Blue Ribbons!

Around here, the Sanders County Fair is a pretty big deal. Not only is it the biggest thing that happens in our town, it's the biggest thing in the county! 

Whit's award winning Yukon Gold Potatoes

Here, fair is more than just a carnival and fry bread. From the kids with 4H animals, to the Ranch Horse competitions, to the Demolition Derby, the fair is a place to showcase what you take pride in, take part in friendly competition, and possibly take home (or more likely, spend) some prize money.
This year, for the first time Whitney entered  garden produce and crafts, and came away with several Blue Ribbons! In fact, her Yukon Gold potatoes were runners up for Best In Show.
Now before you start thinking this was like shooting fish in a barrel, check out this line up of spuds (bottom row, below). The good people of Sanders County take their gardening seriously! Between late frosts, summer droughts, pests and parasites, growing good looking garden veggies is no accident.

The carrots were also a success in a crowded field.

Whitney did have several items that got second and third place, but in all the eggs, carrots, Yukon Golds, and Sage all got First Place!  

Across the way, in the Arts and Crafts barn, things get even more intense. The quilters, canners, photographers and artists seem to all come out in spades for the fair. So when we saw that a pair of Whit's Peacock feather earrings were awarded a blue ribbon in the jewelry class, we were pretty floored.  

Next year I hope to enter honey and possibly beeswax goods. Until then I'll just have to brag about Whitney's success.  :-)

Take care, and if you get a chance, go to the fair!

 KJ 

Happy Harvesting!



A nice mid-week evening's pick



A bunch of cuc's ready for the sandwich shop. We get lunch deals in return.



Just a quick post to wish you all Happy Harvesting!

KJ

Garden Expansion

Due to the growing  interest in our produce, and our own plans on expanding, we decided to add a couple more raised beds this year.

The double layered bed (right in the pic above) will be for potatoes this year, while the other one is partly shaded and will hold lettuce, spinach, peas, and cabbage. All of the concrete blocks for the double layer bed came to us free from family (thanks again Kathy and Gary!) and we bought the blocks for the other bed today. We decided to go with blocks this time rather than lumber mainly because we got a lot of them given to us, but also it's nice to know they'll never rot.  In the beds we layered pine shavings, compost, potting soil, sand and some of our native soil. We had planned on putting a layer of newpaper down first as a weed mat, but our source was out today. Whit is excited to start planting tomorrow and getting the cool crops of spring going ASAP!

Also today, we made a great connection concerning the honey bees. We were at a local nursery and found a friend and neighbor working there. After talking for a bit, we found that they had plans to plant 6 acres of blueberries at the site and were looking for honey bees to pollinate the bushes. He said they were having a very hard time finding bees and was very happy to hear that we had some. It is way too early to make any predictions, but I will definintely be looking into what I need to do to put some of my girls out there to both help thier berry crop and provide us with pure Blueberry Honey!! I can hardly wait :-).

And finally tonight, Asparagus!

This little cutting (there is more on the way) is so exciting because not only is it the garden's first crop of the spring, but it is the first cutting ever from our asparagus patch! Whit started these plants from seed three years ago, and they have been growing roots and becoming established ever since. Now with the flush of spring the plants are sending up their finally harvestable shoots and we are happily eating them. Straight from garden to steamer, there is nothing in the world like fresh asparagus!

Until next time.

KJ

Spring is Go Time!

1...2...3...Go!

Lately around here it feels like somebody waved a green flag and we're off and running. Between the additional bees, the 5 new chicks, the veggie starts in the greenhouse, Whit's crafts, and the rest of the yard work, it's go time. We hit 85 degrees last weekend and just like that the spring came alive, the grass is growing, the trees are blooming, and the Asparagus is growing inches per day! 

First up the bees: in the last post I told you that I went to WA and brought home two five frame nuc hives. Since then the bees have really taken off! The fruit trees are blooming and the dandelions are up. All of a sudden the world is custom made for honey bees. They arrived with lots of brood, which means they were ready to hatch a new generation of workers. Within days of the installation the population exploded. I checked them tonight and they have just about filled the first box with honey and are nearly ready for box number two. Our original hive is doing great too, and is in nearly the same shape as the new ones. We've been cleaning up, disinfecting and repainting used boxes to get them ready for the upcoming season. One of the new hives was even building swarm cells, meaning they are intending to raise new queens and reproduce. That is a sign they are in high gear and I need to be very actively watching them and ready to stack up boxes to keep them busy.

Next up, the new chicks! Whit brought home five newly hatched Silver Laced Wyandottes from the feed store today! The little peepers are all healthy and doing good in the brood box. These little ones will brood for a month in the house, be moved to their own living quarters in 6 weeks and then join the flock later this summer. By late fall or early winter they should be fully integrated into the flock and laying. Until then it's a lot of fun having chicks again and the dogs are very curious about the noisy box on the hearth. They have to be kept seperate from the other hens while they are young, soon I'll fix up a dog kennel for them, and build a small chicken tractor so they can get out in the grass. The rest of the hens are doing very well and really happy about all the green grass and bugs in the yard.

Next: Veggie starts! This year we are very lucky in that one of our friends is working at a greenhouse starting plants. She's been bringing us starts that are left over after they re-pot so we have a very nice assortment of veggies in the greenhouse. I'm proud to see the greenhouse working so nicely and will definitely post some pictures when I get a chance. This weekend, one of our pressing to do's is prepping the garden beds that will hold the lettuce, broccoli, spinach, beets, carrots, onions, peas and potatoes.  Already we've had several friends asking if they can buy our produce this summer! We're pretty excited, but it's going to be a lot of work.

Finally the crafts. Whit's earrings and hair clips have been such a success, she's decided to sign up for a locally made craft fair in Missoula. Now she's working hard to build up her inventory so that we can take pictures and provide them to the fair in her application (it is a juried show). That event will be in late June and she is hoping she gets chosen. 

I know it was brief, but that's what we've been up to. Spring is both a very exciting and overwhelming time of year. There is so much to do, but it's all fun and great to see our little farm taking off.

Hope you are all doing well, and I'll try to post more pictures real soon.

KJ

Goodbye, Garden

After months of starting, sowing, watering and weeding, the harvest seems short lived. Many of these plants were started as seeds in April , so although we were lucky this year to have a long summer, it was still sad to say goodbye to the garden this week.                                                           
 

 A couple weeks ago there was a light freeze forecasted so we had covered the plants with plastic. A plant can do just fine as long as the water drops on the leaves don't freeze, so putting clear plastic over the plants can extend your season quite a bit. But with more freezing nights forecasted it was time to take stock, harvest the good and toss the bad.  

As we picked the last of the tomatoes, zucc's, cucc's and squash, all the plants and weeds were piled into the chicken run. This made the chore of cleaning the garden a whole lot more enjoyable because with every load of plants that we gave the chickens, there were some very happy hens and excited chicken noises.

 

This has turned out to be one of my favorite things about this chickens. I love that all of our spoiled fruit and vegis now go to the chickens. It takes all the guilt out of not eating that last zuccinni since it'll go to a good cause. In fact several of our friends have been donating thier zucc's to us this week for the chicken feed.

  

 After Whitney pulled all the plants, I turned the beds. Later this week, we'll mulch over each and "put them to bed" for the winter. By doing all this now, we'll have clean, well tilled beds all ready to go next spring

Another trick we've learned about gardening here is using season extenders, like these "water walls". The platic tubes are filled with water and the whole thing placed around the plant. This is how you start tomates and peppers early enough to allow them to mature, otherwise they'd never make it. This time we decided to try leaving them on the Jalapeno's for a while this fall to see how they'd do.  

One more trick we've learned is to go ahead and pick the yellow and some green tomatoes at the end of the season. As you use the red ones, the others wil ripen and be ready in a week or so. This will be more than enough for another round of salsa, or maybe some whole canned toms. So even though it is sad to say goodbye, we'll have memories of the garden through the winter. 

Feeding the Bees, and Making Salsa with Help in the Garden

The first of our pumpkins and squash.

With the first day of Fall this week, it's time to harvest and start thinking about the coming cooler weather. I've been reading a lot about honey bees these days, and I learned it was time to check the honey in the hives. Bees make honey for food to survive the winter, but if they have enough, we can harvest some for ourselves.

The other day, we opened up the hives to check on the girls and see what was going on in there. While we did get to see one of the queens, mainly what we found was a not a lot of honey. It looks like they have been focusing on increasing thier populations and so have not packed away much food stores. This is a problem since they will need the honey for the winter, so I now have to feed the bees.

Generally from the frost until the bloom, I'll be feeding the bees a syrup of sugar water so they can make honey and survive the winter. Old honey works well too though. I had some old honey comb sitting in a bowl from when we vacumed the bees out of the house, so I decided to feed them that in the mean time. The bees went nuts for the honey, as you can see, and had all that old comb cleaned up in a few hours. Now the comb is clean wax that I can melt down for another project.

Salsa Time! Whitney's tomatoes, peppers and onions all did pretty well this year. While this is only some of the harvest, this bunch will be enough to make several gallons of salsa that we'll can and use throughout the year.

Our garden did well this year,  but we did add some Jalapeno peppers and cilantro that were grown locally.

Since canning cooks the salsa, this first jar of fresh salsa went to a Griz game party and was a real hit (though, sadly the Griz lost). The rest of it will get canned and put away to be enjoyed later.

While we were at work in the kitchen, the chickens were also at work in the garden. My corn as you can see didn't amount to much, the potato bed is turned under, and the peas and herbs in the far bed are dead or gone to seed. So, we decided to give that part of the garden to the chickens for a while. I put temporary fencing up to keep them where we wanted them, and then turned them loose. The hens were in heaven and clucking happily as they explored this new area. They especially liked getting into the pea trellises and over grown cilantro and basil.

That's all for now.  KJ

Pickling Beets and Waiting For Eggs

To our surprise, our hens who are now four months old, have yet to start laying. Some of our friends who got their chickens at the same time as us have already been getting eggs but we have not. So in the mean time were just waiting on eggs, a blessing in disguise I bet, because soon there will be a flow of eggs we'll have to deal with ready or not.

That's not to say that the hens aren't working, most evenings they are out in the yard foraging for grasshoppers and other goodies and our sociable rooster Colonel Sanders is never far away when we are outside. 

One of this weekend's jobs was pickling beets. These beauties are Detroit Kings and Wonder Talls. Whitney planted them after the last frost and by planting in two rounds we got two harvests. This is the last of them, about 16 LBS. So while the UM Grizzlies took on the E. Washington Eagles, we set about harvesting and washing beets.

 To many it seems just the mention of the word Beet is enough to induce an upturned nose and ideas of bad flavors, but these people I'd say have never tried home made pickled beets. One of the most picky people I know (Bailey) tried them this summer and after a sniff and a doubtful look, deemed them quite good!

After the initial washing and trimming, the beets are boiled skinned and sliced.

The pickling solution is boiled while you are preparing the beets, then the beets are packed into jars and the solution poured in. The jars are placed in a hot water bath and boiled. After about 30 min. the jars come out and are set on the counter. As they cool, the jars seal and complete the canning process. 



I just love the color, and knowing we have beets for a year!

About this time the Griz were beating the Eagles, a nice topper to the day and no small feat: the E. W. Eagles were the FCS National Champions last year!

After all that it was time to eat something, so we turned to the zucc's and carrots we had also picked, and added some new potatoes from the spud box.



These got chopped and roasted in the oven and together with some antelope dogs from the freezer made a delicious home grown meal.

Sadly, that was about the end of our antelope.  I'll miss enjoying the sweet, tender meat and remembering our hunting trips to get them. In the end it is a good thing really because they were nearly two years old, and meat shouldn't be kept any longer than that. And, now I get to plan our next trip to Antelope Country!!

That's all for now.

KJ

The Potato Farmer

This year Whitney tried growing potatoes for the first time. She looked into it and chose two varieties: Yukon Gold and Norland Red. She got the seed potatos from our local feed store in May. Whitney cut the potatoes into cubes with a few eyes in each cube and she planted while we were still getting frost.




We learned that it is time to harvest when the tops die back, so tonight she decided to dig up the reds.

We're very happy with what we found and are glad to say the first potato harvest was a big success!

This is only part of the reds and the Yukons looked great too. We'll have to finish digging them soon. Now we need to learn how to best store them so that we can enjoy them as long as possible. Too bad, the potato tops are toxic for chickens so these greens did not get tossed into the run.

We're also getting very nice tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, beets and zucc's. The harvest season is upon us!
The cuc's and beets will get pickeled, and the tomatoes will go into salsa or get eaten fresh. The zucc's we like to grill, and make great chicken feed when they get too big. The carrots will stay fresh in the ground well into winter if mulched over.

The Colonel is turning out to be very social, and is our constant companion in the backyard. He is never far away, always ready for a hand out.

Of course one of the best things about growing a garden is sharing the bounty. This basket went to the neighbor to thank her for watching the place this weekend.
KJ