'Tis the Season...for Pumpkin!

Labor Day is over, so you know what that means? No more white jeans, right? Or is that "cool" now? I don't know - fashion was never my strong point. No, no...labor day is over and now it means that the grocery stores are going to be flooded with pumpkin E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G! Pumpkin spiced Cheerios. Pumpkin bagels. Pumpkin tea. Pumpkin coffee. Pumpkin peanut butter. So much pumpkin!

I love pumpkin as much as the next fall loving girl, but I prefer to get my pumpkin from the garden. A few years ago, I fell in love with the Long Island Cheese Pumpkin. Good flavor, great yield! They are doing great in my squash jungle this year and I harvested my first one a few weeks ago. They hold well in storage, but since I was looking to start my fall baking, I decided to roast it.

Long Island Cheese Pumpkin

Roasting is simple - cut the pumpkin in half, place cut side down on a cookie sheet, add a little water and pop it in a 350 degree oven. Check on it periodically and when the skin is softened on the pumpkin, pull it out. Let it cool and then scoop the flesh into a food processor. Whiz that baby up and let it drain through some cheesecloth. Measure it out and freeze in quart bags for future use. I freeze mine flat on a cookie sheet first for better stacking in the freezer. You know, when you get a hankering for some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Or maybe some pumpkin bagels. I made some a few years ago...think I might have to pull out that recipe and make them again.

This pumpkin gave me 7 cups of pumpkin puree. Take that canned pumpkin! I have 5 more in the garden, so I should be able to fulfill all my pumpkin dreams this fall and winter. What about you? What's your favorite pumpkin treat?

The Great Garden Project

Last year, our garden got totally annihilated by our chickens. It was totally our fault as we didn't have an adequate fence in place. And once those gals got the taste for heirloom tomatoes, they refused to share them. So, we plotted and planned over the winter.

Ever since we bought this property 6 years ago, Dan has had dreams of putting in a small vineyard for making his own wine. He decided that this was the year. As we were talking about the addition, we knew it would need to be fenced as well as the garden. So, to save some labor, he placed the vineyard next to the garden so it could be fenced as one.

The first layer of fence was installed before we planted the grapes so that the chickens or deer wouldn't just rip them up. As added protection, a second fence is being placed five feet away with an additional buried fence to deter any burrowing rodents.

Dan planted 21 grape plants - seven for white wine, seven for red wine, and a mixture of seven for fresh eating, jelly and juice.

The grapes arrived looking like dead sticks with roots as they were dormant one year plants. Once they were in the ground, they took off. They are looking great! Once the outer fence is up, Dan will build in his trellis system. And hopefully in a year or two, we will be enjoying some delicious grapes!

I've been working with a gardening friend of mine in Vermont on nutrient dense gardening techniques and we've done a lot of work on our soil so far. That's a whole other post, but I'm super excited for the garden this year!

I've gotten most everything planted except for the peppers and tomatoes we started and the okra. The tomatoes are caged and mulched with straw.

The onions are rocking so far and I've mulched around them as well.

The kids planted sunflowers and I planted zinnias. I'm hopeful for the zinnias - I had some nice ones growing last year before Dan decided to hoe them away...

Once all of the seeds are up, I plan to weed well and mulch around everything. Last year, we didn't have any success getting our peppers to germinate. This year, since each of our kids would eat their weight in bell peppers, we were determined to get some started. A heat mat worked wonders and we've had great germination success. The little plants are outside so they will be ready to go in the garden hopefully this weekend.

Whew...there's a lot more to talk about, so I'll save it for another post! How is YOUR gardening coming along?

Those Darn Chickens

I love having chickens. I really do.

But, I don't like them getting in my garden. And eating ALL of my ripe tomatoes. Every last one. From 3 dozen plants. Seriously?! They got in while we were away on Saturday and by the time we got home, the damage was done. And now that one knows there is a way in, several have done it. The kids and I chased 8 of them out after dinner.

And eggs. You'd think for all the free, wonderful, almost pizza sauce food they've been gorging themselves on they'd be laying machines. Nope. We got one egg yesterday. ONE!

So, we decided to go on a little egg hunt today. We've walked the perimeter of their usual locations a few times and have come up empty handed. But, today, they exposed a new area we hadn't checked. Under the deck. Under a pallet. And under a little bit of landscape fabric. Lela decided to hang out for a while after laying her egg today and we caught her....red winged?

We found 6 eggs and several that had been cracked and eaten. But, we did find one exciting thing!

One of these things is not like the others! We got our first pullet egg! We think it came from Amelia, our Barred Rock. Or my little therapist. She has started doing the "submissive squat" over the last week and we have read that this is a tell tale sign that a pullet will soon start laying. Either way, we found it and it's cute. And for the time being, our fall gardening plans are on hold until we figure out our fence...

Coop Progress!

The coop is moving right along!  We are getting excited for our chicks this week and even more excited for the fresh, free range eggs we will get! Here's some progress pictures as of about 20 minutes ago :-)

There will be windows, don't worry. And Dan is currently working on the nesting box jut out on the east side. The "siding" and trim will be painted to match our house. There will also be a chicken door and ramp to the right of the full sized door. 

The planting has also begun in the garden! Onions, potatoes, carrots, peas, and parsnips are in the ground. The seedlings are coming along and we are anxious to get started planting everything else. After the late frost last year, we will probably err on the side of caution and wait a few days past our "last average frost date." One of our next projects will be fencing in the garden to keep curious chickens and deer out!

Have you started planting in your garden? Be sure to check in this week as I share our brooder set up, one my favorite chicken resources, and best of all - fluffy chicks!

Little Flowers

While out watching Dan finish putting the roof on before the rain this afternoon, Kole hands me this:

Our yard is dotted with these little purple beauties. And it made my heart melt to watch my rough and tumble little boy carefully pick this for me. He also picked one for Jenna. I may have him pick a lot more soon and make some violet jelly. Has anyone ever tried it?

In other news, the coop is coming along!

The north side features the man door and will also have the chicken door. The east side will have the nesting boxes in a bump out on the side. And the South side will have a few windows. Dan worked really hard on the design and is anxious to see how well his original passive solar design works.

Here's a view of the coop from the bottom of the garden:

The chickens will be free range, so we will be fencing the garden in. We plan to let them in in the evenings for some supervised pest control.

And here's the view of the house from the bottom of the garden:

It was very cloudy today, with lots of wind. It is supposed to get chilly tomorrow,  with the possibility of *snow.* While I don't want to see any more of the white stuff this year, I know it won't last! Happy Monday!

Water, Water, Water...

....water! Water was a big concern of ours when we first started building. When you buy property, there really is no way of telling if you have a viable source of water for a well. Of course if there is a spring or stream, there is little question.

With our house being on top of a hill, we were a little unsure of our chances of finding water for a good well. We had things all set in place for one well driller to come and drill it for us, but his rig broke down in the middle of our building process. We were luckily able to find another well driller who had some availability to come help us out.

Our driller and his wife came out to our property and used a "divining rod." It is basically a forked branch of a certain species of wood. Cherry is a good choice. If there is water, the stick will bend toward the water. They walked around our house and tried to find spots that seemed favorable. One was right behind our house and the other was near the bottom of our driveway,  in the middle of the road. Convenient, right?

He started drilling behind our house first. Boy, well drilling is a dusty job! Things looked favorable and it seemed as though we had hit water. He asked me to come out the next day so I could "see the show." But, when I got here....The well was empty. He speculated that there was some sort of crevice in the rock that allowed the water to flow away. So, back to the drawing, er, drilling board.

The drilling rig was moved down to the switchback in our driveway. The divining rod showed the most movement in the middle of the road, but that wasn't going to work for a well. Off the road slightly, there was still some promise. And luckily for us, he hit water. At a depth of 160 feet, we had a viable well.

The well is 1500 feet from our house. At the bottom of the hill. Our driller had a small excavator and spent the better part of a week trenching and laying water and electric lines to get the water to the house. What a fiasco!

Because the well is so far away from the house, we have a storage tank in our basement. The well itself has a 2 horsepower pump in it and it takes 7 minutes for the water to get from the well to our basement. Obviously, that would make doing anything with water difficult,  so we have a secondary pump that pumps water through the house from the storage tank. The well is set up to pump water up to the tank every 30 minutes as needed.

We try our best to conserve our water. We bought all new appliances, so we were sure to buy a front loading washing machine as well as low flow toilets and shower heads. We also wanted to use rainwater. We found rain barrels that matched the siding on our house!  We have 6 - 65 gallon rain barrels.

This particular barrel sits on the southwest corner of the house and is perfect for watering our garden. We were able to use only rainwater to water the garden last year and hope to be able to do the same this year. We have plans to connect them all together in the future and set up some sort of irrigation for our garden(s). Baby steps, right?

And the chicken coop is coming right along! Here's a teaser picture,  but be sure to check back tomorrow to see Dan's passive solar designed coop!

Getting Ready!

As we were (are) getting our kids to bed, our neighbor came by with his tractor and plow. We have a tractor and are on the lookout for a one bottom plow, but don't have the means to plow just yet. We are so thankful for good neighbors!

And doesn't that dirt look awesome! I'm looking forward to getting my hands in it and also taking some samples for a soil test.

I took the picture from Kole's room. Needless to say, he isn't interested in going to bed just yet :-)

Potatoes, Anyone?

We grew a variety of things last year. We enjoyed some lovely fresh dug potatoes on July 4 as well as some monster beets. We got a respectable potato harvest and hope for even more this year.

There are so many varieties of potatoes besides the typical russet in the grocery store. We love blue or purple potatoes. They are quite beautiful and the more color, the more vitamins and minerals a food has. There's a reason why we are encouraged to "eat the rainbow. "

I ordered our potatoes from Fed Co seeds this year or Moose Tubers. I ordered the "specialty organic" mix. Sounds fancy schmancy, eh? It was delivered via UPS. I love our UPS driver. When he came up the hill the other day, he told me that he gets excited when he has to deliver to our house because he likes our view!

Isn't this a fun bag? The mix included 12.5 pounds of seed potatoes. It was like opening a Christmas present since I didn't know what varieties we were receiving.

We received 2 red varieties, 2 white varieites, and a blue variety. Strawberry paw just sounds cool, don't you think? I'm looking forward to getting them in the ground!

Work continued yesterday on the coop yesterday. We also made it out to the last winter farmers market of the year.  While there we picked up half of a fresh chicken. Laura from Sweet Wind Farm, where we will be getting our chicks, butchered a few chickens Saturday night. It was the most delicious chicken breast! And I'm cooking down some stock as we speak.

I didn't get many pictures yesterday as my time outside was spent trying to keep a certain 13 month old from trying to run into the woods. Oy, she's getting to be a handful. I did snap this, though, last night as Dan was covering the floor to protect it from the rain today.

Happy Monday, everyone! What's on your homesteading agenda this week?

Soil Remineralization

I've been doing a lot of reading lately (something I don't get to do very often!). I ran across a book on our statewide online lending library called The Intelligent Gardener. It is an interesting read and one that has completely caught my attention.

The idea behind the book is that our food we grow is lacking in nutrients because our soil lacks the proper mineral balance. When the minerals are balanced, plants are strong and healthy and pests are few. I'm still working my way through the book (it is information heavy!), but it appeals to my analytical side. And he doesn't bore me with his talk about chemistry.

And it just so happens a few weeks ago, I ran across a free cookbook. As I read through the beginning of the book, it turns out that the author is herself a huge proponent of remineralizing soil and growing the most nutrient dense food she can. I can't wait for fresh produce this summer to try her recipes out. She has a pretty cool website and offers a guide to growing nutrient dense foods.

I'm going to keep reading and researching and finding the best way to implement this into our garden. It all makes so much sense to me and it allows me to dust the cobwebs off my chemistry degree :-)

Seasonal Eating

If you can't tell by now, I'm a big fan of local, seasonal foods. I haven't always been this way. But, the more I learned about our food system, the more passionate I've become.

Eating seasonally can seem a little overwhelming at first. Who doesn't miss tomatoes in the winter or butternut squash in the summer? But a tomato in the winter has zero taste. And if you live somewhere where there is snow, it's been trucked thousands of miles to get to the store.

While we've been a member of some sort of CSA for almost 6 years now, our garden last year is really what pushed us fully into seasonal eating. When you get 10 crook eck squash at a time, you have to become creative. Or hope that your neighbors like them as well!

I love cookbooks and pinning recipes on Pinterest, but I generally turn to one cookbook when I'm looking for new and fun ideas.

The recipe is divided by seasons and is wonderful. Even if you don't follow a recipe exactly, it gives you fresh ideas. And one of the authors is from West Virginia!

What's your favorite cookbook?

Roasting pumpkins

Pumpkins are the epitome of fall for me. Lovely orange hues, scary Jack O'lanterns,  and roasted goodness. Roasting a pie pumpkin is so easy and so economical!

Just cut it in half, throw in a 350 degree oven, roast, puree and wah-lah! Pies, cookies, bread, bagels, pumpkin roll.  Great, now I'm hungry :-)

Garden woes

We are complete novices when it comes to gardening. We started out this spring with a big garden layout and lots of seeds. And a lot of optimism.

We started having some minor issues when we started our plants inside. We didn't use a grow light initially and so our plants started getting leggy. We fashioned a seed starting table with a light and repotted some of the plants.

We amended our garden with some compost and planted our early crops. Everything was doing great until the deer annihilated our chard. The kale wasn't too far behind...

We worked on hardening off our plants. They were planted last weekend. We quickly realized we didn't allow the plants enough gradual exposure to the sun as basically everything got scalded. Then came the wind and rain. While the rain was welcome for our seeds, it wreaked havoc on our tender transplants. And then came the frost. We never expected to have a frost this late. While we covered the plants, most if not all of them have seemingly irreparable damage. We plan to let them go this week to see if they recover at all. If not, we will buy pepper and tomato plants at the greenhouse over the weekend.

Kole and I went out earlier to check on things, only to find the deer have been eating our peas! And the dog was sunbathing in it as well. We plan to fence the garden in, but we were waiting to see if we liked the location first. Looks like we might be fencing sooner than we planned.

The good news is that everything else we started from seeds last weekend is up!