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We live in a rented house in town and garden on borrowed land. Our goal is to create a productive homestead on a super-tight budget. We're fakin' it til' we make it, one tomato seedling at a time. Read more here.

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Friday
03Jul

Picture this

DateFriday, July 3, 2009 at 11:55PM

I had the day off today because of the Holiday tomorrow and got a lot of work done down at the garden.  I mowed and did some weed eating but the heat, lack of food, and large quantities of coffee got the best of me.  So we went home, had a late lunch, and relaxed a bit before returning in the cool of the evening.  The garden looked so lovely after all the work we did and there wasn't much "heavy lifting" to do, so I had the opportunity to lounge around some and take pictures.  I loved the landscape surrounding our little garden so I thought I'd share some of the pictures from this evening. -Michael

AuthorLittle Farm in the Townie | CommentPost a Comment |
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Saturday
27Jun

Fried apple pies

DateSaturday, June 27, 2009 at 07:51PM

I checked out "The Little House Cookbook " from the library. It's a great collection of recipes mentioned in the Little House books. There are many recipes I would like to try including apple-peelings vinegar, dried corn and ginger tea. We still don't have an oven that works and I was craving pie so I altered the recipe for "Apple Turnovers." There was extra filling and bits of extra dough so Julian made some mini-treats for himself. They all turned out great and are a perfect breakfast treat. 

Fried Apple Pies

Crust

2 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

10 tablespoons butter

6 tablespoons ice water

Stir together flour and salt. Cut in butter until the pieces of butter are 1/8" bits or smaller. Add water, stir. Squeeze dough with your hand to see if the dough comes together. If the handful of dough falls apart, dribble in some more water, but don't add too much! Chill while you prepare the filling. 

Filling

4 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon each cloves, nutmeg

1/4 cup maple syrup

Combine apples, spices and syrup

Roll dough ball into rectangle about 5"x15", cut into thirds. Add two heaping tablespoons apples. Moisten edges and fold over into triangle. Press edges with your fingers or a fork. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a cast iron skillet. Place 2 or 3 pies into the skillet and fry over medium to medium high heat for 10 minutes per side. 

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Saturday
20Jun

Growing like a...

DateSaturday, June 20, 2009 at 07:40PM

It's been hot and rainy. Great for the garden, not as great for the gardener's motivation! I ventured down to the garden this morning before the heat of the day. Even though I was pre-coffee I did some weeding and tomato staking. I also took a few photos of the garden's progress. The garbanzo beans have baby beans on them! This photo is blurry, I need to get Michael to show me how to take better close up photos.

You can see the little purple(!) blossom a the bottom of the plant stem. What a cool plant. I don't think I planted enough to get much yield, but it's fun to see how garbanzos grow. This variety is Black Kabuli that I bought from Fedco. 

We had a strong thunderstorm a couple days ago with high winds and the garlic got knocked over. It looks like it will be ready to harvest soon, I need to research harvest-readiness signs.

The Rosa Bianca eggplants are sooo happy to be under row cover. Not only does it provide excellent protection from flea beetles, it raises the temperature just a bit. I planted basil between the rows and the basil is thriving as well. I just sheared the plant in the photo last week and already there are more leaves to harvest.


The experimental bed of pole beans is looking good. The lower leaves sustained some slug damage, but the plants are thriving now. For these beds, I laid down woody weed stems over grass and weeds, then I put down cardboard. Then I cut holes in the cardboard and piled up a little hill of compost in the hole. I planted directly in the compost. 


Last week I broadcasted annual ryegrass seeds in a few paths that were bare soil. I am hoping that the grass will shade out any weeds and that the ryegrass will winter-kill and provide some free mulch. Sounds too good to be true, but I am hopeful. The seeds are quickly germinating in the wet potato patch.

The garden this time of year feels like the third lap of a mile-long track race. A bunch of work is behind us, but there's still some running to do before the finish line, or in our case, bountiful harvest. Since the garden isn't really the best for spring crops I have pinned my hopes on summer vegetables and I look forward to our hard work paying off soon.

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Monday
15Jun

No-till research

DateMonday, June 15, 2009 at 09:28AM

I am moving towards a no-till or low-till approach to gardening. Ultimately, I think that tilling is not the best for soil structure and life, not to mention the necessity of a gas-powered device. It feels silly to not use my car and bike around town, but still go to the gas station to fill up the gas can for the rototiller, mower and weed eater. I would eventually like to have a tidy, productive garden that requires of none of these gas-powered devices. I am investigating alternatives to mowing for the perimeter and grassy areas (low growing perennial green manures, scything, animals, mulching, etc...) but right now I am thinking more about how to prepare and maintain a large garden without the use of a tiller. 

I am collecting resources to find out more about using green manures to grow my own mulch and crowd out weeds. I am re-reading Eliot Coleman's books Four-Season Harvest and The New Organic Grower  and  while he does use a tiller to prepare garden beds and turn under green manure crops, he talks about no-till alternatives. In the "Tillage" chapter of The New Organic Grower, he mentions an article that outlines rotating vegetables and green manures for a sustainable on-site soil fertility system. One green manure is grown in the fall and winter and dies back just in time to plant spring crops. The plant residue acts as a mulch to the growing plants. On another plot, the green manure grows through the summer and dies back in time to plant fall crops. Considering that I just bought $40.00 worth of straw and could use lots more bales still, the idea of producing my own mulch on-site is very appealing. I googled the article and found a pdf of the article published by Ecos magazine. 

Additionally, I have been wanting to read the "One Straw Revolution," Masanobu Fukuoka's seminal work on no-till farming and gardening and I just joined the Fukuoka Farming Yahoo group. The group has the complete text of the book in it's "files" section as a pdf. 

I am delighted that I was able to find both of these resources within minutes of beginning my search- our I-Mac is another labor-saving device! Good thing we have more rain coming this week, I've got lots more reading to do. 

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Saturday
13Jun

Julian's Potato patch

DateSaturday, June 13, 2009 at 02:08PM

We are slowly making more garden beds in the 1/2 acre field where we garden. This spring has been so wet, we didn't get a chance to till earlier in the season. I had some big sheets of plastic and I remembered Eliot Coleman talking about using plastic to kill sod in one of his books, so I laid down the plastic and weighted down all the edges with boards. The total area was about 20x25 feet. The kids loved playing in the resulting puddles on the plastic.

The plastic stayed in place for several weeks- maybe 4 or 5. Last week we took off the plastic intending to till up the dead grass. Not surprisingly the soil was too wet to till. I wanted to get something in the ground there before grass and weeds came back and I remembered the 50 pound bag of Kennebec potato sets that I bought in a spring-fever-frenzy back in March. Julian was really excited to plant them so we decided to make the whole plot a potato patch. Here's our first-ever Little Farm video- Julian's explaining what he is working on. I didn't realize until I watched the video that Avery is answering my questions as well. Cute, but it's kind of hard to hear what the kids are saying. We will have to work on our production more carefully next time. 

He and Avery laid down whole potatoes 12-15" apart in rows that were 3 feet apart. Then we covered the sets with straw. We used a total of two bales of straw. Because potatoes set their fruit above the planted set we will have to add lots more straw, I am planning on at least a bale per row. The soil in the bed is solid clay, so the extra organic matter will be great for the soil anyway. Last year we did have some trouble with mice in a potato bed that was planted this way, but this will be in a more open part of the garden, so I am hoping mice won't be as brave. Also, we still got plenty of potatoes, and the ease in planting makes up for the reduced yields. 

The boys were very pleased with themselves for finishing the job, I was surprised that they stuck with the whole project. Thumbs up! (Avery can't quite do that yet...)

Then Julian and I spread out the plastic sheets next to the planted potatoes, I might plant late potatoes, I still have at least 20 pounds of sets left. 

Eventually this bed will be about 25x50 feet, I am thinking about planting winter wheat there this fall. 

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