Someone from my past recently passed away. It is too bad that sometime it takes a death to look back and realize what a big impact the person had on your life and who you are. All you can do is reflect on the past and say a little pray of thanks out of appreciation. One of my high school classmates wrote some words about this much better than I ever could. So I share this link with you.
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Seed Organizing
If you are like me you collect seeds. I have a hard time walking past a seed display in a store. There is always a deal or something interesting and it is only a few dollars. Don’t get me started on seed catalogs or websites. The real problem is how do you keep those seeds stored in a way that you know what you have.
I decided to try something new this spring. I have harkened back to my childhood days of collecting baseball cards. There was nothing better than getting a new pack of cards, tearing into it to see what treasures it held. The joys of finding a Twins player, a rookie card or, the holy grail, a Kirby Puckett was the peak of excitement.
We had the same issue that I now have with storing seeds. That is to keep the safe, organized and put away so your mom (or wife) doesn’t throw them away. So I turned to the same solution I did as a youth plastic baseball card pages.
I got myself a binder, a couple dozen card pages, and way too many small zip top bags and set out to tame my piles of seed packets. (I will include links to all the things I used at the bottom of the post) I took the open packets of seeds and emptied the contents into the small bags. I then slapped a custom made label on the bag and slid it into a slot that would have held a Pat Meares rookie card when I had less gray hair. The unused packets would be folded up in a way that let them fit but still allowed me to read the packet.
The seeds were put into pages with similar other seeds. This led to lots of questions from my helpers. Like what is okra and what pages does it go on. Which was a good question that I only could answer half of. I guess that is what misc. pages are for. The girls were good helpers and actually made the process go faster. I hope they learned something too.
I only had a couple of real issues with the outcome of the project. The first was I should have bought a different bigger binder. The second was that the larger seeds like peas and beans filled up the little baggies and will slide out of the pages. Overall I think it is a good method and should let me easily know what I have on hand.
Planning 2017: Establishing the Pasture
The farm sits on 7 acres of land. The house, yards, and orchard are currently on about 3 of that. The remaining 4 acres is currently sitting mostly empty since we moved in. We have planted a few trees. As well as planted a small food plot for deer, but for the most part, we have done very little with it.
We enjoy being able to look out the back of the house with the chance to see birds, deer, and pheasants enjoying the habitat letting this land go to nature has provided. The drawback is the noxious weeds that we have to control and the very little benefit we receive from the land. I am hoping to find some balance that allows the best of both worlds.
The first step will be to get the weeds under control. I have mowed small areas for a trail and to plant the food plot. I have been pretty surprised with the stands of grass with will come in when the tall weeds are knocked down. The first step will be to be able to knock the weeds down consistently throughout the summer. I haven’t been able to come up with an effective solution that doesn’t involve buying some equipment. This will either have to be a belly mower for Allis Chalmers C or a pull behind self-powered trail mower that can be used by the tractor or the 4 wheeler.
After we can knock the weeds down, we will be able to focus on trouble areas more easily. We can attack trouble noxious weeds will easy access. Then if we have to plant grass or another type of cover in certain areas with the focus on small areas. Once that is established we can do a few things with it. We could put some livestock on it. We could mow it and use it as hay. I am sure there are other things that I just haven’t thought about it.
I would also like to put parts of silvopasture concepts into the land. This is basically adding trees into the pasture. I would like these trees to have a few uses. One would be to give us some food items. These would be less managed than an orchard, but would still allow us to forage for food. The second use would be for them to provide food for the wildlife or livestock. The last would be for a harvest of wood. Some of the types of trees I am considering mulberry, oak, crab apple, osage orange, walnut, and maple.
This will definitely be one for the more expensive and labor-intensive projects for the coming year. I feel that we have waited long enough to tackle it and it will only become harder the longer we put it off and rewards that will come from getting it done will easily make it all worth it.
Planning 2017: Managing Current Trees
Over the last two growing seasons, we have tried to increase the number of fruiting trees and bushes we have on the farm. When we arrived we had 2 apple trees and one plum tree. We found out this summer that a row of bushes we have that we thought were just for landscaping were actually Aronia bushes.
We have been ordering bare root trees from a bargain online nursery. We have gotten very poor results. Which is not surprising based on the stock we have received. I will continue to request my free replacements but going forward I will be looking for better sources for my trees. This will mean paying more for a single tree, but it should hopefully help with getting a better stock, but it will mean adding to the orchard more slowly. Which won’t be different than now because I am averaging less than one tree being established a year.
The first year we had a peach do really well. I didn’t heavy pruning last spring and the tree responded and shot up. Hopefully, that will mean peach in the next couple of years. This year we started a pear and an almond from the online source. I bought a potted plum tree from Menards locally. The existing plum we had wasn’t fruiting due to the lack of a pollinator. So it was either get another plum or cut the existing one down. We also added to more blueberry bushes.
The blueberries I planted on the downhill slope for a row of pine trees. I was hoping that would provide the acidity needed for the blueberries. The first two blueberries from two summers ago are still alive but were not thriving. I tested my soil and the soil was alkaline. So I added some sulfur and will continue to monitor it.
After finding out about the Aronia berries I have come to really enjoy the fruit. Which might be because it is the only thing we had a good harvest of last year. The bushes are supposed to be very easy to propagate. So I am planning on taking some cuttings and start more bushes. I also plan on doing some major pruning to the bushes.
We lost one apple tree in a wind storm last year. I took some cuttings and grafted them to the other apple tree and some to the root stock I had started in the spring. It was a really good apple and I am not sure what type it was. So I am hoping some of the grafts will take and we can keep that type around.
Planning 2017: Introduction
This is the first post in a series that will deal with the possible plans for the year of 2017.
I always seem to fight a problem of being too ambitious with my plans. There is a saying the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the next best time is today. It turns out that the best time to plant an orchard, plant a garden, build a chicken coop, put up a fence, build a rabbit hutch and mow the lawn isn’t always today. There is always that pull to move things forward and start new things. Yet is needs to be balanced with giving the right amount of attention to existing things.
I am trying to keep that in mind as I make my plans 2017. I am going to write a series of post that will lay out a few options I have thought of for this year. I can then take those items and narrow them down to the few I will do. I am going to divide this items into a couple lists. The first will be a list of the things I all but have to do. The second list will be things that I would like to do.
Must Do:
- Plant and maintain the garden
- Manage the flocks
- Manage the existing trees
- Establish the Pasture
- Plant Propagation
Might Do:
- Plant more trees
- Add different livestock
- Add more rabbits
- Build bigger greenhouse
- Sell wood working projects
- Aquaponics
- Grey water system
- Meat Chickens
So off the next few weeks I hope to touch on most of the items in that list and come up with a solid plan what will be taking place on the farm for the next 12 months. I hope that if anyone has any feedback on the posts they will leave comments.
2016: A Year in Review
The year 2016 flew past and is quickly coming to an end. Over the course of the year the farm has seen a few changes and additions. I am going to take a moment to look back on that year that was.
The spring started with our first attempts in adding animals to the farm from animals already on the farm. We took advantage of our chickens going broody. They were able to rear three broods of ducklings. The flock was up to 15 ducks strong at its peak. Due to losses, mostly from an undetermined predator, we are ending the year with 10 ducks.
We lost two chickens during the year one during the hottest and one during the coldest days. We have 6 chickens all will be 2 years old this spring. We will need to keep a close eye on production and make plans for adding some young blood to the hen house.
Kennedy received 2 mini rex rabbits for her birthday. Unfortunately we lost one. We have one friendly black rabbit. He is a big hit with the cousins when they come to visit.
The garden was almost a complete lost this last summer. We started with a very wet spring that was followed by an very dry and hot summer. I would love to blame the failure of the garden on the weather, but I can’t. I have been pretty ambitious with the size and scope of the garden. I will probably need to scale back to put more focus on establishing it.
This fall we added a new human to the farm. We welcomed McKinley Joy to the world on Nov. 22nd. She is doing great and already growing like a weed. She spends most days eating and sleeping, while be doted on by her two proud big sisters.
We hope you are all enjoying the holiday season as the year winds down. We are looking forward to what 2017 has in hold.
Introducing the Farmcast
In the coming days we will be posting the first episode of our Farmcast. The Farmcast will feature myself and my daughter Reagen. We think that it will give an interesting perspective of the happenings around the homestead. The least we are excepting is to have something fun that a father and daughter can do together. If it goes well we will both learn a little something. If we are really lucky it will be something that you will enjoy and find enlightening.