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.

9 more acres

The story to our land actually goes back a long ways, and eventually I'll lay out the whole story, but for now, I'll add just a chapter. When we bought our 9 acres a few years ago, it wasn't technically listed on the market. There were actually two other parcels (one was 9 acres and the other was about 5 acres) for sale and we were looking at both. We considered buying more than one parcel, but really wanted the two parcels to border each other so you didn't have to drive on the road to get back and forth. The 9 and 5 acres pieces do not touch each other. It was during that process that we heard this other 9 acre piece might be available, since the owners were moving out of state and probably wouldn't be building. Ultimately, we were left to choose between the 9 acre pieces, which share a common border, and we didn't think we could afford both. We ended up buying the 9 acres that wasn't listed, and someone else bought the other 9 acres.

This past spring, a friend was looking to buy land in the area and I suggested we contact the landowners for the 3 other parcels (including the 9 we did not buy) to see if they'd want to sell, since no houses had been built. In doing so, the person that had purchased the other 9 acre piece emailed me and said they had been praying about what to do with the land and would sell. they took my letter as a sign that God wanted them to sell. Ultimately, we worked out a deal to purchase the 9 acres on a land contract, so we now have two 9 acre pieces, joined in the middle. It may be that in the future we'll find another suitable family that wants to buy or rent the one piece from us and build a house, and where we can help each other out and share community.

For now, it's pretty overgrown, so I'm trying to clean things up and make some trails around the perimeter so we can at least walk around them. Attached are some pics and a video I made of the other property in my efforts to clear it.

Symbolic Harvest

Last night we dug the balance of the potatoes from our first garden on the land. This spring we planted some fruit trees, grape vines, strawberries, and blackberries. They've done pretty well, given the rather sporadic care we've been able to give them over the summer.

We did have a neighbor and friend plow up a couple long, narrow strips to start our garden, as well. The strips are about 15-20 feet wide and about 250 feet long, I'd guess. The ground has been in alfalfa for quite a few years, and before that it had been tobacco for quite a few years. The grounds is a loamy clay, but does have some rocks, which is a new experience for me, personally. We've learned to just toss the rocks off to the side as we work and then we pick them up and dump them on a pile in the woods. So far so good.

This year we put the potatoes in a little later than usual--mostly purposeful. We've found that most years, the potato bugs gobble up the potatoes if you get them in first thing in the spring, and if you wait to plant them until later (mid-June for us), you can miss much of the bugs by the time the plants start getting large. We also use quite a few "King Harry" potatos from a place in Maine and they live up to their hype of being resistant to the potato bugs. They're also really nice keepers and uniform in size and shape, so you don't have all those little protrusions that tend to break off. We also planted some russets, which did well too, but they tend to have more strange shapes.

One thing we've noticed is the King Harrys tend to spread out quite a bit, rather than growing in one big mound like the Russets. This has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage to the King Harrys is that in tighter soil, they can spread out on top, and don't seem to have a problem being constricted like the Russets. The disadvantage is it takes quite a bit more work digging the King Harrys because you have to dig up most of the patch, rather than right around the dead stem, like the Russets.

One thing we did this year is our first hay crop--which was some alfalfa, but mostly grass and immature weed--I clipped with my BCS tractor and sickle attachment and then we raked it up and spread it out over the potato patch--rather thickly in places. The potatos came up through the hay and the hay helped keep the weeds down. Many of the potatoes just grew near the top of the soil and under the hay, which helped. I think we'll do this again next year.

I'm going to attach a couple photos I took of the crew (my dad, my brother, my wife, and kids) as we dug potatos. Symbolically, this was an important first harvest for us.

We're finally here

After a rather long and winding road, it seems the Lord has led us home. This weekend we begin our new life very near, if not on, our homestead. I finished my job yesterday in Iowa, and we now begin the process of moving. We're staying in a quaint little house my parents have, which should hold us over until the spring, at least.

It's a little surreal now, to be here, and trying to grasp the reality of it all. The life we've longed for in our hearts for so long, is finally in front of us. It wasn't quite the way we expected to get here, but we've put out our trust in God. It seems that things have happened in their proper time and way.

I can honestly say that, having gone through the desert, so to speak, has also changed me as a person, and us as a family. I think we honestly appreciate our life more now than we did even 6 months ago.

I'm so humbled and quietly overjoyed to be on the cusp of a life that I believe our family was truly meant to live. I know it won't be easy, and will have its challenges, but it will be our life. May all glory and honor be given to God, and may we be allowed to serve him with humble and devoted love.

Craig

Overdue update

It's hard to believe over another year has passed since I posted anything. Of course, since there are no viewers at this point, and this is more for my own cathartic record, I suppose it doesn't matter. However, for future reference and the benefit of future friends of this homestead, here's an update.

We are now in the process of actively trying to move to our homestead. We're debating whether to sell or rent our house in Iowa. We have considered three main options for living purposes on our land. The first is to build a nice garage/shop/barn with an apartment above it. The second is a yurt, and the third is a locally made log cabin. Much thought and research has gone into each of the options, but for now we're leaning strongly toward the last option. They're stout, fairly energy efficient, earth friendly, and cosmetically appealing. A cabin should also go up rather quickly and should add some good value to the land. We hope to set it up to be, as much as possible, off the grid, for the sake of principal and also as a reflection of our desire to live more simply and more self sufficiently.

Last year not much happened on the land. With our new situation in Iowa, and 4 young kids, there just wasn't time to do much other than try to keep the grass and weeds cut down. This spring has been different. We've added a small orchard--some apple, pear, and peach. We've also added a big patch of strawberries and blackberries, although there are some wild blackberries and black raspberries scattered around the 9 acres.

This past week we had a neighbor with a tractor and plow come and turn over a couple strips of the hayfield to be used as a garden. The hay ground has been in hay for a long time, and has more than its fair share of weeds and grass. The soil looks pretty good, but does have some rock, which is a new phenomenon for me. I got the soil tilled up with my BCS tractor and we planted a large portion into potatoes, with some tomatoes as well. For now, we're not going to put in a ton of other vegetable, since we can't be at the land often enough to keep up with them.

We also ran the old well for awhile this weekend to pump some water for watering the plants and trees. It still runs, but needs to be pumped out since it hasn't really been used in at least 10 years or so, I would guess. I hope to get the old cistern cleaned out and tuck pointed for storage use.

Here is a short video I put together--it is not great quality and, unfortunately, I videotaped it sideways with my phone, so it's not great to look at, but it does give a couple views of our property and has a short clip of me cutting hay with the sickle mower on the BCS tractor. Also are some pics we took this weekend. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaXaSbAJYUw