Garlic Planting

One of the many garlic seeds I planted today. You can see a little of the cider making pulp that we are using as fertilizer also.

Chicken bedding instead of straw to keep the garlic warm over the winter. (Yes that is my Halloween pumpkin in the background that we threw in the garden to compost over the winter.)

Sadly it is that time of year to plant cold crops so today we put in our garlic for next Spring. My dad got us the garlic from a local farmer's market. He wrote on each bulb what kind of garlic it is but the marker blurred so I have no idea what I am planting! Hope we like it! Lacking straw to put over the garlic like you are supposed to do I put old chicken pen bedding over. I figure it will keep  it warm like the straw would and the chicken poop will be fertilizer- bonus! Lets hope this garlic works out.

Food Security and Safety

Shucking beans and our all from our garden meal

11/8/10- Last winter Jeff started making homemade bread and it became quite the hobby for him. My mom got him a breadmaker and things really took off. I do see his point in understanding where your food comes from and to know what is in it. Today for dinner I enjoyed some homemade egg bread (thanks chickens) and homemade cider. It felt so warm and yummy it almost didn’t make me sad winter is coming. Today my LED grow light came. The light is all red and blue for optimal plant growth but it makes my living room look like a bad nightclub! I will have to figure out how to hang it also. If I am not careful the cops might knock on my door to see what kind of plants are growing in my house!

Cider

I tried to give the chickens the left over apple pulp from pressing. They didn't like it at all. Ha!

11/2/10 I can’t believe how much the cider has lightened since we pressed it this weekend. A lot of sediment must have settled. This time we kept one gallon for just cider and another for making hard cider. Instead of boiling it we are experimenting with campden tablets to kill the natural yeast. On a mission to fill in our indoor “green house” so I went to a local home improvement store and see if they had any seedlings….not likely this time of year but I did find an aloe vera plant which is good because we want to do more of our own minor medical care.

Garden Set Up

5/29/10 Have to take a break from the chickens today and put in this year’s garden. Sadly this means we are covering up the biggest chicken dust bath in history! Jeff and I will have to find their favorite treat of worms from somewhere else in the yard now.