Yellow Flowers

Eight years in and I still haven't identified these flowers.  If anyone has an idea, please let me know.

They are perennial.  Each stem has its own root.  The roots are kind of thin hairy taproots.  Leaves are single all the way up the stem.

They get 4-5' tall and bloom around the beginning of August.  They don't really smell like anything.  The bees like them.  The chickens do not.  The cows and goats have nipped at them, but never devoured them.

Any ideas?

Trails and Travels

The trails were looking more like a hay fields than trails, so Husband ran the Bush hog around last weekend.

The trails are looking much better now, and Mildred is appreciating the fresh hay delivery that the boys are raking up for her.

The 'culvert' roadway over the ravine has been eroding away over the years.  It wasn't bad enough to warrant a complete makeover just yet, but it was getting a little too narrow for our liking.  The boys, Mom, and I, cut down a few trees, filling the washed out side with tree tops and branches.  We laid logs across the road, extending over the washed out end, then Husband covered them with a few buckets of composted manure.  It's a work in progress, that will need to be repeated over the years- somewhat of a continuous hugelkultur mound.  The logs allow the water from the spring run off to seep through, without completely washing out the roadway on top.

I ended up making two batches of strawberry jam, using some of last year's homemade crabapple pectin.  I had to cut the sugar down- actually, I added more strawberries after adding the sugar- because it was so incredibly sweet.  Fresh, ripe, pick-your-own strawberries make a world of difference!

And we're back to fencing.  Dorie and her crew were missing yesterday morning.  They casually came sauntering up the driveway around 11am, like it was perfectly natural to let themselves out for an early morning stroll.  She had Mindy, Nelly, and Sharlotte with her.  Toothless was alone with the horses in the pasture.  She took her new calf along too, but she didn't come back at the same time.  Dorie called her back an hour or so later, and the boys managed to get the skittish wee thing through the gate.

#1 replaced a couple of rotting fence posts.

The Littles helped nail the fence back in place.  I unfolded the sections wrapped up accordion style.  We only got the road side done yesterday, so we'll probably be working on it for the rest of the week.

Meanwhile, Mildred and her crew broke into the garden and all but demolished my peas!  The boys get the blame for that one though- when the gate is not latched securely she just pushes it open.  Previously it only had to keep out goats, who haven't been as determined to gain entry.

The blueberries are just starting to ripen.  Raspberries look a couple of weeks behind schedule this year.  I'll soon be busy picking, canning, making wine and jam.

Another Two Weeks

And still no calf.

She's not as swollen as she had been, but still more swollen than normal.  She seems quite content to hang out with Mildred and the goats.

Even when Max decides to climb on top of her. He's quite the little trouble maker.

Just trying to entertain himself, since he now lives outside full time.  Soon he will have his own entertainment committee.

Since these two little ones were born yesterday.  Sheila popped them out all on her own.  She did well with the girl right away.  The boy was very shaky on his feet, and even with us holding him up to nurse she was very impatient.  We brought him in yesterday afternoon, since he kept collapsing in odd spots and wasn't able to move quickly should a cow decide it wanted to step there.

After a couple of bottles of kid milk replacer and a bit of extra warmth he seemed to be getting more stable.  He went back out to nurse last night and got a good latch, then slept in the house.  After one last bottle this morning, he went back out to his mother.  Apparently through the night Sheila remembered that she'd had two kids, not just one, and was anxious to have him back.  He was much more stable, latching well, and the weather is gorgeous (+11°F!), so we left him outside all day.

At every check in he's been doing well, sticking close to his sister, nursing well, and even getting a little playful. We'll be keeping a close eye on him, but we're pretty sure he's out of the woods.

Sheila is doing well, and Mama seems to be quite a doting grandmother. 

Monsoon is doing well, growing well.  He's our full time night milker, on account of him not leaving us any milk through the day.  He sleeps inside with the goats at night, while Mildred and Nelly spend the nights outside.  Mildred is giving us 4-5L/day from just the morning milkings, and we leave a bit for him for breakfast.  It works well for us. 

The dogs and chickens get very little milk now, but still plenty of whey.  The milk we're bringing in is plenty to drink, cook with, make butter, and I'm still making cheese at least once a week.  I've started buying yogourt again.  I still make a small batch about once a week, but it's not nearly enough for Husband and the boys to take to school all week.

Our first four chicks moved out to the brooder box in the workshop this afternoon.  They're feathering in nicely.  The box in the basement needs to be ready for the next batch of eggs, which could start hatching any minute now- today is day 21.  I'm a little nervous with this batch though, as we had a power outage a couple of weeks ago.  Still, I'm hoping we'll have new chicks soon.

A shot from the road when we were out the other day.  The huge snow banks are melting away, fences are starting to show up once again, and even a few bare spots here and there.  Spring is coming.  We should be snow free within the next 2-3 weeks.

Which brings up a lot of things to think about.  First- the garden.  All of my garden plans I made in the winter are being thrown to the wayside.  The past couple of years of early springs had me dreaming and making plans that aren't going to be accommodated in this short growing season.  While our frost free date isn't until the first week of June, I tend to push the season a bit and actually have most of the garden planted earlier than that.  This year I'll be ready to have the peas in early, since we'll still have snow into May, and then need to do soil ammendments, greenhouse clean ups, and tilling.  June is looking like it will be a very busy month.

Starting the garden in June also doesn't give me much hope for a lot of the more tender crops, or the longer season crops this year.  I planted corn our first summer here, and it never made it over two feet high, lol.  I expect this summer to bare similar results.  So, I'm minimizing a lot of my previous plans- maybe a plant or two of squash and melon, no corn, fewer broccoli, cabbage, etc.  I'm undecided about the beans so far.  The first two summers (late springs/early fall frosts), I barely got three or four pickings off the bean plants.  So I could plant half the garden in beans to make the most of each of those pickings, or I could plant just a row or two to eat fresh for this summer and not worry about freezing so many.  I definitely won't be planting the dry beans.

On the plus side, I expect it to be a bumper crop year for berries, and low concern for forest fires.  All of that snow should keep everything moist.

On the negative, I'm losing nearly a month of prime firewood and construction season.  That greenhouse I was planning in the backfield- not going to happen this year.  Ah well, plans are meant to change.

For now, we'll keep puttering away at tidying buildings, getting ready for spring.

Do I Grow My Own Potatoes?

This post is in response to kymber's question on my last post.

"do you grow your own potatoes??? you could save a ton of money if you did and if you keep them in a cool basement, barn, root cellar made out of hay bales - they'll last right up until you can start harvesting baby potatoes."

Well.  The simple answer is, I plant potatoes, but no, I don't really grow them, lol.

I know there are nearly as many methods to grow potatoes as there are varieties of potatoes.  kymber does an impressive job with the old tire stack method.  Other people have built boxes.  Some use garbage cans.  They all keep adding dirt and raising the foundation to encourage tuber growth.  They harvest lots of potatoes. 

Some people plant potatoes directly in the ground, and keep hilling them up throughout the season.  Some people (like my dad) plant them in the ground, and hill them once.  Some people toss them on the ground, cover them with straw, and ignore them.  They harvest lots of potatoes.


When we lived down south, I grew potatoes.  Just a couple of rows, hilled once, and I harvested lots of potatoes.

Then we moved up north.  The first year, I planted potatoes in the ground, hilled them once, and they did rather poorly.  The second year, I planted them in large tree pots, forgot to water them, and they did poorly.  The third year, I went back to planting them in the ground after adding lots of composted manure to the garden, and they did better, but still poorly.

Now, my crappy soil did not help anything to grow the first couple of years.  It can take some of the blame, but not all of it.  The short growing season might be partly to blame, but there are varieties that do fine in shorter time periods.

Truth be told, it is my fault.  I plant potatoes.  Rows and rows of potatoes.  And then I ignore them.  The weeds get higher than the plants.  I hill them too late in the season.  I bury more of the plant than I should.  And then, when I don't get instant gratification from the first couple of hills...

Potatoes from 4 feet of hills

I ignore them some more, and don't even dig the rest up!

You see, a few years ago, I found The Potato Man.  His farm is less than an hour away.  All he grows is potatoes.  Rows and rows of potatoes.  More potatoes than the bottomless pits of my children could ever eat.

In the fall, when they're new, he sells a 50 pound bag for $20.  He has a number of restaurant customers, who only want the big potatoes.  He sorts them and sells the smaller potatoes for $15 for 50 pounds.  After a month or two, when he's running out of storage space, he sells those smaller potatoes for $10 for 50 pounds.  Once I even got them for $7.

He doesn't use a bunch of chemicals.  They are perfect for planting in the spring.  That's why I still grow potatoes.  The eyes get me every year.  Why throw them out, when I can grow free potatoes?  Except, I really don't.  I just plant them.  Then ignore them.  Because I know I can buy cheap, local, healthy potatoes just down the road, and I don't have to dig them up.

I paid roughly $100 for 450 pounds of potatoes this year.  How many potatoes could I grow for $100?  Boxes of seed potatoes are about $10 each, and I think they claim to grow 50 pounds each (it's been a while).  Maybe more?

But here's the kicker...  Firewood is $65 a chord.  How many chords of firewood can I cut in the time it would take me to deal with those potatoes every year?  Especially in the fall, when we're getting close to the wire.  Where is my time better spent?

I always end up leaving potatoes in the ground, and cutting up another tree.


Still snowing...  4 days in a row now.  Only about two inches on the ground, because it's not really frozen anymore.  -6°C.

Paper Towel Gardening

I read about this on Chickens in the Road yesterday morning. I did a google search and some more reading, then had to try it out.

Instead of trying to divide all of those squares in the garden, you preglue the seeds to paper towels in the comfort of your home, on a winter day. I didn't have any Elmer's school glue, so I tried some with a glue stick (it says washable, not water soluble), some with egg whites (thanks to this post by PP), and some with wood glue. They all worked, but the wood glue was easiest to work with. I'll do some more after I get some school glue, then wait and see if it makes any difference when it's time to grow.

Squarefoot Greenhouses, Take Two

Ok, I tried drawing out how I planted greenhouse #1 last year.


It seems like there's a lot more space around plants than I remember leaving.  Was it really just the crazy pumpkins and tomato trees that caused the jungle?  Broccoli did well, even though it was planted closer together than it should have been.  The beans were insane, planted far too close together, and of course the poor planning on my part, not leaving any foot room.


Here's the new plan for greenhouse #2.  This is the new greenhouse, the area wasn't planted last year.
 
Cucumbers are the main focus this year.  I haven't harvested more than 4 or 5 cukes since we moved up north.  The plan is to plant them straight down the center, with some sort of trellis between them, hanging from the roof, and send them toward the sky.  According to the companion planting chart, they like sunflowers, which have never grown more than a foot for me.  I figure one seed between each set of cukes shouldn't overcrowd them, and they might do ok.  They also like beets, carrots, radish and dill, so I'll put them in the next row over.  They don't like tomatoes.  Which could be one of the reasons they've never done well for me here.  I've tried to group all the stuff that needs plastic covering together, and since they're both late transplants in the spring, they end up together in the garden.  If that's the case, this will still be too close together.

Next, the peppers.  I stuck the lettuce in, because they seem to be neutral.  Romaine has not done well in the garden, and I'm hoping for some early leaf lettuce.

Tomatoes like carrots and onions.  I've given them more space in this plan, a 2 foot square, around the outside edge.  I think I'll just put a row or two of carrots and onions between them, rather than a square foot.

Which brings us back to greenhouse #1. 
 
I debated the cucumbers for awhile.  If I put them in both greenhouses, then I can't rotate the floor plan between greenhouses next year.  But then it occurred to me that this floor plan can go into greenhouse #3, which is to be built this summer.  So double cukes this year.

Then I figured I should cause myself some headaches and throw some monster squash in.  The square foot rules say to grow them vertically, in a 2 square foot patch.  I'm going to plan on setting them free out the east side of the greenhouse.  Early.  Before they go crazy.  And cut off extra shoots.  Yeah, that's the plan.  Can anyone picture me actually cutting off shoots?  I will.  I'm determined.  They'll be safe from late June frosts, but taking their chances with early fall frosts.

Squash help corn and beans, eggplant likes beans, so they're bunched up together.  Radishes help squash.  (Why are plants I hate, radishes and onions, so helpful?)  I threw in some mangels, cause seriously, no one is going to eat that many radishes.  Maybe the cows will like them mixed with the mangels.

Mangels along the north side.  They're in the beet family, so a couple of kohlrabi.

Brassicas on the west and south side.  I'm hoping cabbage and broccoli are different enough to not hurt the soil.  Onions and rosemary to help deter bugs.

Better?  Still lots of stuff that could easily be grown outside, but with the companion plan, I'll do both.

This gives me a clear rotational plan for next year, switching greenhouses, but cuts my tomatoes back to 16 plants.  One more than last year, but far less than I already have started, and a few more than my first plan.  The rest will have to go out in the garden unprotected, which is ok, because I need a batch of green salsa this fall.  It gets a little bit of almost everything inside, so I should get some variety, even if it's a bad weather year.

Rosemary is supposed to be perennial.  I looked it up.  While I need the help with the cabbage worms, I don't think I want rosemary coming up in the tomatoes next year.  Not that they seem to have anything against each other, I just really don't want self seeding/perennial plants taking over the greenhouse.  So I think I'll try it in a few small pots that can be moved from greenhouse to greenhouse.  I might squeeze some basil in with the tomatoes, too.