The remaining Jersey Giant chicken gets out of the pasture all the time and ravishes my garden. Well, this morning, she got mangled by a dog. So far, she has survived but appears to have a broken wing. We’ll see what happens, but she probably won’t be hopping the pasture fence and getting into the garden now.
Work has begun on turning an entertainment center into a chicken coop. I’m glad for that, because they will need some shelter come winter.
We left the garden in the care of Hannah for a week and came back to find destruction. My newly planted areas are completely dug up with huge holes, and the largest chard plant has been almost completely eaten. I’m guessing it’s the work of our non-egg-producing chickens. No yellow squash were picked all week, so I just had to pick five humungous ones that may be of no use to us.
Got my first Mortgage Lifter tomato today.
I harvested the last of my peas, and I’m going to remove them from the pods and dry them. I pulled out the plants, too. In their place, I planted (from west to east) rainbow mix carrots, danvers half-long carrots (north), chantenay carrots (south), some marigolds by the tomato plant, bloomsdale spinach (north), cylindra beet (south), calabrese broccoli (north), and chioggia beet (south). I also tried running some twine around my tomato plant on the east end to get some of the tomatoes off the ground. In doing so, we accidentally harvested some green tomatoes.
Our plums surprised us with how quickly they went from looking unripe to being ripe. The tree is loaded.
So far, we’ve figured out that a 50/50 combo of plums and blackberries mixed 1:1 with sugar makes a wonderful jam. We canned about 8 quarts tonight. We probably need to do about that much again to have enough jam for the year and to give away.
I tried in vain to find replacement pins for the quick release mechanism on the tractor loader. Then I remembered, with old things you’re supposed to be able to make your own parts. So I did. Now the quick release works again.
I lifted the old well cover today, and the water was 7 feet below ground level, giving us 16 feet of water.
We got our first picking of blackberries today.
I got my first handful of beans a few days ago. We haven’t been able to keep up with the pea harvest of a pound every few days, so I’ll plant half as many next year. My kale and chard are very healthy and producing well. My Mortgage Lifter tomato finally has some blossoms that have become fruits. Overall, my garden row hasn’t needed much watering.
Four days since last picking, and I got 20 oz of peas this time.
This my first pea harvest of more than just a few peas that I eat while in the garden. About 4 oz. My pea plants have been growing like crazy. I also got another 4 oz of kale.
Our neighbors’ fields were cut today.
I got my first kale harvest (4 oz). I found one green worm eating some kale.
My peas are looking fantastic. I picked a few today, but I think I should have enough to be part of dinner tomorrow or the day after. I added a one-foot-high fence for them to climb. I probably could have added something taller.
My second planting of beans is up, and greener than the first planting, which is yellowish.
My Mortgage Lifter tomato seems to be recovering and greening up.
I’m fascinated by soil health. It’s not only a foundational component of growing crops and pasture, but is a crucial concept for responsible stewards of this earth to understand.
There is life under your feet. And many common farming practices work against Mother Nature, causing long term harm to our soil.
A few months ago Josh read a book where he learned that rototilling may not be the best practice for long term soil health. It’s incredibly disruptive to the complex and rich “underworld” of fungi, beneficial insects, burrowing animals, bacteria and other things that make soil more than just clay, silt and sand.
Of course, when we look on top of the soil we see a beautiful connection of plants, animals, fungi, and water. But life goes much deeper than that below the surface. I believe the richness of life under our feet may just rival the richness of life that springs from it.
Five peas from my garden! Josh spotted them! 🙂
The peas that I direct seeded have taken off in the past week. They’re looking great. The beans have been up for a couple weeks. I planted 14 more beans today.
The tomatoes and squash plants have been doing poorly.
Our original sheep are white St. Croix hair sheep. (In some ways they’re more like goats in their feel and appearance.) But our newest sheep are Shetland/Gotland blend sheep, and their wool is luxurious, smooshy, soft and so, so curly. It’s exceptionally curly when it gets wet. This video shows some of the curly goodness!
One of the tricky things about caring for the health needs of sheep is that they can’t talk. They can’t say “It hurts here,” or “I have a headache,” or “Something’s not right with my digestion.” I can observe some health symptoms, such as lowered head, hunched back, lethargy, limping, diarrhea, or pain indicators in the face. However, other health issues may be asymptomatic, eventually leading to what appears to be an illness with quick onset.
Josh discovered a website that maps all the different soil types in the United States. He looked up our address and found out that we have Aloha (pronounced uh-LO-uh) Silt Loam.
Technically I got my first radish a couple weeks ago. I picked it, put it in my jacket pocket and forgot about it. Today, though, I was able to harvest my first fistfull of radishes! Yay!I’m not a huge fan of radishes, but they’re great because they can be started in early spring and harvested a month or so later! They’re also incredibly easy to grow. An idiot-proof veggie.
The NHS plant sale is a dangerous place of you’re wanting to have the value of your harvest exceed the cost of planting. We spent $31. I transplanted dwarf blue curled Scotch kale, Italian silver rib Swiss chard, and Mortgage Lifter tomato in my garden row (all heirloom), plus Delicata squash, yellow summer squash, and spaghetti squash in the row that we planned to leave fallow this year. Grant transplanted a black Krim tomato in that row, too.
Heather transplanted herbs out into the pasture along the fence.
I ran a 1/4-inch soaker hose on my row. It’s not very good. All the water leaks out within the first 15 feet–especially the first 5 feet. I might try a 1/2-inch soaker hose.
Frost took out the tomatoes the night after we planted them, and the chickens tore up about a quarter of my garden row.
The peas that I direct-seeded have caught up with the transplanted ones, and they’re healthier. Today I planted an Early Girl tomato plant that I got at the Ag Fest, and 10 blue lake bush beans. The soil on my garden row dries out quickly and can absorb a lot of water.
Heather planted a few Oregon sugar pod peas on her row and transplanted two tomato plants of unknown variety from the Ag Fest.
In the back corner of the property, one of our douglas fir trees got mowed down. It was the one that wasn’t doing well anyway. We planted another one in its place that we got at the Ag Fest. We also planted two lodge pine trees that we got at the Ag Fest, and we mulched the trees with wood chips.
