Make It Do or Do Without : Being Creative in the Garden

Clear Dawn onions
I love me a good challenge of the mind. It takes me until I put seeds in the ground until I have a final garden plan and even then I have been known to rip those poor little plants out and move them if I change my mind. I am also no stranger to unrealized dreams and my Back to Eden garden is one of them this year... again. It just wasn't going to work out. So, instead of whining and giving up I was determined to make a garden happen despite having no garden. But, what makes it a garden? Is it the dirt? Plants? Little rows and sickly manicured edges? I think the world is a garden so shall we not be so narrow minded on the guidelines?

The new yet temporary garden next to the barn

I am a fan of raised beds. I just like them. In my last post I had said I was going to use Bagsters to make instant raised beds and while that was a great idea it meant $60 was going just to a container. I wanted to spend that money of some awesome compost instead (more on that in a sec). So, I had remembered reading about raised beds and how some of the most simple ones were just dirt piled up into a garden bed. As in no box. Just dirt. Sounds messy doesn't it? How does the dirt not wash off with rain and watering? That is what I thought to myself when I first conceived the idea. Now I have made one of these beds and while it is neither perfect nor ideal, it will do.

New raised bed, 16'x 4'(ish)

It's uneven and it bugs me, but I am letting that go. It is 2 feet shorter than I intended, but I am letting that go too. It will grow food and that is the point! This is for one year I have the rest of my life to have perfect little boxes and my Back to Eden garden (which I may reconsider... what to do!). For now I have a free form raised bed planted with popcorn, cucumbers, onions, kale, chard, and lettuce.



Over here we have a potato bed made of mulch hay bales! Aren't I cleaver?

Rednecking it!

And, once again my tomatoes are in pots. Peppers too. Such is life.

Amish Paste tomato plant... does any one know if curled leaves are normal?

I will elaborate a bit on my soil. I have a horse and chickens and every year we pile up what is left from the winter and it sits and turns to compost which is turned at the end of the summer as we clean up the paddock. By the next spring it looks like dark rich dirt. We have sand in the paddock to help with dust, mud and it gives the horse a nice rolling area so quite a bit of sand gets worked into the piles as well. Therefore my compost is sand infused which is a stellar combination of light and rich, water retaining and free draining. While I believe that this soil has plenty of nutrition to see my plants through, there is no harm in adding a bit more right? So, after eyeing the bags and wondering for the last year or more I am giving Coast of Maine organic composts a try! I am using the Quoddy Blend Lobster Compost as a top dressing for the large bed and the soon to be smaller 12' bed which will have beans and squash/pumpkins. I'm using the Penobscot Blend Compost and Peat as a top dressing for the potato bed and I put a good 2-3 inches in the top of the tomato and pepper pots. I have read a lot of good things and I seriously doubt that it will be a waste. I will be excited to see if it makes a difference. If I had a very large garden and needed to amend them every year with these products it would become expensive. But, if they are able to be added every few years with good success than I would see it a worth while investment in addition to my own manure compost. Diversity in soil is the key! To learn more about the composts just hit up Coast of Maine's website.

New pile is on the left, the old on the right.

What the finished compost looks like


I'm not meaning to sound like a commercial, but I love to support Maine products! Most of our state is sustained by small businesses and how can I not get behind one like this? It's recycling, organics and it nurtures one of my very favorite things... gardens!

Chickens dust bathing and enjoying the sun

The little farm girl in her Carhartt overalls
I'll be trying to keep this updated during the growing season! I love reading everyone else's garden blogs so I will try to contribute regularly too.


Til next time!


This post was shared on Green Thumb Thursday blog hop.

Memorial Day Weekend

Despite the patriotic meaning of Memorial Day, here in Maine this weekend marks the beginning of summer. Memorial Day weekend is planting time. We can safely say there will be no more frosts and most days get into the 70's or above by now. Tomatoes start shooting up like rockets, the cool weather crops are at their height and it's time to plant squash and cucumber seeds. That is exactly what I have done this weekend.

Saturday:

In my last post I had mentioned not gardening this weekend because Montana Man was home. I seemed to have forgotten he had a house and truck to work on! So, not wanting to waste the reasonably good weather I decide to scoot across the street to the farm store and grab some potting mix to get going. I looked online first to see how much this was going to run me (that's a Maine term... things don't cost you, they 'run yah') and I determined that the price of potting soil is dumb. Instead I got two 23# bags of organic compost and one 30# bag of organic garden soil as well as some organic slow release fertilizer. Back home I filled my wheel barrow about 2/3 full of our sand infused well rotted horse manure and proceeded to mix in batches about 4 parts sandy manure, 2 parts compost and 1 part garden soil. I mixed this all by hand and trowel... which took forever. My poor belly and arm muscles got a workout!

With my new soil all ready to be put to use, I first potted up some flowers I had gotten for my mom's birthday. Then I organized what needed to be potted up right now and what could wait and selected my sizes. Tomatoes were first in the five gallon pots. I filled each about 2/3 full of soil and then added two tablespoons of fertilizer and worked it in. I then took the tomato starts out of their little pots after striping off most of the lower leaves and placed the plant in the center. I then just filled in soil around it until only the top leaves were above the soil. All of the buried stem will sprout new roots and thus will have a much stronger root system.

Four bell pepper plants, two Jalapeno and one cayenne pepper plants all got planted in my hot pepper Topsy Turvy I got for a deal on Amazon. I will enjoy seeing how they grow upside down hanging from the framing in the greenhouse. It also elates me to have more raised bed and pot space to play with!

After mixing another batch of soil, more five gallon pots got filled (same as for tomatoes: 2/3 full, work in fertilizer, fill to top with more soil) and I planted two types of pumpkins, Delicata squash and Butternut squash. In two gallon pots I planted zucchini (1 tablespoon of fertilizer for this size).

Unsure of where I want my cucumbers to be quite yet, I planted seeds in the small 4" pots. Hopefully once they are a couple weeks old I will know where to put them!

I seem to have run low on soil again... time to call it a day!

Sunday:

My morning started in what is called the "grey hour". That mystical hour before the sun peeks up over the horizon but is hovering just high enough below it to light the world into a eerie grayness. I have always loved the grey hour. Normally I sleep right through it, after all I am no early bird. But, my precious little two year old finally decided at 4:45 am she was hungry after refusing to eat supper last night. I knew there would be no hope of her falling back asleep. Rather than being upset about the few more hours of sleep I was forfeiting, I just listened for a moment before getting up to get her. It was so... noisy! The Cardinal was singing his good morning song in a chorus with the other birds, my rooster roused and crowed a few times, the horses feet scuffling by his water. After I got little girl settled quietly in the living room and started my coffee, I was reminded that the world starts its day hours before I do. Nature's day dwellers awaken with the sun's rising and happily goes to rest at dusk. It has a lovely balance to it. In summer there is much to do and less sleep is prudent to make the most of the season. In winter there is nothing but to stay warm and fed and more sleep is welcomed to conserve energy and pass the days quicker. With having chickens, it's hard not to observe when they go to roost and when the rooster calls his girls to wake, no one tells them what to do! They don't fret over how many hours they get or the latest research, to them it is simple and not thought of. Not likely to happen, but it makes me wonder if rising and resting with the sun as generations before us did, would solve our tricky body clock issues. Just a thought.

After I put Mini down for a much needed early nap, I resumed my planting from the day before. I mixed another wheel barrow full of soil ( I had run for more compost and garden soil earlier) and proceeded in filling the rest of the pots I needed. I had four rainbow chard in small 4" pots that got replanted into one five gallon and then I started digging up the kale out of my deep raised bed. I put four in their own two gallon pots and the rest in two larger pots (5 in each). The chard and kale in individual pots are going to a friend.

The kale is sulking a little from being dug up.

Next I moved my prep table outside putting the newly planted cucumber seeds on it. I then worked some of the fertilizer into the now empty part of the deep raised bed and planted my two Rutgers tomato plants in opposite ends. Sixty of my Copra onions were planted in front of and between the Rutgers. So now the deep bed has two tomatoes, sixty onions and about 100 Yaya carrots. The remaining twelve onions went in between the rainbow chard in one of the smaller raised beds. I could have gotten all the onions into the large bed but I am hoping they will mature into large bulbs so I didn't want to crowd them.

I planted two five gallon pots with Kentucky Wonder pole beans and one five gallon with Northeaster pole beans, planting four seeds around temporary poles. I need to scavenge some tall saplings to make a four pole teepee in each pot once they sprout. And, finally I worked some compost into one of the empty raised beds to get it ready for the perpetual spinach that will be ready to plant in there in a few more days.

So except for a few more seedling transplants I am done with planting! Now it will be a summer of tending and watching everything grow.

Ok, I may have some plant pot organizing to do too...
I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! I'm going to go nurse my sciatic nerves that are on fire now.


This post was shared on Green Thumb Thursday Bloghop.

The Meat Chicks

See, I told you I was going to get meat chicks this fall. And, I ordered 15 of them (plus a free rare breed, more on that in a bit!) just before the cut off for the season until January! Hatcheries do not ship during holiday seasons for obvious reasons... chicks need to be in your hands within 24 hours of hatching. Mine I tracked and they left Minnesota around 7:00 pm Monday and were in my post office by 11:20 am Tuesday. I didn't get the call as soon as they came in (bad phone!) but I picked them up before closing at 4:30 pm. Everyone was healthy and well and driving the post office staff up a wall with hungry peeps. Puzzle Boy was so excited and could barely wait to get the little fuzz balls home! We stopped off at TSC to grab some Save-a-Chick probiotic and smaller feed and water attachments since all I have is the big gallon sized feeders. I have to say I looked at these little attachments and then looked at the bottles that go with them (but bought separately, why?) and thought a mason jar could probably screw right in those. I've got those! And, it worked. Smarty pants over here.

So! I got the chicks and the kids in the house which is tricky if you don't make multiple trips. After I got Mini Me settled and occupied I set up my indoor brooder and prepped the water. Chicks are not born knowing how to find water. I mean, were you? Jeez, give 'um a break! So don't just dump your chicks in the brooder (aka a cardboard box) and wish them luck. Very gently (they just got flown across the country, have sympathy), pick up each chick and dip the tip of it's beak in the water. This one dunk teaches them how to drink and where water is. Cool right? This would be a total pain if you ordered 100 chicks but for 16 it took all of one minute.

After they have mastered drinking let them practice that for a few minutes before you introduce food. Sprinkle the chick starter feed on the papers for them to peck at and then you can put the feeder in. Let's talk about feed for a minute. I am raising these birds on certified organic feed from day one. This means although I am not a certified organic farmer I technically am producing organic chicken that could be certified. The feed I am buying is produced only 2 states over in Vermont. Score. Yes, it's more expensive then the feed store special that is full of antibiotics and pesticides, but really? Why would you want that crap? Spend the money, you'll save it in doctors bills when you don't get cancer and can still fight off infections. You are what you eat!



I have now moved the chicks to the barn stall and the set up while a little hobbled together seems to work fairly well for the moment. I have turned on it's side my unfinished TV stand and hung the brooding lamp on a nail. Then I have it covered with an old ripped screen (just a small hole) with a piece of cardboard over one half to help keep the heat in but not suffocate them. Then I weighted the covering down with paint can (for lack of a better way) to keep the cat out of there. So far so good.

I ordered all females because they tend to be more tender and tasty in the end result, roosters can cause some off flavors if not castrated (and who has time for that!). In about 6-8 weeks they should be at slaughter size as Cornish Crosses are the franken-bird that is bred to grow like it's on roids. I am hoping for them to finish out at around 6-8 pounds. Based on the reviews I read on the breed, this is entirely realistic. While this is ideal for a quick end of the year meat production it's like buying hybrid seeds every year. There is no way to perpetuate the flock, they are a one time deal. I will be researching dual purpose breeds to hopefully develop a breeding flock that will serve as both meat and egg producers. A girl can dream anyway!

I will update weekly to share how fast these little buggers grow. Day 2 and some of them already have sprouted feathers! Crazy!

Oh yeah! The rare breed chick that was free with my order...

What the heck. They sent me a Modern Black Breasted Red Game chick. What do I even do with this?! I thought, hey, it's free maybe it will be something super cool. Not cool! I don't mean to sound ungrateful and mean but, I do not plan on cock fighting anytime soon (what this bird was bred for) so I find it as a foreseeable problem. Darn cute as a chick though!

Til next time!

All Things Fall

Fall brings many different emotions to different people. Some morn the warmth and strong sun of summer, others can't wait to see summer go and welcome the colors! Here in Maine we have beautiful leaves, fields of orange pumpkins and crisp days. Fall is my favorite season hands down. This is what our fall is going to look like this year:

Finish canning. I started canning in August and have canned mostly foods from local farms and friends gardens who have traded for eggs. When I have finished I will share my list and totals and how I store them. Just so you know, I love canning. It's hard work but it's instant gratification as soon as you line up those beautiful jars and step back to see your food insurance policy.

Start on Christmas presents for friends and family. This is something I struggle with. I hate gift giving. Not because I am a crab but because of the message it can send. I feel like if I don't give them something perfect and meaningful that the recipient will feel I cheated them therefore I must not care much. Untrue, but it's so much pressure! Once I had kids I decided I need to really explore Christmas and how our family wants to celebrate not just follow my extended family's deep seated traditions. It's a touchy subject, but my first baby step that I am starting this year is that I will only be giving gifts made with my hands. I might need to do a separate post on this! To be continued...

Buy and raise meat chickens. Lord and money willing, I would like to buy 25 meat chicks and raise completely organic for slaughter. We have reduced or grocery bills to around $75 a month and that has consisted of a lot of sale chicken of all kinds and not organic. And, it bothers me. So, I did some research (of course!) and crunched some numbers and we should be able to raise these 25 birds for about $1/pound of finished chicken. Then I will have a freezer full of chicken for the winter and I can cross that of the list until spring when we do it again!

Homeschooling. This is our first "official" year homeschooling though I have been teaching Puzzle Boy the basics as he has grown. He knows his colors, can count beyond 20, knows his letters by sight, has improved his speech and is learning sight words. This year is kindergarten and I prefer to use this year to experiment with different types of learning and have fun! We school 3 days a week and are part of a co-op that meets all day Fridays. Our basic goals for the year are to start reading, start simple math, work on social skills (like stranger smarts, how to ask for help without mommy, working it out with friends), learn our states, homestead skills and so much more! Homeschooling is unlimited!

Build that house! Oh gosh, don't get me started! But, we should have walls and a roof by November. Perhaps moving in around Thanksgiving? Remember it won't be finished! Just needs to have hot water, hold heat and be functional.

Split wood. After discussing it with my parents, they have agreed to let me borrow their wood cook stove that came from my great-grandfather's home. I am so excited! Not only will this save me on propane cost for my cooking but it will also save a little on heating fuel as well. Cook stoves are not famous for heating but they do throw enough to help a small well insulated house. Plus I am nostalgic and like the idea of waking up to start a fire and set my percolator on the top to make me amazing coffee. It's been a dream for years.

Enjoy Maine. Yes, I live here. But, I rarely just drive out to the ocean or visit farms or go for a hike and enjoy my home state. Sad, huh? Fall is my favorite season to enjoy my state because it is just so beautiful! So we will be picking apples, go explore a trail, visit the lighthouses and enjoy the best weather all year!

Fall can be busy and slip right by. Winter is so long here, preparing for it is necessary not only physically (like firewood and buttoning up the house) but also mentally. I need a winter game plan! Fall gives me time to ease into winter and decide what I want those short and gray days to look like.

Summer!

This afternoon has turned rainy (which I welcome heartily!) so I thought I would catch up and do a little blogging. I have not written for a while, for this I apologize. Life has kind of been coasting for a bit with not a lot of documentable change. But now I have a few things to share as summer takes off.

First is that the house will be started... really soon! We have as of now accumulated our refrigerator, range, bath tub, kitchen sink, kitchen cabinets (sitting in the barn), and a dishwasher that we have yet to pick up. We are almost ready to commit to a house plan and submit that plan to the town. We have decided to dig a well instead of drill it, and also due to major structural hurdles we are going to be building a slightly bigger house than we had planned, but it will be about 1000 square feet... small by most peoples standards! More on this in the future.

The chickens are still growing and maturing, we have about 6-8 weeks left until they will start to lay and I will greatly enjoy passing the egg section at the store when they do! When they get closer to laying I will switch them to an organic feed, currently they are on a standard growing feed. Next year I plan to add a few different breeds to spice up the flock, all the girls are the same! I would love some colored eggs to break up the brown as well as have enough to sell regularly.

Next up I have a trip planned to a local dairy goat farm where I am planning to buy my goats from! I will be buying 2 doe kids next spring to start a small milking herd. Ah, the thought of crossing off the dairy section of the grocery list is a sweet one! I would like to pasture them in the spring-fall seasons so we will get the great benefits of grass fed milk, but we will see what we have to work with. I will take pictures and do a post on the farm tour!

Today, as you can see from the picture above, I made planter boxes for the greenhouse to plant my tomatoes and peppers. This was an adventure for sure! I went to Home Depot with the kids this morning and picked up my materials and organic potting soil. After Mini was down for a nap and Puzzle Boy was playing well on his new swing set, I got busy with making the boxes. I cut everything to size and then assembled one box before PB wanted to go in for lunch. I got him settled with that then finished the rest of the boxes on the walkway so I could watch him in the house. Later, I carried them out, rearranged the greenhouse, lined the boxes with plastic (I used pressure treated wood, can't have the chemicals get in the soil), and filled them with the potting soil. Planted the tomatoes, peppers and two dill plants and then pruned all the tomatoes quite heavily. They have started blooming and need only a good 3-4 strong branches under the blooms to thrive, all other leaves are just a energy suck. I want tomatoes not leaves! After all the pruning I arranged my remaining plants on the spare table outside to catch the rain and cleaned up.

I am also focusing on knitting in my spare time and keep wanting to tackle the barn... although I think I have to resign to the fact that it might be best to wait until we move to bother.

Oh the anticipation of our future once we are in the house and can build up our own land with orchards, gardens and livestock! My dreams come true, to raise my kids in such a wholesome environment of life and nature! All it takes is constant puttering, haha! Ok, maybe a little money too. You get my point right?

Til next time!

Organic? It's for Us, is it for You?

When I first was introduced to "organic" food I was immediately intrigued. Was this hippy fodder? Was it twigs and berries or just another way to squeeze a few extra bucks out of your grocery budget? As I splashed around in the shallow end of the organic scene before I had kids, I began to glean knowledge and realized it was a little of all of it! Certified organic food is regulated to certain standards of chemical free growing and earth friendly growing. It all around is more healthy and sustainable... it just takes a bit more elbow grease. Depending on what is grown and methods used, organic growing can be really expensive or really cheap.

Now, I will not try to claim we are fanatics about organic food. We like to eat that way as budget and availability allows. But I still eat McDonald's on occasion. Shoot me. When we are able to grow and raise more of our own food it will be with organic practices, so it most likely be a pretty high percentage of our daily diet. Right now we focus on specific things. Organic dairy, organic eggs, nitrate free, antibiotic free, hormone free and GMO free if we can. I try to get our root vegetables organic as well as most of out produce except bananas (they really are a low risk food). Cold cereals and more "processed" foods are a splurge and not something I frequent. Frozen veggies usually are organic too. Baking flours and grains, yes. Um, so most of our food I guess! Probably 75%-85% of our home prepared food is organic or at least all natural. We do not go so far as to use organic body care products unless they are a gift or are homemade. I do, however, prefer homemade cleaning products that I can control chemical exposure with. You'd be surprised what you clean with vinegar and baking soda.

Thinking about giving it a try? Start with the dirty dozen and see if your budget can take it!

Bonus! Seedling update pictures: