424
Hi Everyone,
It was a typical week on the farm last week—lots to do and not enough time to do it all in.
Mission Impossible!
Have you ever had to do something that you deemed impossible? Have you ever done something 100 times and it is still terrible? Well when it comes to weeding nutgrass I enter the “IMPOSSBILE Zone”. The squashes are growing nicely in the garden and the rows that they are growing in are pretty much weed-free—but the walkways beside them are thick carpets of weeds. We started with the butternut squash and the weeds surrounding it were big—crabgrass, dog fennel, pigweed, and a bunch of other. There was also some nutgrass and in one section lots of rattlesnake weeds (Florida Betony). Weeding that area took most of the day, and then after lunch Mom and I headed over to the yellow squash and zucchini row to start weeding there while Steve waged war on the betony. Now lunch didn’t happen until after 2:00 because weeding is addicting and Steve didn’t want to quit—even though I was starting to wonder around the garden because I just couldn’t go no more. Lunch didn’t exactly energize me, so I really wasn’t ready to go back to the garden—but at 3:00 that is where we headed, and to my dismay we sat down to weed in a section that had lots of big weeds, but a large amount of nutgrass under the big weeds. First we broadforked the area making it very easy to pull up the weeds—but to get the nutgrass out you had to really rake and dig through the dirt to eradicate all the nuts and roots. That is where my patience runs out!!!!! I finally decided that it would be best for my mental health and my physical well-being to pull all the big weeds and let Mom fine tune through the dirt for all the nutgrass. I got about 4 feet accomplished that way when Mom caught on—and was not happy. The decision was made that I should just quit for the day and inside I came—it was 4:30 anyway. Once inside I was on a mission—there just had to be a way to get around weeding nutgrass by hand. If you just hoe it—you actually break the roots and cause them to multiply. The worst part is that even if you take the time to dig out every root—you will leave a piece and more will come back. So I searched YouTube and found lots of videos on using deadly chemicals—but I didn’t want to use chemicals. Then I found one where the gardener used dried molasses, cardboard and mulch to kill out the nutgrass. It was so easy—all you had to do was heavily coat the area with molasses, cover with thick cardboard, and cover the cardboard with 3 inches of mulch and leave it there for six months. The sugar caused the microbes in the soil to eat up the nuts of the nutgrass—which leaves nothing to grow. So the next day Mom mowed all the weeds down and we just focused on weeding the rows where the squash grew and in time we will try out the molasses trick. Around the spaghetti squash the nutgrass was so thick that they actually decided to just weed it—and it was so thick that it actually came up like a carpet which really was pretty easy to do. The YouTube video did say that if you pull up the nutgrass about twelve times that you finally use up all the nutrients in the nut and it will die—so I guess we have eleven times more to go, unless they make new nuts and multiply before we can get around to the eleventh time.
Help for the brown thumbs!
Weeding is only one of the trials of gardening. You need to know when to plant—as in certain vegetables grow best in the winter and others grow best in the summer. Then you need to know what not to plant (as in invasive species). How to make things grow is a very helpful thing to know—plants that is not weeds (they grow pretty well all by themselves). Once you figure out what to grow and when to grow it—it is nice to know how to grow it (does it like lots of organic matter and heavy nitrogen like onions) or (does it like sandy soil like sweet potatoes). Did you know that most herbs that grow up north in the summer—only grow here during the winter? We have people asking us garden questions all the time, and many people have asked for a class on gardening. We have listened, and have set the date—Saturday afternoon, June 25, 2022 1:00 to 4:00. The timing is perfect to me because it will give everyone just enough time to plan their garden and get seeds because Florida’s best growing season starts in August and goes through May. We will share the tips and tricks we know, and we will take a tour through the garden where we hope to inspire you to not only plant seeds, but to design a garden that you want to spend time in. A garden should be a home to not only vegetables—but herbs, flowers, fruit and beneficial wildlife too. You can learn more about the seminar and get your tickets here: https://youcangardeninnorthFL.rsvpify.com
Surprise!
Mom’s 67th birthday was Thursday, May 26—but my sister Samantha had to work that day so a week ago she called me and asked if she and her husband could come for dinner on Tuesday as a surprise to Mom. I told her that would be just fine, but the secret didn’t last long because my sister isn’t good at keeping secrets (but it is okay to tell your own secrets, so she had every right to tell Mom her secret when she couldn’t contain it any more). Tuesday afternoon rolled around and I was still teaching piano lessons when my niece and nephew came in followed by my sister Nichole—who was followed by my sister Samantha and her husband. Later that evening my brother Charles showed up with Nichole’s husband Gary—and I was a little bit stressed. At 4:30 that morning Samantha had a brilliant idea that all the siblings should come over for Mom’s birthday—but one sibling didn’t get that memo (because I do not have a cellphone with text). So at 4:45 I needed to start dinner—but I had no idea how many people I was serving dinner to, and when I asked my sister Nichole how many people were staying for dinner—she didn’t know. UGH! Have you ever tried to cook a meal for an unknown amount of people? Thankfully that morning I had taken out three packs of chicken legs—so that gave 12 legs to serve to 10 people that I could assume would be eating dinner with us. Once I had them in the oven using my Oven-Fried Chicken Legs recipe, I started a huge salad from lettuce out of our garden and from the carrots and onions that we had harvested out of our garden. Then I cooked a bunch of noodles and some green peas—and dinner was complete. We had a wonderful evening, and everyone managed to get fed and we enjoyed the fellowship together.
Plenty of noses for Frosty!
Last September I planted a bed of Bolero carrots—and we harvested them in December and we packed them in sand and stored them in the cooler. See our YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32zcwucjwo8&t=5s In November I planted a bed of Scarlet Nantes carrots—and we harvested half of them in April and stored them in sand also. Then a few weeks ago Mom harvested the last of the Scarlet Nantes carrots and due to time they were just stuffed in a large tub with their tops still on them and placed in the walk-in cooler. All was well for the first few days—then I never checked on them again until Tuesday night when I needed some carrots for the salad. While most were still crisp—some were starting to get rubbery. Mom really wanted to can them—but energy and time just wasn’t there. So Wednesday afternoon Mom and I pulled the carrots out of the cooler and cut off all their tops and brainstormed on what to do with them. We could can them, freeze them, juice them, use them for noses on snowmen—or we could peel, slice and dehydrate them! We figured that dehydrating would be the best way to store them—and then we could use them in soups or in making broth. I was excited! I love to have dehydrated celery leaves and onions on hand when I am lacking fresh ones for making stock—and now I have dehydrated carrots too.
Farm Swap
Many farm stores are providing their parking lots for “Farm Swaps”—a place and time where farmers can come and sell or swap their animals and farm products. Well, we didn’t go to one of those farm swaps—but we did do some farm swapping last Thursday. Our Murray Grey beef bull is well over ten years old—and is starting to show his age. Therefore, we need a new bull. We have been considering swapping breeds to the South Poll cows—“South Poll cattle are bred to be slick-haired, small-framed cows with emphasis placed on high fertility, longevity, and calm disposition. South Poll is a composite breed of cattle combining four maternal breeds: Red Angus; Hereford; Senepol; and Barzona. South Polls are bred to excel on a grass based grazing system.” A friend of ours has a herd of them near Monticello, Florida—and she had a 13 month old bull available. Our friend, Dana, bought a bred heifer from us a few years back and is enjoying her so much that she was in need of another Jersey heifer cow—and we had one available. So we swapped! There was one problem though—her family doesn’t have a cattle trailer and the floor of ours rotted out and the sides rusted out that Papa had to tear out the floor and is waiting on someone to come and weld the trailer back together. We had no way to get her bull to us, or our heifer to her. Thankfully a neighbor of Dana’s had a trailer and was willing to do the swapping—but that meant we wouldn’t be able to visit (at least that is what we thought at first). In the end, Dana got to come along and we did get to visit and she got to see “Tilly’s” mom Sally. Tilly is the heifer that Dana got, and her mama Sally is an excellent milk producer (3 gallons a day on nothing but grass—and she has long teats, a plus for hand milking). The bull we got from Dana is so “handsome”, but has no identity yet besides his ear tag—J12. I am sure we shall come up with some name. Our other bulls name is Billy Boy—my sister Nichole named him which is how we know that he is over ten years old (my sister has been married for ten years).
Rainy days are great shopping days!
Mom had grand dreams of weeding in the garden on Friday—but the heavens open up and let down an inch of rain while we were milking (drenching Steve who was out in the field doing his morning chores, and stranding Penny in the milking parlor with us because while she was there getting her “orders” for the morning when the rain came down in a torrent). The rest of the day threatened more rain—though none came, but it gave us the perfect excuse to head to town to run some much needed errands. One of the stops was at our local feed store to buy some seeds. One of the men that works there has lots of gardening knowledge and I love to pick his brain—and would love to have him over to really pick his brain. Anyway, he told us that we had best stock up on seeds because they are getting harder and harder to come by and it will only get worse as drought and floods prevent many crops from being planted or harvested. He said that a three year supply is a good idea.
Aliya is growing up!
On Friday Papa decided that it was time for Aliya to start spending her days out to pasture with the chickens and Jill and Yasha so that she can learn to be a good guard dog. She is doing pretty good—but she sure is happy when Papa comes to gather the eggs in the afternoon for she quickly jumps in the golf-cart and gets a ride back to her kennel for the night. Once I looked out to see Aliya cautiously trying to lay in the shade of the chicken house beside Jill—but Jill was in no mood to share with a “puppy” so Aliya found herself back in the sun for a little while longer. Yasha likes to play with Aliya, and that is good for both of them.
Time to chill out!
The day finally arrived for us to get air-conditioning put in the Poultry kitchen (the building where we process chickens, turkeys and hold meetings). A friend of my brother-in-law was able to get us a good deal and so on Saturday he showed up to install it. It will be very nice in the summer months when we process—and will come in grand handy when we do seminars in there. We have had a huge fan blowing on us in the past—but it is so loud that we really cannot talk and fellowship while we work. In a few weeks we shall get to try it out when we process the next batch of chickens.
Please pass the peas!
When Mom and I were shopping in town on Friday we went to the local produce store to get some honey. While there we realized that field peas were in season so we bought a bushel of shelled zipper peas and a bushel of shelled pink-eyed peas. In the past when my Grandma was still alive she would have bought bushels of unshelled peas and everyone would sit on the porch and shell peas all day. Time is not in abundance of late and helping hands are few—so we bought them already shelled and spent Saturday afternoon canning peas. We got 17 pints of zippers and 16 pints of pink-eyes. I think that we shall go get some more and can them up too. Filling your larder with things that you eat is a very wise thing to do with things going the way they are lately.
Family Time
We ended our week with my sister Samantha spending the night with us so that she could go to church with us today. On Tuesday my brother Charles arranged to go with us today also—and my niece, Makenna, was going to go too. Then this morning my sister Nichole decided to come along with Makenna and bring her son Josiah too. We had a van full—well, not exactly because we could have added two more bench seats if we needed to—but we did have eight people in the van with us for the ride to and from church. It has been over ten years since that many of us have been together at church.
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare