kitchen garden
The Kitchen Garden
The kitchen garden is the heart of a farmstead. Ours is 60ft x 60ft area surrounded by buildings and good 6 foot fence as we live in a deer and bear area. It has a south exposure with deciduous shade trees to the east and west for good sun in the winter and some shade in summer, also notice the most important part to the lower right.
There is a chicken vault below the solar water panels. Somewhat noisy and smelly but very handy. Weeds and waste from kitchen to feed the chickens and eggs for the kitchen as well as manure for compost for the garden from the chickens. As we live in a hunting area of fox, coyote and raccoon we need a varmint proof vault to keep the chickens in.
As you can see this is a late fall picture and much of the growth is dead from nearly 3 weeks of frost. Even so there is much going on in growth and food for the winter even under the coming snows.
Winter food, carrots, turnips and cabbage
Winter crops of turnips, carrots and peas as well as winter cabbage in the back ground will be welcome this winter even in the snow
Sawdust from the sawmill to fill the pathways and keep down the mud and help to create more soil.
Leeks and garlic need to be planted now for early spring as long as they are planted deep to protect the roots from freeze heaving
We are at 2200 feet elevation in the northern california sierra foothills so it does get cold and snow but generally not for long periods so a winter garden is possible. 😎 pg
Ants! ; see Ant killer below in comments…pg
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A number of errors on creating this post , need to recreate this and improve it. 😎 pg
The light blue drums? Planting for selected items? At first I thought, before blowing up the pics, that they were connected to the solor panels and designed to increase the ground temp. Do you have a greenhouse or use a coldframe in your neck of the woods? How’s the topsoil layer around your area, with all those trees and hills(rocks), can’t imagine it’s probably very thick and you have to work at ‘growing’ it too?
(More questions than a kid, well life is a circle, right?;-)
@Pascvaks; Yes, at the start the top soil was thin and very poor, even weeds grew poorly! By scrapping the soil together I had about a foot wide bed per 4feet at 8 inches deep. After 15 years the beds are 12 inches deep, 24 inches wide on top and the weeds grow very well. The blue drums were to get 24 to 30 inches of soil and a gopher proof container. these also serve as an anchor for the ends of the bed and increase the planting density. They are a pain in the rear for tilling. The subsoil is an ancient volcanic mud flow, about 80 feet thick and full of rocks and ash beds that floated in the mud flow. Some is as hard as old rotten cement. As to the green house, we have a dug into the ground greenhouse that I need to do a post on. The picture of the hammock was taken from the greenhouse roof. pg
Hi there! I understand this is somewhat off-topic but I needed to ask.
Does building a well-established blog like yours take a massive amount work?
I’m completely new to operating a blog but I do write in my diary
daily. I’d like to start a blog so I will be able to share my own experience and thoughts online.
Please let me know if you have any recommendations or tips for
new aspiring bloggers. Appreciate it!
From what I have seen of successful blogs. Speak about things YOU find interesting, Entertain and inform.
Something new everyday is even better. Most people want to be fans, but very few will comment.
Wordpress makes it easy, just do it!..pg
I have read so many articles about the blogger lovers however this article is actually
a good piece of writing, keep it up.
(Still wandering around your site, p.g.)
You didn’t mention parsnips. We always had parsnips, left in the ground and covered. Mom would send me out in the winter to dig some up when the various canned goods were wearing thin on our taste buds.
Mom would slice them about 1/8″ thick and the fry them in butter until they were crispy and golden on the outside and tender on the inside. It’s surprising how sweet they are. The sugars along with the butter made them taste like caramel. Yum!
You did mention turnips in your garden. I can recall only one year where we planted turnips. I like them, but I was just the farmhand so I did what I was told. My guess is that mom had had enough of them when she was young, but sometimes you just have had
enoughtoo much of something good and it doesn’t matter if you ever have it again. I think turnips were that something for mom.I like how your garden is surrounded. I had a transformer and wire that I ran around the perimeter of our garden (100′ x 100′). The main garden vegetable predators were raccoons, and the electric fence was effective at keeping them out.
Oh! The American Quarter Horse Congress has an annual event that has been held forever, and continues to be held, in our city. One year, the week-long event encompassed Valentine’s day, which was on Saturday that year.
Mom sent my brother and me down to the barns with a trailer to get a couple of loads of horse manure to spread on the garden. We were back at the house with a load, shoveling away, and just started laughing really hard about how we were spending the Romantic’s holiday aka Valentine’s Day; shoveling horse s**t! We had dates that night and even after showering, we were pretty sure there was a lingering whiff of the fruit of our labor.
@HR; planted parsnips here once, they are good for improving crap soil. Nobody seemed to want to eat them. I do plant beets and carrots for winter digging. After 20 years of building this soil it is a nice garden area. That fence near the hammock is now a boxwood hedge. Nearly a fourth of the garden is in strawberries at present. Wow! lots of strawberries this year. Way too many! After 12 years of not enough berries to fill a big bowl, this year I am picking 100 oz. a week of freezer bags full of ready to cook Strawberry.( Over a gallon of fresh berries ). And after 6 weeks they are still producing well. Too many for my needs. A Large patch of Giant Thornless Blackberries, in an outside the garden area, is ready to start harvest this weekend. It will also be way too many for our needs. maybe 30 gallons. I really need more friends 😉
Ah yes “shoveling shit” manure as much to clean the pens as to build the soil. When I was 10 my father set me to cleaning out a cow pen, in the early spring. It was still soupy, about knee deep to me about 12 x 20 feet in size. Gave me a flat shovel and wheelbarrow and said to spread the manure on the adjoining pasture. Took me nearly a week of after school working as well as most of the weekend to complete the job. Glad he wasn’t mad at me, 😉 this was just a chore assignment. Surprise! found a railroad tie deck under all that crap. The cleaning out of that pen made prepping the cows for milking a whole lot nicer chore and there was an improvement in the pasture growth that summer. Growing up and living on a farm with livestock means there is lots of shit to shovel. I am told that that ordure is the smell of success. Mostly it just sucks…pg.
Howdy would you mind stating which blog platform you’re using?
I’m going to start my own blog in the near future but
I’m having a tough time selecting between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal.
The reason I ask is because your design seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something unique.
P.S My apologies for getting off-topic but I had to ask!
May I ask, how did you make this spam link to a post that you did not visit?
As to my provider it is wordpress, and the layout I customized from 1 of their many templates…pg
Thanks so much for giving my family an update on this topic on your web-site. Please realise that if a fresh post appears or if perhaps any modifications occur on the current write-up, I would want to consider reading a lot more and learning how to make good use of those techniques you write about. Thanks for your efforts and consideration of other people by making this blog available.
Reply: retrieved this from my spam bucket, It’s sort of spam but nice spam. My blogging comes after my other chores. and building one of my posts takes me some time and effort. I hope people enjoy my offerings sparse though they be…pg
great points altogether, you just received a new reader. What might
you suggest about your submit that you made some days in the past?
Any sure?
Got a Garden tale to top them all! My lady brought home the fixins for a Chinese Chicken salad today and as she began to assemble it discovered that she forgot the Lettuce! No problem says I’ve got leaf Lettuce in the garden. Went out with the shears into the garden and began gathering a few handfuls and I hear this leak/hiss a few feet away to my left. Hum that is strange, I thought I had the water off. Went over and checked it, yup! water is off but hiss still there. Went back and looked closer. Ahah! Rattle Snake about 30 inches long slowly sneaking away through the squash vines…pg
pgtruspace Ant killer
4-Ingredient Ant Killer
Ingredients
1 tbs honey (optional)
3/4 cup warm water
1 tbs borax
1/3 cup sugar
Instructions
Warm up your water then stir in the borax, sugar and honey.
Mix until completely dissolved.
cook down a bit
pour over, paper towel or cotton in container, I even just crumpled up the paper towel and poured on to feed the ants
makes enough to soak about 4 paper towel sections
I also put rolled up paper towel in pill containers with 1/4 inch hole in cap
place near the ants. They love it. Watch them swarm over it and never come back!…pg
I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own weblog and was wondering what all is required to get
setup? I’m assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny?
I’m not very web savvy so I’m not 100% positive. Any recommendations or advice would be
greatly appreciated. Thanks
Reply; go to wordpress.com , it is free for a noncommercial blog space. …pg
Every spring I deal with armies of ants attacking into my house and garden. All sizes and kinds. This year I prepared the above ant killer and offered it to the armies and they set upon it with gusto for a day or so, then began decreasing in numbers to a straggling few that were sick until they seemed to fail completely. This is cheap and easy to prepare and feed to any swarm that shows up…pg
canned stew vegetables for stew base
from my sister’s garden recipes
Tomato and zucchini mixture
1/2 quart peeled tomatoes
1/2 quart squash chunks
or other mixture, tomatoes and other must be equal amounts
1/3 cup chopped onions
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
small amount sweet basil or oregano
combine in sauce pan and cook to desired texture
put in jars ( add No water.)
start , water bath the sealed jars at 170-180F ( simmer ) start
180-190F for 25-20 minutes.
pg, I just finished adding a 4′ x 8′ raised bed garden beside the 8’x 8′ raised bed garden.
I wish I had more space. That may happen next year. We plan on possibly going farther out of town, since the town has been coming to us.
This time, we’ll be looking at acreage and I’d like a pole barn and a pond. Then I can put in a proper garden that will feed us and have some left over to sell or trade.
Housing prices will probably tank before we can arrange a move. But it’s no matter if we get less for this place. Any place we will look at will also be less. I’m not looking to cash in on this house. Just looking to be in a better, more defensible and self-sustaining place.
We shall see how it goes.
@HR; It is always nice to have a bit of land with water. Water is the most prized asset , Cheap or free water is the very best thing to have. One thing I stress to back to landers is to get out of town as far as they can and consider large parcels rather then small as the demand for the small ones often magnifies their price. Often 40ac or larger are nearly the same cost as 3-5 ac parcels. Also make sure that you can use the water that is on the property as it may be owned by someone further down stream.
@pg – We have also discussed maybe buying a parcel in Florida and moving out of the Midwest altogether.
There are some surprisingly inexpensive areas in inland Florida. 40 miles inland can be really cheap. Most people want to be on the coasts. There is a lot of acreage that is not suitable for much other than turning some cattle loose, though you could clear it out for some gardening with only a bit of work on the soil.
We’ll be looking at that option while we are down in Florida this winter. Who knows what we may find?
Oh… water. Florida is a swamp sitting on a limestone aquifer, fer cryin’ out loud. You can pert near hand dig wells to good water there. And it wouldn’t be Florida without a sinkhole lake or pond on your property somewhere. Just don’t build over a sinkhole 😉
Anyhow, we shall see.
@HR;….8-) ..sink holes,Alligators, Hurricanes. and hoards of Big Bugs are just a minor annoyance in Florida LOL. Here I have to deal with Deer, Bear and Racoon, a big loud mouth dog helps .
Any place you land has it’s unique problems for gardening/farming. The only thing for sure is it will be different then what you are use to.
Soils in Florida tend to be shallow, poor quality and wet, so plan on raised beds or build up the garden area for drainage and surround with GOOD fence, The long damp growing season should allow for double cropping or even year round cropping. No winter break ! Finding varieties that work well in the area will be a necessary chore. Being receptive to the locals lore won’t hurt.
I’m glad you stop by and comment . I just had an epiphany on the electrical drive. Haven’t even had time to do a draw up and post. Form follows function, even when you don’t have other instructions. Visualize a Leyden Jar, make a big bubble inside the base of the Jar. turn the Jar upside down and squish it into a disk. Cut the outside plate conductor at the rim of the disk, so now you have a doubled condenser with an Electrical neutral bubble in the center and the needed “Leakage” ring. the outside “plates” need to be built up in layers as a transformer is layered to maximize the Field of the “Leakage” . The actual Driver of this capacitance goes outside on top of the disk. And the thrust MASER Cans go inside the bottom ring, but outside the interior bubble. The entire device is a tuned circuit with a leaky capacitor. The Maser cans are just nests of more open Leyden jars of tuned size feeding into central Plasma conduits to effect direct-able thrust. Maybe this should be private. send me Email..pgtruspace at Hughes dot net, so I can send to you and Simon and not post at present. I know Simon lurks here as well and he has interest in this work…pg
@pg – Will establish email contact soon. I have had one HECK of a summer working on our house and also the mother-in-law’s condo getting it ready for sale. She is in memory care and will never go back to living on her own. The place is in contract now and prices in our area have not dropped… yet. All those Dems are still eager to move into our area and recreate the mess they are moving away from.
Yeah, Simon will probably be by soon enough. Maybe over on E.M.’s blog, you can drop a quick note “@Simon” for him just to stop by.
I used to check here almost daily. Then you slowed down on posting and I got swamped, so for the past half-year or so, I’ve only been dropping by every week or so to see what’s up with you. It seems you’ve been busy, too.
Gotta run. I am busy with the last projects around here and packing up for our Winter stay in Florida.
My best to you.
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Oh, we had planned on visiting you at some point now that I have a truck that will take the mountains. I love the Pacific Northwest and the Mrs. has never been there.
Sadly, the fuel prices and political situation makes that unlikely now. It may take a while to get things straightened around if the GEBs can be stopped. If the GEBs plans are successful, I’ll never see California again. grrrrrr…
@HR; Yes life really throws you curve balls when you least need or expect it. All you can do is lean into it and try to connect.
Simon comes by nearly daily, comments if he thinks he can contribute something of value.
I’ve dropped Smith from my view, I think his drastic move has him overwhelmed by the magnitude of it after over 40 years of being in a comfort zone. He seems to be enthralled by Putin. I have no Idea why ??? Putin is one of the worst GEBs in the world and he has REAL military power at his disposal….. for now. Other GEBs in this Game of Thrones have turned on him. No loss to the world there, but his replacement will be critical to the world moving forward. We can hope that the “Foundation” is starting to gain real traction in herding world events. Prophecies say that “the Brothers of the North will unite and outlaw war” The start of a thousand years peace. Seems to me that is NATO, they have declared that international borders are set and they will not allow warlords to change them.
Anyone that is worried about Putin’s threats about using Nuclear weapons doesn’t know about Russian Federation Law in that regard. He can not order their use. His attempts to manage events and propaganda are falling on increasingly deaf ears, both in the world and in greater Russia.
Next up is his assassination by his “Friends” a prophice says that “The head oligarch will be assassinated by a Muslim group, unfortunate for them as he was the one that gave them power.. Sounds to me that Kadyrov and his Chechen’s are doing a double-cross. Putin has fired his top generals and made Ramzan Kadyrov his chief military adviser. Now Putin is, “GENERAL Putin”, like Hitler did in his last days. Ramzan Kadyrov is another nut case that Putin installed as the leader of his country. “The Game of Thrones” continues. The good that that Putin has done over his 22year tenure as the head of the Russian Federation is he and his cohorts have robbed and destroyed the much vaulted Russian Military and now everyone knows it. Russia is now a real “Paper Tiger”, It’s teeth pulled by an “unarmed” Ukraine.
The last couple of years have really screwed up everyone’s life plans, mine as well. We may or may not be here by spring. Our 14% partner here after 4 years of trying to drive Us off died, now lawyers and the court system are fighting over who gets to take her cut of the value here. The court could order us off and dispose of the property to distribute the value. We own the property free and clear and the court seems to ignore us while the lawyers argue for postponement after postponement. A second person, with a claimed will, showed up a month ago and demanded that we turned over the property to him and his wife, because his “Aunti” left the property to him. Took half a day and the help of a neighbor to convince him that he needed a lawyer and court action to get onto the property.. Damn drug dealer in my opinion trying to collect on that evil old woman’s last drug deal that killed her.
Late last year My 96 year old mother was dying, My youngest sister was giving her in home care and really needed help, so we went there for several weeks to help her with that chore, after 40 years I got to renew that relationship with my “baby sister”. Mother died the end of last winter and the funeral turned into a real disaster. A young woman was badly injured, hospitalized, mother nearly didn’t get buried, the funeral director ran off. Now demands to be paid in full! If you think the world treats you badly you look at other misfortune. 4 years ago, my sisters husband dies, she falls of a ladder while trying to fix her roof and winds up in hospital with head injury. Gets a contractor to replace the roofing. Roofer strips the roof to prepare for the new roofing and a gully washer thunderstorm comes thru. who would expect a late summer rain storm in the desert. badly damages the house interior. At least she had Good insurance. but the people that low-bid the repair job kept trying to short the job by BSing this old widowed woman on what proper construction practices were. Ha Ha Ha. Our father was a builder and sister helped us build our new family ranch house after the first one burned to the ground. So Sister held the insurance company and the contractor’s feet to the fire to get her house RESTORED properly ! Cost them a bloody fortune ! but her house is magnificent inside.
If things really go to hell here, we can move into mother’s house. I will lose my shop and farm but I can help out my sister and her son on their farm that will be nearby. Lose some and win some. I hate the Idea of moving again, I really like it here.
I’ve been tinkering with my solar power system on the cheap and was studying Super capacitors and gravity batteries and it dawned on me…. I’ve been looking at this Electronic propulsion system all wrong. I’ve been looking at this as an Electro-magnetic thing but it is really an Electro-static thing, Tesla came to the same conclusion with his energy transmission work. and radio broadcast theories. We need a very strong “leaky” capacitor design to get traction in the Aether. I really need to draw pictures of this in the computer to be able to share it.