New site

I am moving my blog over to a new space Turning Wheel Farm. This is the name I will be using for selling eggs, produce, herbs, etc. at a farmer’s market this year and also when I expand next year.

 

Growing List

I don’t like planting tons of stuff from seed and starting it early but I have worked out a good system in past years for starting some indoors and then direct seeding a lot of the other plants.  I use Territorial Seed for the most part because I like them, they are local and the varieties are of course tested for the area and not in the Midwest somewhere. Tomato and pepper plants are grown from starts from the farm store usually and then potatoes are from seed potatoes planted in March.

Basil
Bright Lights Swiss Chard
Babylon Hybrid slicing cucumber
Miniature white novelty cucumber
Lemon cucumber
Carrots cumbre hybrid
Carrots nelson hybrid
Yaya Carrots
Canoe Peas – Canoe
Ching-Chiang Pac Choi – Ching-Chiang
Chioggia Beet Seeds
Coriander-Santo (Cilantro)
Cube of Butter Squash – Cube of Butter Squash Seeds
Dakota Peas
Fiesta Broccoli Seeds
Jade Bean – JadeLettuce Pot and patio blend
Lettuce salad bowl oak leaf
Mokum Carrots
Patio Star Squash
Purple Haze Carrots
Red Kuri Squash
Regatta Spinach
Royal Burgundy Bean
Speedy BeanTomato organic beaverlodge sliver ultra early
Thelma Sanders’ Sweet Potato Squash Seeds
Touchstone Gold Beet

Herbs

thyme
lovage
sage
marshmallow
rosemary
mugwort

and many more but haven’t done my herb seed order yet

Fruit 

strawberries

peaches 2

plums2

Asian pear 1

bartlett pear 1

Persimmon 1

There are cherry trees nearby to harvest and then tons of apples everywhere for free in the fall.

Tags: bartlett pear, broccoli seeds, royal burgundy, squash seeds

Getting ready for Spring

This year I mean business with growing things! I don’t have land yet but I am going to grow our fruit, veggies and chickens for meat and eggs. I am making our own juices and alcohol too. There isn’t any reason that I can’t start small and then when I move to a piece of land I can take the knowledge I have and kick it up a notch. I sent out an e-mail to a few friends to see about the interest in chicken so I can make sure to have only the amount we can all use. No one has a big freezer though my parents have two regular size ones so we can only raise as many as we can all use and freeze. I cannot buy chicken from the regular grocery store without a lot of guilt about what went into that animal before it got to me and how it’s life was. Our raised beds are a good size for placing a chicken tractor (moveable pen) on top of and then it will get fertilized while the chickens are on it too. I haven’t constructed my tractor yet but I have a baby gate idea and also can get free wood nearby to construct one to fit over a raised bed.

I did our seed order from Territorial Seed and they arrived on Thursday. I set up a growing area near the sliding glass door so the seedlings will get real sun and also the grow lights that I set up. Willow had this storage shelf in her closet and I realized that she doesn’t need it because she has a dresser now. I think the lights were $17 each or so at Lowes and the seedling trays were together $8. I put the homemade hard cider and mead on the shelves so they aren’t in the kitchen on the counter taking up space. Some of the airlocks don’t fit under the counter and it was causing a problem for storing them. I will do a separate post on fermenting in summer vs. winter soon including information on different yeasts and temperatures.

 

Cider mistakes

I didn’t exactly read directions before I started making cider and I don’t know why. I just used the stuff they gave me to add to it including the yeast and then waited until I thought it was done. Most of it wasn’t actually “done” because I bottled it and then several bottles exploded upon opening because I had added sugar to them too close to bottling. This causes carbonation and is done on purpose in a small amount if you want your cider carbonated. If you want your cider sweeter tasting you have to add an artificial sweetener like Splenda or Xylitol because the sugar will just get eaten by the yeast during fermentation.

One other horrific discovery was that some of my cider smelled like rotten eggs. So I guess apples have alot of sulfur compounds in them, or the yeast coverts something in them into hydrogen Sulfide gas (rotten egg smell). I found this out after I smelled one of the ciders that was bottled already and I hadn’t left it to ferment long enough. The smell also is happening in one of the ciders that is in the carboy right now. It’s supposed to go away after primary fermentation which is good. You are supposed to leave the cider to ferment for about 4 months not 6 weeks like I had originally tried. I was just impatient and wanted to use the carboys to start something else.

Fermenting things in the Winter  is sort of tricky because the temperature drops lower obviously and then the fermentation doesn’t stay steady. This can be fixed with an electric blanket or just putting the carboys somewhere warmer in your house. The reason that the apple cider needs to be fermenting now is because the apples didn’t ripen till September or early October here. This year I will start some in September though. There are also yeasts that do better at cooler temperatures which I also did not take into consideration.

I am also making a honey mead with vanilla, a pumpkin mead and then some kombucha tea.

Planning for Spring

I have made up a flow chart of sorts so that I can keep on track with what I am doing in my agricultural-horticultural goals. It isn’t a flow chart really but I like the idea of making one and also drawing plans for what I want to do with the land once I get it. I have thought about leasing land and that is still a viable option but I will have to keep my eye out for it on Craigslist. Often they want just a share of the produce from what you grow and that would be great. This area has a lot of land not being used for it’s intended purpose in my opinion and it might just take the right situation (that’s close enough to home for me to get to it ) to have things go really well for me this year.

I don’t want to end up with too many laying hens and I am considering the idea of getting dual purpose breeds and then using them for both so I don’t have so many in the backyard for so long.  One of my neighbors doesn’t mind at all and the other one is a crazy lady and recently was yelling so loud at night at her ex-husband that I really feel like getting more chickens that cluck when they lay an egg is nothing compared to her being crazy every now and then and yelling.  I am going to be a responsible animal owner though and not do that.

You also shouldn’t let your chicken sit on your couch.

No job

Small CSA from home (includes eggs)

Sell extra eggs to people (neighbors)

Raise 15 meat birds and sell to friends and neighbors

Buy fridge for garage

 

Job

Small CSA from home (includes eggs)

Sell extra eggs to people (neighbors)

Raise 15 meat birds and sell to friends and neighbors

Buy fridge for garage

Buy land

 

2011 changes

This past year I have gone from eating some chicken, turkey and fish to eating chicken, turkey, fish and pork. If I know where it comes from and how it was raised then I can eat it and enjoy it. If it’s from the grocery store and it’s not free range and organic and free from cruelty I have a hard time eating it. This has left me with two solutions either I raise my own or I buy the meat from someone who raises it locally in a humane way.

I read the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and watched the movie “Food Inc.” this year. After this sunk in my way of eating has changed after I realize where my food has come from and more importantly how it was handled and treated. Some people think that eating any meat is wrong and cruel but eating meat from an animal that was treated well and allowed to roam and be itself is ok with me. It is giving the animal it’s life to serve it’s purpose until it gives it’s life to us.

Growing fruits, vegetables and herbs is still important to me. I also want to add eggs in a larger scale, goat’s milk, cheese and some poultry and pork. There isn’t anyone in the area that raises pheasants and sells them for meat so I am thinking that might be a good niche for me along with my chickens, rare turkeys and the eggs and veggies. I don’t want to limit myself but I don’t want to start off to big either and get overwhelmed.

So speaking of starting off that’s what is going to happen in the Spring here. I will at the least have more chickens for eggs, vegetables, fruit, herbs, starter plants and then chicken meat. I will not have it in a larger scale and won’t have the other animals of course until I move to the property. The property is between 2-10 acres in my mind and affordability. In order to start a small farm with any animals I have to be able to be there on the property. I would need a mobile home to do that. There are a couple of options with property that have a mobile home on them. If that doesn’t work then I can buy land which may be even cheaper anyways and then not do animals till later on. I wouldn’t have to sleep over with my vegetables!

From 2001 when I went to a farmer’s market to do a story in Dundee, OR, I have seen the absolute amazing impact small farmers can have. A man who had a box of peaches was beaming with joy offering them to an older woman who was delighted to pick the ones she wanted and pay him for them. One peach or pumpkin at a time bringing food to people in the community is something that I have always wanted to do.

My plans

I am still planning my small farm and have a calendar, rough business plan, inspiration, determination, but no land or money. I went out to another piece of land with a small trailer on it and if it includes a lot of the flat property leading up to it then it is almost perfect. The price is not perfect yet and also I have to figure out how to talk my husband into it when I have no income upfront. I actually did a sample budget and figured out that I can make enough with a small CSA, plants and chicken and eggs the first year to cover the mortgage every month but beyond that not too much.

I have applied for 30 part-time jobs and so far got one call on my cell phone. I need something very part-time because I can’t do this and be putting tons of hours into another job year-round. There is one job that is going to be “mine” this year but I am not sure how long I have to wait. The real estate market is still pretty bad so a lot of property is staying on the market for months or years anyway. The idea of Spring and getting the catalogs in the mail is making me anxious. This year I will still be able to do vegetables at the grower’s market with other small growers, sell eggs, sell chicken from my garage and plants. I can’t do everything here but I can still do quite a bit even though I really want my room to roam.

Apple cider brewing notes

I made hard apple cider for the first time this year with a friend. We used local apples, purchased and stolen as well as a few from somewhere else in Washington.

The first batch was too watery and used a dry wine yeast for mead, not sweet or apple tasting really, though if you mix it with juice it’s drinkable. The way I made this batch was by using the blender and apples and then trying to strain the apples through a cloth. It didn’t work because I didn’t have enough patience and then I found my juicer in the garage and I did a second bath.

The second batch was using the juicer and began with 8 gallons I thought of the apple juice through the juicer via 30 some pounds of apples. Added SN9 premium wine yeast for country wines, yeast nutrient, potassium metabisulfite and pectic enzyme. This sat for a month and then I added half a cup of sugar and put into the one-gallon carboys. It made only 3 gallons. I don’t know if it evaporated or not. Seems to be accurate and very high alcohol content in the cider this time.

These are the one-gallon glass carboys and you can see that the cider has left it’s sediment behind. When I rack or bottle or rebottle this into either another carboy or directly into bottles the sediment is left behind rather than put into bottles. I tasted a bit of this second batch and it’s way better and highly alcoholic!

I purchased a turkey baster to transfer it into bottles because my siphon hose thing that I use doesn’t always work unless there’s enough of a gravity difference from having the container high and then the bottle though.

Tags: apple cider, apples, brewing, cider

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone! I am very thankful for all I have this holiday and hope that everyone can keep a few thankful thoughts in their heart today.

I have noticed the past year or two that the holidays seem to be getting back to the basics a little more. From what people look at as important like food, traditions, family and being together with people you treasure to the real meaning of the holidays I think a lot of people are getting the idea. It’s not all about presents and expectations from others.

I have  some ideas for posts including holiday gifts to share soon. I am also not giving up my dream of having a small farm and small farm business in the near future. Currently I am looking for a job to support that next venture and am very hopeful.

Goat Song

I read the book “Goat Song” by Brad Kesseler from the library in one day and decided to post a review. I have dreamed of having dairy goats for many years and am not swayed from that pursuit but encouraged after reading this book.

The following excerpt/summary is from Amazon.

“Brad Kessler lived in New York City but longed for a life on the land where he could grow his own food. After years of searching for a home, he and his wife, photographer Dona Ann McAdams, found a mountain farmhouse on a dead-end road, with 75 acres of land. One day, when Dona returned home with fresh goat milk from a neighbor’s farm, Kessler made a fresh chèvre, and their life changed forever. They decided to raise dairy goats and make cheese.”

This book is like a daily diary through the seasons as the couple lives with goats and learns about their personalities their breed and how to live in harmony with the animals that feed them.

Kessler explains how it is to herd the goats and just be still and watch them. He includes the history of herding as well as how songs and poetry came from goats and the people they have inspired.

After making cheese in the end it turns out that he is in fact a very good cheesemaker, with his first cheeses getting praise from chefs and restaurants.

They start with four goats and breed two of them. This is followed by Kessler helping his wife Dona, a trained doula, with the birth of four goat kids. There is perhaps too much information about taking the goats to be bred when they think they are in heat as well as in-depth breeding details, but it all kind of goes along with the first-time goat ownership.

The couple also helps a neighbor with haying which I found really fascinating because I tend to get a little excited when it’s hay season here even though I have no need for hay, nor do I grow it or help bail it at anytime. I think it’s a good sign of the season and it’s interesting to note Kessler’s description of the differences in hay and humidity and contents and smell. I thought I was the only weirdo who thought like that.

There is a cheese journal including how much milk the get from the does on each day and what they do with the milk as well as if Hannah, the more stubborn milker puts her foot in the bucket and renders the milk unusable.

This book is a treasure of writing on pastoral living and makes cheese making and goat tending to seem to be such a worthwhile endeavor.

Tags: books, cheese, goats, milk goats