Fall Haul

 We have our first freeze warning tonight! Note the exclamation point at the end of that sentence-I'm trying to get myself excited about this! I really do love fall, it's my favorite season. But in early June our central air conditioning bit the dust. That made for a looonnngg hhhhoooottttt summer. (Did you know we had a drought here?) Anyway, while examining the air conditioning system we discovered our furnace was unsafe as well. We have to get the whole she-bang replaced. But not today. So brrrrrr!

 Our tradition for the day before the first freeze is to strip the garden of any produce that is still hanging around. This is something I actually look forward to. We (DH and I) usually spend a pleasant day together in the garden-he is my digger, I delegate where stuff goes. He tells me how much he is looking forward to the chow-chow I make with the leftovers. I remind him to be careful where he lays the shovel. But this year he is out of town. So I sadly went out to the garden alone. I really didn't expect to find anything at all. After some of our neighbors wells had dried up, we decided not to water our garden to save the water for the livestock-praying that we would make it through the summer without having to haul water. I stayed in motels with DH to escape the heat and save water-no showers, laundry, etc.. and payed someone to take care of the critters while I was gone. It worked for us. But the garden was pretty much abandoned.

 I bet you can imagine my surprise when I waded through the jungle of weeds (I took my trusty Girl Scout whistle in case I got lost!) and found this:

green tomatoes 

a few potatoes

white and red onions

I also found a few jalapenos and a couple cabbages! Woo Hoo! I'm thinking that canning up a batch of chow-chow will be an excellent way to heat my house this evening!

Progress?

From this angle can you tell the produce is starting to catch up with the weeds? Believe it or not, and I certainly wouldn't blame you if you didn't, there is 2 kinds of onions, zucchini, cabbages, potatoes, sage, cucumbers, green beans, and tomatoes in this picture! The lettuces, spinach, turnips, radishes, and beets didn't make it into this shot. So all the hard work is STARTING to pay off.
 I know it looks terrible. But hey, it's my wonderful mess and I can see the potential. It's not like I'm gonna have people standing in line to buy tickets to see my garden! But if they did, how would I classify the show? I would have to say, "circus." Come one, come all! See the mighty Hoosier Girl wielding her shovel and daring to raise her veggies with her own rabbit's poop! No tilling! No spraying! Not even a drop of pesticide! Watch as she hoists wasted goat hay over the fence to stamp out pesky weeds. Can it be done? Come see for yourself!
 Ahem, sorry.
 Back on topic- The chicken fence is doing a good job of keeping the little critters out of the garden. I was worried after other's comments about the shortness of it. But our chickens seem to be happy free ranging around it. I did have one incident of chasing them out. That was my fault for leaving the wheel barrow next to the fence after I had emptied the used straw out of it. It made a perfect jumping off spot. Lesson learned!

Much Ado About Gardening

Gardening in the past (same location, different lifestyle):
During that time period we tilled a spot, layed black plastic over it, and then planted a "salad garden"-one or two tomato plants, a few green beans, one cucumber, and one or two zucchini.
Gardening last year (first year of homestead lifestyle)
We tilled a slightly larger spot, layed black plastic over it, and then planted a garden- tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, peppers, corn, zucchini, lettuce, spinach,... you get the idea. And that worked really well. Except when something was harvested through the plastic, there was a big hole left that sent out personal invitations for the weeds to come have a party at my house. At the end of the garden season last fall we pulled up the plastic and the weeds immediately started encroaching from all sides!  Add to that the fact that I really don't like tilling (not the actual work, DH does that) and this Hoosier Girl was not happy with gardening.
 So this year, after some arm-twisting, and pleading, and deliberately finding stuff for DH to do so he didn't have time to till (we really did need that buck pen!) I have been given the go ahead to experiment with the garden! And experimenting it is.
 First I laid out my goals
1. Have fun
2. Plant things that have been proven to grow well- for a comparison.
3. Plant some new things for variety.
4. Start as many seeds as I could inside to make the planting in dirt that wasn't tilled manageable (at least for the first year.)
5. Use more natural materials as a weed barrier.
And here is an update on how that is going:
1. I am having fun!
2. The cabbage, lettuce and spinach are growing as well as they did last year(those are the only ones up far enough to compare so far.)

3. There are radishes almost ready to pick and today I planted celery and beets for the first time ever!

4. I DID start several seeds indoor and had beautiful seedlings ready to go out after the last frost. However a bad experience with the exterminator destroyed every single one of them. I don't know why I didn't think to move them before the treatment!  :(
5. Every place in the garden where I placed straw from the chicken coop and goat sheds and the wasted hay from the goat pens has NO WEEDS. So every time I clean them out, I place the piles in the garden. The weeds are slowly being eliminated!

 As the plants continue to grow, the plan is to place the straw/hay around them to hold in moisture.
Of course it isn't going to happen overnight, this will be a long work in progress.

 But hopefully it will all work out well and everyone will be impressed with my new gardening skills!

I Was Skeptical

Here's an update on some new things I tried last month:

homemade deodorant/recycled container

1. Homemade deodorant   
 I really didn't know if this was going to be something I would fall in love with or deeply regret. I mean, deodorant is something I personally find very important. I must say I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of stopping odor but not wetness. And I wondered if starting this project in the winter (who REALLY sweats in the winter?) was going to skew the results. But I think I mentioned before that DH's internal thermostat was off all winter and we had to keep our home warm. Very warm. OK, HOT!
 There were pros and cons to this project. The bad things were the wetness from sweat and the deodorant (in the container) will get runny if the room is too warm. But truthfully the good outweighed the bad. There are no metals being forced into my skin pores and the coconut oil has given me such soft skin. Plus the cost savings are awesome. AND DH really likes it, too! The first batch lasted us both about 7 weeks and when it was gone, he put in the request for more. No regrets here!

leaf lettuce popping up

2. Valentine's Day lettuce Ok, I should have taken Grandpa at his word. I really didn't think throwing lettuce seeds in the snow would get me lettuce. So I didn't even use seed from this year. In fact, I really don't know how old that seed was! But here is the proof that Grandpa knew what he was talking about. (Next time I will be more careful about weed control where the lettuce was scattered!)


If you're thinking that there is still a lot of learning going on at our little place, you would be 100% correct!

What Do Chickens Eat?

  When we first started on the chicken journey, we planned to feed the minimum amount of layer pellets we could get by with while letting them free range for the majority of their diet. Of course if we could save a little more on the feed by tossing out some kitchen scraps, then that wouldn't be a bad thing. But what chicken scraps would they eat? Would they turn their little noses up at something that would then lay rotting in the yard until I finally nagged until DH couldn't take it  convinced DH it would be a good idea to remove the offending "stuff"? >>shudder<< HA! I repeat HA! Every since the first trip out with a bowl of scraps that was cautiously tossed out for the little dears, it has been impossible to walk out the back gate with any thing that remotely resembles a food container and not be stampeded. Those birds love EVERYTHING. And they literally send a shoutout to any of their friends who weren't lucky enough to see the goodies coming.
 Now, if I read your thoughts correctly, you're thinking: MAYBE those Hoosier Chickens are being underfed at Hoosier Girl's place. Maybe they can't find enough to scratch up around that little acre. Maybe someone is holding out on the layer pellets. HA! Trust me, these birds are not suffering from malnutrition in any way, shape, or form. They. just. like. to. eat.
 Not only do they scratch up bugs, and devour scraps, and force Hoosier Girl to make a weekly trip to the farm store for more pellets, oh no, they have also discovered the all-you-can-eat buffet in my garden! So this year, we did a little preventative maintenance- a border fence.

Sooo my dear friends. what I have learned in regard to the question posted in the title is: a better question would be, "what won't chickens eat?"  Hopefully the little fence will deter them from the plants that will be going in here.

Proverbs 27:23  Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.

Pea Plants

This is the first year I've planted pea seeds and

here they are popping up! These are the first garden plants of 2012!!
 We've had a round of severe thunderstorms just blow through. It looks like they are done for the day so I'm off to plant something else. I'm plumb giddy with garden excitement, maybe I should bookmark this page for later in the summer when I'm sick to death of any and all produce? Nah, I'll just count on all of you to remind me how wonderful it is to have fresh, homegrown food! Anyone else getting an early start to putting stuff in the ground?