A Little Bit Of This And A Little Bit Of That

I didn't post yesterday and I almost didn't post today! But that isn't because stuff hasn't been going on. Did I mention that I have some sweet potatoes planted in a pot in my living room? I don't see anything green yet but I'll keep you all posted.

I've continued my quest to get all the old out of the freezer. I took the last of the old apple sauce out the of freezer and made a single quart jar of apple butter. Mmmm, is that good. It's so easy to make too. I made it in my large crock pot.

I also took some canned food that has been sitting on my shelf embarassingly longer than it needed to be there and with a pound of hamburger made a pot of chili.

I didn't mention that I had been growing mung bean sprouts. I like sprouting in the winter because good fresh vegetables are in such short supply this time of year. Oh, yes, you can buy vegetables in the winter but the quality isn't usually what it should be.

I went to visit a friend's restaurant yesterday. The ambiance, the food, everything was fantastic. If you ever get to West Plains, Missouri, you've got to check out The A La Carte Cafe. Susan Lumsden not only is the chef of the establishment but she also created the quilts that are hanging around the place. I highly recommend the fish tacos! Last night was also the first night Jon, her husband played his twelve string and sang at the Cafe. My husband and I didn't get a chance to go last night but Susan reported that the attendance was phenomenal.

The garden is rather frozen at this time but additions are made daily onto the compost pile and wood ashes are dumped on the garden beds almost as often.

Another friend of mine has a greenhouse where she is growing winter salad greens and I saw pictures today. Was I impressed. I had greenhouse envy. Someday perhaps I will get the chance to have my own greenhouse. But in the meantime maybe I can buy some of Mary's greens. Enough at least to go along with my bean sprouts.

One Warm day in December

Yesterday was a beautiful day to get outside. The sun was shining and it was warm enough to be outside without a coat. I decided to do some work on the garden area and more specifically the composting area.

My compost area isn't a box or specifically constructed in any way. It is simply a pile that gets added to on a regular basis and gets turned almost as regularly.

I started the pile at the edge of my garden this last spring with a pile of sod from my newly plowed garden area. Last year was the first year that we had a garden at the place we now live and our neighbor was nice enough to plow it for us. That's probably the last mechanized tool that will be used in my garden. I'm going to try to grow everything in it simply by using human power more about that in a later post.

After getting all the perennial grasses out of the garden I decided to mulch with aged sawdust and a friend of my brother's brought out a load for me. I had them unload it on top of that pile. I then removed what sawdust I needed to completely mulch the garden and then left the rest. Thus my compost pile was started.

Next I added household garbage to the compost pile. I added anything that that the dogs wouldn't eat. I placed the garbage on one side of the compost pile and then used a hoe to cover it with the aged sawdust from the other side of the pile. There is never an adverse smell that comes from my compost piles constructed this way.

Every couple of rains I turn the pile. It's been so dry this year that by watering the pile I could have promoted the composting process but I've decided to allow nature to do most of the work so I haven't been adding water to the pile. To turn the pile I simply use a garden fork or a shovel to turn the pile onto the grasses space beside the compost pile along the garden's edge. I completely move the pile to the spot beside where the original pile was.

Where the original pile was, there was a bare spot that during the summer I mulched so that grass wouldn't grow there. Because it is beside the garden, it then is an area that I can use to expand the garden in that direction. How much more perfect can the soil be than soil that was under a compost pile? I am running the compost pile down the south end of the garden and hope to complete this area by the time spring comes.

That brings us up to yesterday. Yesterday I decided to get a little more aggressive about getting that south end of the garden done so I raked leaves from around the yard and laid them down on the area of the south end of the garden that hasn't yet been 'run over' by the compost pile. I had previously raked leaves and put them on the rest of the garden but because of some severe winds, many of the leaves had been blown away so to prevent this from happening in this new area, I tossed compost from the compost pile onto the leaves to anchor them down against even the strongest wind. This morning Mother Nature was cooperative and it is raining a nice gentle rain that will soak into the compost and weigh down the leaves.

This spreading of leaves and sprinkling with compost is a process known as sheet composting. It is as the term indicates. The composting done in like a sheet. Mulching with any organic material is a form of sheet composting. By adding sheet compost in the fall or winter, I've insulated the soil from extremes in temperatures creating an environment that is less hostile to microbes that work the compost. The microbes then instead of hibernating are able to do their magic of breaking the sod into light fluffy soil ready for planting in the spring.

By taking this one day in December, I am able not only to save myself hours of garden work next spring but what I do now will also benefit my harvest later in the season.

My Garden Helper

This is my Garden Helper--Red. Red believes in being proactive. Every morning he gets up early and takes it upon himself to wake up the sun. After he wakes the sun he comes to the door and crows until I bring out food for him and his girls. He doesn't seem to trust me much and I don't understand why because I haven't missed a morning feeding yet. After he and his girls have a hearty breakfast, they attend to their other farm chores which include insecticide, fertilizing and procreating.



Red and the girls even help me dispose of household garbage although they do get carried away at times. For the most part, I'm quite proud of Red. Red and his girls have an announcement to make. They are going to be proud parents in about 19 days.

Red is a Rhode Island Red, not to be confused with a Production red which is a cross between a Rhode Island Red and a New Hampshire Red. Rhode Island Reds are raised for meat and eggs and are quite handsome as you can see.

The breed was developed in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, early flocks had both single and rose combed individuals because one of the foundational Sires was a black breasted red Malay which was imported from England. The town of origin was Adamsville, Rhode Island. In 1925 the Rhode Island Club of America honored the Rhode Island Red with a monument. asecond monument, this time by the state was erected in 1954 a mile outside of Adamsville honoring the commercial farmers who raised Rhode Island Reds.
Rhode Island Reds are resistant to illness, good at foraging and free ranging and are typically docile, quiet and friendly although some individual birds can be aggressive toward small children and some adults, especially strangers. Although they are widely known as good layers of brown eggs and lay as many as 250-300 eggs annually, if the coop temperature drops below freezing their output drops considerably and the tips of their combs are highly susceptible to frostbite. Rhode Island Reds are also bred for meat. Roosters weigh up to 8 1/2 pounds, hens up to 6 1/2 pounds, cockerels 7 1/2 pounds and pullets 5 1/2 pounds.