Garden 2017: The Aftermath

It's the first day of fall and here it is cold and blustery with fresh snow on the mountains. And while a lot of the garden and greenhouse are finished for the season, there is still so much work to do!



And a lot of the work is so tedious! This year I decided to try to grow dry beans. I seeded 3 different kinds of beans in the greenhouse and only one of them produced anything, the flageolet vert dry bean. I couldn't believe how many pods I harvested! I thought I'd have a gallon of dry beans-at least! Yeah, no. I just finished shelling all these damn beans and I didn't even get a half gallon! They better be the best tasting beans in the history of the planet! And at least the goats like helping me clean up!





Another mostly successful new adventure in the greenhouse this year was corn. Yes, I've grown sweet corn before with limited success, this year I didn't want to just grow sweet corn, but corn for flour. I planted Painted Mountain corn-described as a nutritious rugged beauty-and it seems it has lived up to it's name! I've only harvested it and by the time this amazing piece of equipment comes in the mail (Yay! What a great birthday present-I can't wait to put this to work!), the corn should be dry and ready to go.

I am also getting a grain mill-another amazing birthday present- and even though it's not the biggest harvest this year, the first thing I want to make are tamales, then fresh tortillas...if all this works, I'm planting so much more of this next year!




The breakaway success story of the summer was taters. I never plant enough potatoes and we use about 20 lbs for Thanksgiving alone and that usually uses up all that had grown. This year I tried a number of different varieties and was hoping to grow 100 lbs of potatoes.

Harvesting 150 lbs of potatoes is exhausting, but it's also a really dirty treasure hunt, so it's still lots of fun! The only variety I won't be growing again is Huckelberry Gold-I only got about 10 lbs from these sad plants. Mountain Rose (pink inside and out!), All Blue (guess what color those are inside and out??), French fingerling, Rose Finn fingerling and tried and true Yukon Golds all did amazing this year. The taters this year have been massive and delicious! I've only had multicolored oven fries once so far, but I'm really looking forward to blue mashed potatoes!




Over half the greenhouse is still thriving and I'm battling nights like tonight when the low is supposed to be 25 degrees. All the peppers, eggplants, most of the tomatoes and the remaining winter squash are all covered in frost cloth on top of the greenhouse being shut tight. Hopefully they all make it through these next few days since it's supposed to be in the 70s this time next week!

Today was also a sad day since we had to say goodbye to our buck goat Randy. Randy has been with us since he was about 8 months old and for the longest time was the only other animal that Cupid would not only tolerate but actually seemed to enjoy being around. He is the sire of all our adorable goat kids and that is why he has to leave. We will start breeding his baby girls this year-Gilda will be spending some time with our new buck Rowdy very soon. But Randy will be missed so much. He was such a sweet and handsome fella and now he's going to a new home to no doubt live up to his name there. Love you, Randy!

Garden 2017: Dear Lord what was I thinking!?

We are in the height of summer. It has been in the 90s almost everyday since mid-June (not normal) and even though it's been dry (normal) with the magical power of a drip watering system, the gardens are a bit out of control.

I didn't really mean for every single seed to sprout or for every plant to thrive, but that's what it I have, so I better get to work!

There is really no good way to try to get into the greenhouse. One way you are met with towering corn stalks that were only supposed to be 4-5 feet tall, instead they are over 8 feet tall and constantly drop pollen all over my head and neck. We've only had a few ears of sweet corn on the cob, but it was delicious!



Try to go in the other door and you are greeted by a mass of sunflowers. I like to use sunflowers as support for sprawling tomato plants, and yes, they are helping me do that, but they also make me feel like I need a machete to to hack my way through this hoard of towering sunflowers. They are constantly covered in every kind of pollinator possible: honey bees, bumble bees, butterflies, and something that I hadn't seen until this year, a hummingbird moth. One of these days I'll get a shot of one, they're amazing! Even though I have to crawl in the dirt to move through the greenhouse, it's worth it to make the pollinators happy!



The only place you can actually stand straight up in the greenhouse is in the center of it, surrounded by plants loaded with sweet peppers, hot peppers and eggplants. We've been enjoying a few peppers and tomatoes so far, but it's getting very close to full on canning season and the pantry looks so bare I'm ready for it!





Oh, the joys of having a 16 x 45 foot greenhouse! One of the main reasons I wanted to expand the greenhouse was to have more winter squash, now I'm thinking I was just growing the wrong kind! I have a few Delicata squash plants and they are loaded and growing so fast! The squash that was tiny just 3 weeks ago is now almost full size! I'm hungry just thinking about harvesting them!



I do think I know what I was thinking when planing and putting in this seasons gardens, even if it doesn't make any sense. I was thinking that my brother and his family might come out to visit this summer and it would be so fun to harvest and make food together. Apparently I planned not to feed a family of 3 for a few days, but a small army for a few months! At least Keith and I won't starve this winter!

Speaking of not starving, don't the turkeys look great! They only have about a month left before they end up in our freezer.




After a very long and intense lambing and kidding season (February-May with only 1 stillborn but a lot of other complications), all the lambs are fat and happy and mostly sold! We have 14 lambs and 2 goat kids for sale this summer and as of this moment we only have 5 lambs left to sell! They are all so cute and chubby and I think they are the most snuggly group of lambs and kids we've ever had.

Sheep and goats 2017 from Ellen De Young on Vimeo.

While that isn't close to everything going on here, it's as much as I have time to talk about! There is also lots of cheese, goofy dairy goats, trouble with the new dairy sheep, canning, evil goats getting out and eating a years worth of beets, honey bees, and on, and on!

Hopefully it cools of a little soon and the smoke from fires near and far lessens soon so it's actually nice to work outside again!

Winter is coming

I am not ready for the summer to be over, but I'm sitting here in wool socks and fleece in front of the fire knowing that it is.

We have one main project this fall: expand the greenhouse!

When we first built it, 16 feet by 20 feet seemed huge, but that feeling only lasted a season or two. After using it for 5 years (5years!!) it's time to finally expand, to 16 by 45 feet. Does that seem enormous? Yes, it does. But I don't doubt we'll grow into it.

Keith has already dug all the holes and hopefully we'll be pouring concrete this weekend. We have also had the goat weeding crew in, clearing out all the weeds around the greenhouse.




Inside the greenhouse, it still feels a little like summer. Summer with frosted tips! We don't have a heater in the greenhouse, but this year we are using heat from incandescent lights that we've hung and frost cloths to extend our season a little longer. The lights seem to be working, but still there have been a few very cold nights that have done a little bit of damage, but nothing has died, yet.



Hopefully all of this works, cuz damn, there is still lots getting ripe in there!

One reason I want a bigger greenhouse is winter squash. We love it and could eat it all winter long, but I can never seem to grow enough of it. It takes up so much freaking space just to produce a few squash. I'm growing a couple varieties this season that have been producing pretty well, it looks like we might get a dozen or so small ones-Yay!



And tomatoes! So far I would say that the 'determinate tomato experiment' has been successful, with the loads of tomatoes that I've been bringing in and that are still ripening up. But ripening on the vine is something we just don't have time for anymore! As soon as any of those little green maters have a blush of color, I'm picking them! It's too damn cold to wait! I've been taking over the kitchen with bags full of ripening tomatoes. As of this morning I've got about 25 lbs almost ready to go!





I think part of my soul was born during the Great Depression. I look at everything that has been harvested and still needs to be harvested, everything that has been canned, or cured, or fermented or frozen to be put up for the winter and all I can think is: this isn't enough! We'll run out in February! We'll starve! Yes, this is kind of crazy and of course we won't starve and I'm sure we do have enough of most things to make it through most the winter without buying most vegetables.

But I also have to remind myself that every year we've been getting better and more efficient at growing our own food and next year will be so much different and hopefully amazing with such a bigger greenhouse! Maybe by the end of next season I'll feel like we actually have enough for winter, but I doubt it!

The Valentine I've sent to Keith the past few years sums life up kinda perfectly:



Happy Fall!

Summer Update

I've been meaning to write for a while, but somehow the days always get away from me.

Milking in the morning turns into making cheese, then taking care of garden stuff, then damn it, there's a baby goat/lamb/turkey caught in the fence again, then I milk again, then crap I forgot about dinner and I still have to do evening chores, then it's morning again and we start all over.

But today instead of the unseasonably hot, sunny weather we've been having, it's been thunderstorming for most of the day-I could use a quiet, cool day like this at least once a week!

This crazy hot weather hadn't been kind to the a lot of the garden. Snap peas, most of my greens, even the broccoli seem to just want to be done with growing already, while the green beans are going crazy and I have dozens of sunflowers that haven't bloomed yet but are taller than me!




It's the greenhouse that is exploding, and while we don't have any ripe tomatoes yet, they're not far. We're already getting both hot and sweet peppers, and I wouldn't be surprised it we had ripe tomatillos by next week! <

I can't believe I written since we brought Margo home. It took a while but milking her twice a day is just another part of the routine here. Granted part of that routine is lining Margo up next to the milk stand, then lifting her onto it-twice a day, every single day. One of these days she'll jump up there-or maybe she won't-either way her milk is amazing! I've made a crazy amount of cheese with it, but won't know for 6-12 months, when we finally cut into it, if it's any good! Well that's not competely true, we use her milk in the everyday stuff like yogurt and cottage cheese and those are great, but cutting into an aged wheel of homemade pecorino romanno is a lot more exciting!



Every morning is the same: I hear Margo yelling at me to milk her before my alarm clock goes off. And every day she follows me into the milk stall, knowing full well that she gets milked second. I always milk Frannie first so that I can put her back with her kids as soon as possible in the morning and Margo is usually content to have a little pre-milking snack while I take care of Frannie-but not always!





Oh, and Margo is looking a little different than last time you saw her-she got sheared! I got to help shear her, but thank goodness hired someone who actually knew what she was doing! It is a lot easier to milk her now that she is sheared!



Morning milking is my favorite time of day. There are so many animals in that little stall and they all so loud, and goofy and itching to get outside and start their day.





The duck, oh man the ducks. We had three straight weeks of rain in May and the back of the pasture flooded and it was so deep by the pond that we stopped putting the ducks up at night, I just couldn't get back there. Of course a predator took notice (don't know what) and killed a couple ducks and the surviving ducks seem to disappear into nooks and crannies in the pasture. Then 4 emerged, then another, then another. Then another, but trailing behind her were 6 ducklings! yay! She was cautious of me and I haven't been able to close her up at night to try to keep her and her brood safe, so it's not surprising that only one has survived.

Then today I saw our grey duck that I have seen maybe 3 times in the last month. She was swimming at the edge of the pond when I walked over and I was a bit surprised to see what she had with her!



Hopefully more from this bunch survive!

Time for evening chores!

Winter Farm Update

But is it really winter? Do you guys remember last winter? I don't think I'll ever forget last winter! Exactly one year ago we finally got water back after two weeks of frozen pipes. We had a bunch of snow, frigid temperatures and were living in a double wide that was so cold that it felt like a tent had to have better insulation. Today, the sun is shining, there's barely any snow and it's supposed to get up to the mid to high 30s, just like yesterday and the day before. On days like today it can get up to 65 degrees in the greenhouse, granted it still gets really cold at night, like 3 degrees cold!


We do have a few things growing in the greenhouse, albeit slowly. I just need days to be a little longer days full of sunshine and of course warmer temps would be lovely. I'm hoping that by mid-February we will be eating salad greens, kale, spinach, arugula and hopefully radishes from the greenhouse. It'll be a little longer wait for beets and ages still for leeks and broccoli.

And of course I'm planning for the spring! Last year by April I had tomatoes, green beans, and and a whole bunch of other stuff growing in the old greenhouse. I may have started things a little early this year, but I've already started peppers and eggplants. It has taken almost a month for them to even to sprout, but now almost too many of them have! I'm hoping to have them planted in containers by April (depending on weather of course!) in our little greenhouse and maybe by August we'll have an insane amount of 4-6 different kinds of peppers and eggplants.

A year ago we did not have chickens and I barely remember life without them! We are getting 6-7 eggs a day. We keep waiting for the day that it's going to be too cold and they are going to go on strike and in preparation we have been keeping a back stock of eggs. Our inventory keeps getting bigger (right now we're at 6 1/2 dozen!) and the hens just keep laying! Maybe it's because they're happy that they have a rooster again!


As I may have mentioned out old, huge rooster started attacking people, so he had to go, if ya know what I mean. A friend brought a baby chick over that she was pretty sure was a rooster. I named him Gandalf the Grey in hopes that he would grow into the name. Then a few things happened that confused us. We got a few eggs that looked like the kind of eggs a hen lays when she is first starting out, then we got an incredibility small egg. It was that super small egg that convinced us that our rooster must actually be a hen....damn! We wanted a rooster to start incubating and raising chicks in the spring-where are we going to get a new rooster in the middle of winter!

Well, we were wrong. Our rooster we thought was a hen is a rooster. How to we know this? Even though he is still smaller then all of our hens, he's started doing things that only a rooster would do. No, he's not crowing yet, but lets say that I don't think we need to worry about having fertilized eggs to incubate this spring!


And then there's Fang II. He is ever present, constantly following me around while I'm outside and doing his best to slip inside. He's really good at getting inside and his Christmas present was a day and night napping in the house. Now he thinks that where's he's supposed to be and the constant scratching on the door is getting pretty annoying!


Inside we have a little arboretum going on! This was a great Christmas for trees! I got both a dwarf fig tree and a meyer lemon tree. They both look kind of sad right now, but I will nurse them to be amazing trees (I hope!)


I'm so glad Keith puts up with all of this! I can't wait for this spring and summer when we have veggies growing all over the place, not just little baby sprouts!

A good old-fashioned greenhouse raising!

Over the past four weeks or so Keith and I have been focused on one thing and one thing only-getting this greenhouse up! We bought a kit from Oregon Valley Greenhouses. Saying it's a kit makes it sound so simple! It was really all the giant pieces of a 16 by 20 ft structure and some confusingly vague instructions. It took a while, but we finally got it all up!

We prepared a section in the pasture that gets an amazing amount of sun even in the winter and has kind of a sweet view!


BJ and Fang (now referred to as Ebony and Ivory) were helpful throughout the whole project. I'm pretty sure that Ivory/Fang is hoping to live in the greenhouse-that will not happen!





For the frist few days of working on the greenhouse were absolutely beautiful! Warm sunny days in the 60s and 70s were perfect for pouring concrete and framing the structure. Most of my job on these days was holding the metal posts level while Keith left for 20 minutes to mix concrete, that kind of sucked, but at least it was nice out!


Then winter descended with a vengeance! Snow, freezing temps and wind made hours of working outside less enjoyable, but thank goodness for smartwool and snow pants! This amount of snow this early in the fall was as a reminder as to why we are even building this greenhouse.



The part I was really worried about was pulling and the securing the plastic on to the frame. Through this whole project it was just Keith and I working together and I thought this was the time to get more that two pair of hands involved. Keith firmly believed we could do this together and I have to give it to him-he was right and we got it up with pretty much no problems at all! After that we just had to put the corrugated plastic ends on and we were good to go!



Today was the first day I had time to actually work in the greenhouse! I planted my little broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, kale, arugula, endive, and leeks sprouts that I hope survive through the winter! I also planted seeds of beets, carrots, radishes, and even more lettuce. Please grow! But take my word that there is something really planted under there because this is what the inside of the greenhouse is going to look like pretty much all winter-rows double covered with frost protection fabric.


Today started out sunny and while I was out there working today the temperature got up to 75 degrees inside! But while I was in there the weather turned dark and stormy-at the moment we are having a mini blizzard!


I know I'm planing a little late in the fall/winter, but hopefully soon we'll have some veg!