RIP Red #2

Last night one of my laying hens Red #2 died. I don't think she ever recovered from a prolapsed egg incident that occured months ago here. I bought her another Rhode Island Red chick and a blackstar chic 3 years ago. My brother later delivered an americuana chic to complete our flock of 4 chickens. I was told to expect some of the chics to die or some turn out to be roosters but it never happened, instead our family has been blessed with hundreds of hours of chicken entertainment and hundreds of delicious eggs. Red #2 got her name because she was the number 2 chicken in charge in the backyard only her sister Red #1 was higher up in the pecking order. All week long I could tell she wasn't feeling well, and then yesterday she stopped eating the grapes I had been feeding her as treats and went and laid down in the coop and closed her eyes for good. I buried her this morning in the yard next to our cat Socks.

All 4 of the chics when we first got them.

SUMMER IS HERE

Well summer has finally shown up and it's hot out but the nasty heat heat that drives everyone inside won't be here till mid-July or August. I'm definitely putting down the water. My trees are getting deep watered every 2 weeks to a depth of three feet and my veggie patches are getting watered down 18 inches every 4 days. The easiest way to check your water depth is get a piece of rebar and push into the ground. All the bubblers and drip tape I've installed have kept the water bills about a hundred dollars less than last year at this time. I'm really impressed  that in the heat of the summer we're watering 17 trees, 4 blueberry bushes, 3 grape vines, 1 passion fruit vine, and a 22 foot by 45 foot veggie garden for a $ 150 dollars a month. That number is totally exceptable to my wife and I and I believe I can wittle it down even further by automating the whole system. You see I've figured all the approximate times it takes to get the amount of water down that all the plants need but sometimes I forget the water is on or fall asleep in the middle of the night while it's running, not to mention all the time I spend manually turning on sprinkler valves or dragging hoses around to different emitter setups. So soon I'll begin automating the entire system. I've also had to replant my vine garden because the chickens destroyed the last one, I've had set backs in my potato patch and blueberry patch, I love melons, and I've found some cool new bugs in the garden.

I had to replant my vine garden the original chicken defenses weren't strong enough and the chickens destroyed the whole thing in 2 days. This is the new garden with 4 foot tall fencing around the plants for protection. Lets see the chickens jump that. I kept the plants real simple armenian cucumbers and luffa sponges for the whole thing.

My potato crop this year was a huge failure the basket above was all I harvested. Last year I pulled 25 pounds of taters out of the garden. I blame the failure on buying store bought potatoes and not using seed taters. The plants just never got going maybe next year. I also had a problem in the blueberry patch, I was harvesting a handful of berries everyday, when all of the sudden every bird in the neighborhood figured out there were blueberries afoot and the whole crop even the green ones were gone just like that. I still got 1 cup of tasty blueberries which is one more cup than last years harvest. Those birds are lucky I'm a permaculturist the old Aaron would have settled up with all of them for eating his blueberries, oh well maybe next year. Do you sense a theme here? It doesn't happen overnight. The first year I struggled to get the b-berries through the harsh summer and I suceeded, the second year the birds stole my harvest, So next year I'll have to defend against the birds. PATIENCE PATIENCE PATIENCE!!!!

Do you love melons? I do, they're my favorite summer treat, these are my first honeydews of the season. They're are many ways to test for ripeness, some people can tell by sight, others are thumpers, I'm a pusher and smeller. All you do is push on the belly button (side opposite from the vine) if it pushes in easily the melon is close to ripe, then smell the belly button, if you smell a sweet melon smell then it's ready for harvest. Man I love melons.

Cool bug pic!

This is an assassin bug eating a bee. Assassin bugs are beneficial insects for your garden, they eat other bugs. The only problem is they'll eat other beneficial bugs to (bees).

Finally check out this cool 5 legged grass hopper that showed up, that's right my garden is handicap friendly for all. All in all everything is going great on the farm, I'm still harvesting about 4 pounds of tomatoes a week, but I'm tired of blogging about them and the wife is tired of chopping them but hey.

BOOYAH!!!!

THINK SAFETY

The title of this newest blog was going to be damn it's hot!!! But thanks to a dumb accident it's Think Safety! I've also harvested some more fruits and veggies and planted a couple of summer veggie plots.

Garden is in full bloom all the hollyhocks and sunflowers are volunteers, the sunflowers are naturally shading the garden quite well.

Tomatoes are producing big time, I'm getting this many every three days the majority are little, like super sweet 100, and juliet, the medium size tomatoes, that are doing well, are glacier, and silver fir tree, the better boys have produced a few monster tomatoes, and prudens purple is a no show, all they do is grow tall lanky plants with no fruit. So far we've made this spaghetti sauce, a simple pico de gallo, and a mixture of diced tomatoes, creamy italion dressing, and parmesan cheese which is a great chilled summer salad. We've also been putting tomatoes on everthing under the sun, sandwiches, eggs, or just eating them raw. I fear the looming tomato apocalypse, where there are no more tomatoes and we have to go back to buying those crappy store bought things they call a tomato.

Here's the garlic harvest hanging and drying in the shade of the porch. This year I decided to go hardcore with garlic since we use it all the time, I ordered some gourmet garlic and planted a nice big bed of them all in one place and got some decent results, but I noticed the garlic in the giant bed didn't get as big as the heads I randomly planted around the garden. It turns out garlic is slightly allelopathic.Which means they produce a chemical which slightly inhibits the growth of the plants around them, who new? So next year I'll spread them out and see how they do.

Still getting some fresh peaches Desert Gold Peach.

I planted 2 summer veggie beds, that I amended all of the soil with compost pile omega. I planted some tomatillos that I grew from seed, and also dug up some volunteers that showed up from last years tomatillo  patch, cowpeas(black eyed peas), pole beans, sunflowers,basil, chiltepines ,and tepary beans .

Finally a note on safety do you see the red part on the right side of my finger, do you see how it's flat and not round, that's because I lobbed the tip of my finger off while slicing a roast up yesterday with my meat slicer     making italion beef.

The sandwiches were great once I pulled part of my finger out of them. The lesson here is a little bit of inattentiveness caused an accident, that's how most accidents are caused. 90% of accidents are caused by not paying attention, which is what happened here. As I was explaining to my by boss this morning, why I was having a hard time getting some simple tasks completed, he told me a least I was deli slicing the meat and not cutting it into 1/2 inch slices. Bottom line pay attention to what you're doing, driving, running a wood chipper, swinging a pick, climbing a ladder, or slicing up Sunday dinner on your meat slicer.

OUCH!!! This blog post was typed completely using only one hand.

BOOYAH!!!

Some things don't always go my way

This week has been a week of setbacks I had a couple of huge failures, finally picked all my carrots, and finished up one of my projects.

THE FAILS FIRST

The top band on my whiskey barrel pond broke and it now only holds about half of it's water ARGH!!

The pond is on life support I'm going to see if I can get it through summer.

Here's the band aid I put on it a ratchet strap but it's still leaking like the Exxon Valdez. The bright side to this mishap is I've begun research on a new permaculture pond I'll be putting in the backyard in a few months when I have saved up some dough. Moral of the story whiskey barrels make bad ponds but they're still hands down one of the best planters you can use, they're repurposed, they have great insulation for our summer heat, and you can plant a ton of stuff in them.

Fail # 2 was much harder to accept, this weekend the new buds on the apple tree I grafted shriveled up and died then the scion that was grafted onto the rootstock shriveled up and turned brown, today I looked at it closer when I wiggled the scion it came out of the rootstock, the graft never took. I had a full blown hissy fit ARGH!!!!

I'm not giving up on grafting I'm still going to learn how to do it but, this sucks. I've killed thousands of plants in my lifetime it's part of what you sign up for when you choose this lifestyle but this one has bothered me the most!

We finally picked the last of the carrots I'd be more excited about this huge harvest except I'm tired of carrots. Carrots for every meal everyday for a month is killing me I think my blood has turned orange. We gave most of this away (in permaculture you're supposed to share your excess). If you've never had french carrot salad you should try it. Next year less carrots more brocoli.

Finally a little more about permaculture, part of permaculture is energy consevation so to save a little energy this year I installed a new back door and jam plus an energy efficient dog door. You could see through parts of the old door and the dog door flap had a big hole in it, it was so big one of the chickens figured out how to get in the house. I replaced everything and sealed the new door with foam. Eliminating air leakage from your house is one of the easiest things you can do to bring your summer cooling bills down. I would also recommend shade screens, ceiling fans, and planting deciduous trees on the west side of your house as easy ways to help save energy.. SRP offers free shade trees here. I'm gonna say the halo around the picture is a sign of brighter things to come and not a bad picture taken of a door in the sun.

booyah.

P.D.C. Graduate

I graduated from my PDC this weekend, I finally ate an artichoke, planted my horseradish plants, thinned up the grape vines, my peach crop is bumming me out, I got some cool new plants, and here come my tomatoes.

I graduated from my PDC this weekend, here I am standing in front of my design with my certificate. The course has changed my life I'd like to thank all of the other students (who I now consider close friends) the teachers, and Don Titmus (the coolest british guy I ever met). If you want to change your life and the planet for the better contact Don at  4 directions permaculture.

Here's my design it's Booyah Farm when I'm done with it stay tuned.

I finally ate an artichoke and they were ok, to be honest they're alot of work and taste alright, I'll try them again someday. On the bright side they produce beautiful flowers, make alot of biomass for composting, and are impossible to kill once established.

It's the time of year to thin your grapes, you need to thin your grape bunches by one third if you want big grapes. Just cut the bottom off the bunches and run your fingers through them to thin them.

Here's the above cluster thinned down.

Finally staple a paper bag around the cluster of grapes to protect it from birds. In a month or so open the bags and you have a giant bunch of grapes. If you leave the bag on to long you'll have raisins. Don't forget to compost the bag when you're done with it.

Here's the red flame all bagged up.

Here's what happens when you don't thin your fruit properly. All my peaches this year got to about the size of a golf ball. They still taste good, I just didn't get the size I wanted because I left to many on the tree. Oh well maybe next year!

I bought some new plants this week 2 venus fly traps, and a pitcher plant. They're supposed to grow here even with our high heat and low humidity. There are a couple of rules, only use distilled water the minerals in our hard water will kill them, place pots in a tray full of distilled water to help with the high heat and low humidity, place in full sun (we'll see), don't fertilize or plant in regular potting soil the plants natural environment is in a bog which has no nutrients in it. The plants get all the nutrients they need from the bugs they eat. If repotting, plant in a mixture of equal parts perlite and peat moss and no miracle grow stuff . I'm skeptical but we'll see carnivorous plants sure are cool.

This one already caught a fly.

I planted my horseradish plants this weekend, I placed them in spots that get morning sun and afternoon shade we'll see if they make it through summer.

A note on horseradishes invasiveness, some of the roots grew through the bottom of there pot's and now little horseradish plants are popping up in my whiskey barrel garden where the pots were sitting in.

Finally tomatoes, I've been cruising around here for the last week picking a ripe tomato here and there and eating them, today I went out and picked my first shirt half full of them. Little round ones are super sweet 100 taste awesome, oblong ones are Juliet I think they're more for sauces, medium sized one is glacier taste awesome. Here's to growing so many tomatoes I get sick of them BOOYAH!!!

What's goin down on the farm

Things have been going good on the farm, Saturday I graduate from my permaculture design course, I've got carrots coming out of my ears, the lizards are whoring around the neighborhood, my apple tree graft has sprouted along with the passion fruit vine, I have never eaten an artichoke, I'm counting my tomatoes before they're ripe, and my banana tree was showing some promise.

4 years ago I started a garden which led to a compost pile which lead to a couple fruit trees which lead to a grey water system which lead to permaculture. Saturday I will graduate from my permaculture design course, I have to say I am a changed person and better for it. If you want to change your life and the earth for the better I recommend taking a PDC.

Everyday for a month I've been pulling carrots out of the garden, I'm almost sick of carrots I'm thinking of pulling the whole patch out and giving them away. You wouldn't believe the strange looks you get from people when you offer them free carrots!

When we first moved into the house there were no fence lizards. It was really strange. When I was a kid I was professional lizard catcher, I had a 20 gallon aquarium full of fence lizards in my grandpas back yard. After 4 years of living here we have more fence lizards then you can count. I blame permaculture, if you hang out in the backyard for any amount of time, not only do you see giant fence lizards, you see alot of fence lizard sex. It starts out with a male latching onto a female by biting her tail, ( sound familiar)?

This has to be one of my proudest moments. Remember my apple tree graft, well it took and my Sundowner apple tree is finally growing. 

The Passion Fruit Vine is flowering, it's the prettiest flower you'll ever see. The fruit is super sour, to be honest with you I don't even care about the fruit as long as these amazing flowers keep coming.

The Artichoke plants have taken off this year, to be honest I've never eaten an artichoke before, I've always enjoyed the flowers. This year I'm gonna eat one, how many do you see?

This years tomato crop is huge, I've got green tomatoes everywhere. Growing my own from seed was awesome. I know I shouldn't count my chickens before they're hatched but it's looking good out there. I also passed out a bunch of left over plants I had, to anyone who wanted them, and I'm getting positive reports back on those plants. 

Finally my banana plant was doing great until the wind storm today which snapped the new leaf coming out of the main trunk. DAMMIT! Oh well it's still worth a BOOYAH!!

WHAT'S GOIN DOWN ON THE FARM

I've been real busy lately between, the PDC design course I've been taking, volunteer work, and getting my spring/summer gardens in I haven't had the time to post it up here. So here's what I've been working on.

3-18-13 I put in this vine garden. I planted mamoth sunflowers across the front of the bed that way the vines can grow up the sunflowers and chain link fence I planted Armenian Cukes, Louffa Sponges, Pickling Cukes, and Yard long Beans, companion planted with radishes and carrots.

Finished bed minus chickens.

3-20-13 I planted my tomato starts Prudens Purple, Silver Fir Tree, Juliet Hybrid, Super Sweet 100, Glacier, and Better Boy companion planted with basil, and sunflowers.

Finished bed, I've recently heard that you should have your tomatoes in the ground by February 1st. You're supposed to plant and protect from frost for a bumper crop I'm gonna try that next year.

I thinned my apple and peach trees, I let my little Dorset Golden keep 2 of it's apples.

Thinned Florida Prince Peach full of peaches.

Sunshine Blue Berry full of berries.

My bearded iris's are starting to bloom.

The almond tree is full of almonds I'm crossing my fingers hoping these hold on over the last 3 years I've gotten 1 almond.

3-31-13 Here's the melon patch Honey Dew and Crimson Sweet companion planted with sunflowers and Lemon Balm.

4-5-13 Sweet Potato patch to get potato slips you simply start a sweet potato in a glass of water when the leaves emerge from the potato and are about 4 inches long peel them off the mother potato and place in a glass of water when the roots form up your slips are ready for planting.

Boysenberry vines are coming up along with artichokes both perennials from last year. Fruits and vegetables that return every year are great for lazy gardeners like me.

3-30-13 Bush Bean patch companion planted with fennel, rosemary, and sunflowers. See that stick in the middle back of the picture it's an Apple Banana tree I got from a banana/bamboo grower Phil Gardener.

3-30-13 Okra companion planted with marigolds.

3-30-13 Eggplant and Green Chili patch companion planted with sage, tarragon, and sun flowers.

Monukka grape leafing out.

Thompson Seedless leafing out.

Red Flame Seedless Grape leafing out.

Finally check out this crazy looking bug I found by my compost pile.