Big doings in the garden

Over the past few weekends we've not only put the garden to bed, we've also begun a major expansion. The garden has gone from approx 1500 square feet to it's present size of 3000 square feet!

The expansion includes a new 21' x 10' blueberry patch seen in the pictures above. We will be planting at least 8 blueberry bushes of 2 varieties in this patch. I turned pine needles into the soil to help move the pH to a more soil like blueberries love. This spring I'll be amending further with sulphur and organic material to get the right blend.

We ordered our bushes from Raintree Nursery http://www.raintreenursery.com/ . We've ordered from this company before, however, we're anxious to give them try. Normally, we would order from Henry Fields Nursery, however, they did not have much to offer this time around.

Blueberries have been part of the larger plan for a few years, however, the situation was never quite right for adding them. Now that we have a spot just for them it will be much easier to maintain their individual soil needs that differ so much from the rest of the garden.

The new additional space added to the garden will greatly increase our yield and diversity of crops. We will still maintain large numbers of tomoatoes (this past season we had 118 plants in the garden), however, we can now increase the squash/pumpkin yields, not to mention peppers and melons.

We intend on adding regular potatoes and sweet potatoes, as well as more turnips, beets, and other storage friendly veggies. Broccoli may not be on the list this year, it is such a space hog for a low yielding vegetable.

Chickens are also in the plans this spring. We hope to keep 6-7 laying hens, as well as 12-15 meat birds at all times. The addition of chickens would be a nice preparation if we decide to add additional livestock in the future. We are considering dairy goats or perhaps sheep for wool.

It might be helpful to discuss the lot size I am dealing with on our microfarm. We live in a semi-rural area of North Eastern Ohio approx 50 miles south of Cleveland. Our lot is approx 9500 square feet, which includes the house and driveway.

The lot may seem small when first considered, however, we are trying to make use of every inch of usable space. That means, in short, not much lawn! Lawn is the single greatest waste of space in our modern world. If more people spent as much time on the weekend growing food on their lots instead of mowing lawns, there would be no hunger problem.

Eventually, we intend to fence the front yard with a nice picket, allowing us to turn the front yard into orchard space for apples.

That's enough vision statement for this blog. At the current rate my next post probably will be mid-summer 2010 (I'm kidding). Actually, I truely am trying to publish these at a faster rate, life just keeps getting in the way.

Todd

P.S. We harvested turnips yesterday (December 5)!! It's great to be able to say you picked fresh veggies from yur garden in December in Ohio. Our lettuce bed is still in production as well.

Back in the saddle

I apologize for not keeping up with this blog. I used to write it at work during my lunch breaks, however, our IT department has blocked any web-hosting sites such as blogspot, and I'm usually to beat to do it in the evenings.

Lots of changes have transpired since my last entry. The garden is winding down, although I do have turnips, fall snap peas, cukes, and beets planted. I put them in at the beginning of September to see if I can extend the season.

We have been very busy canning and freezing since about the first week of August. Our pantry is packed with 2 types of pickled beets (spicy and regular), lots of quarts of Tomatoes, salsa, pizza sauce, pickled hot peppers, strawberry jam, tons of pickles, and tomorrow grape jelly!! We harvested a ton of grapes from our arbor and juiced them yesterday. Tomorrow I have the day off so Shelley and I are going to be hard at it.

Speaking of my wife Shelley, that is perhaps the biggest news of all, and the most important to our homestead. Since we married, we have been hoping to find a way for Shelley to be a stay at home mom. Obviously, it would be a wonderful blessing to our kids, but it would also make some of our micro farming dreams possible.

We prayed constantly, asking God to make it possible for her to take this step, the problem was that we didn't listen for His reply. Over and over, we felt "now was the time", then something would happen to cause us to reconsider whether it was an unexpected bill, a needed repair, etc... God is faithful, and His will was for Shell to stay home, we just had to learn to depend on His provision.

Long story short... Friday, September 11 (hopefully not a bad omen) was Shelley's last day at her work. The adjustment has been great so far, although we still have lots of planning to do. As to the farm, we have purchased a chicken coup from my neighbor who is getting out of chickens, and fence posts for the goats we hope to add this spring.

We intend on raising two dairy goats to provide us with our milk and cheese, along with the laying chickens for eggs, and meat chickens for the pot. All these animals need lots of attention, the goats alone must be milked twice a day. It would've been impossible to do with both of us working.

We are taking steps every day to carve the simple life we crave out of the worlds busy schedules and hectic paces. We are not interested with keeping up with the Jones, the Smiths, or anyone. As a society we have lost so much in our quest for progress and leisure, we are paying for it in the general decline of our society. You can see it reflected in the attitudes of our children and the lack of civility in public discourse, and most importantly in the over-all mood of the people.

As a people, we need to step back and reexamine our priorities, and more importantly turn our faces back to God. That is what Shelley and I are trying to do on our little plot of ground. It is our form of revolution, a revolution of the soul, and a rehabilitation of the spirit.

Where's the summer going?

Holy smokes! It's been a while since my last posting, but I've been very busy in the garden the past few weeks. The garden is booming like a rain forest and keeping on top of it is nearly a full time job.


The squash are going to be a lot of fun this year. Each one is a new selection for us this year. We have Red Kuri, Long Island Cheese, New England Sugar Pie, Amish Pie (the last two being pumpkins), Waltham Butternut, and a cool White acorn.

The zucchini's are really pushing out blossoms and fruit. We planted Zucchini Rampicante, Longo Bianco, Straita d'Italia, and Horn of Plenty summer squash.

We've already harvested 16 lbs. of pickling cukes which we promptly canned as 13 quarts of bread and butter pickles. One bed of cabbage is done and being enjoyed. We intend on making and freezing a bunch of stuffed cabbage rolls this weekend. The broccoli is done as well. Broccoli is always a disappointment to me. Don't get me wrong, we got a nice yield, however, not a very large yield from the space needed. The garden salsa peppers have been wonderful.

The pickles were done using our new outdoor 2 burner propane stove. Lest year we killed our indoor stove with the heavy water canners, so this year we trekked down to Lehman's Hardware and picked up this stove. It was a wonderful addition. The house doesn't get so hot, the mess is easily managed, and man! does it go fast!

I mentioned our kitchen, lettuce, garden in the past. That has been the superstar this year. We ate huge salads for dinner last night, the total cost $3.00 for 3 people! The budget is definitely helped by that.

The kitchen garden has been such a success, that we're expanding on the idea next year, adding another bed of similar size for different greens and radishes.

Spinach was the big loser this year. The area we had them in turned out to be an oven, even on mild days. It suffered badly and didn't produce.

Our Amish paste tomato experiment is paying big dividends. We planted nearly 100 plants in a very small area. Tomatoes don't mind company and work to keep the weeds down. This method will provide us huge yields, but we need to organically feed them as tomatoes are heavy feeders and will quickly use up this patch.

Organic methods are preferred by us, and we're learning as we go. One of our best discoveries is Liquid fence http://www.liquidfence.com/. We were having problems with deer and rabbits stopping in for free lunches. This product works to repel them very effectively. I will warn everyone, this stuff smells like the gates of Hell when you're using it, but works like a charm. The smell is only noticeable the first few hours. The best thing is this is a totally natural product!

Shelley and I are really praying about our future. We have gone over the budget and Shell could stay home to raise our kids and help as the farm expands. We were over-joyed at the prospect, however, God sometimes works in odd ways. Just today, Shell got a call from a local denstist and it looks like she may have a great opportunity to work for him. Either way, we are blessed. Our desire is to follow God's will.

We are very excited about how things are going and how the future is looking in regards to our little microfarm. Hopefully we'll continue experiencing God's blessings on our simple life.