Friday, July 11, 2008
The benefits of knowing your farmer!
It's blueberry-picking time and my friends and I have again begun compiling lists of pesticide-free places to pick berries with our kids. It seems each year one of us discovers a new place that does not spray!
Today I spoke with my friend, who is also my children's daycare provider, and she had just returned from berry-picking at a nearby farm with good news.
Although the farmer is still using pesticides to combat worms, he is spraying significantly less than he did last year (he's now spraying once every three-four weeks, instead of weekly) due to numerous requests from customers who want safer berries for their families.
It's still not organic, and I know some purists would still consider it unacceptable, but I feel like it is a really good sign -- a consumer-led shift towards more sustainable and healthy way of farming!
In related news, my friend recently asked me to help her write a letter to her favorite local breakfast restaurant to encourage them to start serving local, pastured eggs. I think it's a great idea and decided to create a template letter that others might copy and tweak a little to follow suit. I will post it here as soon as it's complete!
Today I spoke with my friend, who is also my children's daycare provider, and she had just returned from berry-picking at a nearby farm with good news.
Although the farmer is still using pesticides to combat worms, he is spraying significantly less than he did last year (he's now spraying once every three-four weeks, instead of weekly) due to numerous requests from customers who want safer berries for their families.
It's still not organic, and I know some purists would still consider it unacceptable, but I feel like it is a really good sign -- a consumer-led shift towards more sustainable and healthy way of farming!
In related news, my friend recently asked me to help her write a letter to her favorite local breakfast restaurant to encourage them to start serving local, pastured eggs. I think it's a great idea and decided to create a template letter that others might copy and tweak a little to follow suit. I will post it here as soon as it's complete!
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
DIY Project: Compost Bins
I borrowed this great book from the library and am feeling ready to 'dig' into composting.We have been tossing scraps outside and calling it compost for as long as we've lived here. (Nearly all of our food scraps get thrown in the chicken pen where the hens scratch at it and take what they want.) But we've yet to cross over into actually cultivating compost for the benefit of our garden -- and that's just what I'd like to do next!
I've been looking around online and found some plans to build simple compost bins out of recycled wood pallets. (I e-mailed the local master gardeners' info desk to make sure that the pallets are suitable for use in an organic garden and they gave me a thumbs up.) And I found pallets at the nearby farm and garden store for $1.25 a piece.
The kids are spending the afternoon with my mom (basking in her air-conditioned first floor) and I'm heading out into the heat to start building!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Carrots!
We picked out these gorgeous carrots at our CSA this week. It's really hard to get excited about uniformly cut, pre-peeled "baby" carrots when you can enjoy these beauties:
Friday, July 4, 2008
The sweet sound of silence!
This morning was our first rooster-free morning since last fall when I got the idea that it would be really fun to have a rooster to fertilize our hen's eggs -- and hopefully, eventually, hatch out some chicks!
Lily was an easy sell. Quinn was too young to understand what was going on. John, on the other hand, was opposed to the plan from day one.
Unfortunately for my beloved husband, once I get an idea in my head (especially when it involves baby animals, or in this case the mere promise of possible baby animals), there is little that can be done to deter me.
So sometime last September a handsome young Dominique rooster joined our small flock of laying hens. Things were pretty good at first. He was still young and had not quite developed his full crowing ability. And then we moved into winter and the later sunrise and tightly-sealed windows made his morning crowing bearable for John and kind of charming for me.
Then spring (this year with its earlier changing of the clocks) and open-window season and a rooster who had most certainly found his crow -- and preferred to show it off starting at 4:30 a.m. and continue right on through to sundown -- was too much even for me to take.
I placed a couple of ads on Craig's List with no responses and was starting to feel desperate. He really needed to go. I composed another ad, posted it on the free stuff listing and hoped for the best.
I got a flury of responses this time but only one person who followed up and was willing and able to come pick "Roosty" up.
As we e-mailed back and forth I also offered her four of our laying hens (I want to clean out the stall and shore up the pen before we put the new layers in there), which she was happy to take.
When she and her son came to pick them up on Thursday, I felt a tiny pang of sadness. It wasn't so much that I was going to miss having a rooster around, but more just the realization that my vision of having a rooster home and how that would help to solidify the "farm" status of our yard, didn't work out the way I thought it would.
As the mother and son loaded Roosty into their truck, I heard her enthusiastically assuring her son that he'll get to have his chicks someday now that he has a rooster.
And I hope that's just how it works out for them.
Meanwhile, we are savoring the sweet sound of silence and the gift of sleeping past sunrise.
Lily was an easy sell. Quinn was too young to understand what was going on. John, on the other hand, was opposed to the plan from day one.
Unfortunately for my beloved husband, once I get an idea in my head (especially when it involves baby animals, or in this case the mere promise of possible baby animals), there is little that can be done to deter me.
So sometime last September a handsome young Dominique rooster joined our small flock of laying hens. Things were pretty good at first. He was still young and had not quite developed his full crowing ability. And then we moved into winter and the later sunrise and tightly-sealed windows made his morning crowing bearable for John and kind of charming for me.
Then spring (this year with its earlier changing of the clocks) and open-window season and a rooster who had most certainly found his crow -- and preferred to show it off starting at 4:30 a.m. and continue right on through to sundown -- was too much even for me to take.
I placed a couple of ads on Craig's List with no responses and was starting to feel desperate. He really needed to go. I composed another ad, posted it on the free stuff listing and hoped for the best.
I got a flury of responses this time but only one person who followed up and was willing and able to come pick "Roosty" up.
As we e-mailed back and forth I also offered her four of our laying hens (I want to clean out the stall and shore up the pen before we put the new layers in there), which she was happy to take.
When she and her son came to pick them up on Thursday, I felt a tiny pang of sadness. It wasn't so much that I was going to miss having a rooster around, but more just the realization that my vision of having a rooster home and how that would help to solidify the "farm" status of our yard, didn't work out the way I thought it would.
As the mother and son loaded Roosty into their truck, I heard her enthusiastically assuring her son that he'll get to have his chicks someday now that he has a rooster.
And I hope that's just how it works out for them.
Meanwhile, we are savoring the sweet sound of silence and the gift of sleeping past sunrise.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
More nocturnal nibbling
Ugh. The pumpkins have also fallen victim to the night visitor.
I noticed yesterday that our garden is in the shade in the morning (something I knew but hadn't really tuned into before). This morning the kids are at their sitter's house so I was looking forward to a quiet morning working and dreaming in the garden.
Instead I found myself feeling totally overwhelmed and defeated. Whatever helped itself to our garden earlier in the week returned last night for the pumpkin plants. (It seems the only thing the nocturnal nibbler isn't interested in is the weeds, many of which are knee-high.)
I tried to muster some more optimism and thought about replanting (as I'm just beginning to learn about the moon cycles in relation to farming and today, new moon, is the perfect time to plant seeds) but it just felt too overwhelming.
I decided instead to come back up to the house and do some writing, send out a couple of query letters (which I've also read is a good "new moon" activity), and wait for the woman who is coming to relieve us of early-morning crowing (I found someone to take the rooster via Craig's List - yay!).
Perhaps in a little while I'll go back out and plant some seeds but for now it feels best to turn my attention to other things like the gorgeous Morning Glory (photo below) that is blooming on our back deck.
I have planted Morning Glory seeds/seedlings, just about every year for the last 10 years without ever growing anything more than a weak looking vine that never that quite establishes itself.
This year I started indoors, soaked and notched the seeds, and watered the seedlings daily before moving them to a planter on the back deck, where I continue to water them regularly.
The result has been most satisfying!
I noticed yesterday that our garden is in the shade in the morning (something I knew but hadn't really tuned into before). This morning the kids are at their sitter's house so I was looking forward to a quiet morning working and dreaming in the garden.
Instead I found myself feeling totally overwhelmed and defeated. Whatever helped itself to our garden earlier in the week returned last night for the pumpkin plants. (It seems the only thing the nocturnal nibbler isn't interested in is the weeds, many of which are knee-high.)
I tried to muster some more optimism and thought about replanting (as I'm just beginning to learn about the moon cycles in relation to farming and today, new moon, is the perfect time to plant seeds) but it just felt too overwhelming.
I decided instead to come back up to the house and do some writing, send out a couple of query letters (which I've also read is a good "new moon" activity), and wait for the woman who is coming to relieve us of early-morning crowing (I found someone to take the rooster via Craig's List - yay!).
Perhaps in a little while I'll go back out and plant some seeds but for now it feels best to turn my attention to other things like the gorgeous Morning Glory (photo below) that is blooming on our back deck.
I have planted Morning Glory seeds/seedlings, just about every year for the last 10 years without ever growing anything more than a weak looking vine that never that quite establishes itself.
This year I started indoors, soaked and notched the seeds, and watered the seedlings daily before moving them to a planter on the back deck, where I continue to water them regularly.
The result has been most satisfying!
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Munch, munch, crunch!
Something decimated our garden last night. Our dog was outside (not intentionally - sorry buddy) and he went crazy barking and then chased something off into the woods.
Eventually we got him back into the house and went to bed. I forgot about the whole incident -- until this afternoon when I went out to check the garden while the kids were napping/resting.
The first thing I noticed was the sunflowers -- the knee-high sunflowers that were the pride of my garden -- were now just stems. I had actually been thinking earlier in the day that even though the rest of the garden looks pretty bad (weeds are out of control), at least I have strong, healthy sunflowers growing in my garden for the first time ever. Or I, should say, did have strong, healthy sunflowers growing in my garden.
The next thing I noticed was the peas, which are trellised into a bean pole Tepee, broken and lying on the ground.
And then I saw the big, bushy wax bean plants were now also just straggly chewed off stems.
Lily and I went out to the garden together later in the afternoon. I mustered all the optimism I could find as we watered the damaged plants and sprinkled them with Rescue Remedy, which we've found the plants (and chickens), seem to respond really well to.
I'm so frustrated and disappointed and sad that I will (once again) not have big, beautiful sunflowers growing in my yard (last year it was the squirrels that took them out as seedlings).
But mostly I am very grateful that I am not dependant on the garden harvest for my livelihood or for my family's sole food supply and that this is just a minor aggravation and not a major catastrophe.
Eventually we got him back into the house and went to bed. I forgot about the whole incident -- until this afternoon when I went out to check the garden while the kids were napping/resting.
The first thing I noticed was the sunflowers -- the knee-high sunflowers that were the pride of my garden -- were now just stems. I had actually been thinking earlier in the day that even though the rest of the garden looks pretty bad (weeds are out of control), at least I have strong, healthy sunflowers growing in my garden for the first time ever. Or I, should say, did have strong, healthy sunflowers growing in my garden.
The next thing I noticed was the peas, which are trellised into a bean pole Tepee, broken and lying on the ground.
And then I saw the big, bushy wax bean plants were now also just straggly chewed off stems.
Lily and I went out to the garden together later in the afternoon. I mustered all the optimism I could find as we watered the damaged plants and sprinkled them with Rescue Remedy, which we've found the plants (and chickens), seem to respond really well to.
I'm so frustrated and disappointed and sad that I will (once again) not have big, beautiful sunflowers growing in my yard (last year it was the squirrels that took them out as seedlings).
But mostly I am very grateful that I am not dependant on the garden harvest for my livelihood or for my family's sole food supply and that this is just a minor aggravation and not a major catastrophe.
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