May 4, 2014

A sample of the mixed heirloom lettuce we grow - 'Red Salad Bowl,' 'Black Seeded Simpson,' and 'Red Romaine'.

Chives in bloom.

It's strawberry season.  The kids didn't need a reminder; they raced outdoors first thing in a tumble of giggles, "I'm going to beat yous," and one "wait for me" looking for a pair of crocks.  Welcome May, month of cherry jam, berries, and more good things to come on our hobby farm.  A beautiful and slow spring has been ideal for growing spinach, and we expect to process 2 dozen+ quarts for the freezer.  For root crops, we have beets, radishes, and carrots in the cold frame still. Lettuce is a little out of hand and is begging our first tomatoes, still a month away.  Broccoli and peas will be producing a heavy crop soon.

'Passion and Purity' Iris.

One new project we're working on this year is a dry bean fence along the barn.  We ordered several varieties of heirloom climbing pole-type beans, suitable for drying, from the Seed Saver's Exchange in Iowa.  By the way, we are moving almost entirely to heirloom variety vegetables and plan to save our own seeds from year to year.  The dry beans will make great additions to soups and other dishes as a source of protein.  Sweet corn, melons, cukes, zucchini, sunflowers, and huckleberries are all planted.  

We couldn't be happier with our pasture-raised, hormone-free, antibiotic-free broiler chickens.  All our birds weighed in over 6 lbs. processed, at half the cost per pound for the same label at market price.  The flavor?  If you lived close to a farm before the commercial chicken industry, you might have an idea what a real chicken tastes like.  And it's something you'd never forget, in a longing sort of way.

Peas climbing the fence in the foreground, followed by 25 ft. rows of broccoli, lettuce, and spinach.

The cold frame still producing lettuce,
carrots, and beets.  A second-year 'Goldrush'
apple tree just beyond.

Spinach.

Pasture-raised, antibiotic-free, hormone-free Cornish Cross broiler chickens at 8 weeks.

Fresh processed chickens weighing over 6 lbs each.  That's more than 18 lbs of meat!
And with that rich yellow skin, it's time for some Southern Fried Chicken.

April 10, 2014

Calling all bees!  Winesap apple blossoms greet the Spring.

The cold frame has been a huge success this year as we're gathering spinach, radishes, carrots, beets, and loads of mixed lettuce up to one month before the spring garden could have produced it.  But the main garden is under way as peas, carrots, onions, broccoli, and 625 ft. of spinach are growing well in this beautiful Spring season.  We added two plum trees this year, a Red Santa Rosa, and a Blue Damson, to our orchard collection of apples, peaches, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and figs.  Warm-season vegetable seedlings are growing and will be ready to transplant out in a week or two, when we will also plant many of our heirloom beans, cukes, melons, squash, and corn varieties from seed.

The cold frame, in peak of Spring production.  After this crop is harvested, we will use the frame to grow eggplant.

8 varieties of tomatoes, various peppers, lettuce, and herbs to be transplanted into the garden soon.

The strawberry pyramid bed in bloom.

Cornish Cross broilers at four weeks old, already weighing in at a meaty two pounds, free-range over grass.

Spring at Palmetto Acres Garden

Baby lettuce, spinach, radishes, beets, and carrots growing happily in the cold frame.

Jumbo-sized brown eggs from our layers.

Spring was all the buzz this weekend!  We had gorgeous weather to garden in South Carolina.  There's not much in season, just some early mixed greens, lemons, and farm-fresh eggs (sounds to me like a recipe for lemon bars and spring salad; oh, we added a couple early radishes on that salad, too).  Plans are being put into action for this summer's food garden, and already some vegetable seeds are sprouting under fluorescent lights indoors.  It's our fourth year on this property, and fruit trees look like they are going to put on a heavy crop - 10 bush cherries are lit up with hundreds of thousands of white blossoms; if there are no late freezes, we will need braces for peach and apple trees.

Meyer lemons ripening indoors.

Last spring we introduced laying chickens to our hobby farm; there has been no more fun and rewarding endeavor.  Our jumbo-sized eggs do not fit well in standard egg containers.  We're adding meat chickens this year of the Cornish Rock variety, which top out at 6-8 pounds by eight weeks of age.  It's the same breed chicken in any grocery store; ours will be raised on an organic diet and free-ranged over grass, as natural a life as possible, which should yield highly superior meat at less cost per pound than market free-range organic chickens.

Laying hens in their movable chicken run.

Cornish Rock chick

Cornish Rock chicks get their first meal in the brooder.  As cute as they are, these are livestock, not pets.

Chicks, the First Week

Rhode Island Red chick at one week old.  A miniature comb and wattle are growing on its forehead.

Wing and tail feathers.

The chicks are a week old now and are growing fast.  They have doubled in size since we brought them home, and they are showing loads of personality.  We have our eager ones, reluctant ones, curious ones, and shy ones.  Some are assertive, first to do everything; and others prefer to follow.  Feathers are starting to grow out from the shoulder, wings, and tail.  Thanks to those wing feathers, they are getting rather adept at cruising around in their 8 ft. x 4 ft. brooder pen.  It looks like a couple of the chicks are playing at pecking order, and not necessarily the largest ones either.  Maintenance is very low - we refill the feed tray every other day, and we haven't yet had to refill the gallon waterer.

3rd-year semi-dwarf nectarine tree.

We have an excellent stand of spinach this spring; lettuce, carrots, and onions are just sprouting.  Peas just went in the ground over the weekend after being pre-sprouted in wet paper towels.  Indoors our peppers, dill, and bedding flowers are growing under lights, and we will add to them tomato and other warm-weather crops this week.  We're still enjoying peach and cherry blossoms.  Happy first day of Spring!

Bush cherries in bloom.

April 2, 2012

Vegetable seedlings the week before transplanting.

Until this year, I have never set my transplants out in March.  The weekend was just right - mostly overcast - and we've had four weeks of frost-free weather.  A dozen tomatoes, eight peppers,  nine dill and nine parsley all went into the ground on Saturday.  The tomatoes are protected with milk jug covers - mostly to keep voracious insects away until they grow a little larger.  Thankfully, none of the big hail storms hit us.

Winter beets, lettuce,
and chard.

Planting holes are being prepared for cucumbers, melons, and zucchini.  We will have another try at pumpkins this year, but since we don't want them to ripen until September, it's best to wait until May to plant.  Temperatures are warm enough to plant sweet corn:  our green manure crop of clover reached knee-hight last week; it was time to incorporate it into the soil to enjoy its rich nitrogen benefits.  Tilling it under was just as cumbersome as I remember it was last year, but a double pass in cross-directions took care of the job in about an hour.  Soil will continue to warm over the next three weeks until we're ready to plant.

Apple blossoms.

We added lemon verbena and sage to our perennial herb border, and we decided to add a fig tree to our orchard.  Apple trees are in full bloom now; little marble peaches and pea-sized cherries are set.  Spinach will be ready to pick this week.  The garden is really shaping up for a productive and healthful year!

Meyer lemon tree with blossoms perfumes the deck.

March 12, 2012

The first peach blossom.

March is here, and it's beginning to look like it.  Mounds of green clover up to 10 inches high are covering our future corn patch.  Grass is turning green again, thanks to abundant Spring rains, and trees are in bloom everywhere.  After wheelbarrowing mulch to the far ends of the property during a church work day, we came home to plant:

Onion and carrot plantings
next to garlic

6 ft. of raddishes
18 ft. of 'Salad Bowl' lettuce
6 ft. of 'Romain' lettuce
25 ft. carrots
25 ft. yellow onions

Bush cherries two years old.

We also re-planted spinach seed where there are bare spots and mowed part of the lawn.  A second batch of peas is rolled up in moist paper towels on top of the refrigerator to sprout and be planted before St. Patrick's Day.  This is a busy weekend for the garden, since it's also time to sow seeds of tomatoes and dill indoors.  Broccoli will be transplanted out into the garden by next weekend, so it's time to start hardening off our seedlings by acclimating them to sunlight and wind after being pampered under fluorescent lights on a heat mat indoors.

Bees are loving our bush cherries, and the first peach blossoms have opened.  We finished a very busy day by watering our blueberries with an acid-loving fertilizer and by misting all the newly-planted seed.  Thanks to all this work on a sunny day, we can humbly show off our red necks!

The vegetable garden in March showing garlic left; clover center;
and peas, spinach, lettuce, and brussels sprouts right.

May 2, 2011

May is a month of promise in the vegetable garden.  Seed of cantaloupe, honeydew melon, cucumbers, zucchini and squash have been sown, and this week corn and beans will be planted as the crescent moon waxes.  Does planting by the moon really work?  For millennia, people who depended on farming for survival have been following the practice based on careful observation.  Rather than point to mysticism, we point to principles governed by the Creator; just as the moon affects tides, it seems to affect seed germination for good.

Last month's green manure crop of red clover has all composted and left the soil more workable (and, we hope, healthy).  But while cultivating rows to plant corn, we pulled enough rocks out to fill three 5-gallon buckets.  Someone must have used one corner of our corn patch as a rock dump when grading the subdivision.  This garden represents every sower and seed parable told, and as the lesson goes, there will be no harvest if we leave it like that.  Our fix?  Throw some composted manure in to make up the difference!  We're planting half the corn now, and the other half two weeks later to get an extended harvest.

This is a single head of leaf lettuce 'Salad Bowl' that we planted last September.  The funny thing is, after a fall harvest, we thought winter cold killed it, and attempted to till it under to make way for the peas you see behind Bryan in the picture; but it didn't die, it came back - with a vengeance!  Despite the challenges of gardening in a new location, it's good to know that some things are a success.  Raspberries are in bloom, strawberries are in season, and we are looking forward to a great blueberry crop in a month!

Last week the summer vegetable garden received 3-D structure with the addition of tomato and pepper cages and stakes.  Aluminum electrical conduit pipe makes a great garden stake (or temporary fence pole, tree support, etc).  Pipe comes in 10 foot sections in any hardware store and at $2 each is not an expensive investment.  Cut each pipe in half with a hack saw to make two garden stakes that will last for years.

25-ft. row of spring peas starting to climb.

March 14, 2011

We had a wet week (no complaints there!) ending with some great 76 degree F sunshine and drying just enough to work the soil.  Peas by St. Patrick's Day is an easy date to remember (or one month before last frost in other zones); I pre-sprout my seeds between damp paper towels in a dark, warm area (like on top of the refrigerator), mix with a powder inoculant (rhizobia bacteria for nitrogen fixing), then set them carefully in the ground to finish sprouting and grow.  A boost from bone meal mid-season will supply extra phosphorous for a great harvest.

It looks like 80% of the spinach seed sprouted (much better than average -- my experiment worked!), but this is interesting, I planted different brands in each row.  Burpee had excellent germination, but Ferry Morse was very poor: both brands were purchased at the same home improvement store.  Granted, the seed is two years old because it was packaged for 2010 (since we moved last year we did not put in a garden).  But I'll be using Burpee from now on!  It's not too late to re-seed.

It's time to harvest brussels sprouts.  If you never liked them as a kid, garden-fresh are nothing like the kind that come from grocery stores.  Our winter-grown brussels sprouts are buttery sweet and melt-in-your-mouth tender!  We blanched and froze enough to pull out later when we want them.  By July it will be time to start new seed for next Fall's plants. 

What a busy weekend, from mowing the lawn, to mulching foot paths in between vegetable rows, there was more to do than time to do it.  This 'Salad Bowl' leaf lettuce over-wintered from last Fall.  We like it because of the bright apple-green color and excellent flavor even into hot weather.  This weekend I put in a wide, intensive bed of lettuces.  Intensive beds yield more per sq. ft. because plants are not cultivated in traditional single-file rows but rather in wide blocks. 

We use wheat straw to mulch in between vegetables, but since most wheat straw contains viable wheat seeds (which can sprout and turn into "weeds" even though wheat is an edible crop), it has to be de-seeded.  With a little planning, this is easy:  we purchase several bales of wheat straw in the autumn and throw them in the front yard with a few pumpkins; everybody loves the seasonal display.  Bales overwinter outdoors in the rain around the compost bin, where they become saturated.  Seeds inside either sprout on the bales (adding more organic material) or suffocate.  By Spring bales can be broken apart and spread as mulch on the garden, where it will compost over the season while keeping weeds down and soil cool and moist.