Updates from the homestead

I've been slacking a bit on updating, so I'm going to cram everything into this post.

We have harvested 3 - 6 blueberries daily for the last couple weeks.  Nothing to write home about, but they are so sweet and delicious we eat them as we pick them!  We have also harvested about 6 little strawberries.  They are also sweet and delicious!  Tons of peppers coming out of the garden.  A few zucchinis too.  Tomatoes are starting to ripen so we've picked several cherry tomatoes and are seeing the first signs of red tomatoes on our heirloom plants.  Can't wait to start picking those...probably later this week.

We finally got chickens!  My awesome aunt ordered pullets and gave us 3 of them!  I've been wanting chickens for a long time now, but was hesitant because I am not really an animal lover so I didn't want them in the house...and was afraid I'd kill them (not on purpose of course!).  Once the chicks came home with us (April 18, 2012) we had the big task of constructing a coop ahead of us.  I'm VERY frugal and priced some supplies at home depot and realized this was going to cost us a small fortune.  I could have bought an already built coop for a few hundred dollars, but I was not about to spend that kind of money on these chickens.  I started searching Craigslist, knowing I had about 5 or 6 weeks before we had to have the coop built.  After a couple days I came across a family a few blocks away selling a pretty raggedy coop for $40!  I immediately told them I wanted it, sight unseen, and made pick up arrangements.  There was a lot of rotting/unusable wood that came with the coop, but it also came with 6 foot high chicken wire...about 20 feet of it, (4) 12 foot tin roof panels, lots of hardware (screws, bolts, wire, door hardware, etc) and quite a bit of usable wood!  We ended up needing to buy 2 more 2x4's (on sale for $3.50 each), 30 self tapping roofing screws, 2 more hinges (for a total cost of $16) and one roll of 3'x10' chicken wire for $11.  Total investment for our coop was $74!  And it will last for YEARS!  (As an added bonus, if we ever stop keeping chickens it will make a great extra storage area for tools, grills, etc.)  I've included a picture of our finished coop below.  (We have a huge dog crate on top of the table shown in the picture to put the girls up in the evenings.)

Our first cuke.  Didn't taste right though.  Matter of fact, ALL the cukes tasted bad.  I pulled all the plants.

2+ lb Kohlrabi!  There was a lot of tough fiber in it. Next time I'll cut it much sooner.

Almost 1 lb of swiss chard! 

Another big zucchini.  This one had a little worm in it that we cut away.

Green tomatoes that fell off when the pot blew over, pinto beans, blueberries, cherry tomatoes, and a jalapeno

More zucchini, blueberries and 2 pea pods (the only 2 that grew before the plants died.

Our $74 chicken coop!

The girls.  (Left to right: Blue, Rooster, Ming Ming)

Seed Saving...so easy a 2 year old can do it!

Cherry tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, jalapeno and ghost peppers.

Lettuce, Beets and Carrot Harvest - 2/28/2012

Gathered some fresh veggies from the garden to make a delicious meal!  I pulled 3 beets, a lot of baby carrots and 4 heads of lettuce (2 Bibb & 2 GRTBP). Total weight of today's harvest: 1.94 lbs!

HARVEST!

Lots of baby carrots.  They were delicious!

Beets!  We roasted the beets and sauteed the beet greens!

Lettuce!!!

Fresh salad with carrots, oranges, roasted beets, organic sirloin, pepitas and a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese.  Served with a side of sauteed beet greens.

Spinach Harvest, Turnip Harvest and Seed Sale

On 2/16 I harvested the first of my spinach.  Total weight was 6.6 oz. While not the biggest harvest of spinach, it will probably be the last.  Sadly, aphids and caterpillars have INFESTED my spinach and there isn't much out there worth salvaging now.  Too bad because I used this to make a fresh spinach dip and it was DELICIOUS! I think I'm going to pull it all and toss it into the compost.

I pulled 1.5 lbs of turnips for my mother.  She was in a hurry and I didn't get time to take a picture, but she said they are the best turnips she's ever had!

As a side note, Walgreens had seeds on sale for $0.20 each this week.  I spent $4.20 on vegetable and flower seeds and have added that to my total out of pocket cost.

Turnip & Lettuce Harvest

Today I harvested 5 turnips and a big handful of lettuce from the garden.

Radish Harvest #2

Swiss Chard Harvest

I picked a bunch of my container grown swiss chard for dinner.  It weighed in at 6 oz.  I stir fried it and put it over rice, served with a side of sweet potato balls.  Yum!

Lettuce Harvest

Feeling motivated after my radish harvest yesterday, I decided to harvest some of the Grand Rapids TBR lettuce I've grown.  This will make a great addition to a salad!

Radish Harvest

Today I harvested 12.4 oz of fresh, homegrown, organic radishes!  Mmmm!

How to Store Harvested Vegetables

Specific harvest and storage information for some commonly-grown vegetables. Expected shelf-life times are only estimates.

Vegetable	When to Harvest	How to Store	Expected Shelf-life	Comments
asparagus	third year after planting when spears are 6-9 inches long	cold and moist	2 weeks	keep upright
basil	when leaves are still tender	at room temperature	5 days	keep stems in water; will discolor if kept in refrigerator for 10 days
beans, snap	about 2-3 weeks after bloom when seeds still immature	cold and moist	1 week	develop pitting if stored below 40°
beets	when 1.25-3 inches in diameter	cold and moist	5 months	store without tops
broccoli	while flower buds still tight and green	cold and moist	2 weeks	-
brussels sprouts	when heads 1 inch in diameter	cold and moist	1 month	-
cabbage	when heads compact and firm	cold and moist	5 months	-
carrots	when tops 1 inch in diameter	cold and moist	8 months	store without tops
cauliflower	while heads still white, before curds "ricey"	cold and moist	3 weeks	-
corn, sweet	when silks dry and brown, kernels should be milky when cut with a thumbnail	cold and moist	5 days	-
cucumbers	for slicing, when 6 inches long	cool spot in kitchen 55°F in perforated plastic bags; storage in refrigerator for a few days okay	1 week	develops pitting and water-soaked areas if chilled below 40°F; do not store with apples or tomatoes
eggplant	before color dulls	like cucumbers	1 week	develops pitting, bronzing, pulp browning if stored for long period below 50°F
kohlrabi	when 2-3 inches in diameter	cold and moist	2 months	store without tops
lettuce	while leaves are tender	cold and moist	1 week	-
muskmelons (cantaloupe)	when fruits slip off vine easily, while netting even, fruit firm	cold and moist	1 week	develops pitting surface decay with slight freezing
onions	when necks are tight, scales dry	cold and dry	4 months	cure at room temperature 2-4 weeks before storage, do not freeze
parsnips	when roots reach desired size, possibly after light frost	cold and moist	4 months	do not wax or allow roots to freeze; sweetens after 2 weeks storage at 32°F
peas	when pods still tender	cold and moist	1 week	-
peppers	when fruits reach desired size or color	like cucumbers	2 weeks	develops pitting below 45°F
potatoes	when vine dies back	cold and moist; keep away from light	6 months	cure at 50-60°F or 14 days before storage, will sweeten below 38°F
pumpkins	when shells harden, before frost	cool and dry	2 months	very sensitive to temperatures below 45°F
radishes	when roots up to 1.25 inches in diameter	cold and moist	1 month	store without tops
rutabagas	when roots reach desired size	cold and moist	4 months	do not wax
spinach	while leaves still tender	cold and moist	10 days	-
squash, summer	when fruit 4-6 inches long	like cucumbers	1 week	do not store in refrigerator for more than 4 days
squash, winter	when shells hard, before frost	cool and dry	2-6 months, depending on variety	curing unecessary; do not cure Table Queen
tomatoes, red	when color uniformly pink or red	like cucumbers	5 days	loses color, firmness and flavor if stored below 40°F; do not refrigerate!
turnips	when roots reach desired size, possibly after light frost	cold and moist	4 months	can be waxed
watermelons	when underside turns yellow or produces dull sound when slapped	like cucumbers	2 weeks	will decay if stored below 50°F for more than a few days

source

Back to the land & other ramblings...

After what seemed like an eternity of not planting things, I finally got back to planting yesterday. I had some peat pellets so I soaked them and started seeds of cherry tomatoes, green beans and zucchini in hopes of planting the transplants out in February. I also planted my strawberry roots and will hopefully have some delicious berries to munch on later in the season. I put 6 roots in the hanging strawberry planter and 3 in the garden. I can't wait to see which one produces better.

Today I planted out several of the red onion bulbs I bought. I hope these grow much more rapidly than the onion seeds I started, which after a promising start don't seem to be making much progress in the way of growth these last weeks. I wonder in our crazy weather has anything to do with that. Day to day, this winter has gone from 50 degrees to 80 degrees. My plants must be confused.

In the past I've grown vegetables, but I am always discouraged when the garden doesn't produce as much as I would like it to. At the end of every year I give up and tell myself it's not worth the hassle, I decide to take a year off, and within a couple months I regret my decision. However this year I'm going to stick to it. I'm going to amend this soil until it's beautiful and black. I'm going to practice succession planting (instead of over planting and having months between harvests). I'm reading up on companion planting and will put my knowledge to good use.

I've been on the lookout for the 20 cent seeds from WalMart again. I figure until I know more about what I'm doing I shouldn't invest too much in the garden. And if I want to try a new variety of something, 20 cents is an investment I can make without feeling guilty afterward.

I have located a source of free manure and composted manure, but now I have to figure out how to get it to my house. I don't want to stink up the van with horse poo, being that my kids will be with me and all. And there just isn't room in my husbands sedan to fit what I need.

Items I need:
A way to transport compost and manure
Potatoes to plant
More Pots, Buckets, Bins, etc. (Anything I can plant in.)
A Pitchfork.
A metal rake for leveling the soil.

Next steps in the garden:
Harvest all of the spinach, then pull the plants. For the time and space Spinach requires, the plants are small and not overly productive (and they are getting eaten by something - there are little holes all over the leaves, but no bugs/worms/caterpillars that I can find) so I'll use the space for other crops.
Plant the yellow onion bulbs.
Fertilize existing crops (compost tea foliage spray?)

On a final note, I have been able to harvest about 2 lbs of salad greens so far, which fed my family salads for 5 meals! I've got a couple radishes that look like they may be ready to harvest, but I don't want to jump the gun and yank them out if they aren't ready. Tomorrow I think I'll do it and share my bounty with my Mother.

Have a wonderful day!

When To Harvest?

As exciting as it is to watch my garden grow and change on a daily basis, the truth is I really want to figure out when I can begin to harvest the food I'm growing for my family.  Isn't being self sufficient the goal here?  According to when I planted things , here is a rough schedule of when I can begin to harvest.

It looks as if the first thing I'll get to harvest will be the Mesclun Mix.  According to several online sites, it can be harvested in as little as 3 to 4 weeks (12/10 - 12/17).  This means starting tomorrow I should be able to go get a snippet here and there.  It is a bit overcrowded in the row, so I need to thin the plants anyway.  I may grab a handful here and there to make my store bought lettuce salads more interesting.

• Radishes (Icicle, Short Top) 28 days = 12/19

• Spinach (Bloomsdale Long Standing) 45 - 55 days = 1/2
• Cauliflower (Early Snowball A) 55-65 days = 1/11
• Turnips (Purple Top White Globe) 55-60 = 1/11
• Beets (Detroit Dark Red, Morse's Strain)  60 days 1/11
• Lettuce (Bibb 60-70, Grand Rapids, 3 test varities, 1/17

• Carrots (Danver's #126) 70 - 80 days = 1/27
• kohlrabi 55 = 1/28
• Swiss chard 60 = 1/30

• Broccoli (De Cicco) 80 - 100 days = 2/19
• basil 80-90 = 2/30

• 6 cloves of white garlic (from Publix).  I've heard mixed results using store bought garlic so I want to try this myself to see how it goes. ???  Read 60 - 75 days AND April

• Onions (Hybrid Granex Yellow PRR) 170 mid-June

Update 1/27/2012:  The Mesclun mix was right on schedule.  As of today, there are a couple radishes that appear they are ready to harvest, but it is now more than a month later than the expected date.  Spinach is not very productive, so I am going to take it out of the garden.  The basil got killed by a heavy frost.  I pulled out the test varieties of lettuce and tossed them in the compost bin (to make room for onions).  None of the other crops appear anywhere close to being ready to harvest.