Learning From Our Mistakes, And The Future of Our Farm

EarthBox Self Watering Containers

I don’t know why I have to learn everything the hard way.  I have a PhD from the University of Hard Knocks.  Mostly it’s my own fault.  I read a lot. I study the gardening and farming methods of the ultra successful, and then I go out and make a mess of everything.

Eventually, I get things right and can pass on what I’ve learned to others, but bow howdy, does my learning curve have some steep drops.

For the last two years, we’ve played with the idea of a CSA (community supported agriculture).  We’ve even had a couple of people sign up.  Each year, I have made some terrible planting and timing mistakes that have prevented me from implementing a fully operational CSA.

Finally, though, I have a plan that will work.  In fact, by incorporating my Aquaponics systems and a couple of greenhouses, we could offer a few 10 to 12 month shares.

My biggest mistake has been a failure to utilize a wise system of succession planting. I’ve finally figured that out.  I just had to start thinking like a customer.  I’d much rather have 4 tomatoes a week, with one or two big weeks to can some tomatoes than have 25 lbs one week and no more the rest of the year.  The same with beets and lettuce.  Everyone likes a head of lettuce from time to time, but who wants 11 heads of the stuff one week then have to wait a year to get more.  It was a real d’oh moment.

It’s probably too late for me to salvage the situation this season, but going forward we should be good to go.  I’m sure things won’t work out perfectly, but I think I’m on to something.

Speaking of going forward, we are in the process of creating a new business plan and direction for East of Eden Farms and Our Edible Suburb.  We believe that a more narrow focus will allow a better experience for our customers and us, and will set a better example for what is truly possible in maximum production from small spaces.

Finally, at long last I have begun writing the book version of Our Edible Suburb.  I’m still undecided about whether or not I will go a traditional paperback route or if I’ll stick with electronic versions.  Your thoughts would be appreciated.  If you were to buy a book about growing mountains of food and becoming self sufficient in small spaces, would you prefer an electronic version that could go with you anywhere and have live links to other helpful information, or would you  like a hard copy that you can reference from the comfort of your recliner?  Let me know.

Read Full Post »

Garden Pics and Aquaponics Experiment – Danger Imminent

Spud 1

The garden is starting to look like one.  I’ve captured a pic of the season’s first potato, “Spud 1″ and of a golden Patty Pan squash.  It appears that the bee activity from Brittan’s bee boxes, yes, it’s B’s Bees, are going to have the desired effect on our production.

I have also included a photo of my barrel Aquaponics unit that is currently under construction.  What a disaster that has been.  I am photographing and filming some it and will call my adventures, “Aquaponic Gardening With The Village Idiot.  Watch for updates.

 

 

Read Full Post »

Ready or Not….

Mostly Not.

It’s time to get the garden done.  Time, ha. Time is an elusive thing.  I can’t seem to catch it, so I make do as best I can.

Starting tomorrow, my plan is to work in the garden one hour each evening after we get back from the farm.  I have some transplants that need to get in the ground right away.  I have some other things that can wait a bit.  I’ll probably go ahead and get some of the beans and squash in the ground, too.  My plan is to do beans in succession this year to save space.  I will plant a few, then as the summer squash finishes, I’ll plant some more in the spaces the squash vacates.  Alternatively, I’ll plant some of the beans where the cabbages vacate.

We grew onions over the winter.  I’m pretty excited about them, but they are taking up a lot of space.  I need to either plant a legume in that spot after they are harvested, or I will need to use a great deal of compost.  I’m sure they sucked up a ton of nutrients.  I’m leaning towards peanuts.

Not much else to report.  I’m not ready for the garden, but the garden is ready for me. So, ready or not, here I come.

 

 

Read Full Post »

Compost, Worms and the Simple Pleasures of Gardening

It’s garden season here in the burb.  Not that you’d know it by looking at our garden.  Every day, I say, “Must work in the garden tonight”.  Every night, I find another chore to do.  Yikes.  I need to go back and watch “Multiplicity” again and see how Michael Keaton did it, because I need more of me.  Well, at my girth, not more of ME, but more copies of a leaner me. Well, you know what I mean.

Our sun room is loaded with tomatoes and peppers that need to go out, but they must wait a couple more weeks, in the unlikely event of one more frost.  I have bags and bags of seeds begging to be unleashed into the earth.  Unfortunately, the garden beds and containers are unprepared for their arrival.  In other words, I’m BEHIND.  Oh, that the Keebler elves would do me a kindness by sneaking in and take care of that for me one night.  Perhaps they could even leave behind some of those little cookies with the yummy fudge stripes on one side; that would be nice. Sorry, got side tracked.

One of the things I’m excited about this year is our compost.  People who actually know what they’re doing, say that one sure sign of good compost and earth is the presence of worms.  If that is the case, then we are in luck this year.

First, as previously recorded here, after our worm bed box was flooded last year, B tossed the soggy contents into a compost pile we have in the garden.  Somehow, a few of the little wigglers lived.  The survivors tackled the rabbit manure with vigor and have turned it into something spectacular.  And, Boy Howdy, have they reproduced.  It is so much fun just to go out to the compost pile and turn over a fork full of it and watch the worms dance.  Am I a cheap date, or what?  I can’t wait to get some tomatoes into that compost.

Hold on, there’s more.

Out at the farm, we have a compost heap made up mostly, of mule waste, with a little side dressing of donkey and cow manure.  It has been steadily growing, and shrinking, for months.  On Saturday, I stuck a manure fork into it and turned it over to see how the compost was doing. Oh my gosh, it was like all my compost Christmases came at once.  First, the stuff is black and rich and smells like earth instead of, well, instead of what it smelled like when it was first produced.

What really painted my wagon though, was the number and size of compost worms.  They were everywhere and they were huge!  These are not night crawlers, these are compost worms.  They found our heap and said, “Oh, baby, we’re home.”  That pile of, well, you know, is to worms what Cracker Barrel is to a fat man. They have buffeted themselves into obesity.  The compost is ready.  And I have snacks for the chickens, too, not to mention a tasty trap for some unwitting bluegill in Lake Acworth a little later this spring.

Yep, we have the best compost ever.  It should translate into the best garden ever. Well it should if I ever manage to get my buttocks into the garden and get it ready, that is.  And I’m on it.  I really am.  Just as soon as I finish looking for those fudge cookies.

 

Read Full Post »

Winter In The Burb

From Seattle to the Outer Banks, America has seen blast after blast of Winter’s wrath. People all over America are posting photos of freshly minted wonderlands of white. It’s a magical time of year….or not.  Here in North Georgia, we’ve had storm upon storm, but of the wet rather than white variety.  We’re up to our hips in mud.

I absolutely love the milder temperatures. It’s been great for our heating bills.  The sheer volume of rain, though, has been exhausting.  Our goats spend days on end in their shelters, because they hate rain and mud.  The mules, cows and donkeys are weary and grumpy from all the sloshing and slogging. The chickens and rabbits are soggy and discontented. The turkeys are too stupid to come in out of the rain, so they don’t count.  Only the pigs are enjoying the moisture.  They dig and root and tear up great patches of pasture, creating ponds and craters wherever they can, then race back to the barn and bury themselves in the straw to warm up and dry off.

Even the dogs are tired of the rain.  They are too muddy to come in the house and it’s too wet for them to play outside for long periods of time, so they mostly lounge around in their covered porch, alternately snoozing and barking at school children headed for or away from bus stops.

Yesterday, I got the truck stuck in the mule pasture while I was delivering hay.  I knew it would be tough sledding, but it was nearly my undoing. Fortunately, our 4 wheel drive got us out of the mire, but there are some pretty impressive wheel ruts left behind as a memorial to the adventure. Oh well, we were going to have to reseed anyway.

Speaking of seeds, that brings me to the high point, it’s seed starting season. I love this time of year, when we go through the catalogs, order our seeds and start the ones that need to be planted indoors and transferred outside in spring.  This year, we have all the usual suspects, but we’re adding a new heirloom tomato, German Green, and discontinuing our Early Girl tomatoes. The Early Girls never do as well as we hope, so we are planting more cherry tomatoes which always do well, and are adding these green tomatoes, which should be fun.

I couldn’t find my Ghost Pepper seeds, so I’ve had to order some new ones. I need to save some seeds this year as the prices are really rising. We have planted a few extra ‘gigante’ jalapeno peppers because everyone loves them for making poppers.  For the heat lovers, our ‘Biker Billy’ jalapenos are back this year. They have habanero level heat with all the normal jalapeno flavor. They make outstanding salsa and are fantastic when grilled and put on burgers and hot dogs or diced into sloppy joes and spaghetti sauce.

The other new product will be blue hubbard squash.  Winter squash is hard for us, because of the long growing season required, the space needed and the squash bugs that love Georgia clay so much.  I think I’m going to try and grow a lot of squash aquaponically, since squash bugs don’t like water. I’m also going to try to grow them vertically.  B has some trellis ideas that we can experiment with.

I still have to start our cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower seeds, but I ran out of starter cups.  Fear not, I know how to get to home depot, and there are plenty of rainy days in the forecast to keep me locked inside, so the seeds WILL be planted.

Such is the story of our winter in the burb. Now, though, I have to get this updated. I have some restless dogs and rabbits and the Tilapia need a water exchange. Father time stands still for no man.

 

Read Full Post »

Experiments with Compost – or – Playing with Poo

Farming has many by-products; eggs, milk, meat, etc.  But the largest by-product of all, must be manure.  Chickens, for example, appear to produce twice their body weight daily with the stuff.  Ok, that’s an exaggeration, we all know it’s three times, but work with me here.

The pigs are very efficient, turning every possible food scrap into usable meat or fertilizer. They are amazing recycling machines.  Our cows do what everyone knows cows do. Our rabbits produce the most amazing fertilizer of all.  And or mules and donkeys produces mountains and acres of the stuff. Even the fish are nutrient factories. It is indescribable.

So, what do you do with all that waste?  Where do you put it? How do you dispose of it?

First, it is not waste.  It is a miracle in progress.  As we pile up the poo, a variety of bacteria start to work in the middle and on the edges of the stack.  They break down the manure and gradually turn it into compost. It is a wonder to behold.

We have zero leftovers at our house.  Food that is turning or leftover goes to the chickens and pigs.  They make great use of it.  Greens and garden produce that is excess goes to rabbits, goats, cows, chickens, donkeys and mules.  They turn it into manure and the bacteria turn the manure into food for next years plants. The fish waste goes into aquaponics grow beds where the useful bacteria converts the waste into plant food and the gravel turns dirty water into clean.

We had one group of leftovers that didn’t fit into the cycle; coffee grounds and tea bags.  The answer to that conundrum was worms.  We save the coffee filters with leftover coffee and we save our used tea bags.  Every three or four days I take them out and put them in our worm bin.  The little red wigglers living in the tub, turn the grounds into nutrient rich castings and compost.  It’s a huge win.

I have heard that worms are a great option for dealing with dog waste as well.  This spring, I intend to test that hypothesis.

By March, my worm colony should be large enough to divide it into three sections. One will stay with the coffee and tea, one will be transplanted to the manure pile at the farm and one will be put in a tub with dog manure to see how that goes.  I’ve heard that worms can turn dog piles into outstanding fertilizer for flowers and trees.  We’ll find out.

Creation is phenomenal in its intricacies and interdependence.  When managed properly, nature cleans up after itself and feeds the next generation.  All the fertilizer and compost will grow next year’s veggies and fruits, which will feed the animals who will produce food for us, for the bacteria and for the worms and the cycle goes on.  I see order in the universe, the very fingerprints of God.

Read Full Post »

Goldfish Tower = Fail

After one day of cycling, it is obvious that the small pump/hydroton grow media combination will not work in this system.  The clay pebbles are dry as a bone.  I am going to take out about 75% of the pebbles.  I will leave a layer in the bottom of each tray to assist drainage, but will replace the rest with coconut coir.  I am pretty sure the wicking potential of the coir will keep the beds moist.  The coir I’m using in my earthboxes is doing a splendid job of wicking and getting moisture to the plants.  So tomorrow we start work on version 1.1.

 

Read Full Post »

Fall Garden Progress

I thought it was about time to post a few photos from the fall garden.  As I’ve said before, we’re getting mixed results.  Germination was not great and it seems like we didn’t get enough compost in the mix and we have a few nutrient deficiencies.  Nothing that can’t be fixed.  On the positive front, we will soon be snipping off some turnip greens and I noticed a couple zucchini and squash forming.  We have several blossoms, so as long as we have some bee or butterfly activity, we should be ok.  And, just for the heck of it I included one random Chick Pic.

 

Beans and Corn

Beets

Squash

More Squash

Turnips

Chick Pic

Read Full Post »

After The Rain

After three nice days of rain, mist and drizzle, we are assessing the fall garden and all the animals.  Apart from being really muddy, because most of them refuse to go in a barn or shelter, all the livestock are doing well.  They thoroughly enjoyed the rain.  I think the pigs loved it most because it has given them some softer spots to do a little recreational rooting.  It’s time to start breeding rabbits and goats.

Shylo, our jennet donkey, is showing every sign of giving birth.  She is so big!  She seems to be ‘bagged up’ and ready to go.  She looks absolutely worn out from the pregnancy.  Brittan is thinking of sleeping out at the farm in order to be there if there are any problems.

The fall garden continues to mystify me.  Our pepper plants from summer just go on and on.  The peppers are smaller, but there are still plenty of them.  The fall crops that germinated are doing well, but there are just huge holes where nothing grew.  I’m seriously considering next year, just planting more stuff in the spring and saying to heck with a fall version.  Time will tell.

Apart from those tidbits, not much is happening.  We’re enjoying the break from all the 90 something weather we’ve had since May.

Have a great weekend everyone.

 

Read Full Post »

Some Welcome Rain

I’m guessing there will be a great deal of disappointment as rain washes out long planned end of summer cookouts all over North Georgia.  This house will not be sharing in the disappointment.  B and I are pretty much dancing the dance of joy.  We have needed rain so very badly and now it’s here.  We got a good shower or two yesterday and it’s supposed to rain pretty much all afternoon today.

Our pastures and the garden have been bone dry for ever so long.  Even with hand watering, the garden has been more like dust than soil.  I’m pretty sure the dry conditions have been one of the reasons we’ve had such poor germination in our fall garden.

Another side benefit of the rain is that we will have to take some time off this afternoon and get some rest.

Read Full Post »