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.

Baker Creek Seeds

I'm always on the hunt for a good seed company for my garden. I've tried just about everybody including the big guys like Burpee and Stokes, down to more of the specialty, smaller companies like Pinetree. This year I tried someone new.

January and February are always looked forward to as the time when the seed catalogs arrive. It's a lot of fun, during an otherwise miserable time of year, paging through each offering deciding on what and how much to buy. Planning the garden and re-planning the garden fills many a chilly winter evening.

This year was no exception, except that I received a catalog from Baker Creek http://www.rareseeds.com/ , a new source (new to me, they've been in business since 1998. Jere Gettle started the company originally as a place to save and preserve rare heirloom seeds. Eventually, the company sprouted like the seeds they sell into a company that now offers 1275 varieties of rare seeds through there catalog sales and at there in the Ozark hills near Mansfield, Missouri.

The catalog (pictured above) was a stunner. Magazine size, with big glossy photos it served as part catalog, part coffee table book. I eagerly poured over the many pages, selecting a nice variety of seeds to order and placed my order at their online store.

My order arrived in one week. Included was a cash refund for an item they were out of stock on, and a gift packet of lettuce seeds. I was nicely impressed. The other companies I ordered from had not yet shipped my seeds, with one company delaying for over one month due to "excessive business" causing a strain on their system.

The first seeds in the ground were the six lettuce varieties, a variety of arugula, and two varieties of swiss chard that I purchased for my kitchen garden. We sowed them in line in 1/2" trenches and have been rewarded with nearly 100% germination and fantastic harvests. The quality of the lettuce, arugula, and chard is amazing, pictures don't do it justice.

We've been enjoying fresh salads for the past month and look to continue to enjoy them for weeks to come. The varieties of lettuce and cress planted make for a wonderful taste and texture to the salads, the arugula has an especially good flavor.

Tonight we intend to harvest some of the beautiful swiss chard to add to the dinner salads.

Baker Creek Seeds is my new #1 source of seeds. I see no reason to use anyone else. Since Baker Creek only sells heirloom varieties, Shelley and I also intend to save quite a few seeds this year in anticipation of next years garden. It will be our first foray into seed saving, however, the quality of the plants grown from Baker Creek indicate that we should be very successful.