Heirloom Harvests

This year, I planted several heirloom vegetables: Kentucky Wonder pole beans, also known as "Old Homestead" and "Texas Pole," was introduced before 1864; San Marzano, classic Italian paste tomatoes; and Tom Thumb, a dwarf heirloom popping corn.


The Tom Thumb plants yielded one or two ears per stalk, which, as you can see, really are about the size of a thumb.



We had lots of fun harvesting and were very excited to try our very own popcorn, though we all agreed that popcorn must have been a special treat, considering how much space, time and effort it took to produce! I began shucking the corn one afternoon, and Sam soon joined me. My thumb soon became sore, so my plan was to leave the remaining ears till the following day, but they proved irresistable to family members. Jim immediately jumped on board when he came home, so Sam joined in to show him how it was done, and upon returning home from the neighbor's house, the girls immediately joined in the round as well.Many hands really do make quick work!


Alas, the popping was not so successful. We will likely try some different techniques, considering we have quite a bit with which to experiment, but we won't likely be planting "Tom Thumb" again next year.

Springfield Farm

Last week, we took a small fieldtrip to Springfield Farm north of Baltimore to purchase some Narragansett hens. Although it was more than an hour drive, the kids had fun once we were there, checking out all the animals, choosing the hens and devouring a pint of cookies and cream ice cream from a local dairy. We were able to choose either one month old or two month old birds and ended up going with two of the older birds both because we'd have a better chance of choosing hens and because they'd be basically the same age as the birds we hatched out at home.


Although we ended up with two males from our hatching, buying two females from another breeder ended up making good sense to broaden genetics for our flock. I had planned on incubating more eggs next spring in order to do this, but the way it worked out saved us a year in the long run. This is a photo, I believe, of the hens' mother whose coloring is very light. In the pen right next to them were several peacocks, which completely captured the girls' hearts. If it weren't for the incredibly loud noise they make, I'd have had two girls begging for some at our home.



While there, we were able to see the breed of pig we're considering for our farm, Tamworths. Known for their flavor, lean meat and ability to do well on pasture. Sam and his dad are really looking forward to raising some feeder pigs for meat, but Jules is set on raising one to keep. Our big research project this year is to learn as much as we can about the Tamworths, so we'll be able to integrate them into our farm. Designing and locating the pen will depend in large part on where we can locate water and where we'd like to locate our fields. Our trip to Springfield gave us some good ideas and some visuals that will help our planning.

Bountiful Harvest

We've been loving garden life again, and eating delicious, naturally grown food is like nothing else. Anyone who's a gardener will understand how incredibly difficult it was for me to leave my gardens when we moved last year. Moving in June meant all my effort would be enjoyed by the new owners while I moved into a home with a clean slate--fun to create, but a whole season of herbs and edibles lost! Bittersweet. Once again, however, we have herbs for flavoring dishes, greens and our very first tomatoes are beginning to ripen, which Jim totally stole for his blog! Those on the blog ring have inspired me to begin taking some pictures of the foods we create--thanks to everyone for being a part of Homesteadin' Unschoolers!

This year has also brought some wonderful expansion as we have more room and more sun for growing our delicacies. I bought some broccoli seedlings, which have come in beautifully, and I've just finished harvesting and freezing several batches after we gorged ourselves on fresh harvests. We've also been able to broaden our tomato repertoire and have enjoyed the "Gold Nugget" cherry tomatoes that have been the first to ripen. I'm looking forward to the grape tomatoes and the sungolds, which are delicious! Our dwarf popcorn has tassled out and is growing, and Sam and I are oh so excited to try our very own popcorn. I have a couple of acorn squash already, and a few more butternuts growing on the vines. I've been diligently picking the flowers off my strawberries, which at first was very difficult, but the plants are growing so nicely now that it's become easier.

Just when I think I have it all figured out...

Okay, so I know I posted earlier about my obsession with determining the sex of my turkeys. As you can see, this guy is pretty much a no brainer. He loves to display and strut and gobble, and his snood is definitely longer than the other turkey's snood. He'll even at times try to step on the other turkey when s/he's laying in the dust. For a while there, I even let all the obsession fall away as I was sure I'd lucked out in this whole grand experiment and ended up with a breeding pair after all. Then doubt once again rears its ugly head.

Here's another photo of the typical behavior--looks like a tom with two hens, doesn't it? Hence my complacency. Within the past day or so, however, the other narri-colored poult seems to have begun a kind of gobble, but only if the tom isn't there. *sigh* I thought, perhaps, too, that I'd actually seen this second poult display when alone, though I couldn't be sure which poult I was actually watching--other than a slight variation in the length and shape of the snood, there are no distinguishing features. Yet another worrisome bit of info, though I've read that it can take another month for their mature coloring to come in.

Here's a pretty good shot of the two of them together, and if you click the photo, it should open a larger version. Cast your vote in the comments section below--tom or hen?
You make the call.

Kitchen Garden

I've been meaning to blog about the kitchen garden for a while now, and we got some good pictures today. This is an overview of the area which is approximately 50'x50'. We fenced it in with goat fencing, which has done a great job keeping out the goats and chickens but not such a great job with the bunnies, who managed to nearly wipe out two sections of beans before we bought two rolls of 2' chicken wire to run around the bottom. This seems to have done the trick, and the beans are attempting a valiant comeback.

I need to scan in a copy of my garden design, so folks can get an idea of the overall layout logic, but until I do that, here's a quick and dirty description. The left-most three sections are permanent planting beds with strawberries and a central row of lavendar in the two outside beds and asparagus ("Jersey King") in the middle bed. I planted four varieties of strawberries: "Jewel" and "Sparkle" in the first bed, and "Tristar" and "Earligirl" in the last bed. To the front of these permanent beds are three more beds that comprise the left half of the kitchen garden. In the center bed, I have (semi) permanent herbs: rosemary, parsley and thyme. In the outer beds, I have tomatoes and basil, pole beans and onions. The closer tomatoes are grapes and cherries, and the farthest are slicing tomatoes.

In the right side of the garden, I have mirroring sections, though the back three beds are not permanent but a part of the 4 part rotation. The center back is the dwarf "Tom Thumb" popcorn that Sam and I planted, and in front of that is the mirror herb garden with cilantro in the back, then dill, then two rows of chives that I just planted because the first batch didn't take. In the front left bed are carrots and beans (the only beans that didn't get eaten to the ground), and behind them to the right are lettuces and peppers with broccolli. In the farthest beds are onions, paste tomatoes, bunny bashed beans and a basil bed that's just recently seeded.

The perimeter of the garden has the several fruit trees that aren't in the yard-scaping somewhere and these are the garden beds with hardwood mulch in the picture. The back has apples ("Liberty," "Enterprise," and "William's Pride") and pears ("Seckel," "Magness" and "Potomac"). The left side has 20 blackberry plants: 7 "Apache," 8 "Arapaho," 5 "Triplecrown." The right side has 20 raspberry plants: 5 "Nova," 5 "Killarney," 5 "Caroline" and 5 "Jewel" black raspberries. The front of the garden showcases 6 table grape vines: 3 "Mars" and 3 "Canadice." In our yard, we've planted a "Stella" sweet cherry, a "Hardy Chicago" fig, a peach tree, and a "Stanley" plum tree, along with 7 blueberry bushes ("Bluecrop," "Jersey Blue," and I can't remember the others) .

We also have other crops planted elsewhere on the property. I have a melon/ squash bed in a hollow of one of the pastures, hoping to maximize water. There I have acorn and butternut squash, watermelon and two kinds of cantaloupes. In Jim's fields, we have two kinds of sweet corn--bicolor and white--and a full size popcorn. He also planted "Yukon Gold" and "Red Nordland" potatoes and two kinds of pumpkins--a jack o'lantern and pie pumpkin for me.

New Digs

I had to steal this photo from my husband's blog because I don't have any new pictures yet! He spent his time while the kids and I were on vacation building this fabulous new chicken coop for me. What a guy! He even gave them a 4'x8' skylight--totally key for internal light. He used a tinted fiberglass after we'd talked about wanting light but not wanting to greenhouse the birds. It works perfectly! There's eave ventilation around the building, a large chicken-wire covered opening off the back, and he'll reuse the window removed from the barn to make space for a narrow door out to the coop on the farside of the coop itself. All in all, quite fancy digs!

These pictures are at least two weeks old now--I'll post some more recent photos soon. The chickens, on the right, are getting bigger, and the roos are becoming pretty easy to spot. The funniest thing right now is listening to them learn to crow--pretty pathetic squeaky squawks at this point!

The turkeys are getting huge, and my big obsession now is trying to figure out the sex. I'm really hoping I have a breeding pair, obviously, so I keep going back and forth sure that I have at least one hen and one tom to being sure that I have all toms. One poult has been obviously displaying, and he seems to have a redder and bumpier neck than the other big poult, but they still have the same feather coloration, and their snoods range from being quite distinct to looking quite similar. The little guy is still too far behind the others developmentally to be showing any sex characteristics yet at all, and the white one is pretty much just dinner regardless of sex. So, my new past time has become sitting on my bench watching the turkey's behavior and trying to pin them down, figuratively speaking.

We've also moved the kittens out to the barn, and they love their new playground. They're not too sure about the turkeys yet, but it's fun to watch them explore and observe and absorb all the new sights and sounds. They're still quite friendly, though they're becoming obviously more independent with each day. They're definitely turning into barn cats, but hopefully, they'll always like people. They haven't brought me any mousy presents yet, but I'm optimistic that they'll at least discourage visitors if not outright exterminate them.

Trapped like a rat in a sinking ship...

Or like a mouse in a cardboard box full of kittens, anyway. Yes, I'll openly admit that a mouse was, indeed, harmed in the making of these photographs. You can see him cowering there in that bright little patch of sunlight, like a suspect brought in for questioning. He had the audacity and, let's face it, the supreme stupidity to allow me to catch him in my chick feed bag one morning. And, like the good kitty-cat mama that I am, I brought home a juicy little mousie so my babes could hone their skills.

At first they weren't too sure what to do with this mousie toy that actually moved, but they quickly got the hang of things, particualarly Monster and Shadow. Cally and Primo got in on the action as well, but Tabby hung back in the middle of the box as if to question whether any of us had any morals at all. The kittens, however, were all play and not much for finishing the job. Our puppy, Buddy, however, whom I suspect has a bit of Terrier as well as Border Collie (and lord knows what else mixed in), was just thrilled to thwump his big ol' webbed paw down on the poor little critter and proceed to strut around the yard with a tiny little tail sticking out between his teeth for several minutes, just as proud of himself as he could be!