Showing posts with label Subsistence farming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Subsistence farming. Show all posts

Garden Vegetable Lists : Comparing Winners and Losers 2016 Results

I wanted to share my garden vegetable list of experiments this year! It was a good year in my garden.
This year I had some outstanding harvests. Gardening is a huge part of our farm and makes up the majority of our food supply. It's also the biggest money saver on the farm.

Vegetable Garden list: Comparing the winners and losers for the season

**ALL photos you see are from my actual Homestead. I do not need to use purchased stock photos. What you see on my blog is REAL! 

For the last 6 years no matter how small something is always growing in my garden.
In the fall and winter, there may be greens, onions, garlic, spinach, and carrots ... Early spring with mass amounts snow peas, carrots, broccoli, more greens, radishes, and kohlrabi .. Summers filled with tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, okra, peppers, squash, grain corn and more! 
This extra long Summer's end has left us still with peppers, okra, wild tomatoes and sweet potatoes not yet gathered!
Waiting for that first frost to sweeten the fall/winter greens! Spinach, broccoli, cabbage and hopefully Brussel sprouts!!
The garden is never boring. It's a ton of work. But boring?? NO! 

huge garden bounties at Homesteader Journey!

Gardening at this rate can be totally overwhelming if you have other things going on. 
Like kids or like trying to handle livestock, gardens and a farm business! Or simply just trying to actually enjoy living your life! 

Overwhelm happens on a farm but especially when you are trying to level up and grow a part of the farm. Which is what I've done with my garden every year so far. 

And no matter how good you think you are at gardening... There will be failures!
Every single year...
No matter how tried and true you plant the weather will rule your outcome.

Part of the reason we get such huge bounties...
Now this year, yes, I had huge harvests and lots of success. 
But I also had loads of fails this year, mostly because I did a lot of experimenting. Never know till you try and garden experiments are so much fun for me! I'm a major plant geek so that helps fuel the motivation for the extra work and time garden experiments take!

So this year winners and losers in the garden list!

Winners:
little tyke cucumbers ( extra early hybrid) planted in wall o waters in March. I was harvesting cucumbers in April! Seeds and Such is where I found these little gems! Great seed company!
Red stripped greasy beans( hands down best tasting green bean I've ever eaten, we loved these! unfortunately so did the rabbits.. Next year I will protect longer!)
paymaster dent corn (grain corn that can be grown on sub-standard soil,, needs another run because my goslings broke in and ruined most of it. But it did produce even without the additional mid fertilizing I have to give other grain corn)
red ripper cowpea
Dixie Lima peas
Bertha low Lima beans
snow on the mountain Lima beans
Charleston grey watermelon (amazing! but have ALOT of space for these guys!)
spaghetti squash ( 88 days, netted and planted with protection extra early to avoid SVB. When planted late it couldn't hold up to the heat.
tender green mustard ... Love!
dragon tongue mustard. So hardy! But very hot and sharp! Needs frost to mellow the flavor. 
glacier tomatoes, This is an extra early, more cold tolerate tomato and only does well here ( zone 7) planted extra early! Done right this plant will give you tomatoes by the end of May/first of June. Which is way better than waiting until July for most tomatoes! They do die out at the end of June. 
sugar Ann ... Great sugar snap peas! Early and long producing for a pea here!

Losers never to be planted again...
• any *new* specially bred OP tomato! ugh! I devoted huge space to plant these newly improved tomatoes .. none of them could hold up in the humidity here. Some never produced a single tomato, some produced a small number of unimpressive tasting tomatoes! I'll stick with my 3 tried and true favorites next year! Maybe try one of the hybrid specifically bred for humidity! 
•mouse melons .. Hardly produced until late summer. Took up a lot of space. Then they produced a load of tiny fruit and have an odd, unappealing texture. Nope!
• buttercup squash.., supposed to be more insect-resistant .. Lol! Produce 2 squash and died from SVB!
• shark fin melon ... It's huge .. Grew and grew took over a huge area. It's weird and it produced 2.. Never again!
• cassabanana ... No.. Just no!!
•triple treat pumpkins... A naked seeded pumpkin that's supposed to be good for eating, 'naked' seed production and carving, Produced 3. They were terrible keepers. Not a lot of seeds.
So.. No...
•Job's tears... Used as a grain like barley. They grew beautifully! I had high hopes for these as an alternative grain. Formed perfect seeds and then kinda molded ☹️ not good for high humidity obviously..,I may try a different variety at some point. 
•tiger nuts... Grew great!! Produced well, But what a pain to harvest and clean!!! If there was an easier way to harvest them they'd be great. Very hard to see them! Would be good in a food plot to draw in turkeys.
•any variety of sweet corn ... Just no! They suck up a huge amount of nutrients, attract pest like crazy and take a lot of space For very little food. And are kinda a one trick pony compared to a good heirloom dent grain corn. Which can be eaten off the cob in its milky stage or left to dry for cornmeal either way. Dent corn Cobs can be used to make corn cob syrup too!(which I made this year and it's amazing!) 
• flour or flint corns... They are just to attractive to pest here. And they typically only produce 1 ear per stalk. I like dents that produce 2 ears per stalk. For obvious reasons.
• any snow pea but Norli ... I planted 4 different types this year and others the previous year. Snow peas don't exactly like this climate and must be planted very early to get a crop .. I plant in February.
 Most snow peas still yield too little for me, All but Norli. I won't bother with any other again.
•runner beans... Did surprisingly well planted extra early but wow! They take up tons of space! Not worth the space for the yield they gave to me. 
• fava beans... They are yummy and different but they yield low and I've decided they must hate it here. Only 1 variety I planted produced anything. I'd rather just have more snow peas planted in their space.

I think that sums up all the experiments this year!! Except for the sweet potatoes which haven't been all harvested yet. I planted 8 different heirloom varieties! Can't wait to get digging!

I don't experiment to this extent every year. Years I've had commitments to livestock I just don't have the extra time, unfortunately. Downsizing the livestock is going to have to happen. The gardens have just become too big of a money saver and key in self-reliance. 
Part of the reason I'm able to grow all our veggies and grain corn is that I experiment so it's really important! 

For a garden list comparing Snow peas check out this post- Snow Pea Variety Comparison
and for my January Garden Checklist go here What to do for the garden in January

Hope some of you in zone 7 find this helpful! 
Blessings for great future gardens!!! 

To help you achieve this check out this free GIvers and Takers Garden checklist to help you plan your garden! Givers and Takers Checklist PDF

Guinea Fowl for Organic Tick Control

Using Guinea Fowl for organic natural tick control works! But the challenges we face in raising and managing guinea fowl isn't easy. #guineafowl #homesteader

This year we found ourselves with only 3 Guineas. We've had Guiana fowl from the beginning of building our homestead. They were actually the first livestock I purchased for the farm!

Why Have Guinea Fowl?

Guinea Fowl yield dark nutritious meat and nice dense good flavored eggs! They are fairly high input needing a lot of grain during the winter months. Their feathers are beautiful and sell well to jewelry makers and other crafters.
They are commonly used as tick control and for 'watchdog' duties in the USA. Though they tend to be so loud all the time I'm not sold in the watchdog part. The Guineas just scream all the time so I never can tell when there is a threat. Geese are really better at warning if there's trouble because they have specific shrill screams they only sound when there's a threat. You can read more about geese for a small farm here The Perfect Homestead Goose if you like. 
However, for organic tick control, the hype is real!! There is no better option than Guineas! When we have a flock of 20 guineas we have no ticks on our property! Which is amazing for tick infested TN!

Using Guinea Fowl for organic natural tick control works! But the challenges we face in raising and managing guinea fowl isn't easy.

The Main Problem with Guineas for us

Guineas are very loud, obnoxious and tend to be pretty stupid. Still, for some reason, I really like these goofy little birds maybe it's their polka dot feathers? They can fly but it takes them a couple of years to be able to fly well! Please don't believe all that you hear about them flying helps protect them from predators. They typically do things like fly over our fencing and can't remember how to fly back over! Carrying on with all that noise like they do, they draw in predators and get eaten. The females also become sitting ducks when they make their nest in the spring. They like making their nest in tall brushy areas, Of course outside the fences! She will not leave her nest and gets killed protecting it. Many years we've started out with well over 20 Guineas to only end up with 3 or 4 to overwinter. 
If Guineas would just stay inside the fencing with the donkeys & nite guards they would be fine! Donkeys are excellent poultry guardians and won't eat your eggs like an lgd! You can read more about Donkeys in these posts Donkey uses on our farm and in my ebook if you think they might work out for you Donkey Primer Ebook

Last year we only had 4 Guineas so I bought in more and I think we had 17 mid-summer... By winter we had 4 males☹️ by tick season we had 3...
I was determined to be done with Guineas and never buy more. They are expensive to buy and expensive to raise up. Then I had several tick bites this year. Including a bad tick bite early summer which looked to be this.....  
http://www.cdc.gov/stari/disease/

Ok... I'll get more Guineas!  But I didn't want to mess with them this year. I've got too many geese and Muscovies to deal with! I'll get some next year!
Then last week I pulled a tick off my little Jack colt... 
And then I read this...

So here I am with 30 assorted Guineas on the way. Since Guinea Keets typically aren't available until May or June and it takes a couple of months of brooding and raising they aren't ready to patrol for ticks until late summer usually. So I'm better off ordering them now at the tail end of the season so next spring they are ready to work! 
Since I'm Not looking to pay over hundred dollars for birds and more in feed raising them to be predator food, this time I'll try having them pinioned so they can not fly out over fencing!
I'm getting them from this place... 
Using Guinea Fowl for organic natural tick control works! But the challenges we face in raising and managing guinea fowl isn't easy.

Is Pinioning Cruel? Will it help?

For those who may say pinioning is cruel..flying over the fence and Getting ripped apart by a fox or coyote or played with to death by neighbors stupid running loose dog is far worse IMO!

I will also mention that if you have any neighbors they might not appreciate your organic tick control efforts! 
We have 38 acres and no close neighbors. But our Guineas fly out of fencing and end up across a pasture and through a wood lot on our neighbor's lawn fairly often. That neighbor took us to court because we could not control our Guinea fowl. Under the TN law ' livestock at large,' they pressed charges.
It was a huge waste of our precious time to deal with this! And thankfully It was thrown out of court because our personal use for Guineas, organic tick control, didn't fall into the definition of livestock according to TN law. 
Our neighbor still has the right to shoot them if they are in his land though.

As you can see, for us, keeping Guineas just will not work out if they can't stay in our fencing and it's my responsibility to keep my animals on my property.
I certainly expect my neighbors to keep their animals on their property too. 

So here's to jumping in with pinioned Guineas and hoping my organic tick control will stay in our fences to do their jobs! I really hope it works!

Conclusion 

UPDATE:: Unfortunately even the pinioned guineas can fly over our goat fencing. They were all killed by predators. Heartbreaking because we like them and loved their ability to eat all the ticks.
We may try pinioned jumbo guineas at some point. Being heavier may help prevent them from flying.
It will be a while before I try though.
Until then I'll use homemade herbals for us and the livestock to help prevent being appetizing to the ticks.

I wish this story had a happy ending but many times with homesteading there is lots of sadness along with the rewards. Some things fit and work beautifully but many times things don't.

It is still a blessing to live the homestead life. There is joy all around. Some days we may just have to look a little harder!

I truly hope this post helps you avoid the issues we had trying to keep these neat little birds. They work wonderfully for many farms. They just don't seem to fit our personal farm situation.

Be blessed and happy homesteading!

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