Hunting 102: Where the Wild Things Are, and Are Not

Posted on June 30, 2012 · Leave a Comment

So, I am back to civilization after spending a week chasing mountain lions in Mendocino National Forest (yes, there are jobs where you get paid to harass wildlife, and that is a future blog post).

After carefully considering my previous question (see Hunting 101) I am sure you are all ready to charge into the wilds, guns blazing, right?? Maybe not so much…

Ask yourself what you want to hunt, what are your end goals (this ties into Hunting 101 a bit). Do you want to fill your freezer? Do you want to dip your toes to see if you like it before you commit to it? Do you want to hunt only nuisance and non-natives because that speaks to you more ethically? What habitat do you find you spend the most time in, or what animals have you wanted to get close to the most? Maybe you want to learn all you can about your quarry before venturing forth (this is my favorite answer, so extra bonus points). Answering this question also helps break up what seems a huge, life-altering activity into smaller, more manageable parts. You don’t have to immerse yourself whole-hog (I had to!). Dabble. I give you permission. In fact, I encourage it, because the more people there are that hunt that don’t reek of the quintessential ‘Bubba Hunter Extraordinaire’ the better!

Breaking it down also helps with the gear. Because, as with all human activities, there is gear involved. Most of you are on a budget and can’t run out and get all the goodies right away. Good thing I know this! Some groups of prey are easier to start with, based on skill level and gear requirements. My favorite is Upland Game Birds (this happens to be where my concentration is too), so my example is this: For first time Upland hunters, you need a gun, a pair of boots, ideally an upland hunting dog, and maybe a vest to carry food, water, ammo, and dead birds in. Contrast that to waterfowl hunting in a blind (what I grew up with) you need a boat probably, gun, waders, decoys, inclement weather gear and clothing, something to sit on, food and coffee, a retrieving dog, something to carry everything with, the skill to call ducks, and the skill to set up decoys. Whew!

Every animal (and human for that matter) has particular habitat needs. These needs fall into one of five categories: Food, Water, Cover, Space, and Arrangement. They differ for every animal species. Part of knowing your prey is to know their needs, and at what times of the year. All of these elements together is called HABITAT. And habitat is the key to everything. But more on that next time.

So, to make this easier, I am going to break it down, CA DFG-style. There is stuff you can hunt, and stuff you can’t. If it is an animal you can legally ‘take’ in CA, I have listed it below.

Game groups in CA are broken into the following groups for regulations and seasons:

Upland Game Birds: Pheasant, Quail (California or Valley quail, mountain quail, Gambel’s or desert quail), Chukar (or Red-Legged Partridge), Sage Grouse, Sooty and Ruffed Grouse, White-tailed Ptarmigan, Wild Turkey, Band-tailed Pigeon, Doves (Mourning, white-winged, spotted, Eurasian collared, and ringed turtle-doves), and Common snipe.

Waterfowl: American Coot and Common Moorhen, Ducks and Mergansers (including Mallard, Pintail, Canvasback, Redheads, Greater and Lesser Scaup, American Widgeon, Gadwall, Northern Shoveler, Green-winged and Cinnamon Teal, Common, Hooded, and Red-breasted Merganser, plus other uncommon ducks). Geese (Includes the categories Dark Geese: including Canada, cackling, aleutian, and white-fronted or “specklebelly’, Large Canada Geese: include western Canada geese “honker” and lesser Canada geese “lessers”, Small Canada Geese: include cackling and Aleutain geese, White Geese include Ross’ and Snow geese, and Black Brant).

Large Mammals: Deer (Black-tailed deer and Mule deer), Black bear, Feral hog (or wild pig), Elk (Tule Elk, Rocky Mountain Elk, and Roosevelt Elk), Pronghorn Antelope, and Nelson Bighorn Sheep.

Resident Small Game (or Small Mammals): Includes Tree Squirrels, Brush, Cottontail, and Pygmy Rabbits, Varying Hare (or Snowshoe Hare), and Black and White-tailed Jackrabbits.

Furbearing Mammals: Badger, Gray Fox, Muskrat, Mink, Beaver, and Racoon.

Non-Game: American Crow, Coyote, English sparrow, starling, weasels, skunks, opossum, moles, and rodents (excluding tree and flying squirrels, and those listed as furbearers, endangered or threatened species).

Next time: Hunting 103: Habitat, Schmabitat

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Filed Under: Foraging & Hunting

10 Repurposed (Free or Cheap) Things You Should Have

Posted on June 27, 2012 · 13 Comments

I was puttering around in the yard when I realized that we sure have a lot of random crap around our yard. I guess you can’t call it crap because it’s all really, really useful stuff. None of these items’ primary use is for gardening or livestock keeping but here we are using them all the time. So here’s my list of items that you should keep around if you are an avid gardener or own livestock.

5 Gallon Buckets

I honestly don’t know how I ever got through life without 5 gallon buckets. The food grade ones are awesome for storing food of course, though you need to take care to keep rodents out, but even the non-food grade ones are indispensable. I use them to mix potting soil, tools, irrigation supplies and pipe, and garden supplies. I also use them for harvesting larger amounts that my basket can’t handle (like the 70lbs of apricots we harvested this past weekend) and for collecting weeds in when I’m weeding. You can upend a bucket over a tender plant overnight if you’re suspecting a frost (just remember to remove it in the morning). We also cut them down, hook up a float and use them as automatic waterers (a very wise goat breeder told me that goats prefer to drink out of white buckets). You can even use them to make self watering planters!

Burlap Bags

These are the big bags that they ship coffee beans in. You can ask your local coffee roaster if they have any they can give you or sometimes the dump has pallets of them. We use them as weedblock (doesn’t work very well for bindweed or Bermuda grass though) and in our mushroom garden to keep logs moist. For events we use them as rustic table cloths but when we’re home they are useful for anything we need fabric for outside use. With the animals it works well for insulation on cold nights and for calming animals in distress when we have to isolate them. We also use it to help keep the chickens from sleeping in their nest boxes at night (in picture). By nailing one edge above the nest boxes and attaching a heavy bar to the opposite edge we can roll it up in the morning and bring it back down in the evening when everyone is done laying. Helps keep the boxes nice and clean because the girls can’t sleep in the boxes. Additionally you can use them as temporary planters by setting them upright filled with soil. The jury is still out though on whether they are good for potatoes.

Electrical Conduit

This is probably one of the most useful items we have around here. Tom works for an electrical wholesaler and so any bent pieces they receive he squirrels away until he has enough to bring home. We use it for making trellises for climbing veggies. When making trellises  you lash together two pipes (pound them into the ground some) on each end of the bed and then stabilize them with a pipe running through the crook made by the ends. Lash it all together and it should be pretty stable. Then we use line to run back and forth or up and down depending on what we’re planting. Beans and other twining veggies get a vertical trellis while grasping vines like peas, cukes and squash, get a horizontal trellis. Polyester line works well but we like to use the lines off of hay bales because they are stronger and last longer. Electrical conduit also works well for fence posts. When it involves keeping chickens out they are too thin for the chickens to jump up onto. We use it as the “rails” in our feed mangers for the goats and we even used it for building the chicken run. It is strong enough to support the wire that covers the run and was easily attached to the posts with pipe straps.

Stucco Wire

Similar to chicken wire, stucco wire is cheaper and stronger (after all, it has to hold the weight of stucco to a buildings). We primarily use it for temporary fencing and of course for poultry housing. It’s also good to wrap around newly planted plants to keep critters from digging them up. We use it in planters to keep the squirrels out and then we also tie scare tape to it to keep the birds away from by blueberries. It’s useful to use to for impromptu compost bins by wiring it into a circle because it allows for lots of airflow. It’s also a cheaper alternative to hardware cloth under raised beds to keep gophers out and also as cages under new trees and shrubs that you may plant to also keep gophers away.

Concrete Reinforcement Fabric

By far the BEST tomato cages available are the ones you make at home from a wire mesh meant for pouring concrete slabs. The spacing between the wire is perfect for reaching your hand through to pick even the biggest tomato but it’s also strong enough not to collapse under even the largest plant. We also use this mesh for tomatillos and you can make nice arbors with them. We’ve had ours for well over 5 years with no issues. At the end of the season you can open them back up and lay them flat or stack them in an out of the way place, which is what we do. There’s also an option to cut them into four pieces of equal size and then wire them into square cages which can lay flat for storage.

It also works well for potato towers because it’s strong enough to hold hay, soil and lots of potatoes!

Concrete Pavers or Bricks

We put in a patio in our backyard and ended up with a whole bunch of leftover pavers. People are always trying to offload extra brick and pavers on Craigslist and Freecycle so they are fairly easy to obtain. They can be used as small stepping stones through the garden if you don’t want to put down a path and just want something temporary. We also use them whenever we need a hard, level surface such as under water buckets. They are great for keeping wood and metal off of the ground as well. While galvanized metal is rust resistant it isn’t rust proof so we like to keep our metal pails on the pavers to reduce their contact with moisture from the soil. I also find them helpful protect our irrigation system, particularly where the risers come out of the ground. We stack them around the risers so that we don’t trip on them (makes them more visible) and also to keep us from damaging the rises with tools or wheelbarrows.

XL Wire Dog Grate

If you have livestock this is a must-have item. We have two of them plus a wire pen and all of them are in constant use around here. For rabbits they work well as temporary pens when you’re cleaning out hutches or just want to give them some time in the grass to play. We use the pen most often for this because it’s large enough to let them romp around. If you have chickens (same for turkeys and ducks) they are great for brooding chicks in. Unlike plastic dog crates, the wire ones have a removable bottom tray so you can get those chicks on the dirt as soon as possible. Plus this eliminates a slick footing which can cause splay leg in your chicks. They are also great for isolating a hen if she’s injured or broody, without separating her from her flock which is much less stressful. For goats it’s perfect for keeping the kids off of mom at night if you’re milking her in the morning. They sleep comfortably while still in full view of mom. I also use the crate for transporting the goats to the vet or breeder. It’s large enough for two dwarf goats to move around plus water and food.

Concrete Christy Boxes

These are the those boxes you see set flush in the sidewalk that have a concrete cover over them that usually says something like “Electrical” or “Water Meter.” They come in all different sizes from several feet long to 9″ rounds. The larger ones are the most useful for us as they make great deep raised beds in small spaces. The bonus is that they are concrete so they don’t disintegrate over time. They are also small enough to move around.

Old Recycle Bins

Remember back in the day when the recycle bins were just a small crate that you carried out to the curb? When we moved into our house we found over half a dozen of these boxes in our backyard. They’ve turned out to be extremely useful to us. We use the majority of them as storage bins for garden and irrigation supplies. We use them when weeding large areas because they are great for storing a lot of weeds between dumping. Flip them over and use them as a garden seat. We keep them out in the goat yard to either sit on or let the kids play on or in. I can also foresee making nest boxes out of them in the chicken house. Because they already have drainage holes in the bottom they can work as movable planters. Drill large holes in the sides, fill up with coffee grounds and grow oyster mushrooms in them as well. The uses are endless with these.

Pallets

The ubiquitous pallet can be had for free from many places. Tom’s work can’t get rid of them fast enough and has stacks of them in their yard waiting to find a new home. Pallets have been getting a lot of attention lately for their usefulness in the garden. From making vertical garden walls to temporary beds for lettuces they have a multitude of uses. We use them for a lot of things here. We built Turkey Town almost entirely out of pallets and burlap. We store our hay on them and we made a hive stand with one. We used them to make our potato bins, which we’re hoping increased yield this year. The uses of pallets are only limited to your imagination.

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Filed Under: DIY, Garden Planning, Gardening, Green Tips, Growing Tips, Livestock, Urban Farming & Homesteading

Soy Sauce and Apricots Did Me In

Posted on June 25, 2012 · 13 Comments

We’re about to enter our 22nd month of not buying food at the grocery store. The 22nd month. Nearly 2 years of avoiding processed food. I documented the first year over at our other blog, A Year Without Groceries, but have pretty much tapered off to a once a month cheese challenge post over there. It was too much to keep up both blogs especially right now when I’m in the midst of the worst writers block I’ve ever had. It’s why I haven’t posted much lately so forgive me.

Last week we decided to make some stir-fry for dinner from one of the wild turkeys that Tom had gotten last turkey season but we were out of soy sauce. We ended up digging out old, and I mean really old – in the realm of over 3 years old – packets of soy sauce that Tom had come across in our camping box. Looking back at it I realize it was pretty ridiculous and we probably should have just made something else for dinner.

And then this weekend our apricot tree decided it was time for us to take her bounty before the squirrels and birds descended upon her to clean her out. 70lbs of apricots came off of our little tree. My friend, Brandy, and I spent all day Sunday processing 60lbs of them. We made preserves, canned some in syrup, dried them and froze some. I stood there in my kitchen with 5 gallon buckets filled to the brim with apricots, no room to store them and not enough sugar or honey to process them. I had to use brown sugar instead, which I had just enough of to do a second batch of preserves.

This past weekend I had come to a realization. I chatted about it extensively with some of my homesteading/foodie friends to get their opinion. I talked with Tom quite a bit about it as well. I feel better about my decision and want to be upfront about it with all of you. I can’t do it all. I can’t make it all and I most certainly can’t bend the will of nature. If we want to preserve what we produce we can’t wait until our next buying club order which could be a month away or the next time we can harvest honey from our bees. There are some things I just can’t make efficiently (and sometimes legally) like soy sauce, fish sauce, hard alcohol, 5% acidity vinegar, cane sugar, etc. We’ve proven that we can give up the grocery store for nearly 2 years. We had to sacrifice the foods we loved because we couldn’t make them ourselves. So the decision has been made.

We’re going back to the grocery store. But there will be a big difference between going to the grocery store now versus the grocery store trips before our project. We will limit our trips to stores that we feel are more responsible. That means no Safeway or Lucky’s. Also we will not be purchasing baked goods, produce, meat, milk or eggs from the grocery store. And definitely no “convenience” foods. We will only be buying that which we can’t make or grow at home (like wheat and sugarcane). If we can make it, grow it or buy it directly from a farmer we won’t be buying it from the store.

To be honest, I was worried about discussing this here. One of my friends asked if I was concerned about losing readership because of this change. I was concerned but decided that it is more important that I be upfront and honest with my readers than just pretend everything is the same.

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Filed Under: Farm Diary

Book Review & Giveaway – A Chicken in Every Yard

Posted on June 19, 2012 · 25 Comments

*Update: Susan is our giveaway winner! Look for an email from us to get your address.

The Review

I rarely ever read a “reference book” all the way through. Actually I have never read a reference book all the way through (not even my college textbooks). That was until I got my paws on A Chicken in Every Yard by Robert and Hannah Litt, owners of the Urban Farm Store in Portland, Oregon. It was an easy and quick read while containing quite a bit of information. It is a great primer for those that are planning on getting some backyard chickens. It’s also got some good information if you have chickens including a health section that goes over the most common ailments that your chickens might suffer.

It goes over various topics including some of the more popular breeds of chickens, brooding chicks (more on that below), litter management, feeding, predators, clipping wings and introducing new birds. A Chicken in Every Yard even includes simple plans for building a basic chicken coop. It discusses various options for runs that will effectively keep your chickens safe and happy. It breaks down how much time per day you’ll need to work at keeping chickens depending on what management system you’re using.The most interesting chapter, to me at least, was about eggs. I never realized there were so many different parts to an egg. It’s also got some delicious looking recipes that utilize those tasty homegrown eggs.

Because there are as many management styles as there are chicken owners, there are some things that they recommend that I personally don’t follow. Their recommendations include the use of medicated feed which is definitely an option but I wish they would have discussed other management techniques such as brooding without the need for medication. The one great thing they offer in their chapter on chicks is a checklist of all the supplies you will need if bringing home chicks.

This book is targeted towards those that will be keeping chickens as “pets with benefits.” If you want a book that also covers chickens for meat this wouldn’t be the book for you as they are clear in the very beginning that they will not be discussing using chickens for meat – even retired chickens. And this is really the only source of contention that I do have with this book. They don’t push the issue in regards to what to do if you end up with a rooster (while not likely with sexed pullets it’s still a possibility that people need to think about) and they “highly recommend” sending retired hens to farm sanctuaries if people don’t want to keep them past their egg laying years which I find very irresponsible. I always tell people that there are only two choices when you have chickens. They are either a pet or they are dinner. But don’t let this turn you off from the book because otherwise it’s quite good and if you are new to chickens you’ll be successful if you follow their recommendations (even if there are other ways to do things).

The Giveaway

If you would like a chance to win this book please leave a comment with your beginning chicken keeping questions. For extra entries you can like us on Facebook for one entry and get another entry if you share this post on Facebook and/or Twitter (that’s 3 extra entries). Just leave a comment here that you’ve liked us (even if you already do) and/or shared this post.

The giveaway will go until midnight on Friday, June 22nd and I’ll announce the winner on Saturday, June 23rd. Unfortunately I have to limit it to residents of the U.S.

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Filed Under: Books, Chicken Health, Chickens, Current Events, Livestock, Urban Farming & Homesteading

Spicy Refrigerator Pickled Fennel

Posted on June 17, 2012 · 2 Comments

I didn’t think I over planted fennel. I only planted 10 plants but time got away from us and I only had used a couple of them. They were starting to bolt and I didn’t want to waste them so I decided on the hottest day of the year so far that I needed to pickle them as soon as possible.

Because it was so hot I decided that your standard pickles with the hot water bath just wasn’t going to happen. Our Wedgewood throws off some serious heat and we were out of propane for the outdoor burner. Refrigerator pickles, however, have minimal heat use so it really was going to be the best option. As long as we ate them up withing 3 months we wouldn’t have to worry about them spoiling.

Most people are turned off by the smell of fennel with is similar to black licorice. However I find when I cook it that taste and smell go away rather rapidly. The brine I made from this is very spicy so feel free to adjust the amount of red pepper flakes. It’s also a bit sweet but not as sweet as bread and butter pickles.

  • 16 cups trimmed and sliced fennel bulbs (a mandolin works best for this)
  • 4 cups apple cider vinegar, 5% acidity
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 2 Tbs kosher salt
  • 2 Tbs pickling spice
  • 2 Tbs red pepper flakes

Pack the sliced fennel into sterile quart jars (makes about 3 quarts). Combine the rest of the ingredients in a stock pot and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes. Ladle hot brine over the fennel in the jars and allow to cool to room temperature. Refrigerate and allow to marinate for 24 hours but best after 2 weeks. Enjoy!

 

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Filed Under: Preserving, Recipes, Vegetarian

Tequila Por Mi Amante or Strawberry Tequila

Posted on June 14, 2012 · 3 Comments

Strawberry season is here! What better way to spend a hot summer afternoon than hanging out with friends, barbecuing and drinking margaritas? I am rather partial to fruit margaritas, especially strawberry margaritas, which this tequila recipe is fantastic in. It’s best to start it soon so you’ll have it on hand by the time Summer starts.

What you need:
Large glass container
1/2 flat of strawberries, washed and sliced
Juice from 2 limes
1/4 c honey
Two 750mL bottles of Tequila

Process:
1. Put all ingredients in glass container making sure that the tequila completely covers the strawberries.
2. Cover tightly and store in a cool, dark place for 30-45 days.
3. Strain and chill.

I like to mix the tequila soaked strawberries with an equal amount of fresh strawberries and make tequila strawberry preserves.

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Filed Under: Drinks, Recipes Tagged With:

Frankensteer

Posted on June 12, 2012 · 1 Comment

Erica over at Northwest Edible Life posted yesterday about her experience 7 years ago witnessing a slaughter at a small ranch. The post is graphic so view it at your own discretion. I found her post well timed for me at least. The night before she posted it I had watched the documentary “Frankensteer” about the Canadian beef industry which isn’t much different than our own here in the U.S. Actually they discuss the U.S. industry quite a bit because they are so similar.

Here’s the full film. The picture quality isn’t the best so you can find it on Netflix Instant Watch if you prefer.

There were things I knew about the beef industry such as E. coli O157:H7 contamination and how cattle weren’t meant to eat grains, but the problems endemic in the system go much deeper than I could have imagined. The film discusses these issues, of course, but they also go deeper into discussing government scientists getting fired for insubordination when they disagree with drug use in beef cattle, issues with mad cow (BSE), and rampant antibiotic use. Definitely a good film to watch if you eat beef.

The combination of Erica’s post and this movie really drives home how important it is to know where your meat (and food in general) comes from.

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Filed Under: Current Events

Goats Will Mow Your Lawn and Other Livestock Myths

Posted on June 7, 2012 · 4 Comments

Out of all the grass clippings Daisy only wanted the twig

Myth: Goats will mow your lawn.

I see this one all the time. I’ve been asked about it, I’ve heard well meaning people tell other people. It’s just one of those misconceptions that everyone seems to repeat. The “goat services” don’t really help this rumor either. Goats are not very good at mowing your lawn. The reason the “goat services” have goats grazing is because that’s all they offer the goats to eat. Also, the grass they are usually eating starts out really tall, which they like. What goats are best for is eliminating invasive plants like Scotch broom, Himalayan blackberry, and kudzu. I am now seeing changes in the goat services which are now including sheep.

Goats are browsers rather than grazers like sheep. They prefer to eat food that’s above their shoulder height. My goats won’t even eat food that is touching the ground. We have a little pasture area for our goats. They pretty much ignore it until it’s taller than them and then they will munch it down to about knee level. It’s uneven and quite unattractive so if you’re looking for a nicely trimmed lawn goats aren’t going to do the trick. But they’ll have no problem pruning destroying your roses. The benefit of having browers is that they aren’t eating off of the ground exposing themselves to parasites. The downside is that they will eat all of your plants and trees if they get out.

Myth: Turkeys are dumb.

Well, maybe some turkeys are dumb like the broad-breasted industrial turkeys. But heritage turkeys? Not that dumb actually. Sure the poults don’t know what food is and will ingest their litter until they die. I swear repeatedly and loudly when I have to herd them somewhere, which is pretty much every day – worse than herding cats by a long shot. But here’s the thing with turkeys – they aren’t instinctual like chickens. Instead they learn from their mother (or you if you are hand raising them). Poults also have really poor eyesight when they are young so you have to take certain precautions to keep them from ingesting stuff they shouldn’t if you don’t have their mom caring for them. Shiny marbles in their feed help as does using feed for litter until they are eating out of their feeder regularly.

Myth: Chickens need a rooster to lay an egg.

A chicken is going to lay an egg no matter what. The only thing a rooster determines is if that egg is fertile or not. Think of it as a chicken getting her period every time she lays an egg. Sounds pretty miserable to me.

Myth: Goats will eat anything and everything.

I remember this storybook when I was a child about a goat that ate tin cans. A goat will probably mouth a tin can but won’t ingest it. Not having fingers and being curious animals, goats use their mouths to feel stuff like we do with our hands. Feeling stuff and chewing on stuff does not mean that they eat everything. They can be quite picky in reality.

Cornish X on the left, heritage bird on the rightMyth: Meat chickens are genetically engineered and fed hormones and antibiotics to grow so large.

The Cornish X – the typical commercial meat chicken breed – is simply a hybrid breed made up of a cross of White Cornish and White Plymouth Rock breeds. It’s not a GMO but simply the result of specialized proprietary breeding lines using those two breeds. I’ve raised them organically (no medications, hormones or antibiotics) and they still grow freakishly fast.

Myth: Livestock will bring rats.

Just like if you leave out cat and dog food, if you leave out livestock feed the rats will come. Keeping the feed out of their reach by storing feed in metal cans with rodent-proof lids and hanging feeders in places that rats can’t access (from the ceiling of the coop and at least 9″ off the ground) or only feeding what can be immediately consumed you shouldn’t have a problem. Plus chickens will kill rodents. Restaurants, grocery stores and your garbage can are much larger concerns in regards to attracting rodents.

None of these bees attempted to sting me even though we were in their hive

Myth: Bees will harass you and sting you.

Bees would actually prefer not to sting you. A bee only gets one shot and if you aren’t bothering them (stepping on them or threatening their hive) they’ll leave you alone. Wasps, yellow jackets and Africanized bees are a different story and can be quite aggressive. But the honey bee is easy to live with. I regularly do maintenance around the hives in my normal clothes with no issue. The chickens like to take dust baths and sit in the shade under them.

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Bees, Chickens, Goats, Livestock, Turkeys, Urban Farming & Homesteading

Not Enough Time?

Posted on June 6, 2012 · 6 Comments

I’ve been noticing/reading/hearing a lot of “I don’t have enough time” lately when it comes to gardening. Even people who love to garden are lamenting about how much time it takes them. No one has the time. Well, maybe they do, they just don’t know it yet. Time management is what I do. I’m a project manager in charge of projects as small as the private backyard to as large as an international airport. So for me time really does equal money. And layout is extremely important.Without a good layout you will lose a lot of efficiency.

Tom and I both work full time jobs. We carpool leaving at 5:45am every morning and getting home between 4:45pm and 5pm every night. When we get home we check/feed the livestock and then harvest. Tom is usually working on some random project after work and then I’ll get dinner ready.

Usually our actual garden time takes us about 15 min. a day and it’s generally just one of us that does it. For those that aren’t familiar with it, it’s quite sizable. We have three 4′w x 75′ l beds, two 4′w x 42′ l beds, one 5′w x 30′l bed, two 4′x4′ herb beds, 24 fruit trees, and various fruiting shrubs.

I say we harvest only. Yes, that’s all we do. We rarely weed, we don’t water, and we certainly don’t spray.

Weeds were really only a concern in the very beginning of the season when the plants were young. I found that if you wait just a little while, most will get crowded out by bigger weeds and they you’ll end up pulling a lot fewer. Of course it depends on what type of weed. Bindweed requires all sprouts to be pulled. But for most others, it works well. Once the plants get large they shade out most weeds so we don’t need to pull anymore. This works best when using wide rows (3-4′ wide) because the plant foliage covers more area.

Another way to avoid weeds is to use raised beds with weed cloth on the bottom. Of course fill the beds with clean topsoil and compost so as not to introduce seeds. Raised beds also eliminate the need to dig in the beginning of the season saving you even more time. We don’t have raised beds, but we also no longer dig. We double dug each bed only once when we first create it and then we just put a layer of compost over the bed each fall and leave it be. It’s important to not walk on the beds ever, though, when you do this to avoid compacting the soil.

As for watering, I can’t say enough good things about automatic irrigation systems! They are well worth the initial investment and energy to install. Even an irrigation system with a simple pneumatic timer (think kitchen timer) is better than hand watering everything. Plus the drip irrigation helps control weeds because the water goes just to the plant, not to everywhere else.

Pests. Yes, we have pests. But I don’t spray for them because we also have beneficial insects and honeybees. The pest load isn’t overburdening our plants so I’m just letting them be. We’ll squish a cucumber beetle if we come across it, but otherwise, that’s about it.

Now with the harvest comes preserving. I will freeze fruits until I have enough time to process them. During the harvest season I focus on veggies that don’t take freezing well such as cucumbers. During the week we just stack veggies in the fridge and whatever doesn’t get eaten by Saturday or Sunday morning I will preserve.

So to save as much time as possible for other things life may throw at you, sit down and come up with a plan. The initial investment and time put into laying out your garden correctly and putting in infrastructure will save you so much time in the future.

If you need help with this, we are more than happy to help. Just ask.

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Filed Under: Garden Planning, Gardening

Raised Beds vs. Rows

Posted on June 5, 2012 · 5 Comments

There are many types of vegetable gardens out there from the traditional rows – one plant wide row with walkways in between – to raised beds (and wide beds) or more natural, loose organic gardens. I try to stay away from rows because they are much less space efficient than the other two  types. With rows you end up devoting a lot more land to walkways, which isn’t a good use of space if you’re trying to maximize your harvest. They do make harvesting easier and are better suited for using equipment which is why some people still use them.

 

At our old house we used raised beds which have many benefits. You can lay hardware cloth (metal mesh) and weedblock under them to keep out gophers, voles and weeds. They are the perfect solution for problem soils whether you’re dealing with heavy clay or lead contamination (use filter fabric underneath to keep soil from migrating into the bed). They can be used on slopes as terraced beds (just make sure you have proper supports to hold the weight of the soil).

Organic, loose garden beds are a personal preference for many people. Lines are not straight and the plants are not organized into rows. I do really enjoy the looks of these types of gardens because they are productive while also being very aesthetically pleasing. There is usually more mixing of plants since rows are being utilized which can be very beneficial in regards to companion planting and confusing pests.

We currently use wide beds. Raised beds are cost prohibitive at our scale and rows don’t produce enough. A 4′ wide bed can produce 4x more produce than a row of the same square footage. Plants are closer together (no walkways in between) which means less weeding when the plants get larger and shade the soil.

Of course what you choose to go with is totally up to you because it really is personal preference. As much as I love the organic flowing look I’m just too OCD to try it.

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Filed Under: Garden Planning, Gardening, Growing Tips, Urban Farming & Homesteading
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