Asparagus and more

Spring is a full month ahead of last year and at least a couple weeks ahead of normal, so things are really greening and the trees are leafing out. Our fruit tress are showing more life each day, but fortunately have not decided to flower yet. Perhaps they won't flower at all this year (we planted them last spring), but since they're dwarfs and semi-dwarfs, I would expect them to try flowering. We're still getting frosts pretty regularly, so I'd prefer they wait a few more weeks to flower.

I've been waiting for a new blade for the brush hog for the BCS, but since it has not yet come, I sharpened the old one up as best I could--it was pretty rough and jagged from years of rocks, etc.--which alone made quite a difference. It feels like I have twice the power and I can go twice the speed without bogging down. Now that I have it together, I've been mowing all the paths around the gardens and around the woods, but I have a little ways to go.

As inevitably happens in fields like this, you can tell how, over the years, the woods has crept out. As a tree falls down, farmers--especially renters--will just farm around them, and so each year more and more trees grow up until you have a 30-40 foot wide strip that is taken over, often by junk trees like box elder trees. Because of this, we cut a bunch of these trees down and chopped out some of the smaller trees to try to reclaim the farm ground, and get back to the good hardwood trees. In this same area there are quite a few old patches of black berry and black raspberries, but they have a lot of weeds and cockleburs in them, so I'm going to mow them off and start fresh. Because we have rocks in our area, we have to walk through and pick out rocks, as past farmers were prone to just "thrown them down in the woods". Widening the pasture area and clearing the junk trees back to the line of oaks that used to run a long the field will be very nice.

A local guy that raises a great deal of organic produce every year asked me recently if I wanted to buy some asparagus, as he was ordering some 5000 roots because he gets a good deal on the quantity and I agreed to take 500, even though I wasn't quite sure what I'd do with all of them. In the end, he only had about 280, which we planted in last year's potato bed because the soil is so rich and has been worked. We created the trenches by using the rotary plow to kick the dirt each way and laid the roots down in the trenches. We then back-filled. Hopefully they come up decent.

We also laid out an area with black plastic that we are in the process of transplanting strawberries from last year's bed. The place we put them last year seems to shady, so we're going to move them up on higher ground where they can get full son. Hopefully they do well, as our kids love strawberries.

The one thing that has done really well in the shadier garden area we previously used has been the blackberries, which were planted last spring. They seem to like a little less sun and the old soil seems to be treating them well, so once the strawberries are gone, I plan to work the area up again and expand the blackberries.

I also solved one of my dilemmas for the spring regarding the 4-5 acres of farm land on the adjoining 9 acre piece we purchased last fall. It has been in conventional corn (meaning sprays and fertilizers) for the past few years, so I'm anxious to get it back to organic. I don't have the equipment to do it myself, and I had considered seeding it down to a hay/pasture mix, but in talking to one of my neighbors down the road (who once owned and farmed the land we have now), he's going to put corn in the land again this summer. Fortunately, he's organic and is small scale like me, so it will be a win win.

I'm going to attach a few videos that show the main parts of the homestead. I'm sorry if they're a little bumpy to watch. I just snapped them with my phone while walking through the gardens. Enjoy.

Spring is here

It's been awhile since I posted, so I thought an update is in order. Spring came early this year. It is now the end of March and the snow is gone and grass is growing. I started a new job with a firm about 20 miles away, but I drive right by the land every day, so stop in often to check on the progress. Most of the fruit trees have started greening up. We may have lost one pear tree, but otherwise things look good. The grapes are slowly coming back. We planted 6 last spring and one died during the summer. Of the remaining 5, I think 3 have started to bud, but am waiting to see if the other two made it.

The berries are also starting to grow. The blackberries are starting to green up, so I need to get a trellis made to hold up the vines. The strawberries are starting to grow, but we need to weed them and get some new beds made.

A friend that sells organic produce convinced me to buy 500--that's right--500 asparagus roots (he wanted me to take 1000), so we'll have to get them in when they come. That's going to be quite a chore, but the price was right given the quantity.

On even happier news, we're ever so close to finalizing a contract for the construction of a log cabin for our place, which means that we'll soon beginning construction on our first dwelling on the land. We hope to have it completely finished and ready for living by fall.

I'll post some more pictures as time permits, but ready or not, it's going to be a busy year.

Fall tilling and next year thoughts

Today, amidst snow flurries and light rain, I finished the fall tilling of next year's garden plots. I'm normally not a fan of fall plowing, as I don't like the erosion, but our soil is a heavy clay, which has been in hay for a number of years. No organic matter has been put back in the soil, and there are some large alfalfa and grass roots well established in the soil. Years of farming and tractor traffic have packed the soil. So, I decided to work up the soil with my rotary plow to let it "mellow" over the winter, and hopefully use the thawing and freezing to help break up the soil and the roots. In the spring, I'll have to work the soil up again.

I'm still tinkering and will probably experiment with how I want to approach tillage and planting in the future. In the past, I've had quite a bit of success using a type of heavy mulch tilling, which generally involves keeping the soil covered, especially in the fall/winter, with leaves and grass clippings, and building compost heaps in the gardens themselves. I found this method really helps keep the weeds down, and the soil was so nice and loose--seed ready--when I pulled back the mulch in the spring.

However, this method requires a great deal of organic matter, I've heard it can eventually result in imbalanced levels of certain minerals--potassium, I think--and does seem to create a breeding ground for certain bugs that like to live under the moist mulch if you keep it on during the growing seasons. I'm not sure how feasible this will be on the size of gardens we have (probably 3/4 of an acre or better this coming year), but we do have lots of hay that I might clip and simply fork on to the gardens like we did this year with potatoes. I also want to experiment with organic material out of our woods--the top 6 inches is often really nice, broken down compost. The important word is "experiment" this year. I'll leave some of the garden in more traditional style, and will till and hoe the weeds, but I want to try different things.

Attached are a few updated pics that show the finished garden plots, or nearly finished plots.

Updates on the homestead

It's been a very busy month in our household. We recently sold our house in Iowa and moved to a town a few miles from our homestead. The house belongs to my parents and while it gets us by, it's a bit small for our growing family, so hopefully we'll be able to get into something a little roomier, and on our land, in the near future.

I've been slowly developing my own law practice. Ideally, I'd like to have a book of business to keep me busy about 1/2 to 2/3 time, so I can spend the remainder of my time doing other things, such as teaching and working with the kids, working our homestead, and doing other odds and ends just for variety. I recently updated my website, thanks to many late nights and the help of a college friend. You should check it out. www.lawsteger.com

The chickens are adapting well to their new coop and are enjoying having the outdoor run we built for them. They eat a lot of kitchen scraps, which has cut down on their feed consumption considerably. We also have 2 of the hens laying eggs now, so hopefully the rest will follow suit soon. We eat a lot of eggs in our house.

As I indicated in a previous post, after a lot of thought and research, I decided to purchase a Berta rotary plow for the BCS tractor. After spending an afternoon getting it set up, and servicing the BCS and adding wheel extensions, I got it up and going and tried it for the first time yesterday afternoon. I have to say the tractor had to work harder than I expected, but it should not be a surprise, as the area I was plowing had been in hay for many years, which meant it had not been plowed in quite some time, had been driven on plenty for the hay harvest, and had some very big alfalfa roots in it. Couple that with the fact that the land is mostly clay, and has a number of rocks, and the BCS and plow had to work really hard.

I tried to toss out the rocks as I went, but a couple times I would hit just the right size rock, and it would get jammed between the plow and the shaft and kill the engine. I have to say I was plenty happy that my BCS has the smaller engine (only 9 hp), which meant that when the rocks got wedged, it killed the engine before anything broke.

I'm hoping to get all the garden plots for next year worked up yet this fall. We'll be at least doubling our garden size next year, so I'm excited for the spring. I might yet try to get some garlic planted before the snow flies.

To tractor or not, that is the question

One of the ongoing debates I've had with myself--and with my wife--is how best to run and operate our homestead and future, hopefully, organic gardening business. Having spent a good portion of my childhood on or around farms, I've seen lots of different farming practices and use of equipment, including tractors. I've long had an affinity for small, WWII era tractors, like the old Farmall and Allis Chalmers tractors. I love the sounds, the sizes, and the price.

A couple years ago I was real close to buying a used Kubota tractor. It was small, maybe 22 hp diesel, with 3 pt, 4 wheel drive, etc. I ended up not buying the tractor, and went with my other affinity--the two wheeled tractor. Since I first saw a BCS tractor in action, I knew I was seeing a quality piece of machinery that blended the virtue and exercise of farming with horses with the convenience and power of modern machinery. The BCS (there are a number of 2-wheel tractor companies, mostly from Europe, such as Grillo) was designed and built in Europe and made for the European landscape of small, irregular shape fields, hills, and valleys. They come with a variety of attachments and are PTO driven, not belt.

Looking to next year, I want to greatly expand our garden plots. I say "plots" because while I don't necessarily do small beds, I like to have the gardens divided into smaller areas with designated grass paths, and walkways break things up. This accomplishes a number of things, like giving access to garden tractors, wheelbarrows, etc., plus making it possible to get in and out of the gardens when the ground is wet. Plus, I just think it looks nicer than one lone expansive garden.

The area we are turning in to garden is old stand alfalfa, which means it has not been plowed or tilled in quite a number of years. It's not practical to use the tiller to go in and break up the sod. It could be done, but it would take a long time, be really tiring, and hard on the machine. I had considered buying a small tractor with a plow and plowing it that way, but then I'm left with the tractor being unused much of the time, plus I already have the BCS, so I've decided to get the Berta rotary plow for my BCS. The rotary plow was designed in Europe and leaves the soil in a condition likened to that after plowing and discing, but all in one pass. I've ordered the plow from my local BCS dealer and it should be here any day. I'm hoping to get it over to the garden plots, which I've marked out with the mower, and get them plowed before Thanksgiving. Then they can mellow over winter and be ready for final work up and planting in the spring.

I'll post some pics and video after I've had a chance to use the machine.

Next year's gardens

By and large, our land is either woods or old growth alfalfa (meaning some alfalfa, grass, and weeds). This spring we had some strips plowed up and we put potatoes in the strips. The potatoes did very well. We're now getting ready for a new strip for potatoes next year, and we'll grow something else in the potato patch from this year. It's very important to rotate.

Yesterday one of my sons, Jake, came out with me to the land and I used my BCS tractor and bush mower to trim things up and lay out the new garden strips. I like to have grass paths around all the garden plots so you can easily get a garden tractor and trailer around them, so I mowed the outside of the pieces, and some of the dividers. I also tried nocking down some of the cockleburs and other weeds that have overtaken the terrace.

This fall I hope to get some of the new pieces plowed with a tractor and moldboard plow or I might invest in a rotary plow for my BCS and try that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0olJMu_ndGs I also have about 4 acres on our new piece of ground that was in corn this year and I need to get worked up, either this fall or in the spring, so I can seed down to pasture/hay. I think that might be a bit much to try with the BCS, but crazier things have been tried, so you just never know.

Chickens

This summer, while we were still living in Decorah, we got 14 chickens and 1 guinea from some friends that were moving and needed to get rid of them. They are a mis-mash of chickens, with some reds, blacks, and speckled chickens. One turned out to be a rooster, which is fine. Maybe next year we'll have some chicks if one of the hens decides to hatch some eggs.

Now that we've moved to our Wisconsin, we needed a place for the chickens, so my dad and I built this chicken house out of some plywood we had. We got the actual chicken house done a week or so ago, but didn't have time to make an outside run, so we did that today. The chickens were very happy to get outside and we picked plenty of greens for them.

All in all, I don't think it's any cheaper, or only marginally cheaper, to raise your own eggs versus buying them, but chickens seems to be at the heart of a homestead, so we have them and hopefully they'll start laying soon. Next summer I hope to get them out to graze or at least in a chicken tractor so they can eat all the greens they want during the summer.

Attached is a picture and video of the chicken house. On the video you'll notice the Amish, a very common sight around where we live.