In this category you will find everything that is growing and living outside in the garden, like growing vegetables and fruit and raising animals for there meat and chickens for eggs
I sowed green beans in weeds. Did I have anything to harvest?
Well yes, I was able to pick a few green beans here and there, but the green beans generally weren’t much of a success this year. Here is the link to my first post.
I can not really draw any conclusions out of my experiment, since the weeds did not do well either. The green beans I had sown in the greenhouse and later planted in the garden did a little better, but we did not harvest many green beans at all this year, which is a shame, since the kids love them.
Very late to sow, but in August I had sown some more green beans in another weedy bed and these did very well. I have to say, that the wetter worked in my advantage here, since we had plenty of rain and warmth. Of course I sowed them much too late in the season, but these green beans thrived and we actually where able to harvest a meal of these before the first night frost came.
Well, I guess I have learned not to start in the season to early and I should dedicate enough garden space for the green beans. I tent to start in the spring as soon as the soil starts to warm up a little and I just pack every garden space I have not thinking about the crops that come at a later point. Green beans will definitely be one of my main crops for next year, since green beans coming out of our own garden do taste much better then the ones store bought and we miss them very much as a vegetable for over winter.
Well, after a while the first potato plants stuck up there heads (potatoes usually always grow). On some parts of the compost bed the potatoes grew better on some parts they did not thrive very well, but this was on both the rotary tilled and not rotary tilled part of the compost bed the same.
Potato plants in tilled compost bedPotato plants in no-tilled compost bed
As spring progressed I planted some corn (a popcorn variety), 2 pumpkins and some amaranth in between the 2 rows of potatoes. In the spring, when all the plants are still so small, I always think “o, there is enough space. I can plant some more”. Well the potatoes hat been more then enough, but it was interested to see how the other crops did.
The pumpkins for instance, I planted one in the tilled part and one in the not tilled part. At least these plants gave me a good noticeable difference. The pumpkin in the not tilled bed did not thrive and eventually died. The pumpkin in the tilled bed did not thrive very well, but somehow lived and grew a little.
Pumpkin planted in between potato plants not thriving in a no-tilled compost bedPumpkin plant flowering in a tilled compost bed
It was at this point we started to realize that we made a big mistake while building this compost bed. The compost bed is made out of straw, hay and sawdust. Straw and hay are “empty”. There is not much energy in this material, since the plant directed all of the energy into the seeds. So the soil developing from these components can never have much nitrogen. We need to at manure. The component we simply did not have until this spring when we got ourselves some chickens. After cleaning the chicken coop I simply divide the manure around the pumpkin plant, the one in the tilled part that still lived. Well, it helped, but the pumpkin still did not really thrive. I imagine, the soil just wasn’t really ready to use quite yet.
As the season progressed the potato plants mostly did well and grew nice and big as did the weeds. I found an occasional cornflower.
Cornflowers
The thistles are well spread out, luckily mostly around the edges of the compost bed and the bindweed is just taking over the complete compost bed. It literally is everywhere. The flowers are beautiful and the insects love them. I simply let go of the thought of weeding. I would not know where to start and I just do not have the time.
Bindweed all over the potato bed
Then we got some runner ducks and put them on the pasture which includes this compost bed. The runner ducks are small enough, eat slugs and find hiding underneath the potato plants and the thistles (we have the type of thistle with big broad leaves). They where no problem at all, but then came the geese and destroyed the potato plants. I am glad the potatoes where already blooming at this point, so there would not be much growth anymore anyway. We started to harvest some potatoes here and there, because I wanted to compare both sides of the compost bed. At the tilled side we got a lot of smaller potatoes from one plant and on the not tilled side we got a few big potatoes from one plant.
Cleared potatoes in a tilled compost bedCleared potatoes in a no-tilled compost bedRed potatoes from tilled compost bed, yellow potatoes from no-tilled compost bed
Obviously the potatoes are different varieties, so I do not think we can really conclude anything out of this experiment. What I noticed is that the soil in the tilled part was much more broken down, darker, nicer and looser than the soil in the not tilled part, which was to be expected. The potatoes in the tilled part grew in and underneath the compost layer we had build up. The potatoes in the not tilled part grew underneath the compost layer we had build up. So this was like growing potatoes under mulch, but that I had a hard time digging the potatoes up from underneath the compacted compost layer.
All in all I had a nice potato harvest with nice big potatoes and a lot of small potatoes that will be saved as seed potatoes for next year.
As far as the corn went, just a little higher as the potato plants, bearably surviving. The geese then overran them.
A few corn plants in between potato plants
After I harvested all of the potatoes I dough out the one surviving pumpkin and planted it in another garden bed. The pumpkin liked it much better here. After a short time of setting it was thriving and it even set on some fruit. We will see if it ripens on time before the frost comes.
Pumpkin plant in a set no-dig bed with a pumpkin forming
After the compost bed was cleared of all edibles and plants I wanted to keep my husband brought out a manure spreader full of fresh cow manure from our farming friend. This gave a thick layer of manure over the entire compost bed, which we then tilled in with our rotary tiller. I am not sure yet what I will plant in here next year, but there will be more then enough nitrogen in this compost bed next season.
Compost bed, black in colour from freshly spread cow manure
As a finishing touch I sowed a mix of green manure and covered the entire compost bed with straw. Only I waited to long after tilling the compost bed with doing so. The compost bed was full of weeds again already. O well, we will rotary till this bed in spring before we want to use it again. I will probably never get rid of the weeds here, but that’s fine. Weeds aren’t necessarily bad.
A partially straw covered compost bed with weeds
And we accidently grew a meal of peas in the tilled part. Peas from the chickenfeed we threw out. The pea plants partially did well and partially turned yellow. Some of the peas had worms in them, but the good once tasted well and the kid’s had a lot of fun peeling the peas.
What’s there to harvest and what animals did we get?
Well, that is just the way life goes. No baby, but back in action doing gardening and expanding our homestead.
My husband and children had finished planting all of de gardens. Some gardens did Ok, others where ratter disappointing. I will be reviewing our different type of garden beds after they have been harvested and prepared for winter.
Harvest
Meanwhile harvest has been somewhat disappointing. The onions where very small and I will not come around to buying onions in winter. I am trying to shorten the time that I will have to buy onions by using onion tops and spring onions as much as I can for as long as they are growing in stead of using the onions we have in storage.
The garlic did well and even had some nice size bulbs compared to last year. What I found so strange is that some of the garlic plants also made a small bulb in the stalk above ground level. I have never seen this before, but apparently some varieties do this instead of making a flower.
I am also saving some seed. The kale, unlike last year, survived the winter and bloomed beautifully. After the seed where done I cut all of the seedpods of and let them dry for a while. Deseeding the pods was a bit unpleasant, because the seedpods where a bit sharp and stung but with gloves on it was ok. We got enough seed to last us a life time.
Kale seeds
We also collected seed from mustard, spring onions, lupine, peas, carrots, different grains and different flowers.
Carrot seeds
I am also drying some marigold flower leaves to make some calendula salve.
We finally started to harvest tomatoes, but we are losing the plants to blight again. Surprisingly late since we are having rain for over a month already. Luckily we also have a greenhouse now and there is no blight in there yet. With the first chilli’s turning red in the greenhouse, I made a chilli sauce on tomato base. My husband enjoyed it very much after a few months without chilli sauce.
tomato base chilli sauce
Other then that we have been eating potatoes from the garden, but the beans have been very disappointing. We are also having some cucumbers from the greenhouse.
My sons Hokkaido pumpkin was the only pumpkin plant to really survive and thrive, so he is very proud of that and checks the crop every day.
I have been trying to harvest some blackberries, but since they are wild growing most of them are hard to reach and will be enjoyed by the birds.
As for our homestead
My husband left to collect sidewalk tiles at a friend’s house. He came home with 2 runner ducks (a couple). I’ve always wanted to have runner ducks to eat the so many slugs we have in the gardens. Apparently they also eat lettuce, so I did not let them in the main garden yet, but they where in our garden 3 with the compost bed with the potatoes. They seemed to find more then enough to eat there. As the type of crops growing will allow, they will be moved trough all of the gardens.
Well, since the runner ducks do not go into there coop we also bought some geese to protect the runner ducks against the fox. After that the potato bed, obviously, was done.
As the coop we build for the runner ducks stayed empty we also bought some meat chickens after which we where gifted some dwarf chickens we put in the coop with them. Well the coop was a bit small for all of these chickens, but after the meat chickens have been butchered the coop is a very comfortable home for the dwarf chickens (they are so cute).
We got 5 female sheep, lambs from this spring, and we plan on breeding with them. They are still too young though, but next year in the fall we would need a male sheep as well.
We went out for some hare to raise for meat, but now we have one female for breeding and 3 males which are the hare of the kid’s. It is unbelievable how much the kid’s love there hare and care for them and cuddle with them. I have never seen such tame hare before. Well, we can’t possibly butcher these, so it will just take a bit longer before we will eat some hare.
Last but not least my husband gave me some fantails for our anniversary. They don’t really do anything, but are beautiful to look at.
To finish up some beautiful pictures
A beautiful bright green grasshopperA little frogA pastel yellow coloured sunflowerWhite borage
Beautiful Chaos 