May 28, 2015

Good morning, Recently we purchased 18 chicks that would start egging about the time the rest of the hens have decided to take their regular winter egging sabbatical. A dozen eggs per week does not even come close to covering the feed bill for over 50 fowl.(chickens, ducks, and guineas).

Our plans were to put the chicks under a couple of broody hens. We had a couple hens in mind and were letting them sit on eggs to build their maternal hormone levels.

We did this a year or so ago and was successful beyond our wildest dreams. She had been on eggs for 2 weeks. And we put a chick under her. She clucked and chick said MOMMY!!! and the chick disappeared under the hen. The next night we put 6 by her and the same thing happened . So the next morning we put the rest under her. I might say it was the easiest raised chicks at the farm.

o we got 18 chicks and had designs to put 12 under one hen and 6 under the other (we did have the electric light brooder and 3 other broody hens in the “hall” so to speak. Well these hens had been on eggs for at least 2 weeks maybe longer. We put a chick under each of these hens and they were not going to have any part of our plans. A healthy “shucks darn” and then onto plan “B” with the other 3 hens.

These hens did not make the welcoming cluck but seemed to accept the chicks. We checked back later and all seemed OK.

Welll first thing in the morning I go and check on these hens. We were going to have to move these hens to a separate area for the chicks safety. I thought first thing in the morning would be best. When I went to check on the hens and chicks, there looked to be a dead chick in front of one of the broody hens. I thought it was dead but when I picked it up it barely moved. Clutched it up in my hand and took it into the house for Deb to hold it in her hand while I got a heating pad ready for the chick. I got this little girl situated and went back to check on the other hens and chicks. The half dead chick was from another hen and not the one I thought. It ended up being two silky hens that were to be mommies.

I may have rushed things a bit but I felt for the chicks safety, segregating the hens with chicks form the rest of the flock was the best idea.

This ended up being too much for one of the silky's and she rejected the chick. I thought some not so nice thoughts and put her chick under the other silky who seemed to think “this is no big deal”. My dilemma was, could she take on another 15 chicks.

A web search mentioned that a full sized hen can sit on 12 eggs and can raise twice that many chicks. So the mommy to be would get all but the heating pad chick. She took all chicks very willingly and has been a very good Mommy.

As for the half frozen chick we have been raising her separately. By the time she was acting normal it was a couple days and we felt the chilling may have debilitated her development.

Chickens can be very cruel to any other bird in the flock if it acts different. This is what happened to what became our porch chicken Dizzy Lou McGoo. The other hens penned her behind a brooder on a very hot day without water and she nearly died from heat stroke. This really affected her and there after she was always picked on by the other hens. So this is why she became a porch chicken and my ever ready garden companion.

Peep seems to be doing quite fine although I am sure she is lonesome. Soon she will be feathered and can join me in the garden.

The year continues to be a roller coaster of warm nights and cool nights. Gradually it does seem that the over night lows are creeping upward.. The nights that we have in the 60's it is amazing how much the veggies grow over the night. Last week the summer squash harvests were very nice. Due to cool nights the beans did not make my projections, but the harvest was decent. The cukes will most likely start hitting their stride as the nights warm. I will be picking the first few okra this morning (maybe 4). Harvesting sometimes stimulates plants to produce. A week of warm nights and I think both the toms and eggplants will be coming on. Last weeks pea harvest I saw that there were no new blossoms so today or Sunday will be the last of the peas until next year. I am gob smacked with a 2 month harvest from the peas. Usually a month is the best. This is most likely because our springs (in years past) usually have developed “attitude” well before the end of May. This spring has been a very welcome surprise on many fronts.

May 21, 2015

Good morning, I recently did a search on the internet about desert gardening. The results were very interesting. In most cases it was very highly suggested to use raised beds. It was also suggested to use “store bought” top soil to fill these raised beds. Both of these suggestions are suspect to me.

There are a couple reasons why I do not like to use raised beds. First is because our soils (at least the ones in my garden) tend to be drought y and do not need encouragement to drain. Our soils warm rather quickly too. Soil temperatures above 95 degrees and veggies start going into a dormancy. Growth is slowed or stopped all together. Here again the soil does not need encouragement. Then there is the maintaining of the raised beds. Wood would need to be something that termites would not devour (cedar or pressure treated). The expense along with using pressure treated lumber in an organic garden? Even with ridging the beds would be an added piece of labor for what gain?

This route to gardening could be very expensive. The soil improvement would also be very short lived.

There were a couple other sites that were more aligned with my thoughts. One suggested to use hay bales around the garden (I would only use spoiled hay, fresh hay could be expensive) for a wind break. But the lady was also sponsored by a potting soil company and had you again improve the soil with purchased amendments. 

There was one site that did suggest incorporating compost (home made) and the use of a drip system along with mulched plants. Although it appeared in the pictures to be row culture instead of bed culture.

All of the sites had merit and one could achieve garden success. Most of them could and would be very expensive requiring continuous cash input to maintain garden soil health.

My garden with over 6000 square feet of growing beds would not be doable if I were to first purchase potting soil after each rotation and then to maintain the raised beds (this would be time consuming).

I have said on many occasion that soil fertility is the primary objective with organic gardening. “Feed the soil and the soil feeds the plants”, this is the guiding rule that I try to live by in my garden.

I no longer have my wonderful source of continuous compost-able material delivered to my door step. This did spoil me. 

Another one of the reasons they gave for raised beds was it would be “easier” to create your garden. Unless you are living on bed rock (somewhat common in west Texas), gardening in parent material can be done.

I started my garden using row culture and then later converted to bed culture, I thought 50 percent of the garden being rows was a serious waste of space. Luckily for me, the year I decided to go with beds, was a wet year. The larger rocks I rolled out of the ground with a shovel. These rocks were later used to hold down fabric and to “armor plate” my drive way. Then more of the rock went into my future house's foundation. This was an undertaking. To try and dig our ground with dry soil conditions are difficult at best. It is a whole different playing field when the soil is wet. Creating a garden is an endeavor (usually of love). If it were easy everyone would be doing it.

As for building soil fertility it should be the classic Reduce, Reuse, Recycle moment. Unless one eats everything out of a container (not a precursor to being a gardener), there is always veggie scraps left over after making meals. These can be sheet composted in your garden paths. The usual complaint about composting is “the piles smell”. I think it is what fertility smells like! Sheet composting can alleviate this. Lucky for us in Agriculture Country, asking a few folks about manure and soon you will have a life time supply. This can be composted (like above or in piles), or even tilled in in the fall and ready for spring planting. Just the act of gardening, as long as you rotate crops, builds soil. This is very slow for building soil fertility! Green manures and cover crops that are all tilled in, works great too.

No there is really no easy way to start a garden, it is exciting stuff to start with parent material and over the course of years, watch the soil improve and the plants rewarding you with ever more bountiful harvests.

No this is not easy but it is a labor of love!!!

The garden continues to mature. Summer squash are coming on like gang busters, have started harvesting some beans and cukes, bulb onion tops are beginning to fall over,garlic is starting to form scapes, tomato plants are loaded (still at least a few weeks out), okra are blooming along with eggplants, but the chili's got inundated with aphids which has set them back. Sweet vines are elongating so sweet greens soon. lastly the butternuts are starting produce squash for July harvest. Just love it when a plan comes together.

May 14, 2015

Good morning, it is very interesting since I have been posting my weekly emails to my blog site that there seems to be a passing interest in my garden notes. There are over 13 countries including the US. These countries include just about every kind of environment from jungle, to desert and permafrost. Very seldom if ever do I get any comments from these faraway places but it would be real cool to hear about what challenges they have and how they have overcome them.

 

Worldwide gardening is pretty much the same. What is important is how the gardener adapts to their unique challenges that they encounter. It really would be interesting to hear about these “far away” challenges and how they are overcome. Oh how easily I am entertained.

 

Another venue that lets me go on about gardening is the Alpine Avalanche where I write a weekly column. I have a limited amount of space, so each of the articles is fairly brief, but they are getting folks to ask questions and I hope that I am encouraging new gardeners. There is always more room for gardeners. Reminds me of a great saying “gardening….  It is great therapy and you get to eat the tomatoes too”. It is my goal to write about different gardening subjects for the avalanche and this weekly email / blog posting.

 

I don’t like to think that I know all the answers but I have techniques that work quite well for me. With adaption I think these techniques could work for other gardeners too..

Yes I always love questions it gives my gray cells a puzzle to ponder. Not saying I know all the answers but usually someone else’s question comes from a different perspective. These different perspectives can be very enlightening.

 

It really has been amazing how wet and cool this spring has been. To have spinach and snow peas in the middle of May in Far West Texas is amazing in itself. I usually find them to be toast no later than the end of March. This same cool and wetness has slowed the summer veggies to. But what an easy gardening season it has been.

 

Reminds me when talking to a rancher when I was working for the Texas Forest Service, it was also a wet year and he made a reference to the year, “years like this almost make cattle ranching look easy”.

Yes I will say it has not been a problem to get seeds to germinate, it just seems that with all the moisture there are all kinds of critters that are more than ready to be in line to gobble up these nice tender shoots. And a lot of these critters I have not seen before. It very easily could be that I have had them; it is only that this year their populations are big enough to become a problem.

 

I have made a reference about using cold pressed neem oil and being afraid that I would throw my little ecosystem in the garden out of whack. It does not seem to have been the case, if anything; I think it has helped diversify my beneficial population. This could be coincidence; I just do not know how to quantify my observations.

 

The case of spiders spinning webs across my paths between beds, always a bit of a surprise but it is nice to know the night shift got to work just fine.  Or the case of the horn worms that had larvae eating them from the inside out. Sci Fy movies could not have done it better. Or even this winter when I discovered that ALL of the aphids on my spinach were turned into mummies. All of these things are text book examples of beneficial s that go great with gardening. These are only the more exciting observations.

 

Another reason as to why this is happening maybe because the garden is over 10 years old and has been in continuous cultivation for all those years. My garden is a spot of green in the midst of a lot of native vegetation (that is usually brown for most of the year) and it has taken these good guys that long to find me. It is funny how the “guys in the black hats” are always so quick to arrive!

Yes it is exciting to watch this all evolve and I am soooo easily entertained. It is precisely why I need Friday deliveries and Market day to get “redomesticated”. A play on words for those  notorious grade card comments in grade school would be “plays well alone”. Welllll, well supervised by all the fowl anyway!!

 

It was fun participating in Sally Roberts’ dairy field day for lots of young children. What a great age to expose children to where their food comes from. It is a pleasure to be able to participate in these events!!!

 

It was cool that the male squash flowers started opening up. The interesting thing is that there are soooo many other flowers blooming that bees like more than squash blossoms, so I am having to hand pollinate the squash. We will soon be having cukes (first ones have been pollinated), beans , eggplants, habaneros, chili, okra and toms soon. The sweet potato sets took real well so there will be sweet greens in the near future. Deb found an article discussing the health benefits of sweet greens, which I will post at that time. It is nice to see the garden maturing quite nicely. Oh Joy!!!

 

Yesterday morning before heading over to Sally’s I saw the first bee in the squash. Hopefully they will be working the squash today.

May 7, 2015

Good morning, It has been a goal to try and not duplicate what I write for the Avalanche and what I send out in my weekly email for veggie sales, but this has a real soft spot in my heart.

We are talking about the Alpine Community Garden out behind the West Texas Food Bank. This has been a labor of love that is finally coming to full fruition. A lot of folks have provided a lot of love: ripping the soil ( to remedy compaction), a deer fence has been erected, watering system installed, and a garden shed to store gardening tools. All these bennies are included in the plot rental fee.

Finally a Sul Ross Construction class has erected several shade structure frameworks (how fitting for a garden, they look mushrooms).

Well these “mushrooms” need some caps, some weed abatement would also be nice (this area was fallow for many years and sports a very vigorous crop of weeds), and lastly, pic nic tables under the soon to be newly “capped” mushrooms so that all can gaze at all the wonderful work that so many folks have accomplished. The Community garden is a very nice asset to the Alpine Community.

I have heart felt emotions for gardens and feel everyone should try and grow some of their own food. Veggie gardening is a skill that everyone should try to acquire at least to some degree. Another one of the nice things about the community garden is it brings gardeners of different skill levels together and this can really help everyone’s gardening experience to grow. Sooo if you would like to donate to the above mentioned pic nic area, please read the note below from Isabel Whitehead.

I have the information for the online fundraiser we are conducting to help Alpine Community garden. 

The link to the donation page is www.gofundme.com/alpinegarden 

We are raising money to complete a shade structure for the gardeners, get our hands on natural weed suppressants like heavy gravel, add a picnic table, etc. All of the extra info is on the donation webpage.

If you haven’t been out to see the Community garden, I highly recommend it. If you would like to try your green thumb at gardening, contact Martha Latta at mlatta@feedingamerica.org or at 432-837-1580     for garden plot details. It really is a great bargain: secure deer fence, garden tools including seeds, water and readily available garden advice, all to make your gardening experience a success!!!

Ah yess here is to growing!!!

Finally! With over night lows in the 50's and 60's the garden has taken off!! last Sunday I had 4 male squash flowers to pollinate with, now there is a lot to choose from. I have not seen any bees yet so I will continue to pollinate until they arrive. I am seeing little immature beans, toms the size of large golf balls. That last freeze smoked a lot of chili flowers but new ones are forming, okra with blossoms, the butternuts have tripled in size and are covered with soon to open flowers. Today I pick what could be one of the last pickings of snow peas but hope to start the daily squash harvest. It looks like I got a good take on the sweets so there will be sweet potato greens soon. Just love it when a plan comes together!!!

April 30, 2015

Good morning, this garden year should go a lot easier. I say this because I will not be needing to do the long water days standing at the end of a hose from 2 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon. I will rejoice not having to do that anymore.

I am in the process of adding an injector to the drip system. The main purpose is so I can run vinegar through the lines to prevent calcium build up in the drip tape. The second is so I can inject neem products into the root zones to see if I can combat my root knot nematodes from another angle. I am not delusional that I can eradicate them but it would be nice to keep them to a manageable level.

It seems that last year they were more of a problem with my sweets than the wire worms were. Even with the RKN, I was still able to get a pretty good harvest. I think that says more about sweet potatoes than anything; they are a very productive crop even with adversity!

This injector will also be able to control cucumber beetle larvae. Cucumber beetles are unique in the bug world because the only life faze of cucumber beetles that is not harmful to plants is the egg stage. Cucumber beetles and larvae are known to introduce pathogens into plants when they feed on them. This then leads to the plants demise. Exclusion is not an option with the cucurbits because they need insects to pollinate them. So unlike self fertile veggies and greens that can be covered all the time, the cucurbits need to be exposed.

Unlike leaf hoppers that are the vector for Western Curling Disease, where their host plants are native vegetation, cucumber beetles hosts are vegetables. Soooo in theory they should be controllable.

Wow! The Earth Day Celebration was a happening event. What a great turn out of vendors and patrons alike. It has made all the difference in the world since moving the event fro Kokernott lodge to Murphy Street. The prior location was a good one but Murphy Street is so much more accessible. I so much look forward to next year.

Please mark your Calendars YT Ranch grass fed beef will be back the 30^th of May.

Looking forward with the weather forecasts it does appear that we will by Friday start getting highs in the 80's and overnight lows in the 50's so maybe my summer veggies will begin to mature.. This is the push that the garden needs to complete the winter to summer veggies. I see the spinach and peas in a slow motion crash, and the summer veggies are just hanging out and in no rush to mature. I continue to harvest immature unpollinated summer squash because there are NO male flowers yet. Maybe next week? 

Mondays cold front will not help with this ripening. Tuesday night I felt would be the night that it might freeze. It was a challenge but I did manage to get the garden well tucked in and then after diner the fruit trees were covered. Tuesday night was not a sound sleep and I got up at 2 AM the thermometer was at 38 and dead calm. By 5 AM the temperature was 33. Just before sunrise the mercury dipped to 32 and then rose to 32.5. A splitting hairs thingy. When I went out in the garden there was a hard frost on all of the fabric along with the covers on the trees. It appears the only freeze damage was the leaves that were touching the fabric. Other than that all is fine. This sine curve weather is playing havoc with the laddies. Egg production seems to ebb and flow from week to week. I sooooooo hope this is the last hissy fit.

Veggie orders may take some creativity to fill this week. Thank you for your patience!!!

Last but not least Is a note from Isabel Whitebread who is raising money for the Alpine Community Garden

I have the information for the online fundraiser we are conducting to help Alpine Community garden. 

The link to the donation page is www.gofundme.com/alpinegarden 

We are raising money to complete a shade structure for the gardeners, get our hands on natural weed suppressants like heavy gravel, add a picnic table, etc. All of the extra info is on the donation webpage.

I encourage anyone to contribute what they ca to this wonderful asset to the Alpine Community mark

April 23, 2015

Good morning, it has been a very interesting different type of growing year to date. What with all the winter moisture both frozen and liquid, it really has been mild as far as the temperature swings. We only had one morning low in the teens and that was before all the moisture started.. As for the highs I think there has only been one day in the 90's so far and I think that high is suspect.

The wintry precip really chilled the soils down and delayed spring planting by about a month. I usually like to have my first toms in by the middle of February, I just do not like to plant into a snow storm. It was the same with the first of March plantings too. It really wasn't until the middle of March that the soil started to warm. I like to push seasons but I do not want to push the season for the sake of pushing, especially if I do not have the confidence that things will survive.

It really was an interesting observation with regards to my potato seedlings and 3 layers of Agribon 70 fabric. If I had really thought about it the observation would have been obvious. The fabric only holds warmth. What I mean by this is that with all the ice and snow there was virtually no soil warmth. I could have put 20 blankets over the spuds and they would have still frozen. This is a bit of an exaggeration but it does make the point. With the 3 layers, theoretically it should be good to 8 degrees. But the starting temperature was in the mid to low 30's what with the ice chilling. So with even a modest drop in temperature the plants would still freeze. If the soil was in the forties this would make all the difference in the world. It is because of this observation that I delayed planting. We are now well into that comfort zone where the fabric can work its' magic in the advent of a chill down. I really so hope that the freezes are over. It would be wonderful for a number of reasons not to mention that I might be able to eat a tree ripened peach straight from the tree. This would be maybe the second time since planting the trees. Not the best climate for fruit trees.

It does seem that the moisture keeps on flowing. Recently we got 1/2 inch of rain and short panic period with a dusting of hail. I am not sure how much total precipitation we have gotten (one ice storm froze over the top of my rain gauge) but what I have read is a little over 5 inches.

I would not mind if the angry months of May and June were more timid this year. We did have a couple real nasty gusts of wind last week. So far we have had some breezy days but nothing that you could write home about. Lets hope for a wonderfully temperate year. OOOh time will tell, but we can only hope!!!

This weekend is the Earth Day Celebration on Murphy Street. It will start with the Farmers' Market at 9 and continue until 4 in the afternoon. There will be lots of good stuff happening all day. Soooo come on down and join the fun. This will be the third year on Murphy Street and and each year it is getting better and better.

There will be all kinds of vendors in the court yard and on Murphy Street. Plans are to block of both east and west Murphy street from traffic. As for the market all of our usual vendors will be there along with the folks from the YT Ranch with grass fed beef.

I hope to see all yall there.

Oh how everything is jusssst on the cusp of being fully into summer veggie season. The cooler weather of late is slowing maturation quite a bit. It was sad to see 2 female zuke flowers and not a male flower in a 45 foot bed, but Wednesday night I was seeing some male flowers that will open today. The twain shall meet soon. I am seeing enlarging fruit but they will be a week or two out at the least before they can be harvested. Oh how my mouth is watering for that first red ripe tomato. It has been said that patience is a virtue. Ohhh but how trying it can be!!

I continue to nurse the winter veggies until squash, beans, chili's..... can take up the slack. The prolonged cool is helping with that but is also slowing the rest. Sighhhh!

I can be reached at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com or go to http://redwagonfarm.blogspot.com/  

Happy gardening!!!

April 16, 2015

Good morning, every year that I have been gardening in Far West Texas has been different. I think that there would not be very many folks that would argue with me that this year is off the charts different.

It really is quite amusing to me that when I planned my garden successions last fall that I had planned for a bed of tomatoes that would go in right behind the sugar pod peas. This might happen yet. Peas are really an allusive crop for Far west Texas. Far West Texas “usually” is not a very good pea growing climate. Peas “usually” are also not a very good crop for spring. Usually our springs are very short lived before all “H E double tooth picks” breaks loose with the first course meal being wind and then progresses to the delicacies of heat and low humidity. Are we sure that this is Far West Texas?

I have learned to plant peas in late fall when the soils cool enough to get better germination. Late August and early September the soil temps are in the upper 80's and 90's, a bad temperature to germinate peas. This all changes by mid October. I grow them through the winter as small seedlings (a stage that peas are very cold hardy). Then about mid February as the soil warms? up, the peas “usually” then make rapid growth and bloom to provide peas through March before it begins to get to hot?. What a difference a year makes. The warming didn't come until the middle of March and the peas didn't start coming on until the end of the month. April is rainy and cool and the peas are as happy as clams at high tide. Like with the cool damp weather and late season peas, these are all unexpected gifts and I will relish all three while they last.

All the moisture has slowed the progress of finishing the spring planting. I have toms to go in that infamous pea bed, I'll just have to put them else where. Else where is too wet to turn so we may have to for go with tilling and just plant and mulch. These are the ways innovations are made and could be the new way of doing things. This same bed has some Asian greens that I want to save seed from. The seed pods are big and fat but a little bit of sun and warm is all that is needed to ripen the seed for harvest. OHHH patience!!!!

I need to mention that Earth Day (April 25) will be celebrated on Murphy Street again this year. Preparations by the Sul Ross ConBio club are progressing quite nicely. There will be events all day starting with the farmers market and ending at 4 PM.

Also on the 25^th the wonderful folks from the YT Ranch (Alice and Rob) will be selling state inspected grass fed beef. Deb and I had a roast that was really quite fine.

First blooms on the beans, Zukes and crooknecks have the vestiges of blossoms, chili's have set, toms are blooming, potatoes are 12 to 18 inches tall, those infamous peas are peaing right along, another of those little mysteries the spinach is still doing it's thing.

Sun chokes are done along with the beets, but a new beet sowing is close to being mature. I am almost finished with an older planting of carrots and a new planting is getting close. I have never been able to provide enough green onions, so I am trying something a little different. Because onions will regrow from their centers fairly easily, I am hoping, by cutting the tops off below grade and letting the tops regrow from the roots I might be able to have a regular harvest of green onions. It is easier for a plant to sprout a leaf as opposed to growing a whole new plant from a seed. We can always hope that this will work!!! Won't know until we try.

Because of various crops that are finished and the delay of new crops, there is a chance that I will not be able to completely fill orders. I will only bill for the portion I do. Mother Nature has the last say in this stuff. Thank you for your patience!!!!