Haloween

We had a great time trick-or-treating with some friends in the area. The weather was perfect, high 50's, no rain, no wind. The kids had a lot of fun. We had Juliet, a dinosaur, a ninja, and a negative political campaign add. You can't see it that clearly but the political campaign add accuses our two governor candidates of being a vampire and a zombie and concludes with ...and I approve this message.
Posted by Nathan

New Orange Belt

We have a new Orange Belt at our house. Our middle son tested successfully to go from Yellow to Orange.

Exploded tomatoes and Parsnips

Ever since the fall rains came our tomatoes have been exploding. I think there is just too much water for them to handle. About the time they start to turn orange they split.
Next year we will try keeping them under cover from spring to fall. We did a low tunnel this year to get them through the spring but by summer they were too big for it. Next year we are thinking about a bigger tunnel that will be 8 feet tall. We'll see.
We are enjoying a small harvest of parsnips. This is about half of what we planted. They have been growing since early spring. They have been a very trouble free vegetable. We may plant a few more next year. It is nice to have some thing to harvest in November.

Pumpkins

We planted sugar pumpkins this year. They are supposed to be good for pies. We harvested them a few weeks ago. They are kind of small. Hope they taste good.

birthday

We had a birthday last week. As is our tradition, we got the kids together to decorate the cake.
We topped the cake with whipped cream sweetened with powdered sugar.
Then the kids helped put on the fruit.
It was a very fun day!

Posted by Nathan

Bad seed?

Some of my Brussels sprouts have developed nice long stems. I expect they will begin to produce sprouts soon.
Some, almost half, don't look like Brussels sprouts at all; even given identical growing conditions.
I am beginning to think that I go some bad seed.

Posted by Nathan

End of the Zucchini

Powdery mildew is claiming the zucchini, yellow squash, and pumpkins. We have enjoyed a nice harvest this summer but they won't be able to hang in much longer.

Street Garden

These are pictures of our first attempt at a street garden. The idea of a street garden is to for it to be a tool to promote gardening in our neighborhood by being an example. Street gardens are supposed to be both decorative and food producing. They are established in areas that normally would be devoted to landscaping. I think we have done better on the food producing part than on the decorative part.

We plan to do more with this idea next year. We hope to put in at least one more garden this size. We may add a few flowers to make it more decorative. We plan to include more information; plant names, planting dates, type and amount of fertilizer (We hope to develop a fertilizer based largely on coffee grounds. We plan to give our local coffee shop a nod.), summary of the labor involved, and a way for people to contact us if they want more information.

I plan to talk to the neighbors down the street. They put in a street garden right after I did but they didn't keep it up. It is now over run with weeds. Maybe we can start a movement in our little corner of the world.

Rockets

We spent the day today making water bottle rockets. It was way more fun than watching TV. We found directions for making the launcher at the following website:

http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/AE/aymanma/images/How%20to%20make%20a%20soda-bottle%20rocket%20launcher.pdf




Posted by Nathan

Our tomatoes are coming on strong. We just have three plants this year; all cherries. Maybe we will do a few more next year. The challenge for us is that they take so long to grow in our cool summers and the the harvest time is kind of short. We started these as seeds back in February. They were inside for 6 weeks and then outside under a tunnel for 2 months. It has been a lot of work but we should have a nice harvest for the next few weeks until the rain damps them off. If we get a mild fall they may go longer. We'll see.

Worms in the Asian Pears

Our Asian Pear trees, we have three, are loaded this year. We thinned them in the spring so the fruits are big and beautiful. Unfortunately...

they are almost 100% wormy. Yuck. I looked up the pest online. I appears that we have a bad case of codling moth worms. The good news is that codling moth worms don't seem to destroy the whole fruit. We have been cutting them out and have still been left with enough pear to eat.
Aside from pesticide sprays it looks like the controls are 1) catch them on the tree trunk with burlap as they descend and destroy them before they over winter, 2) keep the area around the trees clean, and 3) cover the fruits in the spring shortly after they emerge. We are too late this year to stop them from descending. Most already have. I think I will turn my chickens out under the trees to see if they can find any bugs and next spring we will try covering the fruits.

Posted by Nathan

New Chickens.... what to do with the old ones?

Eat them of course!

So I had a birthday back in June and my children got me four new chickens. As we watched the babies grow we debated whether to eat the original 5 that are now just over a year old. We considered putting the new ones in with the old ones but ruled that out. A friend gave us a magazine with recipes for "Tough Old Birds." I bravely maintained that I would be able to "harvest" them. I still maintain that I will be able to but we decided not now.

In the end we decided to keep them all and build a second coop/tractor. This one is made almost entirely out of old palates that a construction site near us was giving a way for free. This time I build a light coop that sits on top of the tractor. The coop can be lifted off to make moving easier.


The top opens like so for cleaning.

We used an old plastic tub to make the nest boxes. It can also be lifted off.

We just take the lid off to check for eggs.

And here are the new ladies.
Posted by Nathan.

Green Beans again

We made green bean casserole tonight. It needed a little salt but was a hit with the kids.
We boiled the beans and put them in a pan.
Added a little cooked onion...
... some sour cream...
and bread crumbs. Then baked the whole thing for 15 minuets and it was done.
Yummy.

Green Beans and Zucchini

We have had a bumper crop of green beans zucchini and yellow squash. Today we decided to make Japanese style tempura.


It turned out great.

Eating Eggs

Our chickens are very bad. One of them ate the eggs. Maybe because it was too hungry.
We read a book that said if your chickens ate the eggs then you should put mustard in it so the chickens wont eat eggs anymore. I guess they hate mustard.

The place we found the eaten egg was in the nest box so we're putting it in the nest box. If the chickens don't stop eating eggs then we might just kill them. I hope the plan works.

Slugs

We love baby choy, but unfortunantly,theres something else that loves it too, SLUGS! If you look carefully you can see six slugs. In fact, theres about six slugs on every baby choy plant.
Over here you can see the destruction they have caused to the baby choy on the bed made of bricks.
We planted more baby choy in this wooden bed and zero slugs have even touched it Maybe because its on the sunnier side.

bonsai

We have lots of bonsai trees in our backyard.
Sometimes we bring them in to fix them up and make them look better.
After fixing them they look good so we bring them in to decorate the house.