order a LOT of seeds. I have a list in the livingroom, but I'm sitting in bed typing this and don't feel like going to get it. Here's what I know of:

Lettuce (Romaine, Iceberg), Corn (?), Potatoes (various kinds for backing, mashing, soups), Goliath Tomatoes, Carrots (Danvers probably), Peppers (Jalapeno, Bell, Habanero, Cayenne, Ancho/Pablano), Beans (Kentucky Wonder, Crowder, need to think of some more), Strawberries (Jewel), Cucumbers (A bush slicing variety and pickling variety). Also I'll need a huge assortment of herbs/flowers which repel bad bugs, which include: Anise, Borage, Coriander, Carraway, Mint, Peppermint, Bee Balm, Onions, Nasturtiums, and about 15 others I can't think of at the moment.

And last, sadly, I still need more manure. I'm liking this "lasagna method" - it appears to be working great. I just wish I had easier access to it...and a tractor, lol.

Unattainable Dreams

2010-11-30T16:30:00.000-08:00

This is, by far, one of the most rambling-thing I've ever written. But I feel it is very important for me to write this. All of these thoughts over the next few paragraphs are what is going through my head in a span of about 5 minutes... Imagine what my days are like. I don't hope for a result from the post. I just hope that it will put my mind at ease, somewhat.

I lie awake at night, my mind racing. Depression hurts, but this is not a normal type of depression, whatever that is. I constantly think to myself, "What am I doing?" These dreams I have, I want them badly. But they always seem as if they are as far apart as the sun is from the moon. To most, I would seem a confused, mid-life crisis sort of character. After all, I have a fantastic job, house, family...and yet I long for something more. I can find 100 different things to do, every day, and yet I am so bored. The time spent sitting in a porch swing could fill more books than the work done by 10 people behind a desk and computer screen. Why? Because it's real. These dreams, they depress me, because I want more than a keyboard and screen that tells me I succeeded at something. I want to feel the earth - the WHOLE EARTH - to offer up a bounty of reward, thanks to my hard work and dedication. I want to run - run with dogs, with kids, with my best friend - and not hit a barrier. I want to live life with the seasons, not against them. I have almost unlimited access to nearly everything I need here, as well - but why!? I often wonder "if it was 1am, and there were no stores to go get a package of clear plastic forks, would I really be freaking out right now? No! Because I wouldn't know any different, and would have no reason to worry. I would just have to do without."

Why do I want this so bad? I have no idea, honestly. Other than the fact that I have chosen to live in something that goes against the very nature of this country (or so it seems, but actually doesn't...regardless I'm making a point), I could do this in my own backyard. I could grow some vegetables. I could even have a few chickens. But it just doesn't feel right. It mentally hurts me that I am stuck here...and I am bothered by that a little - surely no one should feel like that. I think being raised in East Texas part of my life is starting to come out, and my old self is really pissed off at my new self. My new self wonders, though, worries about the changes that would happen with family and friends. My new self wonders, "you don't really know if you'd like this 'other life' anyways - you would be so screwed if you changed your mind." My new self is the voice of reason, and my old self is... me. And for now, I will continue to want, to dream, to desire something more fulfilling, and it will continue to depress me.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I apologize for my insanity. :P

Frustating!

2010-10-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

Apparently, one is supposed to plant blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries in mid-Autumn - not Spring. So, because I didn't do enough research (which is very uncharacteristic), I likely will not be able to plant these items. I have the room, but because I have laid down all the manure, I am fairly certain it will kill the plants, if planted. In addition, I didn't order from www.noursefarms.com so I will have to buy them locally.

It's not a terribly big deal, it's just that I set all that room aside for the delicious fruit I hoped to be eating next summer. And now, it looks like I'll have none of that. But the room has already been set aside, so I'll put something there in the spring.

In other news, I took a huge leap of faith, and spoke with my neighbor about borrowing her land for some poultry production. After several days (seemed like months), she responded and said she wasn't interested. But it was worth a shot. One little motto, if you will, that I've been going by lately is this:

“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.”

Henry David Thoreau

A blog post

2010-10-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

Just for the sake of posting.

I wish I could type out a long post, or heck, a series of short posts...I'm just too busy & don't have enough gumption to write one. You see, our computer has some terrible problem with it, and shuts off routinely, with no warning or anything. It can make doing work EXTREMELY frustrating. So I'm left with my work laptop, which takes about 20 minutes just to turn on (no thanks).

Hopefully soon I can get back to posting, catch everyone up, and hopefully somewhere along the way, some work will get done as a side effect :-D

Knee Deep in Horse Crap

2010-09-22T21:51:00.000-07:00

And it was great.

Well, as great as being knee-deep in partially-composted horse crap can be, I guess. Let's just say it felt really good to finally be able to do work. Sitting in a chair, or being limited in any way, drives me crazy.

Let me explain why Sunday was a good day. I talked to a lady who lived not to far away, about coming out and scooping up some manure and loading it for my garden. We set up a time, got directions to her house, and I loaded up the shovels and headed out. The directions she gave me were somewhat confusing - I knew the area well, but I could have sworn there was nothing down there but miles and miles of pasture, just past where the freeway dead-ends.
    Well, after taking a left, then a right, I realized I was on a street normally hidden from the busy freeway. Wouldn't you know it, the name of the street was the same as my last name! A pleasant premonition, perhaps?
    So, I made my way to Ms. Audra's barn, where I found several horses staring at me. I can only imagine what they were thinking... Ms. Audra told me where to find the "poop piles" and wow - they were huge. So, I started scooping, and filled up the bed of my truck. As I was leaving, she mentioned that next time I should call her a couple days in advance, and they would just use the tractor. Awesome.
    Back at home, I started the tedious task of unloading the manure, wheeling it to the back yard, and piling it on the cardboard. About halfway through this process, I realized I did not have enough cardboard. This is quite the predicament - what do you do with 250 excess pounds of horse manure? Well, I made a big pile. That ought to piss off a few neighbors :-)
   So, this week I'll continue my trek for composting materials. The garden is approximately 1/3 prepped for Spring. With fall about to hit, I should be able to throw a TON of leaves/grass on top, and get it really going.
   Next week, I'll be putting up a fence. I'm still not happy about the idea of a T-post / Chicken wire fence, but it is what it is. Maybe y'all have some ideas? It's got to be: a) less than 3' tall, b) inexpensive, c) be accessible to enter and exit through some type of gate, and d) have enough clearance to get by (without snagging) gathering vegetables.

Hmmm, that's a thinker.

I couldn't think of a way to tie this in. So, what the heck. Here is a picture of some Charantais melons I have growing in the back

Shamless Plug

2010-09-16T19:28:00.001-07:00

Check out my wife's blog (below)! She's just getting started. Ought to see some funny stuff in there...I know because I hear about it daily!

http://khardy04.blogspot.com/

Credit

2010-09-15T22:09:00.000-07:00

Before I start, I'll reference (again) Joel Salatin's book "You Can Farm." If you haven't read it, trust me, it is not a book on 'here is how to milk a cow,' or 'here is how to plant potatoes' - it's more philosophical...or something. Just read it!

So, credit. Is it a good idea to inform the readers (and the internet) of my financial status? Heck yes - if I can make just one person second-guess taking on any form of loan or credit, I'll be happy. Many years ago, in high school, I was lectured and lectured by tons of people I know - NEVER GET A CREDIT CARD! I understood why, and firmly believed what they were saying, but after a while, things got tough. Being in college and paying for it by myself wasn't easy. I was going through some rough times with my family, and had moved out, and did not receive any support from them (as my choice). So, one school loan here, a second there, then a credit card to pay for something, and another for this & that. Eventually, between Katie and I, we probably had 15-20 loans/credit cards. It was getting out of hand, and we knew it. The way credit card companies operate, if you aren't aware, is to have you pay a minimum payment. This minimum payment is the devil. The minimum payment will keep your credit happy, sure. Why wouldn't they be happy with you paying them a ton of extra money? With the minimum due, you're paying primarily the interest that the account is generating per month. If you're only paying interest - you'll never pay it off.

Now, the link. We drove by a beautiful property that has been for sale for several years. It's right across the street from our church, is in a good neighborhood, and actually borders a locally-famous farm here. They have recently been cleaning it up and making it prettier, to sell it quicker. On the new sign, they have offered financing for the property, and it started a conversation between Katie and I.

With financing a property to be used as a farm, you take on a different situation than financing a house (mortgage). It would be nice if we could all pay cash for our homes, but if it's not possible (and for most people it is not), the owners work to pay off the house. As they make payments, they lose money, but gain equity, so it's not really a loss, if it's paid off quickly.

Now, for a large property to be farmed, the income is derived from the farm. If the property is not paid for, the income goes directly back to the bank, which then gains the owner equity. Problem is, a lot of these properties are massively expensive. The owners are then strapped down to the farm, and it becomes like a prison to them.

...now, a breather and an exclaimer: This does not mean someone cannot finance a farm, and pay for it farming. It doesn't mean they're going to feel locked in a prison. These are just a few of the people I have talked to, who do things "the way we have always done them" simply because. Heck, a lot of people think if you're making $200 per acre per year, you're making a good profit. Insane.

The moral to all this is, and this is just as much for me as it is for the readers, is to be smart about your finances. I don't claim to be any type of financial genius. I just know, by the end of the year, we will have paid off another 3 credit cards. We've taken, in less than 2 years, our total debt from around $217,000 to $166,000 (with most of that being debt actually being the mortgage). A lot of people congratulate me on that, but honestly, I hate that. It never should have been that bad. We have come a long way, and I can only wonder how far we would be if we did not pay all the ugly interest that goes along with it. I know that in some cases, it's absolutely necessary. There's no way I could have gotten a job in my field without a degree. But it sure makes me cringe every time I pay that bill.

With that, I'll end the rambling for the evening. But, I'll mention this post might lead to another, dealing with leasing. And chickens. And cows. Baby cows. :-P

Goodnight all!

The Homesteader's Rifle

2010-09-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

As most of the readers of this blog know, I like to hunt. Hunting is a very important aspect of our environment, but it gets a bad rap. As with most things, the few bad things make the news, and people react in an uproar. However, most hunters are conservationists and strongly disagree with poaching, over harvesting, and illegal marketing of pelts/meat. Hunting is important because it helps keep the animal population in control. In Texas, the number of whitetail deer are closely monitored by game wardens, civilians, and Texas State Biologists, so their numbers do not get out of hand. Ever hear about someone hitting a deer in their car? That happens a lot here in Texas, and the State tries to balance the fine line between over harvesting, and keeping the public safe. It's not an easy job.

With Fall fast approaching, it's time for deer (and several other animals, for that matter) to begin their annual mating. This coincides with the beginning of most hunting seasons. While watching a video about hogs yesterday (I am determined to get a hog this year), I ran across a video that brought up something called "The Dog Bowl Theory." The author had a very interesting point. He stated that if a domesticated dog were brought to the wilderness and released, it would likely die. The domesticated dog does not know how to get food - he knows that food magically comes from the food bowl. Now picture humans and grocery stores: an eerie resemblence. There are millions of people in the US that have never seen a cow, hog, or chicken butchered. What if, tomorrow, there were no grocery stores. Poof: gone. What would people do? If I had to guess, I would say most would simply starve to death. Another small percentage would probably die of poisoning (thanks to poisonous or contaminated food). I don't mean this to be a doom & gloom post, but the sad fact is, a lot of people have no idea how their food gets to their dinner plate. Heck, they don't know how it gets to the Styrofoam tray covered in cling-wrap.

So why do I bring all this up, related to hunting? Well, I made a purchase recently :-D. I purchased what I consider to be the all-American all-around perfect gun. The Marlin 30-30. This small lever-action rifle is powerful enough to take literally any animal in the United States (seriously, they have killed everything from bobcats to Moose with this tiny thing). It's a valuable tool if one has access to hunting land, as it can cheaply provide meat. I paid an amount so small for this mint-condition rifle, I feel bad about posting the price. Hopefully it will pay for itself soon - it already has provided a bit of protection when today, 7 cops showed up in our neighborhood looking for someone on the loose who was feared could break into a house to get away.

So let's say I kill a average sized deer and hog. That's going to be over 120 lbs. of meat, easily. We like to use most of the deer (along with a bit of the hog for the fat content) for hamburger meat. That's a lot of hamburger meat we do not need to buy at the store. And it tastes exactly the same as ground beef, in my opinion. Maybe a very slight (nearly unnoticeable) spicy flavor to it. Then we use the rest of the pork for sausage. Mmm, you cannot beat Spicy Sausage that you harvested and made yourself. If only there were wild cows, we'd have it made! Mmm wild rib-eye!

To make this purchase, I sold my shotgun to come up with the cash. I like shotguns for a lot of reasons, but I am not an avid bird hunter. If I ever want to go bird hunting, I'm easily able to borrow a shotgun from a friend or family member. So I figure the good outweighs the bad.

Here is an image of the rifle, though not my exact one.

Until another day, happy shooting!

Firewood Time

2010-09-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

I really need to get an actual firewood schedule lined up. We have been cutting it in the summer for the past several years. After our annual Hurricane in East Texas, we go cut up the downed trees - thanks to Mother Nature for making things a little easier.

However, this is a silly approach, and actually a bad idea. The wood does not have time to properly season from June/July to December. I think what we'll have to start doing is going to cut during Spring Break, in March.

We also did not get to cut for a variety of reasons this year (the broken foot, the grandpa's arm surgery, etc.), but hopefully we'll have enough from last year to last a while. To tell you the truth, I know we won't, because this Winter is supposed to be exceptionally cold.

As for now, no time to cut firewood. It's time to scoop poop!

I'M BACK!

2010-09-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

FINALLY! It seemed like an eternity, but I'm finally back on my feet. I won't say it's 100%, but it's really close. Enough to allow me, at the very least, to walk to the kitchen and do simple tasks. Probably another week of taking it easy, and then I'll be back on the search for manure, hay, and other organic stuff to throw in the garden.

Till another day, Yippee!

2010-09-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

Ahh, September. Not my favorite month, but up there. This year is off to a great start though. The weather has turned cool, the Rangers are in the hunt for the playoffs, and ... oh wait, still can't walk. But I do really enjoy the cooler weather!

Here's a great video series (just going to post the links) about Polyface Farm. I really want to go there!!

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYWYU5V8JOo

Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfw2ybbRTYs

Part 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrxmgR-vYms

Melancholy

2010-08-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

I hate to say I am depressed, because that is not really the word to describe it. I just feel so helpless and useless. Having a broken foot is awful. Since I last posted, in addition to completing...nothing... I have had a follow-up in which I learned my foot has not healed, at all. He said I'm looking at another 2-3 weeks on crutches.

I have been too unhappy to come post on here, because there's not really anything to post about. Heck, I haven't even been in the garden.

Eventually I'll be back on my feet, working in the garden. Until then, stay safe and garden extra for me :-D

Dangit

2010-08-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

It WAS broken.

On the other side of that, I played an inning of softball with a broken foot. That's pretty beastly, haha. Possibly stupid, too, though.

Working in the garden is about impossible...

2010-08-13T22:08:00.000-07:00

When you have a broken foot :(

Still not 100% sure if it is broken, but it sure feels, and looks, broken. Will probably give it a day or so to calm down and get some X-rays on it. Really sucks :(

I got NAILED in the foot on a throw from the outfield in our softball game. Just a really dumb mistake on my part...so, just about everything is on hold, now.

hahaha, who do you think I am?! Yea right! Not working for me is, frankly, ludicrous. I'll use my crutches and find a way to get around. Probably won't be doing real intensive tasks, but, I'll do something, that's for sure.

Stay safe out there people!

I love the heat

2010-08-12T20:29:00.000-07:00

But come on...at least give us some rain or something!

I had a clever idea the other day. I called a horse boarding facility. Of course they were ecstatic someone wanted to come take some manure. So looks like Saturday I will get another truckload and bring it home. The only problem now is finding more cardboard and newspaper.

Until later, keep cool!

Set at 150 and bake for 7 months

2010-08-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

Lasagna!

Well, somewhat. More like the most disgusting version of lasagna ever. A layer of newspaper/cardboard, a layer of cow manure and rabbit manure, followed by a layer of hay. In 6 or 7 months, I'll till it into the ground, as it will have (hopefully) composted into rich, nutrient-filled soil. I still hope to get a few (3? 4?) chickens in the early spring to go through the garden one last time, devouring pests and pulling up weeds. Speaking of devouring, I'll also order 1000 Lacewing eggs and 1500 ladybugs from somewhere (like Amazon.com). That should take care of some of the pests.

Here's how the lasagna gardening went:

1) Spend hours gathering a lot of crap

2) Lay newspaper on ground. Pile crap on top. Pile hay on top of that.

3) Finished lasagna garden!

Also, I did it again. I changed the plot layout. I know, it's sad :( I'm too much of a perfectionist. But, to be fair, I only did so to incorporate more companion plants and to move the corn far away from the tomatoes, which is bad pest-wise. More on that later, though. The prep for 2011 is coming along nicely. Just need to track down a lot of manure. All that above (about 1 truck load) covered slightly less than 1/4 of the garden. Lots to go.

Eh, what the heck

2010-08-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

I planted some corn. It's the "late" variety, so I really don't know if it will do anything. But why not, right?

Also my cucumbers are finally growing well after I hand-pollinated them. I picked them too early last time, so this time I'll wait till they're very dark green.

Well, I am tired. It's nearly 11:00 and I've been following the drama at the courthouse in downtown Ft. Worth for the past 14 hours or so.

http://twitter.com/aandro

Good night.

We know what you are and we don't like it.

2010-08-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

Farmer.
Redneck.
Idiot.
Dirty.
Low-class.

I'm tired of it. It hurts, to be honest. I am tired of the negative judgment farmers get when they just want to do their job. Maybe we farmers have a negative judgment about you! Probably not though...we're nice people.

I'm always amazed by the responses & looks I get when people see things I am doing, usually when "prepping" a garden.

That's a lot of work, why would you do all that?
That was a nice lawn, why did you mess it up?
Why are you getting manure to put on your garden? That's disgusting.
Why don't you just buy fertilizer?
Why why why why?

Aggravating. The so-called "city-slickers" are always appalled when farmers scoff at them. It's not to say the farmers are doing things the appropriate ways either - many farmers have disgraced the business of farming for years to come, and it will take effort on both sides to win the other over. For example, let's run through 4 quick answers from the above questions:

1) Work is part of life. Being lazy in life is one of the most wasteful things one could do with a life.
2) A "nice lawn" cracks me up. I have realized Americans are so perverted in what we call "wealth" (which is not really wealth, but that's a different discussion altogether). We bask in the greatness of our green lawn, which we pour hundreds or thousands of dollars into every year, to gain _______. That's right. Absolutely nothing. Except praise and bragging.
3) Manure is smelly. So how do you get rid of it? You can let it sit by itself, where bacteria will soon enter it, cause diseases to run off when it rains, getting into the soil, plants, and eventually entering your environment in some way. Or, you can take that manure, properly compost it so it heats up, kills bad bacteria, and place this compost on a garden bed, which will properly fertilize the garden as God wanted.
4) I don't know - would you eat meat that was 2 years old, but was treated with a chemical so it was "still edible?"

So maybe I'm standing on my soapbox now, screaming a little too loudly. I am just tired of it though. People do not like things different, simply because they do not like things different. It's the dumbest argument I've ever heard, but people stand by it.

So most of this above was for prepping a garden. This is like, I dunno, 1/12th of what a farmer will normally do. So I could go on, but I won't. Instead, I will go to sleep and wake tomorrow, with this in the back of my mind. I'll do what I do while people look on, and I'll do it with a proud but heavy heart.

For real

2010-08-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

I need to stay on top of blogging...

So today is hot. How hot? 106 degrees hot. Frankly, though, I love the heat. I don't work outside all the time, because I don't want to injure myself, but I do work for 15-30 minutes, then rest for 30 minutes. I think it's a Texas thing...we just love the heat.

So what have I been doing? Working on the super large garden, of course.

First, we staked out the "plot" - 35' x 23' - and and edged out the perimeter:

Don't let the tiller in the above picture fool you - it broke 4 times, and I was too tired to pull it out of bed (those things are heavy!)

Next, after fixing the tiller (which took way too long), I started tilling. Tilling is some dang hard work! But, with a lot of muscle and sweat, I got it tilled, for the most part.

Cultivating with a tiller makes for somewhat light-work, but it doesn't do it all. If you're still new at gardening, cultivating essentially gathers the soil several inches down, pulls it to the top, and in the process pulls weeds from the stronghold in the dirt. This, then, kills the weeds. Supposedly you can leave the weeds there and they'll eventually go back into the ground or blow away, but I hate weeds. I rake them together then burn them. Die weeds die! Hahaha

Today I also came across something incredible - the power of a useful tool! I think we all have something like this:

But, as many of us know, this tool can be one of the must frustrating to use. It can feel like you're swinging a sledgehammer, somehow trying to dislodge a weed - how the heck!?!? Well, believe it or not, lower-priced hoes do not come ready-for-use. You definitely need to spend a few minutes sharpening the edge. I spent about 5 minutes putting a grinding (at a 45 degree angle) the edge of the shovel and took it out for a run.

Wow! What a difference. It easily chopped 3" under the soil level to kill the weeds. There was no more whacking away with all my strength. It made the job 100 times easier.

Well that's all for now. Time for dinner :-D

Buy this!

2010-07-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

This is such a fantastic book. The only thing I didn't like about it was the Title. It's not really a "how-to" per se, when it comes to physically farming, but rather a change in the long-time approach of farming. You can read some it it here on Amazon. But I really urge you to buy it!

Relax

2010-07-30T18:09:00.000-07:00

Ludovico's got this:

I am loving this composer. I heard a song of his the other day - his music is so relaxing, and yet, so bone-chilling. Take a few minutes, sit back, (ignore the video if you want, it's kind of weird), and relax.

Rut

2010-07-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

Ugh. I'm tired. Tired of work, tired of the same thing, over and over.

Anyways...on to Thursday.

Getting ready!

2010-07-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

I picked up a landscape edger today, and ordered the landscape fabric. I have finally done it; I've created the perfect garden! Haha, well maybe not. But it is a pretty good design, if I say so myself, and at least it fits my yard/slope/location well. Below is the layout of my garden. It didn't scan well because pencil & paper isn't the clearest thing in the world. Oh well.

Click to Enlarge

From Blog Photos

Some things I have written on the bottom of the picture:

245 Corn plants
110 Bean plants
5 Blackberry plants
5 Raspberry plants
45 Potato plants
22 Pepper plants
16 Tomato plants
7x5 Strawberry bed (not sure on # of plants)

Also scattered throughout the garden I will have lots of Onions, Borage, Carrots, Marigolds, Nasturtiums, and anything else I can think of that will keep pests away. If you haven't looked into Borage, do it! That stuff is amazing!

Not much new on the chickens. I did talk to a realtor who kind of gave me half of what I was looking for. She did write that a maintained coop would not cause the resale value of a nearby house to drop. That's good info.

100th blog post

2010-07-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

Took a while longer than I had hoped, but here it is: the 100th blog post.

I've been monitoring the corn pretty closely lately. I picked an ear today, but it very small and not done. I also picked several carrots and a funky looking cucumber. The cucumbers did not pollinate well (nearly at all), so I went out with a little paintbrush and pollinated them by hand. Not sure how it will turn out, but hopefully well.

There is also some really big news on the horizon! I'm currently writing up a paper which I will be presenting at our HOA meeting. I'm both terrified and excited. I have a lot of points I would like to cover, but due to time constraints, I have 4 main ones. Here's the paper/outline below. It's not completely done, but mostly.

___________________________________________________________

Raising Chickens

Introduction

Noise

On a normal day, in our neighborhood, we hear helicopters, airplanes, dogs barking, children, cars and trucks driving by, sprinklers, lawnmowers, and sounds from the pool and the park.

A hen produces very little noise. Normally people think of the morning crow of a rooster, however, these are not allowed in Arlington. A hen makes a soft clucking noise, which is not usually audible beyond 25 ft. The loudest a hen gets is after laying an egg – which occurs one time a day (or less) for a few minutes.

Smell

Chickens themselves do not smell. Chicken manure does have the potential to smell, which is also true of cats, dogs, and other pets.

A medium-sized dog will generate, on average, 0.75 lb. of manure or feces a day. A medium sized (4 lb.) hen generates, on average, 0.05 lb. per day. Obviously, with Arlington’s maximum of 4 chickens (0.20 lbs./day), this would still pale in comparison to the amount of feces a dog produces.

In addition, a dog’s waste contains harmful bacteria and parasites, such as roundworms, tapeworms, and hookworms. Chicken waste is “compostable” unlike other pet manures, which means it will easily and safely break down organically into the Earth.

Why do people think of odor when they think of chickens? This answer could vary greatly, but the most likely answer is because many of us have been to a farm or large commercial operation where chickens are processed. Many of these places are poorly-ventilated, crowded, and not maintained properly.

Arlington Ordinances and Structure

Section 5.02 Keeping of Fowl

A person commits an offense if he:

A. Keeps or maintains more than four (4) fowl on one-half (1/2) acre or less or at a distance closer than fifty feet (50') from any habitation located on another's property; or

E. Fails to keep any fowl of the Order Galliformes [this includes chickens] contained within a coop or pen.

F. Keeps or maintains roosters except in an area zoned as agricultural.

Basically:

A person cannot have more than 4 hens on ½ acre or less. They must keep the hens 50’ away from a house on another person’s property. They must be contained within a coop/pen. And last, no roosters!

The structures above are clearly small. Chickens require very little space to roam and sleep. An average sized doghouse is plenty big enough for multiple hens to sleep in, and a hen needs about 6-8 square feet of roaming space. This is smaller than a 3’ x 3’ fenced in section – incredibly small.

Property Values

Here I will be placing several (2 or 3) letters from local Realtors stating chickens are no more negative to a property-value than a poorly maintained dog house, etc.

Closing

Raising hens offers our neighborhood a unique opportunity to raise animals which are intelligent, social, entertaining, low-maintenance, clean, and quiet. They’re quieter than nearly every noise we hear through our community, and cleaner than most family pets.

Most everyone here cares for this community and shows it by maintaining the neighborhood and keeping it beautiful. I wouldn’t expect that with raising hens it would be any different, so I ask you all to consider overturning the HOA regulations on prohibiting chickens.

Appendices

Appendix A:

Suggested Additional Ordinances

a. No coop shall exceed 6 feet above grade and must allow for a footprint of at least 2 square feet per chicken housed in the coop. The maximum single coop footprint size is 40 square feet. Coops must be located in the rear yard of the lot. Coops must be kept clean, sanitary, and free from standing water at all times.

b. Maximum number of chickens allowed per residential lot is 4 hens. No roosters are permitted.

So, as you can see I have some work to do, but hopefully it'll go over well. I'm appalled by some of the great papers people have written and put online. Using that info and my own, maybe I can channel debate from high school and come out on top.

Peek-a-boo

2010-07-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

Uh wow

2010-07-01T16:05:00.000-07:00

(Note the yellow flags. The one on the left is hidden in the shadow)

So I went out and measured carefully, and staked out the new garden. It's a whole lot bigger than I previously had measured (that's what I get for measuring by benchmarks rather than an actual measuring tape).

As you can see, it dwarfs the 8' x 5' corn/beans/squash bed. A little comparison: 8 x 5 is 40 sq. ft. The new garden is 840 sq. ft, or, 21 times larger. Awesome!

Here's how much width it takes up, from the back fence to the house:

Really pretty sky today :-)

It is 16 inches from the fence on the left. And at 24' long, it is slightly more than half the width of the backyard. Also notice the window in the top right, of the neighbors upstairs. Hope they enjoy looking at corn and tomatoes, haha.

What to think

2010-06-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

I hear people say sometimes, "I just don't know what to think.". That statement came to me with an unfortunate event last night. The Rabbit with No Name was apparently killed by one of our dogs sometime in the last couple days. I went outside to find Sparky the dog trapped in the rabbit's pen, and I saw the hutch door open. Walking over I saw the rabbit dead under the hutch.

It was partially my fault; I left the door unlocked (but closed) when I went to go get a new lock, and forgot to re-lock it. I take the blame on the rabbit getting out.

But you know, when I found the rabbit and the dog, I was not as distraught as I would have been, say, 10 years ago. The rabbits was a livestock animal and did his job of providing manure well. Can't blame the dog, really, as he is a dog and that's what dogs do. It's unfortunate that the rabbit is gone, but I have a different outlook on it now. Of course, this could all be because I am obviously older now, but I think part of it has to do with all the reading of these farming books. The death of an animal, while sad, is part of life on the farm.

Katie ended up going to the store and buying me You Can Farm by Joel Salatin after I probably annoyed her with my raving about how great it was, last night. Lol, she's the best. I love this book.

So, onto some less farmy news. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm at a technology conference in downtown Dallas. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate Dallas? We just don't get along. Dallas is not my style; Ft. Worth is more fitting. But anyways, I've noticed there's a lot of "green" movement among major corporations. While this is good, I see a lot of it as fake marketing dribble.

Alright, well, the Rangers are on and it is pouring outside. Time to sit on the couch in a fort of pillows and have a good evening.

Pardon me, may I have some manure?

2010-06-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

Last night, I spent a good part of 2 hours reading Joel Salatin's book You Can Farm. What an amazing book. I only read through a few chapters (I didn't buy the book but instead, read it in a Border's store, hehe), but I just find myself repeating "yes!" and "exactly!" to the opinionated paragraphs.

Still need manure for the new garden. I do have some funny news though. Every year, our church's youth group goes on a Choir Mission trip where they do work and sing at churches in the area. To raise money for these events, they have a "servant auction" fundraiser, where you can bid on them (making a donation to the trip) and they will come work for you. So I bid on two high school guys to come help me shovel and till. I plan on getting a lawn chair and several glasses of lemonade, hahaha. But honestly, that is stinkin hard work, so I'll be helping till the 700+ sq. ft. garden and adding manure and soil amendments to it.

As for now, I'm sitting in downtown Dallas at a technology conference, and it's time to go home. I'm tired and have been sitting in seminars all day. Time for a nap.

Yum!

2010-06-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

Just had some Gold Yukon potatoes from our garden (smothered in onions, bacon, cheese, and butter), and some of our farm-raised chicken, smoked on the grill for an hour or so.

Chicken Rub

Potatoes

As for now, back to the drawing board (literally) for next years garden. I kind of wish I could have it done soon (well, instantly would be nice) so I could plant the fall garden. But, great soil is not made overnight.

6 long, hot days

2010-06-20T14:11:00.000-07:00

I have been all over the central and east part of Texas. While I had a blast, I'm GLAD to be home and cannot wait to sleep in my own bed. I'll definitely write up a long post about it, but I thought I would share why the lack of posts.

As far as the gardening side of things, a big thanks to my Mother-in-law for looking after the garden and animals (and the house) while we were gone. She also pulled a couple tomatoes that were ripe and needed to be picked. Can't wait to try another one, but this one I won't eat by itself. I'll put it in a salad or something.

This week (along with 150 other things) I am going to try to work on preparing the super-large bed. I need lots of soil amendments and cover crops for this fall/winter.

Until then, time for a nap.

Speaking of tomatoes

2010-06-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

I ate one of my own today. It was good; albeit a little strange. Afterall, I haven't eaten a tomato in years and years.

Sort of had a gel-paste type taste, around the edge of the tomato. The area closer to the "core" of the tomato was more liquid-y.

Anyways, hopefully there will be more to try in the coming days. Hopefully this will help me get back on the track of eating veggies!

Also, more on the "expansion:"

I set out this year with one goal of using the Square Foot Gardening technique, as it has many advanatages. Halfway through the year, I am impressed with it, but I also realize with a little more work, and a lot less money, one could drastically improve the yield of one's garden. Nothing personal, SFG, you're just a lot of $$.

So, I'm been messing around (like always) with drawing up new plans, erasing old plans, erasing new plans, and starting over again, and I'm thinking about putting in several rows. Cultivating, adding minerals and soil ammendments, more cultivating, cover cropping, more minerals and ammendments, more cultivating, and then plowing. Lot of work, but I believe this may be the 2011 plan. We'll see. As for now, I need to work on a way to make it look somewhat nice. After all, if you aren't pleased with how your garden looks, you probably won't be as eager to be in it, which defeats the purpose, in my humble opinion.

Tomatoes!

2010-06-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

I had heard from my grandpa several times about his friend George's amazing tomatoes. Still though, it seemed to be a slight stretch of the imagination. I mean, no tomatoes could be that big...

Well, I WAS WRONG! I finally got to go out to George's house and check it out. I took some pictures to show you all a size comparison.

Below is Katie standing next to the plants. Katie is 5'3" to give you some perspective.

Here is the 2 rows of his tomatoes, along with some peas and elephant garlic (on the left) that he grows.

So, some stats. Some absolutely ridiculous stats:

Every other day, George goes out and picks the ripe tomatoes. On average, he picks over 200 lbs. of tomatoes EVERY DAY!!

The tomato plants are, on average, 7 feet tall. He waters them 13 hours out of the day (which he said raised his water bill $100 a month! lol). The average size of these tomatoes is about the size of a softball. They are big and they taste good!

So, what's the secret to growing these? Well, I won't give all the details, but I will say this (and you can search the internet for the rest) - Epsom Salt.

We had a blast out at George's beautiful place. When you think of the perfect garden, this comes pretty close. He had (if I remember this correctly) 13 Peach trees, 13 Pecan trees, tomatoes, Elephant Garlic, patio tomatoes, peas, squash, and peppers. Not to mention a beautiful house and property.

As for me, it's time to get to bed and enjoy the rest of my vacation!

Impatient

2010-06-09T16:48:00.000-07:00

Say, what's that there?

Why, it's a carrot (of edible size!)!

That's better, a little cleaned up so I can...

Well that did not last long.

What to do with the rest?

"Thank you, kind sir." says The Rabbit With No Name.

Hot

2010-06-05T11:22:00.001-07:00

103 degrees.

But, we have a pool and a bounce house outside (random, I know...?)

Apparently there's a block party today. Of course, no one knew about it, no one got an invitation, and it's scheduled on a day that could fry eggs on the sidewalk. Awesome.

2 quotes

2010-06-03T05:47:00.001-07:00

1 of which I made up...

"Expanding 10% takes 100% more work."

For this reason, I'm in trouble! haha...Actually the planning is going well. I am working on ordering some plants that are extremely hard to find. I'll update that when I have an answer, though.

The other quote, an old proverb, is: "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow." I need to focus on this. I'm a perfectionist, so doing things where they do not reach optimal working conditions really hacks me off. I'm also extremely frugal. This is what makes me a good engineer, and (probably) an annoying person, lol. For example, I figured out how to save approximately 8 feet of PVC pipe, by routing it in a different manner/direction. It probably would have cost me like $2.00 extra for 8' of PVC. I don't care, I like saving money :-D

Thanks for stopping by!

Getting warmer...

2010-06-01T17:18:00.000-07:00

It's supposed to be 102 this weekend...and June is just getting started.

Not much of interest on the garden. I pulled some onions, and they were tiny. If I had to guess, I'd say I planted them too deep. But honestly I'm not sure why they're small. The rest of the stuff is doing it's thing. I have like 5 or 6 tomatoes now! What a shock, since I thought they were all dead, lol.

Oh! Potatoes!

I'll remind you, I planted 6 seed potatoes in the really nice SFG soil. I also planted 6 seed potatoes in the awful, clay filled, never taken care of flower garden by the back door. Well wouldn't you know it, the potatoes that came from the terrible garden were just as good, if not better, than the ones in the SFG! Also, some (more) bad news about the potatoes in the Square Foot Garden. Remember how they all turned yellow and died? Apparently that is not normal. At first I was thinking it was potato blight. I was told though, that it was way too early to be blight. What is it? I have no idea, still. It might be blight. If it is, though, the blight did not infect the potatoes, but rather stunted their growth. That's why they were somewhat small.

Anyways, I'll be watching more carefully in a couple months when I plant for the fall. Speaking of which, I have a LOT of work to do, with getting the beds ready, putting up new fencing, and ordering seeds.

Oh yea, I do have one more idea I've been throwing around in the old noggin. I'm tempted, really tempted, to get 1 or 2 chickens (even though they're blatantly outlawed :-P ), to use as "pest control" in the spring, before any planting is done. Basically, I would put them in the garden, turn them loose, and let them eat bugs till their heart's content. Then, what to do with them? I have no idea.

Growing

2010-05-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

Days in the ground
Plant	# Days
Lettuce	112
Potatoes	85
Carrots	85
Onions	85
Peas	71
Nasturtiums	71
Tomatoes	54
Bell Peppers	54
Rosemary	54
Green Beans	54
Cucumbers	54
Corn	50
Beans	50
Strawberries	50
Squash	50
Charantais Melon	15

Well, like I said in my last post about the garden, I used a fertilizer on Friday, May 14th. It has made such a difference, and it gives me hope that the vegetables will do alright after all. The beans - wow. They developed their "runners" a few days ago and they are off to the races. They're climbing approximately 4-5" a day. I'm sure I could sit there and watch them grow.

I've also been doing a little planning for next year. I guess it's never to early (actually, it probably is :-D). The fence is in pretty bad shape, but is holding its own for now. I'll be putting up T-posts and 2' chicken wire all the way around. I hope to expand the SFG beds, to somewhere between 4 and 6 beds (the problem there is, I need to come up with stuff to put in those beds). But I'll also be putting in a few long&narrow beds. These will be used for blackberries and grapes. Yum!

In addition, I was reading an issue of some magazine, I forget which one, and it had a picture of one man's SFGs. He had cleverly laid down soaker hoses all throughout each of his beds, and hooked it up to a PVC pipe on the corner of the bed. He then ran all these PVC pipes to one central location, and connected this to a garden hose. So he was able to water 4 beds simultaneously, and since he used soaker hoses, he helped prevent against fungal diseases on the leaves. Very cool!

Processing a Chicken, part 2.

2010-05-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Caution: there are some graphic photos. If you're not interested in seeing them, don't scroll down.

It was time for round 2:

The thirteen remaining chickens sat in their pen, quite a bit larger than the last time we saw them...which was weird, because it had only been 1 week.

Into the holding pen they go, and they were none too thrilled.

But, they're really not that fast. 3 were quickly secured by zip-ties around their legs.

Sister is helping too!

You put each chicken in a "cone" made of sheet metal, upside down. It keeps them from flapping around. Also, it drains the chicken of blood which is not only cleaner, but safer regarding bacteria. Woot.

You cut their neck, swiftly. It kills them instantly, though the body jolts around for a few seconds due to involuntary muscle spasms dealing with the nervous system. I'm not a vet, though. That's just an educated guess.

Somehow we missed getting a picture of the scalder, but you can figure it out. You dip the dead bird into a giant tub of water around 150 degrees, for a few seconds. This helps loosen the feathers.

We then plucked the feathers, in a 2-part approach. We'd run the Clucker Plucker briefly to strip most of the smaller feathers, and then pull the rest by hand.

And as promised to so many people (cough cough, family members who doubted this would ever work, cough cough) video proof.

Though I will say, this was one of the first times we used it, and it took me a few tries to get it right. Eventually I'd have the whole bird done in ~30 seconds or less.

Next was the eviscerating. The basic approach was:
1) Cut off head
2) Cut off feet at "knee" knuckle-bone.
3) Separate membrane around neck and crop, esophagus, and trachea
4) Cut below keel bone and open to inside of chicken. Work hands (carefully!) around innards pulling them away from membrane lining.
5) When innards are loose from inside, pull out through the open area you cut above. If possible, pull crop along with tubes. If not, cut them and pull them from the top.
6) Leave everything still attached, and cut tail off. Be sure not to hit gland inside tail.
7) Cut out gizzard, heart, and livers. Be extremely careful not to nick the gall bladder. If you do, green bile will pour out all over the place, and anything it touches is ruined.
8) Pull lungs out
9) Pull kidneys out.
10) Wash bird and chill.

Part of the eviscerating:

Completed chicken:

Later, I cut up some chicken into pieces, and we had a nice meal :)

Wash, rinse, and repeat!

Lots to get to

2010-05-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

As if anything ever slowed down around here...might take a few sittings to get through this entire post.

Around the Farm:
It has, unfortunately, been over a month since I posted the "Days in the Ground" table. Feel kind of bad about that. But anyways, what's done is done, and below are the current stats:

Days in the ground
Plant	# Days
Lettuce	107
Potatoes	80
Carrots	80
Onions	80
Peas	66
Nasturtiums	66
Tomatoes	49
Bell Peppers	49
Rosemary	49
Green Beans	49
Cucumbers	49
Corn	45
Beans	45
Strawberries	45
Squash	45

Charantais Melon 10

As you can see, the lettuce has been in the ground over 100 days. The Lettuce has been an interesting adventure. It began by getting 12" of snow dumped on it, and had some trouble getting going. But once it did start, it grew very well. I have learned this year that it grows A LOT better when you give it A LOT of water. Who'da thunk it? Even so, it did not perform as well as hoped, with only 3 plants really producing any lettuce of eating size. The worst news of all is, it didn't really taste good. I mean, sure Lettuce isn't supposed to taste like a T-Bone steak, but it had a bitter-type taste to it. Could have also been that the leaf I had was not the freshest, and I normally would eat it with carrots, salad dressing, etc. I chalk this up to a half-success. Next year I will grow it in a slightly different location getting better sunlight, and it will be in a cold frame (can't wait to finish building that).

Next, potatoes. Wow, what a crazy vegetable. In the Square Foot Gardens (SFGs) I planted 6 total plants - 3 Red Noreland and 3 Yukon Gold. The Red Norland immediately shot out of the ground, followed a couple weeks later by the Yukon Gold. I noticed the Red Noreland plants appeared to be turning yellow above ground, and slightly brown/black. As far as I can tell, this meant they were "done" growing. The stalks and leaves eventually all shriveled up and died, and when I pulled 2 Red Noreland plants, I had 14 potatoes. More on that later. Overall, I think these went pretty well. Still eager to see how the rest of the potatoes will do. In addition, I planted 6 "test cases" (3 of each) in a clay filled bed, with really poor soil, and I really did not pay much attention to it, other than watering it when I remembered. After pulling up 3 of those plants, I found potatoes that were just as good or better than the SFG's. Needless to say, that was surprising. Encouraging, though. Hopefully next year will yield more potatoes per plant, as opposed to 1 or 2 per plant this year.

The carrots are confusing me. 2 squares, same soil, same water, same location in sunlight. And yet, one is producing very well, while one is not. After checking one today, it is about 1/2 the size of my wife's pinky finger - not very big.

The onions - not too much to say about these. They appear to be growing well, though I need to dust off the top level of soil so they will expand.

I had a beautiful red bloom on one of the Nasturtiums this morning. Dang, I really wish I had taken a picture of that. It's gone now, unfortunately, but it sure looked good!

Tomatoes & Peppers - you suck. Supposedly easy to grow and very tolerant, they have been a complete failure. I'm not terribly upset about it though. This isn't to say they're done for the year, but they are nowhere near where they need to be.
*edit* As I wrote this a few days ago, something amazing happened - two tomatoes showed up! They really look like peppers, so I'm kind of confused, but I'll let them keep growing and we'll see how they turn out. Pretty cool :) Bell Peppers though, are still producing nothing.

Rosemary - Well to be honest, I wasn't even sure if this was planted. I spilled the seed pack, haha, so I was *hoping* one just happened to land where it needed. Haven't seen anything.

Beans & Peas - The Green Beans are growing very well, albeit a tad short. They have just produced runners and starting to climb. The Peas have been hit by bugs very badly. They still seem to be growing but it must be hard when you're being targeted above everything else by the insects. After putting down a fertilizer (more about that later) they SHOT up, from approximately 3" tall to approximately 7" tall in just a few days. Amazing.

Cucs and Corn - Growing well, but still early. Eager to see how these turn out.

Strawberries - I don't really know, to be honest. I still think that I may have just planted a bunch of dead strawberries, but on the other hand, I have a lot of "green stuff" growing there. It might be weeds. I have no idea.

Squash - Eh. I just don't know yet; the verdict is still out. Some really bad winds broke them over but they appeared to recover. They have flowered, but they are FAR from the size of other people's plants. They were planted a tad too late, but they really should be doing better.

Cantaloupes - Just planted these a few days ago. I put some stones behind the plant so they will absorb some heat, which melons love. They had a few sprouts, but pests attack one of them. I can't wait for these. Really hopeful these turn out well.

Livestock

First off, the rabbit. I just do not know about this guy. To be honest it seems like he has turned more into a pet. Reason being, the manure he produces, when dried and put into the garden, merely attracts TONS of pests and they end up killing plants. That's definitely not what I wanted. So, that leaves 1) figuring out what to do with a ton of manure, or 2) breeding him for meat/selling rabbits.

While breeding him with a doe may not be extremely difficult, it's the sweltering weather in Texas I am worried about. Not to mention needing a market for the rabbit and/or meat, governmental restrictions on selling meat, etc. Not sure how that would go, but it would be an undertaking to say the least.

Secondly, the meat chickens. Words can't express how I feel about this. Literally - I have tried to come up with some. It just feels so...right. First off, it was dang cheap, which will surely grab my attention any day. Secondly, (from what Tara says!) they were fairly easy to raise. They were humanely raised and humanely killed. We had our first dinner with the chicken last night, along with some potatoes from the garden. The chicken tasted amazing. The potatoes tasted...weird. It was like tasting a potato for the first time. When people told me "you will be so surprised how your food tastes straight from the garden" I frankly brushed it off, but wow was I wrong. The potatoes had an earthy taste, not in a bad way though. Delicious. We made some spicier than normal chicken, and it was delicious as well. Very happy with this :)

I would really like to put up some pictures, but since the last two weeks have been an absolute disaster, in nearly ever aspect, they'll just have to be put up later. I promise. As soon as everything cools down.

And last but not least, the great Fence Debacle. Another 5 fence posts have blown down. I have now realized I am in the wrong business - you can make a killing off removing fence posts and installing new ones. Wow. Unbelievable. No thanks, I'll just cut my arms into pieces installing my own :-\

Alright, if you haven't been able to tell, this post was written over several days, so it's kind of a conglomeration of crazy stories. Another one occurred last night, just when I thought it was all winding down. I went to the garage to turn off the sprinklers for tomorrow (didn't want them to spray on the fence-pulling stuff in the back yard - go figure). When I went into the garage, I noticed water on the ground. What could that be? Then I looked up and saw that my clock was off. The power had gone out (it's a GFCI outlet, so just the outlet goes out). Well, I wanted to say a lot of words that shouldn't be said. I thought them, that's for sure. I also wanted to punch some things. Over $200 worth of meat, down the drain.

After cooling off a little (no pun intended), I checked the meat in the freezer, and did some investigation. It had been approximately 27 hours since the freezer went out. The meat was still frozen, but it had slightly thawed around the edges. I think it will be safe, obviously if cooked to the proper temperatures and handed carefully. Just really, really irks me.
Then Katie came to my aid. She pointed out that, on a "real" farm, you might not lose your freezer power to a freak outlet, but you might lose 20 chickens to a coyote. You might have a herd of animals inflicted with some disease, and you have to kill them all to save themselves. While mine happened a little farther down the food chain, nonetheless it happened. Just time to move on and don't give up due to an accident.

Thanks a ton for checking in and reading my blog.

Posting yea yea yea...

2010-05-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

I have had a post saved in my "Drafts" for like a week. It's a REALLY big post. And it's coming. But first, I have about 1,000 pictures to upload, lol. Don't worry, I'm still here! :)

Thanks for checking in

Processing a chicken, part 1

2010-05-02T17:55:00.000-07:00

Wow.

Firstoff, a H U G E thanks to Tara for taking care of the chickens over the last 12 weeks or so, and for everything she and Jerry taught us yesterday on their farm. (Love it out there, by the way. It's awesome)

So the evening beforehand starts off with bad news - the chicken processing would be canceled due to terrible storms and hail. However, the weather forecasters must have spun their "wheel o' weather" a tad too hard, because it ended up being a dang nice day. We all went ahead and went out there to begin the process.

After getting everything set up, we corralled the chickens to make them easier to pick up. We picked 3 big ones and tied their legs to begin the process. At this point, I must say I wasn't necessarily looking forward to the ensuing mess. It was obviously going to be bloody and messy, and though I have killed animals before for food, it was using a rifle, not a knife. Tara showed us how it was done, and believe it or not, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Sure it was bloody, but it was very humane and clean (relatively anyways).

Next we pulled feathers, and once we figured out how to use the "Clucker Plucker" correctly, it worked phenomenally, if I say so myself :-D . After that, it was onto the table to clean out the insides, and then into the ice-water bath. At the end of the day (3 hours) we had done 15 chickens and decided to meet back next Saturday to do the remaining 13 + 3 roosters. I might have a helper as my sister is awfully interested in learning about it. Who knows...

Though I do know one thing - I can't wait to cook some of these up!

OH CRAP!!!

2010-05-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

I was not ready for this! BEEEEEEEEES!!!

I got home from the chicken processing (I'll have to update on that later tomorrow) and went outside to finish some stuff I needed to do. I had to throw some rotten fruit in the compost bin, so I went out in the dark to the edge of the yard. It's pitch black, I'll remind you. I grabbed the lid to the bin and tossed it on the ground, where I normally toss it. I then picked up the strawberries to throw them in the bin when I heard LOTS of buzzing. I looked down and barely saw some flies. Lots of flies. Wait a second (as I pull out my cell phone to use as light)...those flies have stripes. Oh no! Those are bees! Run!!!

So, after speaking with the bee queen, Tara, she informed me I had a swarm that decided to make a pit stop in my compost bin. I'm glad they were docile and did not decide to attack my face for throwing them on the ground. Hopefully they'll stay for a couple more days (and not make a hive in my walls or roof!) and Tara can come get them! That would be wicked awesome.

Now time to pass out, and prepare for the writing of the great chicken processing blog post :)

When it rains, it pours

2010-04-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

Both literally and metaphorically.

The vegetables are not going that great. The tomatoes and Bell Peppers are still nowhere near where they should be. Tomorrow (if the rain holds off a little) I plan on going and catching some fish to bury beneath the plants.

I got home today, a very windy day, and another 2 fence-posts had snapped. That would be the 4th & 5th posts in less than ONE FREAKING YEAR. I don't really know what to say - I am at a loss. Tomorrow I'll have to see what I can figure out.

Sigh...oh well, at least I'm off tomorrow and I can sleep in

Neat!

2010-04-26T07:03:00.000-07:00

When my fence fell over a while back, my neighbor could see into my back yard, and I told Katie "he probably thinks I am some crazed hippie...growing corn and beans and veggies and having rain barrels!"

Well wouldn't you know it, I saw him through the fence, and he has set up 2 raised beds!!!

Neat!

Feathers will fly...

2010-04-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

Before I dive into the feather pluckers, I need to show you all what my trellises look like from the last blog post.

Not too shabby huh!?

ALRIGHT, the main event. Let's talk about pulling feathers.

This would be nice to have, if you plan on de-feathering chickens.

Unfortunately, I don't have money growing the garden, though I tried, and now I'm short $14.

I did see a link to a much simpler, much cheaper version of the item above. So here is an in-depth how-to on how to build your own. Do they work? I assume so, but I'll have to update that in a few weeks.

Here are some parts I bought to make it

(This is a 2" PVC End Cap, a 3/8" bolt, 2 washers, a 3/8" nut, and lock washer)

I also bought 2 long rubber bungee-cords. To maximize the amount of rubber "fingers" I could cut, I created this design:

It's basically 2 "L's" that are inverted. You'll need extremely sharp and powerful shears - I used Sheet Metal shears.

So, I drilled a 3/8" hole (actually 25/64") hole in the top of the end-cap, in dead center.

I then drilled several 3/8" holes all around the outside of the end cap. I stuck the rubber fingers through the holes, so the "nub" is on the inside. This will keep the rubber fingers from flying out.

The finished product:

Well, that was great and all, but it wasn't enough for me :-D To be honest, it's fairly tiny. I needed it, yes, to get in the nooks & crannies of the chicken - the hard to reach feathers. But to use that for all the feathers would take a while. So I decided I would make a much larger one as well. This one will be used for removing a bulk amount of feathers quickly.

I drilled a pilot hole in the 6" PVC Drain Cap.

I built a wooden jig to keep it from moving around.

Other than that, the process is pretty much the same.

And now....for the best picture of them all....

You see, I couldn't just leave these as is. They were far too cool and dangerous (alright not really, I tested it on myself, haha) to just be left as is. They needed an awesome name.

I give you.....drumroll.......the Clucker Plucker 2000 and the Clucker Plucker 6000!

Trellises up!

2010-04-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

With help from my wife, I set up the trellises this evening. What a task! If you'd like to build your own, here's how I did it:

(this is for 2 trellises)
Buy 5 pieces of 1/2" electrical conduit. This comes in 10 ft. lengths.

Next, buy 4 of these suckers. You'll find it in the same aisle as the electrical conduit at Home Depot or Lowe's. It's a 90 degree connector.

Cut the 10 ft. lengths of conduit into four 7-foot lengths and two 5-foot lengths. The 7-footers will become the legs, and the 5-footers will be the top bar. Attach the right-angle connectors to make a large sideways "U."

Oh yea, you should know - this is all based on the "netting" you can buy (which for me was very hard to find). The typical size available is 8' by 5'. If all you can buy is an 8' x 4', then obviously make it a foot narrower.

To stake it in the ground, I looked at several different approaches, and none really looked good. What I ended up doing (and I'll study how this turns out this year) is buying four 1/2" x 4-foot lengths of rebar, and shoving these down into the ground. Then, I slipped the trellis over these bars. I'll probably take a couple extra preventative measures such as tying it down, but who knows...we'll see how it goes.

In 2 or 3 weeks, we should also be butchering our meat chickens. That will be interesting, to say the least :-p . Expect pictures, because, well if I have to do/learn it, you're going to learn it as well :-D

Definition

2010-04-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

green·horn
(grnhôrn)
n.

2. A newcomer, especially one who is unfamiliar with the ways of a place or group.

No doubt about it. I feel like the wind has been taken out of my sails over the last couple days. Nothing big, just a few small bubbles burst. Firstoff, for anyone who uses rain barrels, you need to know something immediately - you NEED to attach a filtering system if you want to water your vegetables (or drink) this water. With all the unseen pollution in the sky, the pollution comes down in rain, and is washed off of your roof, through the gutter, and into your rain barrel. Here is a helpful link.

Now, from here, I have 3 options:

Ignore the warnings and put dangerous chemicals & E. Coli into the vegetable beds.
Filter the water
Remove the Rain Barrels altogether.

No way am I going with option 1. I would like to do option 2, but since I technically shouldn't even have rain barrels, that will just draw attention to it. I will have to go with option 3, unfortunately. The watering won't be too bad in the summer, since I have an in-ground sprinkler (it's not ideal, but it'll do). The time between now and summer will require a bit more work though.

Speaking of work, let's talk hoeing. Or, lack thereof. You see, I have weeds in my garden...I think. They look like corn. But it's not where I put the corn (The corn is growing really well by the way!). There's 10x as many, also. And when I pulled up the green weeds, low and behold, there was a seed at the bottom. So, is it a weed? Or is it some mysterious vegetable? Has my corn multiplied overnight, literally? Probably not. But I would hate to hoe all these suckers up, and as it turns out it was something useful.

What are these suckers in the middle?

Other than that, I am happy to report just a few buggy plants, and the rest seem to be growing well. We should be getting rain almost every day over the next week, so it'll be interesting to see how the plants respond (I hope well!).

Thanks for stopping by :)

Update!
With the help of a friend I think I figured out what the "grass blades" were. I'm fairly certain it's wheat! Kind of sucks, the reason I bought wheat straw to mulch was so it would not go to seed. Oh well, time to hoe!

Ramblings and such

2010-04-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

You can never have enough good quality garden hoses. All kinds, too.

Over the last few days, I have seen so many things that make me just look at the [insert media device] and roll my eyes, or scoff. We got an ad today in the mail that said, word for word, "You're just too busy to clean your own house - you deserve a maid." What the heck happened to being responsible and picking up after oneself?!?!?

Also, if you own a TV, no doubt you have seen one of the many commercials claiming you cannot function or live without a GPS. This just further separates us, socially, from others, and will end up causing people to become introverted robots. Heck, even in the "old days" (haha) we'd call someone up on our cell phones and ask them directions, but even that is now gone. Does anyone under the age of 20 even know what a MAPSCO is anymore?

Epiphany - crap, I just realized I'm the epitome of an old man complaining about the "newfangled generation and their fancy gadgets." Maybe they were right all along.

Alright, I'll get off my old man soapbox for now, even though I am not old, and I ran out of washing detergent yesterday. I'll leave you with this. I haven't read these books Mr. Kimball references, but I am eager to track them down in some bookstore. Our library does not carry them, unfortunately, but I trust what Herrick Kimball posts most of the time, so no doubt these books are great.

Have a pleasant Tuesday everyone. Thank goodness Monday is over...

Woodlice, round 2

2010-04-11T17:01:00.000-07:00

I have started watering the corn in the mornings, about 10-15 minutes, after removing the wheat straw. It is working extremely well. I already have most of the corn shoots up, and several bean shoots are there as well. I never could find the squash seed packets, so I just bought some plants and planted them.

I noticed more holes in the potato leaves, so I tried my yeast trick again. Boil 2 packets of yeast in some water, and then pour it into tin cups which are submerged in the ground, with the lip at ground level. The woodlice are attracted to it, go over, fall in, and die. Well, I put those out, and my curiosity got the best of me last night at about 10:15 pm. I took a flashlight, went and looked, and noticed 1 potato plant COVERED in woodlice, from top to bottom. I managed to grab a lot of them off, and knock the rest off. Those little pests. So, it appears those are the major problem.

I went to Tara's house and got to see the meat chickens! That was very cool, and after hearing how virtually silent they were, I wonder if anyone would really notice if I had them next year, if I kept them out of view of neighbors. They might be able to smell them, though. Hm...something to think about for the next 8 months or so.

I also started "restoring" the old window-panes I got at a flea market. They'll be used late this year and early next year for cold frames. They're looking pretty neat :-)

Other than that, not too much news.

Invasion

2010-04-08T16:28:00.000-07:00

Now is when it gets interesting...

Days in the ground
Plant	# Days
Lettuce	66
Potatoes	39
Carrots	39
Onions	39
Peas	25
Nasturtiums	25
Tomatoes	8
Bell Peppers	8
Rosemary	8
Green Beans	8
Cucumbers	8
Corn	4
Beans	4
Strawberries	4
Squash	0

After inspecting the plants today (I really should have been paying more attention over the last few days), I have a myriad of problems. Several plants have holes eaten through the leaves - the potatoes and cowpeas are the worst off. I'm not really sure what to do, but I had heard I can spray with a detergent/water combination. Dang pests.

The lettuce is looking good still....well, one lettuce plant anyways. I'm not sure what caused the drastic difference in production between all of them, but I know one of the causes was the sun/shade.

The tomatoes are still wilting, though I watered them quite a bit last night and this morning. It's not even that hot!? I'll keep giving them lots of water in the mornings before work to help them start perking back up, but so far it's not looking great.

The cucumbers and green beans are starting to sprout really well. The nasturtiums are about 2-3" tall. Everything else is doing pretty well, also.

Hopefully I can still save some of this :-\

Planting Day(s)

2010-04-02T19:59:00.000-07:00

Like I said in the last post, I have been incredibly busy in the last week. Heck, I'm incredibly busy right now (as I'm furiously typing this before heading off to church for Good Friday).

This past week, I was able to do a last till of Bed #3, and subsequently plant corn and beans. I figured out I did not buy enough beans about halfway through...whoops. I was also supposed to plant the squash in Bed #3, but I cannot find my packet of seeds, so that will be postponed until I can find them.

I also finished planting tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, green beans, rosemary, and marigolds in the Raised Bed boxes. It's looking great so far!

Last, I went over to Bed #4, where I have a few potatoes. I opened my bag of strawberry plants that I bought a while back. Crap. Maybe I should have opened the bag back then, and not now. The "bulbs" were rubber-banded together, and they didn't look great. I thought it would be seeds inside the bag, not actual bulbs in dirt. Heck, I haven't watered them or anything. I'm not sure how that is going to turn out.

In addition to all that, I drilled a hole in my perfectly good rain barrel and installed a PVC pipe and spigot, so I could run water to the gardens. The good news is, it will run water to the gardens. The bad news is that it leaks. I have it drying out right now so I can caulk it with some silicone later, but that probably won't do much. Unfortunately that was my last good "tub," so I'll have to either get another one later, or just buy a bigger and better barrel.

Mulching:
Mulching is awesome, and extremely underrated. That is all.

The land thing:
I figure I should go ahead and fill you all in on the land (that I acquired) situation. I went to see my new baby cousin last Sunday, and while there I saw my grandpa - didn't know he was in town, but neat! So he and grandma pull me aside and basically say "we are giving you and 2 of your cousins co-ownership of our land." I stopped them; "but you don't even own that land, you're renting that from someone..." To which they replied, "no, no, our other land, down the road."
I sat there for a second, slightly dumbfounded. What were they talking about? Well, as it turns out, my grandpa owns 11 acres down the road from his current property. I don't ever recall him talking about it, but we talked about it A LOT on Sunday. This 11 acres has an Easement for a road, and a lake. It used to have 7.5 cleared acres of farmland (wow, that is massive), but now it's all woods. It might be a heck of an adventure, but I think I'm going to try and bring the property back to life. At the very least, it will be fun to spend time in a place my grandfather spent many, many years ago.

That's all I can think of, for now. So glad that Spring is finally here, but I underestimated how busy I would be.

And on and on and on

2010-03-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

Who else has been busy?

I hope you all said "I have" because it would at least make me feel better! I can't even begin to list all of the things going on lately. I will say the garden is producing nicely so far, more plants are ready to go in Tuesday/Wednesday, and the fence is slowly trying to kill me.

Still lots of work and things to come, but for now, back to pouring concrete.

I must leave with a teaser, though...

...

I'm now the co-owner of 11 acres :-D

Silly me

2010-03-24T16:09:00.000-07:00

Plant	# Days
Lettuce	51
Potatoes	24
Carrots	24
Onions	24
Peas	10
Nasturtiums	10

If you remember back a few posts, I had a potato sprout that popped out of one of the beds. I covered it up, watered it, and watched it closely. It came up again, so I put more soil on top of it.

After all that, it sprouted............

It was a dandelion, hahaha.

Nothing really new on the garden. We have some big storms heading our way in a couple hours, so the rain barrel (currently at about 3/4 capacity) is open for business.

By the way, did anyone see my Square Foot Garden Cost Analysis? I spent a lot of time formatting it correctly and putting it up on a new page in the blog, and I noticed it's gone. I have no idea what happened to it, but I'll try to get it back up there.

Thanks for stopping in!

Things coming down, things going up.

2010-03-22T20:02:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our wicked 35+ mph winds, I lost ANOTHER 2 fence panels. That makes 4 fence panels that have been ripped down in less than 1 year. Sheesh. So, now, with the little money I had, I get to spend it (along with the neighbor) on buying concrete, new posts, nails and the such, and spending a day putting those back up. Talk about a pain in the neck.

A good thing did happen, though, today. I FINALLY got 100% approval to plant my trees (now that it's nearly April). I think I'm going to be trying that this weekend. That ought to be quite an adventure as well.

For now, I need sleep. It's been a crazy week, and it's only Monday.

Gardening in a war-zone

2010-03-20T19:07:00.000-07:00

To state today was an adventure would be a great understatement.

Here's the scenario: Me + a 200 sq. ft. plastic dropcloth + 35 mph constant winds (that's not even the speed of the wind gusts) = mass chaos.

I knew I needed to cover the vegetable beds. I had even done a pre-fitting a few days ago to make sure everything went well. Unfortunately, that was a nice balmy day with no wind. Terrible test on my part. It took me over an hour to finally get everything on. The wind was so strong that even the bricks I was using to weigh down the plastic sheet were being thrown, yes thrown, into the air.

At the end of the day, it's on there. The onions are bent and fallen, and there's holes in the dropcloth. Needless to say, I will be working on a MUCH better cover for the future.

More snow?!?

2010-03-20T17:53:00.001-07:00

You gotta be kidding me...

Shoot, a shoot!

2010-03-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

Days in the Ground

Lettuce	45
Potatoes	18
Carrots	18
Onions	18
Peas	4
Nasturtiums	4

I wasn't really expecting it, but one of the potatoes had a shoot when I went out there today to check on them. I never saw it (I guess it was there yesterday or the day before), but I hope that doesn't mean it has "greened" making it toxic to eat. You see, I put the potato seeds in the dead-middle of the square, on my square foot garden. How was I to know nature would not perfectly agree with everything I was doing, and would send a shoot 6" away, completely unforeseen?!

So, I've attached a pic; let me know what you all think - after taking this picture I shoveled lots more soil on top of it. Also, as you can see in the picture, the shoot was not in the sunlight (though it might have been, in the morning).

By the way, the shoot in the picture is already under some soil. When I went out there, it was sticking out of the soil by about 2-3 inches.

Another thing I did, yesterday, was to consolidate & move the compost bins out of the gardening area. Not only was it a bit cramped, but they were a major enabler of the evil bugs which eat my sprouts. Over out of the way now, they're free to munch on whatever the heck they want. I kind of wish they would start by eating the weeds in the yard, though.

Oh, and one more thing...

Enemy #1

2010-03-16T20:15:00.000-07:00

My awesome wife made this for me...

Growing Updates

2010-03-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

To help gauge how long it's been, I'll try to start adding this at the top of the post.

Days in the Ground

Lettuce	43
Potatoes	16
Carrots	16
Onions	16
Peas	2
Nasturtiums	2

The Red Noreland potatoes are growing like crazy! The Yukon Gold, on the other hand, still haven't sprouted above the surface. Oh well, eventually they'll make their way up here.

I saw a handful of carrot sprouts today, after the rain. They are teeny tiny. Shouldn't be too long before they are sticking up out of the ground like the onions. They're growing so fast you could probably sit there 5 minutes and notice a visible change, lol.

Yesterday I spent a couple hours moving the compost bins to a secluded part of the yard. They were attracting lots of bugs, especially woodlouse (aka rollie pollies). Well, rollie pollies were neat as a kid, but now I realize that they eat tender seedlings, so they're enemy #1 at the moment. I boiled some water and yeast, and filled 2 cups I sunk in the ground. Woodlouse smell it, walk on over, fall in, and die. Victory! (in a twisted sort of way) When I went back out today, I found even more of the woodlice in the compost bin...unfortunately these were not dead. Is having woodlice, along with lots of other bugs and critters, in the compost bin okay? Hope so...

Last but not least, with our oh-so-wonderful hail-filled Springs, here in North Texas, I needed to buy some type of protection. I went down to the hardware store and let my mind run wild. Then I told it "I'm not made of money" and let it run less wild. I picked up eight 3/8" x 1ft bars of Rebar, and four 1/2" x 10 ft. PVC pipes. I also went to the paint department and grabbed a 10 ft. x 20 ft. sheet of plastic dropcloth. A fairly simple design:

4 bars of Rebar at each corner of the raised bed, stuck in the ground.
Stick the PVC pipe on the Rebar, bend over to another corner, and stick that end on the other Rebar.

I found it to be surprisingly stable. Who knew!? So, the next time there is a freeze (Sunday, perhaps) or hail in the forecast, we'll just run out there, snap them into position, and run back inside. What could possibly go wrong? :-D