It’s a Growing

So we have been busy on the Homestead.  We have been in the gardens almost every days either weeding or planting more items.  We have corn that is almost chest high and should be getting ears on in within the next week.  The beans should start with pods very soon…there are tons of flowers on them.  We have now planted peas in the Herb garden and will probably plant more along the Vegetable garden tonight.

The herb Garden is growing.  We have added a variety of herbs from when we started.  We now have chamomile, more rosemary, marshmallow, feverfew, Calendula, Evening Primrose, Purple Coneflowers, more thyme, hot peppers and the DH even found a spot in the wood fence to add a sugar baby watermelon and a tomato plant, because we don’t have enough tomatoes elsewhere.  It’s funny about the tomatoes because we found 2 more volunteers last night in the garden in a place we never planted tomatoes before.  And the bigger kicker is I don’t like to eat tomatoes unless it’s in sauce, salsa or something like that.

The green house pond is now dug and the bridge is built, we are just waiting on getting the liner in and filling it up with some type of fish.  We are still debating on what fish to get.

The container water gardens have finally taken off.  We are growing duckweed like crazy now.  And the gold fish we got to try out are now about 2 inches long.

The “Ladies” are doing ok.  Our next door neighbor got 3 chickens off of us for his mom for mother’s day so the flock went down a few.  Then something recently got one of the Dominique’s and her back was cut up but I have her in a crate and she seems to be recovering quite nice.  This is the second chicken that I have nursed back to health.  One of our reds, Melvina, I thought was egg bound  so I did some treatment for her and whatever was wrong with her is now fixed because she is back to running around with those tail feather up. 

I will try to get pictures tonight if it doesn’t rain on us but we are making progress and just waiting for the “fruits” of our labor to reward us.

What's new on the macro farm

So what’s new on the homestead….

The greenhouse is growing like crazy. DH finally got the pH and water balanced to add fish. We got feeder goldfish from the pet store to see if things would work before getting our fish for eating in there.  In the meantime the nitrates and nitrites went craze which is just plant food. So exponential growth.

 The Pit (aka the fish pond) is 90% complete. We just need to add padding and insulation then the liner and we can add our fish to eat.

 The deck pond (aka his experimental pond) is supporting goldfish for a week now and no fish losses for 3 days straight. Most of the tadpoles have developed into frogs/toads.

 The medicinal herb garden has more plants in the ground and DH got some good deals on rosemary while out and about and now we have some to harvest and even sell  accept donations for our overage pots.

 We have dried a ton of herbs; basil, lavender, chives, lemon balm, spearmint, chocolate mint, curl leaf parsley, flat leaf parsley, peppermint, and oregano. All available for donations $5 per dried oz. All 100% organic, no pesticide, herbicides, or manmade fertilizer. We are going to attempt to go 100% organic and only in a real bad situation use Seven dust. Seven if you don’t know can be used on pets for flea control and tick control. It is relatively save, but like I said last resort. We also have a bunch of tomato starters if anyone would like them. $1.50/donation per potted plant. Most pots have at least 2 plants.  

 DH has been researching and learning about permaculture (planting with nature vs against). It is really hard to explain without seeing it. If anyone is interested in gardening podcast we recommend The Self Sufficient Gardner on iTunes. It is free.

 We are adding seedlings and planting to our vegetable garden almost on a daily basis. We got more blueberry pants (again DH got good deal), more garlic (again DH deal), more onions.

 We just started another 100 pots in the greenhouse, with another 100 waiting to be potted.

 100 more strawberry plants going in, and another 100+ garlic plants. Can you tell we like garlic. We learned something new with garlic. The bulbs you get in the store to eat look just like the kind for planting. But here is what we learned. Each clove in the bulb is a seed started. So we got 40+ bulbs. Reduced to 60% off.

 We are having to reinforce the chicken barrier to our garden. Dang ravenous garbage disposals are eating everything. Took out ½ the horseradish plant, ate every spinach plant in the ground and 3 lettuce plants that were close to harvesting. Last week they ate the watermelon rinds. I mean everything, picked clean. All that was left was the hard leathery rind, paper thin. We are thinking about raising meal worms to give them some extra protein. That is DH’s latest idea, well that, then not watering the garden all season, installing another pond and the list goes on.

 We checked out the Indianapolis downtown farmers market recently and it was enjoyable. We learned what other farmers were selling and the pricing. There is a wide range of prices, and some didn’t have the same kinds of things we do. We might look at selling at the farmers market next year. We may check out Greenwood’s farmers market this weekend. It is at the public library. The Bargersville flea market also has some good deals on plants, and assorted items.  

 We may start taking requests to grow items, or start your own plants in the greenhouse. If you would like help creating your own house into a homestead we can help. Share what we have learned, and even make a site visit to help give you some ideas. No yard? Grow on a patio. Have hanging baskets. You can have your own aquaponics system growing fish to eat and supply your edible plants in a window at your house/apartment. Even if you have a dog that pulls up your plants in your garden….you can still plant in other places or have a small cage around them. You know who you are….Any of this interest you, respond to the post, or send e-mail to the DH Rbeach_kk@hotmail.com.

So what are we doing to start our own Tea Party

Posted by Mama but written by DH

·         We have increased our garden footprint. – Last year we had about 20 x 10 so200 sq. ft. of garden space where we grew tomatoes (6), broccoli (6), cauliflower (2), jalapeno peppers (4), celery (4), lettuce (4). We finished the last of the frozen broccoli from our garden this January. We still have some frozen tomatoes and peppers, and like 12 jars of spaghetti sauce.

·         This year’s garden – vegetable, herb, pots, greenhouse, trees, misc.

o   Vegetable garden – 20 x 80 so 1600 sq. ft. of garden in here thus far tomatoes (12), eggplant (4), squash (12), corn (3 rows of like 40 plants), beans (3 varieties, 4 rows, 50 plants), radishes (60), broccoli (6), lettuce (6), celery (5), garlic (100), onions (100), Baking potatoes (20), red potatoes (20), sweet potatoes (3) and more coming as soon as seed starters get bigger from greenhouse. We will eat off the bounty, collect heirloom seeds, and sell/accept donations for seeds, starters, and vegetables.

o   Herb Garden – Wife decided we needed to go more natural and started a medicinal herb garden with culinary herbs thrown in. 15 x 30 450 sq. ft. Won’t even begin to know what all she is putting in there, but I know what I put in for cooking. Basil (3), rosemary (2), horseradish (1) , thyme (4), cilantro (3). We have more sprouting in the greenhouse. From this we will dry herbs, use fresh, collect seeds, and make essential oils from the herbs.

o   Pots – we are splitting herbs and extra plants as we get them. These pots can be bartered, sold, used as thank you for donations, gifts, and increase our growing space to areas that either currently do not have gardens, or are non-gardening area (deck, concrete etc.) We took mineral lick containers that were trash given to us by a friend, and turned into large pots on our deck. These are at least 2 ½ foot across and 2 ½ foot deep. We currently have three on our deck and are growing 4 watermelon plants and still have more space. I turned 4 others into a water fountain/garden on the deck. In here we may put fish, or other water plants. Have cat tails and horse tail in there currently along with like 30 tadpoles. Mainly to help clean water and get ready for fish.

o   Greenhouse – We bought a greenhouse 12 x 10 last year at a huge discount. In here we have a hydroponics/aquaponics system. Although still in development, it is working and growing. When complete we will have a 3 x 8 x 8 foot pond in the base for fish (we hope tilapia) and 100+ growing sites for plants. The fish waste feed the plants, the plants clean the water, and feed the fish. It is all a closed loop system and sustains itself. Totally organic, and you cannot use any chemicals or risk one of the balances for the fish or plants. The whole system is continually cycling the water and nutrients. We estimate we can produce between 200-1000 pounds of fish each year. That is only ½ the function. The other function is our plant nursery. We start all of our seeds in here and have gotten quite the system for growing. We start about 100-200 seeds at a time. We have a 95% success rate with all the seeds started. Currently on batch 2 in the greenhouse. The seedlings are used in our gardens, bartered/sold/used as donation gifts, gifts, etc.

o   Trees – three years ago we bought and planted three fruit trees. We transplanted on from another house we owned. We have an apple, pear, had a cornucopia (peach, plum, and others combined), and what we were told was a Kentucky peach. Last year we thought the peach dropped all its fruit and turns out the oldest of the girls had been eating them all summer. This year the apple has fruit, the pear has fruit and the peach has a bunch of fruit. This fall we plan on taking cuttings and rooting the trees to either plant on our property, pot for sale/trade/donation gifts, or use as gifts. We have to prune all the trees anyway, might as well use the cuttings rather than add to compost.

o   Misc. – here is everything we have added plant wise that is not captures elsewhere. We added strawberry plants all over property as ground cover. So anywhere in-between bushes or between flower gardens there is strawberries. They are prolific growers and produce fruit. Much better than just mulch or some other ground cover. We have about 60+ plants. We got our first harvest yesterday. 6 big strawberries. Cost us nothing.

We have 3 grape vines we put in this year. We cut down our existing cypress trees, used all the needles as bedding for the grapes and to acidify the soil. We have blueberry bushes we put in this year. We have about 10 red raspberry bushes and another 20 black berry bushes around the fence and house. These cost us nothing as we dug up from woods by family’s house. These just went in so not much production yet. We plan on adding about another 20+ bushes.

·         We have no credit cards and never plan on signing up for them again. We both have learned from the bad spending habits of others, which sent us into debt.

·         We changed our debt payoff plan from 5 years to 3 or sooner. Every extra buck goes to debt reduction or savings.

·         We now do a ROI (Return on Investment) for everything. If it will not save us money, or produce income, we don’t get it or put low on the priority list.

·         We use the app Gas Buddy before filling up. While I once said “it is just a few cents savings” I now say “it is $1 today, and that $1 adds up over a year”

·         We stopped or greatly reduced going out to eat. We pack lunches when we go to Zoo, Children’s Museum or other activities. One out for a meal is not that big of a deal, but 6 is a bit more and that adds up fast.

·         We buy used if we can. Why pay $100 for something you can get for $5. Example, I wanted some silicone muffin pans for making fire starters. New they are like $10 a piece. I paid $0.50 each. ½ price at Goodwill.

·         We have 16 chickens that produce between 6 and 12 eggs a day.

·         We make our own pasta. We had to do something with the extra eggs. After we sell, trade, give eggs away, still have more than we can all eat. Plus making your own pasta is healthier, is easy. 4 ingredients, (oil, salt, eggs, and flour) base recipe. Then you can use whole wheat flour, and add in other ingredients like spinach, tomatoes, garlic etc. Look at what is on the back of the box you buy at the store. How many things are in there that you cannot pronounce? Start looking at all the boxes you buy. What is it that you are eating?

·         We take our own school/family pictures. With 4 kids, and pictures offered at least 3 times a year and the cheapest package costing $30 that is $360 at least a year, not to mention sports pics, family pics, baby pics etc. We take our own with a backdrop we made, and print at CVS for a few bucks.

·         We buy in bulk and often repackage. For example a jar of pizza sauce is $2 and will make two large pizzas. We make pizza’s often. We buy a restraint size can of sauce for $6 and repackage in individual jars (we heat can them to keep longer) and get 8 jars per can. 8 jars in store costs $16 or more. Once our tomatoes come in this year we will make our own sauce, even cheaper! Ketchup, we buy can for $4, then refill ketchup bottles. We can get about 6 bottles out of one can. This would cost us more than $20 at store.

·         We make our own pizza. Delivered pizza is around $14 for a large cheese. We make ours for about $2 or less and is ready in <1 ½ hrs and that is to let dough rise. If we make quick version is ready in < 20 min. We buy bulk flour, yeast, oil, cheese, and sauce. All of the ingredients we use in other applications.

·         We can/freeze produce from our gardens.

·         We barter. Our 16 chickens cost us almost nothing. We traded extra produce from our garden last year to someone wanting to downsize their chicken flock. We did pay some because they are rare breeds.

·         Nothing gets wasted at the house. What we don’t eat the cat/dog gets. What they don’t eat goes to the compost for either the chickens, worms, or our garden to reuse.

·         We compost, and add everything to it, except meat/protein and oils. The compost gets grass clippings, leaves, weeds, table scraps, shavings from the guinea pig cage, anything organic. Then it produces great soil for next year’s gardens.

·         We use ceiling fans rather than air condition, and a fireplace insert for heat in the winter.