Category Archives: Growing Groceries – Plants, Seeds and Growing Tips

The Twelve Days of Urban Farming Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2011 by Annette Cottrell| 3 Comments

art print by Watts Publishing Company

On the first day of Christmas by husband gave to me a partridge rock in a pear tree.

Dovecote from Google Images

On the second day of Christmas my husband gave to me two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

French Marans courtesy of www.MyDarkEggs.com

On the third day of Christmas my husband gave to me three French Marans, two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

On the fourth day of Christmas my husband gave to me a four-tined garden fork, three French Marans, two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

Golden Wynadotte at www.MyPetChicken.com

On the fifth day of Christmas my husband gave to me five golden Wynadottes, a four-tined garden fork, three French Marans, two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

Slug-eating-duck from Google

On the sixth day of Christmas my husband gave to me six slug-eating ducks, five golden Wynadottes, a four-tined garden fork, three French Marans, two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

On the seventh day of Christmas my husband gave to me seven tilapia swimming (in a rainbarrel), six slug eating ducks, five golden Wynadottes, a four-tined garden fork, three French Marans, two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

Image of Milking Goat from Google

On the eighth day of Christmas my husband gave to me eight mini goats-a-milking, seven tilapia swimming (in a rainbarrel), six slug eating ducks, five golden Wynadottes, a four-tined garden fork, three French Marans, two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

Garden Whirligig from Google

On the ninth day of Christmas my husband gave to me nine whirligigs dancing, eight mini goats-a-milking, seven tilapia swimming (in a rainbarrel), six slug eating ducks, five golden Wynadottes, a four-tined garden fork, three French Marans, two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

Mason Bees on Flickr

On the tenth day of Christmas my husband gave to me ten mason bees a-flying, nine whirligigs dancing, eight mini goats-a-milking, seven tilapia swimming (in a rainbarrel), six slug eating ducks, five golden Wynadottes, a four-tined garden fork, three French Marans, two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

Worms from wormfactory.us

On the eleventh day of Christmas my husband gave to me eleven worms a-casting, ten mason bees a-flying, nine whirligigs dancing, eight mini goats-a-milking, seven tilapia swimming (in a rainbarrel), six slug eating ducks, five golden Wynadottes, a four-tined garden fork, three French Marans, two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

Seeds image from Google

On the twelfth day of Christmas my husband gave to me twelve seeds for planting, eleven worms a-casting, ten mason bees a-flying, nine whirligigs dancing, eight mini goats-a-milking, seven tilapia swimming (in a rainbarrel), six slug eating ducks, five golden Wynadottes, a four-tined garden fork, three French Marans, two doves (in a dovecote) and a partridge rock in a pear tree.

Wishing that all your urban farming dreams come true!

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Christmas, Growing Groceries - Plants, Seeds and Growing Tips

Uber Raised Beds – aka Hugelkultur

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Annette Cottrell| 10 Comments

I’ve been watching this property throughout the winter, noted the keylines and how the water flows. I see what is swampy and filled with buttercups in the paddock. Although the forested areas (which are most of the property) have soft, loamy deep gorgeous soil from hundreds of years of leaves and needles and branches deteriorating, the area where the garden is has no topsoil. You hit bedrock literally an inch down.

To make matters worse, the former homeowners built a driveway that heads nearly straight down hill, towards the house and garage, and towards the garden. They brought in what must have been many dump trucks full of crushed gravel for the drive, the parking area and all the garden pathways. The end effect of this is to create a river that speeds surface runoff toward the house, the other structures and ultimately into the garden. When it rains, the parking area and the garden quickly become a rising lake.

To make the garden more productive and more flexible I’ve spent months digging out the compact gravel pathways by hand, removed the logs that held the old beds in place, brought in a dump truck full of topsoil. I’ve been slowly adding to that with composted animal bedding but with an area this large it’s going to take years to create a sponge big enough to soak up the excess water that I know is heading my way in April.

I’ve finally decided the best thing to do is create the ultimate raised bed. I’ll be digging out the topsoil and compost that I’ve brought in, and piling it up into large mounds three feet high to create small polyculture plantings.

To create the raised beds I’m gathering a wide variety of plant matter in various states of decomposition. Logs in various stages of rotting, branches, hay and wood chips from bedding, manure, leaves, compost and a shovel full of vermicompost complete with worms. I’ll create large mounds with this material and then cover them with soil and hay until planting time. The beauty of using such a large variety of plant matter is that they will release a wide variety of nutrients over a long time. The compost and wood chips and hay will begin releasing nutrients fairly quickly while the logs will release slowly over ten to twenty years.

Each mound will hold a fruit tree, fruiting bushes, a nitrogen fixer, a nutrient accumulator, and other edible or beneficial plants. Alliums and wormwood to thwart the mole, comfrey, lambsquarters, plantain, alfalfa, lupin, dock, clover, chamomile and others to accumulate and fix nutrients from the soil and the air, to attract beneficial insects, to eat or to admire.

The mounds themselves will act as sponges, soaking up that channeled water and act as a reservoir all summer long for those plantings. This provide moist, rich but well drained soil. For now I’m busy bringing in wheelbarrels of bedding and everything else from the forest floor. Once the beds are done I’ll provide a progress report.

Thinking back on how much money I’ve spent in my lifetime on cedar beds – if only I had known about this then! With our wet winters here in the Pacific Northwest, these free raised beds are quite brilliant. If you want to learn more about hugelkultur you can find some wonderful material in Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture

Have you ever tried hugelkultur? Do you think it might solve drainage issues you have in your garden?

→ 10 Comments

Posted in Growing Groceries - Plants, Seeds and Growing Tips, Permaculture

Tagged ,

Simple Lives Thursday, November 24, 2011

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Annette Cottrell| 3 Comments

Welcome back to Simple Lives Thursday – a time where we share simple living tips, tricks and projects that we have going.

Please read and follow the Simple Lives Thursday bloghop rules

1. If linking real, traditional and simple recipes, please make sure all ingredients used are whole. Such as whole grains, vegetables, legumes, meats, even sugar. In order to keep the integrity of nourishing food, we will delete any recipes that utilize processed, boxed foods. We are definitely not going to be ingredient policeman, however, please note that this is a hop hosted by advocates of the real, local and sustainable food movements.

2. Please link your posts back to one of the hosting blogs. This is a common blog hop courtesy. This link helps build the Simple Lives Thursday community by sending your readers to all of the other participants posts. We all end up sharing and learning from each other.

Featured Posts from Last Week’s Submissions

SLT Featured Post Badge

Featured Posts from Last Week’s Submissions

SLT Featured Post Badge

We really enjoy reading your posts each week! Featured post bloggers, please grab the badge above and display it on your site! Link it to one of the host blogs’ posts for the specific week that you were featured.

Here are our picks from last week’s submissions. Thanks to all who participated — it is always hard to choose!

1. What Do I Do With All That Milk by Prairie Sunrise Homestead. Marg shares what she does with all the milk from her milk cow, Happy. A great name for a cow, and the goodies will have you drooling. :)

2. Pumpkin Pie without Canned Milk by Peaceful Acres Farm. A real food pumpkin pie sans canned milk — are you one of the hundreds looking for this? Look no more!

3. How to Render Lard by Katy She Cooks. “All you need is a crockpot, a fine-meshed sieve or cheesecloth, and glass jars to store your finished product.” Thanks for a great tutorial, Katy!

 

The Simple Lives Thursday Blog Hop

Your Hosts

  1. Wardeh from GNOWFGLINS
  2. Me!
  3. The other bloggers are temporarily taking much needed breaks

Wherever you choose to post, it will show up on all 2 sites! As a reminder, this blog hop is a way to share with many people your posts on what you are doing to live a simple life. Whether that’s gardening, raising urban chickens, homeschooling, sewing, making your own deodorant, or cleaning supplies – we want to know about it! If you’re into homeopathy, ways to save money by conserving energy or other ways to live frugally – we want to know about it! If you bike, cook real food, homestead or farm – we want to know about it!
 

 

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Growing Groceries - Plants, Seeds and Growing Tips

Tagged

Upcoming Workshops

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Annette Cottrell| 2 Comments

I’m trying to keep track of my schedule this fall and it just dawned on me that if I post it here I can find it again (unlike my notes scrawled on envelopes.) Not only that but just maybe some of you might actually come join me if you know where I’ll be!

Inland NW Permaculture Conference

November 4-6; Spokane Falls Community College
http://www.InlandNorthWestPermaculture.com

Workshop #1: Urban Farming.
Is that a goat in your Subaru and a duck in your rain barrel? Find out just how much farming can happen on a small city or suburban lot. Workshop will cover integrating small livestock into your garden, maximizing small-space harvests and strategies for optimizing city light conditions.

Workshop #2: Farmer to Consumer Connections.
Join the growing number of consumers who want to cultivate direct relationships with farmers. This workshop will explain why farmer’s markets aren’t enough to increase local food security or make local, organic produce affordable for the masses. We’ll cover how consumers can find farmers, how farmers can find consumers, and how together they can craft bulk buys.

WSU Country Living Expo and Cattlemen’s Winter School

January 28 Stanwood High School
http://www.Skagit.WSU.edu/CountryLivingExpo/index.htm”
Workshop 1: Integrating small livestock into your garden.

Learn how even the smallest urban farm can integrate livestock to help keep the system healthy. Class will cover how chickens, ducks, rabbits and fish can help you design micro-climates in even the smallest garden, while contributing pest management, manure, soil tillage, and valuable sustenance.

Workshop 2: Grinding and Soaking Local Grains (and What to do With Them).

Learn how to buy, store and prepare local grains.
Class will cover why soaking grains increases their nutritional value. We’ll also discuss local grain farmers, bulk grain storage, home grain grinders, home-milled flour, and demonstrate sifting out large bran chunks to give you a healthy alternative to refined flour. Participants will leave with recipes for whole wheat sandwich bread that isn’t a brick, spelt power pancakes and we’ll be making oatmeal/spelt raisin cookies.

Northwest Flower and Garden Show

February 8-12, WA State Convention Center
http://www.GardenShow.com
Workshop 1: The Winter Vegetable Garden – Getting the Most from NW Edible Gardens in Winter

2/11, 4:30 pm in the Hood room
Maximize your winter yields through proper plant selection and cultivation practices. We’ll cover how to plan and start winter crops during the summer (while your garden is full of summer bounty). We’ll also cover inexpensive low-tech season extenders like hoop tunnels, floating row cover, cold frames, hot houses and cloches.

Workshop 2: The “No-Effort” Edible Garden – Reap a Bounty of Edibles with Minimal Effort

2/12, 3:45 pm in the Rainier room
The perennial and reseeding garden is the perfect solution for those who don’t have the time, desire or ability to actively garden. We’ll explore a long list of perennial and promiscuous vegetables and fruits suited to our Pacific Northwest climate, as well as sources for starts and seeds.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Growing Groceries - Plants, Seeds and Growing Tips

A Change in the Weather

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Annette Cottrell| 9 Comments

This last week things have really shifted from late summer sun to fall drizzle. The days are noticeably shorter and the animals and wasps are feeding voraciously. The bobcat is teaching her young how to hunt and the coyotes are taking down deer around here. I’ve been busy preparing too, sensing the final lap in the food preservation marathon.

Despite kitten-induced bursitis (read, cannot bend knee for several months) I managed to get in all the winter/spring starts from Cascadian Edibles (they are the rocking start CSA that I mention in the book, totally coming to save the day for me this year). Then I realized just how full of slugs my garden was so I moved the ducks out from the poultry area. They have been fairly well-behaved around the starts, focusing instead on slugs.

Awesomest husband finished building the rabbit shelter and I finished building larger cages so they would actually be able to hop around.

Just in time too, because Nibbles had her kits last Thursday just about dark.

This bunny is four days old and just starting to get fur. There are six babies in total. Many people have a hard time understanding how we can celebrate the birth of these small creatures which will one day grace our table. It’s easy to imagine a chicken farmer enjoying his baby chicks, knowing that some day they will be dinner. And if you don’t want to buy factory farmed food, need to keep your food costs down, and want to control the diet, lives and deaths of the animals you are responsible for – rabbits just make sense. Until post World War II rabbits kept many families in protein, but then we became this affluent society too good for our roots. In the forties north of Seattle, my father had the childhood job of working in a meat house processing rabbits. And already in the partial span of one generation they are no longer main stream cuisine. Unless you are a foodie and can afford it from a butcher’s shop that is.

Raising chickens takes longer, costs more, and requires more space to keep them healthy. Here’s some rabbit math for you: a rabbit can breed when it’s six months old. That rabbit can have four litters a year, with six to eight rabbits per litter. It takes 8 weeks to raise a batch to “market” weight, or “table” weight in my case. Baby rabbits nurse for six of those eight weeks so their food requirements are minimal. Rabbits gain weight well year round, unlike chickens that work great when the weather is warm but don’t gain rapidly in our cool winters and springs. And also, rabbits don’t need heat lamps.

One other great thing about rabbits: compost. I’ve designed this rabbit shelter so that it’s elevated enough to have compost piles underneath. I’m still working on those but they will have raised sides so I can pile it up and have some kind of chicken wire cover so the chickens can get at the scraps and some of the worms but not totally destroy my entire worm population. My goal this winter is generating as much compost as I possibly can to regenerate the depleted garden and orchard soils here. Between the goats, rabbits, chickens and ducks I think I just may be able to finally make enough compost. Rabbit’s eat primarily alfalfa so their droppings are nutrient dense amendment without a ton of weed seeds.

The fall weather has me in the kitchen, baking up tons of bread. This is one rare time you’ll find white flour in my kitchen but sometimes you just need some holes in your baguette and whole grains don’t give you that like white flour does.

I’ve been finishing off the last of the tomatoes from the big buy a few weeks back. I’ve fermented salsa, canned salsa and sauced roasted tomatoes until the goats came home. I’m making some cheesy tomato tarts with Beecher’s for the freezer. It’s nice to have something to pull out of the oven and not have to think about dinner on occasion – and especially nice while flipping through seed catalogs in January deciding which varieties of tomatoes to plant.

How about you – what have you been up to this week? Are you putting the garden to bed or planting out your winter starts?

Related Posts with Thumbnails

→ 9 Comments

Posted in Ducks, Meat Rabbits, Winter Gardening