This year has been a challenge, to say the least. We find ourselves with more work than time, more projects than money, but definitely more fun than not. We figured out how to grow oyster mushrooms - in our living room! They were delicious, but required a lot of misting, and for some reason I just couldn't get it consistently right. Something to work on for sure. We ordered the kit from
As I am very literal, I would have appreciated a more detailed instruction sheet, but we made due. Its important to know you're going to need a misting bottle before your kit arrives.
24 meat birds and 12 laying hens this year. They came to us as day olds. We had a greater success this year keeping them alive because we paid attention to their temperature and adjusted the heat lamps as required. I think we only lost one, as compared to over half last time. Temperature is important! We also spent a lot of time just watching them grow and paying attention to their needs. Its a very relaxing environment, just taking in the sounds and movement of the little chicks.
We give them a good life here on the farm. They are well looked after and live as chickens should, we think. They enjoy pasture and give back to the farm. I think its important to know where our food comes from even though some of it may be uncomfortable. If you eat meat, what you're purchasing in the grocery store is full of antibiotics, and I can guarantee the animals did not live happy lives confined in small cages. We processed our meat birds ourselves again this year. I would advise you need more than two people to do this, it took us 10 hours from start to finish. It was humane and respectful. People may say they want to learn, but as the time approaches may change their minds. Get someone reliable and send them home with a bird.
Our old barn was taking a beating and need a repair to its roof. We have been unable to use it for much of anything because of how much rain gets in. We were a little unsure how to proceed with repairs. Ladders didn't seem to go high enough. It was looking like we would need to rent one of those sky high platforms. Thankfully Fred came by and fearlessly fixed all of our leaks. Thank God for Iron workers!
I was inspired to create a meditation spiral this year in our orchard. The wildflowers cooperated and grew in the tall grass between the rows. It was very peaceful to walk it after a long day at work. My Dad built the tepee in the center, I absolutely love everything about this! The idea is to leave everything behind you when you walk inside and with each mindful step to think about what you want to focus on in a positive way. So, if health is what you want to focus on, just everything to do with positive health, even just repeating the word and feeling good health and gratitude for it as you walk. Its 15-20 minutes of positive energy and gets harder to focus as my dog is cutting through the rows.
Our garden has been very successful this year. I love being confident that our food is pure and not touched by chemicals. Andrew has a new walk behind tractor that prepared the beds much easier than last year. He bought it at a great price, however it didn't run at the time. Thank God we have great friends with skills they are willing to share. His friend Bill fixed the tractor for us and we were off to the races! Our sweet potatoes didn't do as well this year, we think its because of the different placement. Last year they were in a looser soil, so we now know what does and doesn't work for next year. We planted 120 lbs of potatoes and were pleasantly surprised with some great looking potatoes! I plan on dehydrating some of them, storing some and I have canned some for shelf storage. The beans (green and yellow) were so good! The more I picked, the more they grew! I canned some in water and pickled some with garlic, and I'm saving the seeds for next year. The cucumbers were lovely! We ate them fresh and I made garlic dills and also fermented some pickles. We grew our own dill, which I dehydrated as well.
We also grew corn, and after the squirrels had their feast (darn squirrels!) I managed to can some corn. I'm using the electric pressure cooker to can low acid vegetables, so I've had to can in smaller jars than I wanted. Next year I'll look at purchasing a large pressure cooker for larger jars. The corn was peaches and cream and I wanted to make cob jelly with the leftover cobs, but ran out of time. Maybe next year!
We had great success with radishes, however they bolted if I wasn't paying attention. It was a warm summer! The good news is that there are plenty of seeds for next year. I also need to get better at succession planting. Planting a reasonable amount every other week. We also tried fennel, which didn't seem to grow a very big bulb. Next year I will give them a head start in the greenhouse. There are turnip and rutabaga still in the ground as I type this. Andrew would like me to leave them there (he doesn't care for them). I think I will at least get some and can and dehydrate and sneak them into dinner somehow. Perhaps some can feed the chickens. We grew some fodder beets for the chickens and I got too busy after harvest to give them the greens. So next year I think I'm going to give them the greens before we harvest the root, maybe spread it out a bit more. There are some red beets for us, and I canned them for winter.
The pride of our harvest is garlic scapes! Oh how we love them! We had so many this year! Which means it took a long time to harvest them. Scapes are what grows out of a hard neck variety of garlic. They shoot up and curl about a month before the garlic is ready to harvest. If you remove the scapes then the plant will focus its energy into making the bulb bigger. This year we learned that if you gently pull them out of the plant instead of cutting them, you'll get an extra inch of scape. It takes some practice, but its worth it. These are delicious grilled on the bbq, or used in stir-fries in the place of garlic or onions. I love them raw and I make a garlic scape pesto, which is great on veggies or meat.
Here is a picture of our garlic, freshly picked and out curing in the sun. We let some of the scapes grow instead of harvesting them and they produced garlic bulbils. The scape flowered and created seeds that are exact replicas of the plant. I am in the process of making seed tape with these bulbils.
On a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet I place four squares of toilet paper, cut in half horizontally. I then use flour and water to make a paste that glues the toilet paper together in strips. This dries into a really nice seed tape that makes planting easier. This year I have dehydrated and pickled garlic, and kept some for use during the winter.
Our tomatoes have done well this year. We trellised romas and cherry tomatoes. They were delicious with our fresh basil and oregano and a bit of olive oil. I canned a thick tomato sauce, tomato paste and dehydrated tomatoes. There are some green ones that I saved from the frost that I'm hoping to make a ketchup with.
I canned a good variety of vegetables including parsnips and heritage carrots with onions. Other great vegetables grown in our garden were broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts,red and green cabbage, kale, peppers, red and spanish onions, spaghetti squash, zuchinni, butternut squash and pumpkin. I plan to make sauerkraut, and I have made zuchinni relish and dried zuchinni. The rest we are storing for the winter to use as needed.
We had an extensive sunflower garden of over 300 with three types; mammoth, black oil and ornamental. The blue jays and squirrels seemed to enjoy them the most. Whats left of the heads are drying in the coverall for when I can pull the seeds from them. Depending on whats left they will be saved for planting next year and the surplus will be given to the birds.
We cannot forget the herbs. Here is just one wall of drying herbs. My son says it looks like a Gypsy's den in our house. I'm kind of proud of that. We grew and dried french tarragon, cilantro, parsley, oregano, thyme, sage, sky blue sage, black opal basil, summer savoury, sweet fennel, basil, thai basil, dill, mint, horehound, rosemary, chamomile, valarian and stevia. Parsley and basil do not dry well naturally, they need a dehydrator. I am harvesting the seeds for next year. The cilantro seeds are corriander and I can use them as a spice as well. My plan is to create my own teas and spice blends. I was spending a small fortune every time I ordered them from Epicure. I'll add dried onion, garlic, tomato, etc. The plan for the horehound is to make old fashioned cough drops with it. The stevia will become a liquid that I can use in the place of sugar. Again, when time permits. I may sweeten the cough drops with the stevia, we'll see. Can you appreciate how these ideas just keep multiplying?
Our flowers were beautiful this year. We planted at least 75 gladiolas of different colours. As I write this I'm procrastinating from digging them out of the garden to store for the winter. We also had cut ornamental sunflowers, hydragenas, peonies and dahlias. There were plenty of wildflowers to supplement bouquets. It's such a good feeling being able to present someone special with offerings from your own garden that you've planted and carefully grown with care.
Did someone say wine? I tried my hand at homemade rhubarb, strawberry and nectarine wine. It has fermented, I have strained the fruit pieces and now I just need to rack it so the sediment is gone. I'll let you know how it tastes. I'm hoping for the best.
The most exciting thing to happen this year is the progress on the greenhouse. I really have a great respect for my husband and my Dad who have been working on this (they are actually outside right now working on it). We had a group of Andrews band friends and his son and his girlfriend come over and help with the plastic. It will be heated, Andrew built a rocket mass heater so we can use it in the winter. It's awesome! He's installing the fans to inflate it as well. The idea is that I don't want to go to the grocery store for produce and I want a head start with my seedlings in the spring. Plus I'm thinking it will be a nice place to hang out when it's cold outside.
An unfortunate bit of news that happened in October on the farm. A wandering German shepherd took offense to me wanting him off my farm and bit my hand. The good news was that I had my farm gloves on. The bad news was that three bones were broken and I had to get rabies shots. This is a good reminder that not all animals are alike and to proceed with caution with any unknown animal. Needless to say the past month has been extremely difficult to get the harvest ready for winter. Not to mention painful, as I'm having side effects from the shots. Next year will be better.
We also had a fox kill 8 chickens in front of us this past Wednesday morning. It was awful and I felt helpless. We have set a trap for the fox and we have to seriously consider how we are going to protect our animals. I'm leaning towards an air-soft gun to scare it away, I figure it would be better than just standing there watching it. I'll update you on this problem.
Our 2019 has been good and not so good. I'm going to choose to learn from our challenges and hope for the best moving forward. I love this photo a former student of mine took recently. It encompasses what I feel for this place we are creating for ourselves. Life is pretty great here on the farm.