Time to plant the garlic

Just a quick reminder that, if you want garlic, now is the time to plant it. If you eat garlic, there's no reason not to plant some. It is maintenance free once planted and is a nice iris-like plant. 

Still here

When I last posted, we had moved onto five acres outside of town. Traditional high speed Internet isn't available here, so thats my excuse for the lack of posting (this is done on my phone).  I've been making steady progress towards getting the homestead where I want it.  A small garden is producing well for us while outbuildings are built and trees cleared. 

Zucchini and basil for the soup pot. 

Our 3 month old egg layers, hen house, and pond in the background. 

Progress towards clearing trees off of the dam. 

Happenings around the home place

Holes in a nylon flag

Holes began to appear in the white areas of the flag out front.  I had no idea what was causing it until I noticed this:

Apparently red wasps were chewing out the holes in the nylon flag.  Anyone have insight into why they were doing this?  I have since replaced it with a tougher polyester flag and the wasps have left it alone.

BIS high efficiency fireplace

During the winter, our main heat source is an EPA certified high efficiency wood fireplace with a blower.  Having moved in February, we got to use it some.  It kept the upstairs and livings areas nice and warm and burned 6-7 hours between loadings, but it wasn't sufficient to heat the peripheral rooms fully.  We had to use the central furnaces in the mornings to take the nip off.  While we were pleased with its performance, the wood I gathered from the property at the time wasn't fully dried and wasn't optimum.

Logs left by the previous homeowner

Wood split and stacked

I've been splitting existing logs and cutting dead standing timber to build a dry stockpile for the coming winter months.  There's something very satisfying about heating with wood and having good log pile put up.

Quick garden update

Stewed tomatoes, peppers, white onion, and cilantro.

Moving into the new home place in February, there wasn't much chance to build beds and build up the soil.  Salsa ingredients aren't demanding and tolerate unprepared soil well, so I planted the both existing beds with tomatoes, onions, and peppers.  Knowing that I would be busy with many other things, I eschewed open pollinated varieties and planted Burpee hybrid Romas.  Despite the unusually long stretch of 105+ degree days and low rainfall, they have produced admirably.  So much so that they shaded out the peppers and onions to a degree.

Existing raised bed

Tomatoes, peppers, and onions

Pepper with wood mulch

GARDEN EXPERIMENT:  The new place had a large pile of wood mulch onsite when we bought it, so I planted half the garden with 4" wood mulch and the other half with 4" of straw.  I have seen no discernible difference in growth or production between the different mulches.  Good to know.

Pedicure!

I used dog nail trimmers to trim the sharp points from the rooster's spurs to reduce the danger posed to my children.  He bled a little when I got into the quick, but a few days later seems perfectly fine.  In the picture above you can see the trimmed spur on the right.  The untrimmed spur on the left is on the verge of shedding its outer layer, much like a cat sheds its claws to maintain sharpness.

In this case, the chicken came before the egg

The hens must be happy in their new digs because three days ago I found this:

Then yesterday three more!

And today they left me four!  

The hens have been much quicker to get back into production after the move than I anticipated and seem they to be ramping up production by the day.  On a down note, the rooster got after my 5 year old a bit today.  I was there and immediately let the rooster know who was boss.  I'd like to keep him, but I can't have him terrorize the kids.  I'm going to trim his spurs to blunt them and give him one more chance.  I'll admit that I'm not hopeful.  It's hard for older animals to break bad habits, especially when they are full of testosterone.

Trying a little something different: Seed Tape

I was perusing my local seedshop looking for lettuce seed and spied this.  I've seen seed tape before, but never used it.  The price difference wasn't much as compared to a packet of loose seeds, so I decided to give it a try.

A seed tape is nothing more than a strip of thin paper with seeds placed at specific intervals.  Above, you can see three strips of seed tape.  A strip is planted in a furrow where the paper softens when exposed to water and the seedlings push through it easily.  With small, hard to manipulate seeds like lettuce or carrots, this makes planting simple and prevents over seeding.

Lettuce seed is planted very shallowly, so I just laid the tape on the soil and covered it by lightly sprinkling a small amount of soil over it.  The tape above is half covered.