GROW Archives - Coming Home to Eden

Strawberries

Posted on September 7, 2022September 7, 2022 by ginamcmanig

Who doesn’t love strawberries? We eat fairly seasonally here so each new thing is exciting! We have planted strawberries in the past and have not had a great experience. Today, I will talk about how and why we grow strawberries the way we do now. Let’s go back in time shall we…it was 1973… just kidding. I wasn’t born yet. Okay, around 6 years ago we readied 3 long beds for strawberries. I marked them and my husband tilled and tilled and tilled. Our soil here is boney as they call it. That means there are lots of rocks. Some are very large. In these parts we need what is called a rear tine tiller. Our friends kindly lent us theirs. If you are not sure what a tiller does, it basically chops up the grass weeds and loosens the soil for planting. The rows were a couple of feet wide by I am not sure how long…maybe 30 or 40 feet? We planted a few different varieties. The strawberries filled in with weeds before long. We had mulched them with hay. That was a bad idea. Hay contains seeds and seeds sprout. It was a big fat mess. Besides the hay seeds and other seeds that are airborne that land and grow, there are some plant roots that are extremely hardy. Plants can grow back from the roots especially when growing with this method. We still keep one long bed (a different one) with strawberries directly in the ground. We have a couple of hundred berries in and around a bed with gooseberries, blueberries, and currants. We do mulch this bed with sawdust and wood chips but it still fills in pretty quickly with weeds. This bed was kind of an overflow area for extra strawberry plants. I figured they would be a good fit for around the other berries. We already mulched the row. It was easy to pop some plants in between the bushes. This bed is harder to maintain. The weeds not only come if from above but also below. They are spread everywhere by seed but also in a bed like this from underneath via roots. Every year we deal with this. Now if you are planting just one little bed of strawberries, it may be no big deal for you. If you happen to already have a large garden to tend, an orchard, animals, homeschool, etc…ease matters. There is only so much time in the day.

Last year we added 8 new raised beds around the perimeter of the garden for strawberries. This has been a nice amount of our family. This area tightly fit 200 plants. I crammed 25 plants in each bed. That was too tight and not necessary but I had a lot.

Strawberries make lots of babies via runners. These are little baby plants that grow from the main plants. So leaving room is better as they will fill in quickly with runners. Once your beds are filled you can pinch off runners and stick the nubby part into water and they will form roots. You can give these away or sell them. They produce A LOT of runners so I like to give them away but it would be a nice thing to do for a farmers market. Planting the runners after they are rooted for sale.

Considerations for planting: strawberry plants need a watering source. They do significantly better when watered on a regular basis. I have some that I cannot reach with my hose and they are kind of a we get what we get bed. They do not produce as well. Blueberries, gooseberries, and currants have done fine without watering here where we live. We have a lot of plants to tend and some are far from a water source. Since I can’t reach them with the hose, I heavily mulch them. I had planned to irrigate them eventually but sometimes things change.

Planting in a bed: you can use whatever you have available to you. You do not need to go out and buy beds unless you want to. You can make beds out of anything. They do well in full sun. You could plant them on the south facing side of your home. I prefer to utilize this space for figs since it is a very warm place and I have other spaces for berries. But the reason I mention planting along the house is for ease. The house acts as one side of the bed so you only need to build up the other sides. Depending on how you are going to make your beds, I recommend either weed whacking short and sheet mulching or taking up the sod over tilling.

Our beds were an experiment that turned out well. I sheet mulched by putting a wheel barrow or two of sawdust in the bottom on top of the barrier. Next we added chicken bedding with manure mixed in that had been in the coop over the winter. Not composted but ready to clean out from using the deep litter method over the winter. We put a wheel barrow or two of this in each bed next. Then we added compost to plant directly in. The stuff underneath will do a couple of things. It will hold moisture and it will break down over time and feed the plants. I wasn’t sure how this would work but it worked very well!

There is another reason to plant in a bed. Strawberry plants can be a pain to deal with in terms of life expectancy. Having to figure out a way to collect runners for new plants and swap them out is not something I wanted to deal with. Instead, every couple of years you can mulch them thickly and the strongest plants come up. A bed helps contain the mulch. You do not need a very deep bed. In fact too deep a bed with too high of walls can result in moldy berries from them not getting enough air flow.

You can make a bed out of anything you have. For around the house, we use rocks we gathered when digging holes for fruit trees. They were plentiful!

You can’t tell in this picture but, this is a bed of summer bearing raspberries.

This is the same bed two years prior from a different angle. See what happens when we plant food! We get food!

So this bed is utilizing the house behind it. In this bed, my husband trimmed very short. We should have taken the sod off because there was an invasive plant beneath that has continued to push through. Next, we laid heavy cardboard and lined with rocks. Then we mulched thickly. When I planted, I pushed away the wood chips and put soil in that spot. This was for raspberries and elderberries. I don’t recommend this method for strawberries. They would need soil as I described above. You can see from the picture, it worked well.

In addition to lots of fresh eating, we froze a lot of strawberries this year. We also made fruit leather with applesauce and strawberries, crumbles, muffins, ice cream. In previous years I have made jam as well and sorbet.

Here is a pan muffin and crumble recipe I made this year. I just substituted the blackberries with strawberries. I use whole grain spelt flour in the muffin recipe. The cobbler recipe is grain free. If you want it paleo, you can substitute the butter with coconut oil with a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of nutritional yeast for a butter flavor.

Strawberry muffin bread & Strawberry crumble.

It was always a dream of mine to have my children be able to go outside and eat good food. And that, they do. We have planted food all over the place for that reason. Planting food is a small investment monetarily speaking. It definitely costs more in time and energy but look at what you get! Manufactured food is not grown for the same purpose. It is manufactured for profit. Where there is profit, there will not be the same thoughts in production. For example growing large quantities of food can mean using pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc to produce. Organic producers still use some but they have to be approved. The berries are picked and washed and packaged and shipped. There are a lot of things that can happen in that process. This year there was a hepatitis ”breakout” with organic strawberries. Kind of scary. I prefer growing my own hands down. Then I know every bit of what goes in and how they are processed. Things can happen at home too, but this gives me more control over my food supply.

Picking berries for breakfast after a rain in pajamas. Talk about fresh food!

She had just picked a snack here of strawberries.

I started this post months ago when we were picking. Now it is almost fall and we have lots of runners so I can finish my post. This is the fun part. As I said before, strawberries produce a lot of babies. If you have a friend that has strawberries, ask for some runners! There is enough time now to grow the roots and plant them before winter so they can be established to make it through the winter.

In the center of this photograph is a little baby strawberry plant. You can see the nubs of roots beginning.

Here are a handful I pulled out to root. The one with the big roots had already planted itself in soil outside a bed. They like to spill out over the beds…like young adults trying to find their own way, lol. You can see the roots are at various stages.

I gathered the runners in my hand so that the roots were all together and put them in water. These will not take long to root. I will update when they have enough roots to plant. Before I ripped these young-ins away from their mothers, momma was feeding them from her roots. Placing them in water helps their roots to grow prior to planting. If you have your own strawberries already you can ”catch” these guys buy putting a container with soil underneath it and setting the root nubs on top. It will establish roots with very little effort from you. Once it has done so, you cut the line from the mother, and plant where you want it or give away.

Now, go get yourself some runners! They are free if you have a friend with strawberries that is willing to share. One main reason for this post is for folks I will be giving away runners to. You only need a temporary place to plant them in the ground once they root. You can mulch them for the winter and move them once they wake up in the spring. So, you do not need a bed ready right now if that is your chosen method. I do recommend planting them in the ground as soon as possible so they can spread out before the ground freezes. At the peak of picking, we were getting about 16 cups a day this year. That was a huge blessing for our family. We planted these last year. That is a great turn around if you ask me. We were picking a few times a day last year in small quantities for snacks…the same year we planted! We do NOT pick flowers off our plants the first year. We have way too many to do that. Besides, we ate the berries instead 😉 They were delicious. I hope I have inspired you to plant some strawberries! Cheers!

Woven Raised Garden Bed

Posted on July 4, 2022July 4, 2022 by ginamcmanig

Hello folks! This will be a quick post to share about a bed that I made this morning. I have wanted to make a woven bed for years. Probably about 10 years actually. If you knew what was going on in my life, this might seem a little crazy. I have wanted to make this specific bed for a year. As soon as I finish a project another idea comes to me. Last year I added the perimeter of strawberry beds as you can see in the photos.

Baskets are so aesthetically pleasing and satisfying to make. Well folks, this is a essentially a basket for dirt. I have been struggling with something and woke at 3am this morning. Since I couldn’t sleep, I decided to get up and take care of the pile of dishes in the sink and tidy up some. I threw a load of wash in and did some other work until about 9am. I started thinking about making this bed again a week or so ago. I thought it could be something fun and functional to do with my little one. I decided to instead do this for therapy for myself today.

Instead of going out to the woods to find wood, I used my blackberry canes from last year that were dead for stakes. I weed-whacked the area as short as I could prior to starting. I cut the stakes with these clippers. These were the only tools needed.

I pounded the stakes in with a mallet every 6-8 inches forming a curve as I went. I added a couple at a time to each side to watch the line come together nicely. This curved shape was going to be made with rocks as you can see in the picture a couple above. We had pulled a few big rocks from out back to use last year but stopped there.

Once all the stakes were in, I got some old cotton things that I had saved for using as landscaping fabric to block out the sun from the grass and weeds below. I laid the barrier down and started weaving my walls. I used an old pillow case, some curtains and a sheet. Any natural fabric will do.

In the spring we pruned our grapes and saved the vines to use for something. I did not have this in mind then. I thought about maybe making harvesting baskets or a garden sculpture. I have more left so may do something more with them later. These vines were lovely to use and I love the look of them.

Here you can see the bed with some grape vines woven in the front.

Here is a close up of the weave. I love the little curly Q’s.

This shows most if the weaving done.

Next, my husband delivered me some wood chips via the wheelbarrow. I shoveled out the entire load as a base layer for the bed. To give you an idea of size for reference, the end of the beds in which butt up to the woven bed are 3’.

Here she is all filled and ready to be used! It took two loads of compost in the wheel barrow courtesy of my husband to fill. He shovels in, I shovel out. This was done with zero monetary cost. Dead blackberry canes, old grapevines from pruning, free wood chips from a kind tree service, and free compost from our composted chicken bedding and manure. This took around a couple hours to complete mostly alone. I have no idea how long this will last but I was willing to take the risk for some therapy for myself. We have a whole hedge of hazelnuts that would be fantastic for weaving garden beds and so much more when they get big. Perhaps that is a post for another day. We also grow willow for basket weaving.

View from above.

I may clean this up a bit…I may not. I like the rustic look and it is functional as it is. I hope this inspires you to use what you have to make a garden bed today! Have a wonderful day!

Dehydrating The Bounty

Posted on June 24, 2022June 29, 2022 by ginamcmanig

I have been dehydrating a lot and wanted to share a bit on the process. I prefer a dehydrator to hanging herbs. The idea of dust collecting on them is off putting to me though that can be avoided. You can do a lot with a dehydrator. It is a great tool to have on a homestead. This season so far, I have used it for dehydrating parsley, rose petals, chamomile, thyme, dill, and fruit leather. I use my dehydrator year round. One of my favorite things to make in it is yogurt. My dehydrator (Excalibur) can fit 9 half gallon glass ball jars of yogurt to incubate. It stays on the counter as a kitchen staple in our home.

Parsley pulled off the stalk after dehydrating but not crushed. The leaves are left whole mostly. When I use them, I smash them in between my hands easily. They keep nicely fresh this way. I filled a half gallon jar with an almost full dehydrator. I use a lot of parsley. I will be dehydrating more.

I keep it simple. Some tips: don’t chop up your light herbs prior to dehydrating. If you do, they will end up all over the dehydrator from the the fan blowing. Wait until they are dry, then pull the leaves off the stalk in the case of parsley, dill, cilantro, thyme etc. Chives I harvest long, dehydrate, then toss in a jar. I leave what I can whole and break them up as I use them to retain freshness.

I use parsley a lot so am happy to fill the dehydrator with it. I use to buy it by the pound from Mountain Rose Herbs. If you cannot grow your own, I highly recommend theirs. The quality is excellent. Parsley is however easy to grow. If you have not done so yet, head on over to a good seed source like Baker Creek and get yourself a pack of seeds. Don’t forget to leave one plant to go to seed and you will really get your moneys worth out of that one packet of seeds! This entire bed seeded itself. It made an otherwise difficult year easy for my family. It really doesn’t have to be hard folks!

I dehydrate rose petals for tea. Rosa Rugosa Alba is a lovely addition to the homestead. They produce nice sized hips which are a good source of vitamin C. They are however invasive so do be careful of where you plant them. These can be a great natural barbwire fence in the form of a hedge or under windows as a ”pest” deterrent. Both human and animal alike would not enjoy a tangle with this bush. She is sharp indeed and doesn’t mess around! I love the alba (white) variety as it has a very subtle soft pink tint to it which can really be seen in the dried state pictured above. Also, if you haven’t made rose petal jelly yet, I highly recommend it! It is delicious!

Certain varieties of chamomile are perennials here in our zone 4-5 climate. If you need a little calm once in a while like me…grow some chamomile. In fact, I could use a cup right now! I love growing perennials. You only have to plant them once and they keep giving as long as they live. You can’t beat that! I started a couple different varieties by seed. I harvest them fresh for tea too but I have more than I can use fresh. I also want to preserve them to use throughout the year. Dehydrating allows me that luxury. I use a sheet below my chamomile especially when dehydrating with other things because they have little tiny parts that with fall below the tray otherwise. If you are doing all chamomile, it doesn’t really matter.

Strawberries…oh lovely strawberries! We grow Cavendish strawberries here. They are cold hardy and long lived. We really enjoy these berries. They are an early to mid season variety. They have been plentiful for us. Once the novelty of eating something new wears off, you start to preserve. We are still eating them fresh but grow enough to put up to enjoy throughout the year. After we made strawberry ice cream and strawberries over angel food cake, we started freezing some. We have oodles of applesauce from last fall so took about half a jar (quart) to an equal amount of berries plus a little maple syrup or cane sugar and blended. Once blended, pour on lipped mats. These are much better than the flat sheets for leather. They give the leather a nice chew because of the thickness.

Here we have dill. I use dill in different dips, dressings and preserves such as pickles. This lovely herb reseeded itself with no work from me. Are you starting to see how simple this can be? I hope so. There is something so wonderful about using something that you grew and processed. It is a beautiful experience.

These pictures are from a previous season but I wanted to include them because it is one of my favorite ways to preserve tomatoes. I dehydrate these until they are thoroughly dry then store in jars after they are cool. As needed I dip using tongs into balsamic or apple cider vinegar then place in olive oil and let them absorb the oil for a couple of days before using. These are fabulous. I prefer balsamic vinegar over apple cider but both are good. I use extra virgin olive oil. I think these taste so good…much better than fresh tomatoes do in salads or on sandwiches. Don’t get me wrong, I love regular old fresh tomatoes, but the depth of flavor is fantastic in these yummy treats. They can be made as needed through the year. I make a pint at a time. They sit right on my counter since they get used up in a short amount of time. You do have to be careful when preparing them in this way. You do not want bacteria growing in there. I use tongs to remove them from the jar. Below is a last harvest before a frost. This is a big table. She gets covered with lots of food over the summer for processing!

Here we have thyme. Another wonderful perennial where we live in zone 4-5. I have planted this all around edges as a lower growing herb that can get mowed over and keeps kicking! I enjoy thyme in my food as well so love having it around. It has many good uses medicinally too.

Well folks, there is a bit on dehydrating. These are the ways that I use a dehydrator currently. There are many other uses. You can make jerky and crackers and all sorts of things. I love this dehydrator because it has a thermostat and a timer with an automatic shut off. What does that mean? You can set it and walk away or go to bed. In my opinion this type of dehydrator is much more efficient that the stackable types. I have used both and they do not compare. The Excalibur design dries much more evenly. I do still rotate the trays depending on what I am drying but find it to be a great addition to our homestead! I can make a post on making yogurt in there another time. Below are the exact tools I personally use and recommend. I hope I have inspired you to add dehydrating to your homestead! Enjoy!

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Growing Food

Posted on June 17, 2022June 17, 2022 by ginamcmanig

I would like to talk about the importance of growing our own food. With the way our world is, it is so important. I don’t care how much money you have to buy all the “organic” food in the world. Unless you know the farmer, you don’t really know what you are getting. With that said, props to all the true organic farmers out there. When a product is sold, it is done so to bring in money. As you have seen on your grocers shelves you can find many ”natural” and organic foods these days. This is very simply supply and demand. People have spoken with their dollars and companies are meeting those demands. I love seeing more of this…BUT, there are so many benefits to growing your own. Gardening isn’t for everyone…but everyone eats 😉 It is such a great skill to have and to teach our children.

I love using these cattle panels to make arches for growing vines such as melons, squash, and cucumbers. These save space and create nice visual interest in a garden. My children love to play underneath them.

Are you are interested in growing food but don’t know where to start? Maybe you have a lot of questions and feel that you don’t know what you are doing? Maybe just the thought is overwhelming? BUT, oh how you would love to have fresh food readily available! If this sounds like you, this post is for you. Our fears stop us from many things in our life. When you think of gardening maybe the word fear doesn’t come to mind. Essentially those thoughts I mentioned, if we pick them apart, may come down to some fears. Maybe that fear is messing up? Perhaps wasting time? Maybe it is wasting money? Maybe it is simply not a high priority for you? And let us all be grateful for grocery stores and farmers markets for the times in our lives when we need them! Sometimes we just have so many questions we don’t move forward. It may not be a priority for your family. It is for mine.

We live in a culture that believes we need to be an expert in order to do things. That mentality stops us in some cases from believing in ourselves. It leaves us thinking we have to know everything in order to try something new. Well friends, I am here to tell you that you do not need a masters degree to grow food. You don’t need a bachelors, nor an associates. Plants are awesome and amazing in their ability to keep on keeping on. There is that. I will explain that further shortly. Also, there is a lot of value in learning through trial and error. A lot. If the thought of growing food is overwhelming because you think you don’t know what you are doing, please, read on.

Different varieties of kale and mustard greens.

I really want to encourage you to start. Just start. If you never plant it…whatever it may be, it will never grow. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to be an expert. In fact, I am going to talk about how easy gardening can be here in this post. Yes, gardens take work. No doubt about that. Today I am going to share with you how I garden and why I chose these methods. I have had several gardens. By far, my favorite, is having raised beds. I chose this after getting pregnant with my last child and not being able to keep up with the garden. Then, guess what happened next? I had a baby, lol. I could not keep up with a garden. That garden was a big fat mess full of weeds after such neglect. You do not need raised beds to garden. There is nothing wrong with having a garden directly in the ground! You can do it any way you like! But this is my preferred method. It comes with some great benefits like no tilling and many others when you get them established. Beds have more upfront work but once they are done, are so much easier in my opinion. The benefits of the upfront set up far exceed the extra work for me.

The first thing I did was think about how I could make beds with very little money. The thought of metal beds came from learning about growing sweet potatoes. They like heat. We happen to have zero shade and sweet potatoes do well here. Metal beds would help heat up the soil. I started looking for materials and read up on safety. I had a friend that had some old corrugated roofing buried under some brush on his property. He kindly gave it to us. We bought some rough cut lumber at an Amish mill locally and got to work. I marked the metal and my husband cut it with his circular saw (blade in backwards) while I hid behind a garage door. I really enjoy working with wood but was afraid of cutting metal for sure! Do be careful if you go this route. We used rough cut hemlock wood as it was the best we could afford at the time. I don’t recommend hemlock. It weathered very quickly. Cedar would have been a better choice but it was out of our reach at the time. Use what you have and do what you gotta do. We built the beds 6’L x 3’W x 16”D. We worked with the dimensions the metal pieces were. They were double that high so cut them in half. We were able to build 6 beds for very little money.

These beds with wood are the first beds we built as of last year. They are still functional but are starting to fall apart. One could just get some cedar and replace the wood. That would not be hard to do. You can see there is some duct tape on the end bed here. There were some sharp holes that I covered up for safety to keep little fingers out.

So we started with six beds. The following year I found metal beds almost the same size except they were only a foot deep. We bough 12 more beds over the year as we could. There was a great sale after the first six. I think we paid around $40 a bed for the first six and $30 something each for the next six with an even better sale. These beds were so much easier! They are all metal so should hold up much longer. I put them together alone with ease and placed them where I wanted them. Every year we invest in something that will feed us. Fruit trees or berry bushes or canes…for a couple of years we invested in beds as we could. At that point we then had 18 raised beds. I absolutely love raised beds. They have no bottom. We weedwhacked very short and placed them on the ground. I then put a barrier down to kill the grass and such. I love using old cotton or wool clothing or bedding for this. I don’t use any synthetics. We save our old clothing, sheets and towels through the year for this purpose. We use it as landscaping fabric. It is much better than the plastic stuff especially when growing food. Thick 6 mil plastic is fine for inbetween beds or rows to keep the weeds down as well as killing off an area prior. I hope to eventually add flat rock with thyme in between where the grass has been killed off for less maintenance. Back to the beds! You can also use cardboard in the bottom of the beds before filling. Just be sure to trim the grass very low first. Fabric lasts much longer than cardboard and newspaper and I prefer it. Covering weakens the plants so they die off easier. Think of what happens to newspaper when it gets wet vs laundry coming out of your washer. Fabric is much stronger. Thick cardboard works well too. The key is covering it deeply enough. Both things will rot over time. But if done well, it will kill the plants below.

Depending on the depth of your beds, you may want to add some old wood if you can. Wood such as that found in the forest. You don’t want to use treated lumber in your bed…or outside your bed when growing food in my opinion. Grab a wheelbarrow and gather old rotted wood to put as your first layer of your new beds. If you don’t have access to this, grab a tote or feed sack and head to some state land or a neighbors or family members home. You might also find branches and things out at the curb on certain days for brush removal in a neighborhood. You could call your local DPW to find out when. Maybe you have a refuse center with piles available? We live in the country and have woods so we just go out back and gather. Find some wood that will fit in the dimensions of your bed. Old rotten wood is wonderful. This layer will continue to breakdown and will offer your plants moisture from underneath. I like to top the wood with a layer of old leaves and twigs after that.

Next we add soil. I have two favorite soil sources. The forest floor, or our old composted chicken bedding with manure all throughout. So to recap thus far: Make a bed. Cover the floor of the bed with a natural material that will block out light from the grass. Add some old rotted wood. Top with old leaves and twigs, fill with soil. If you have to buy soil, this will get expensive fast. Find what you can from other sources. Someone may have a big old pile of composted manure that they would love for you to get rid of. Ask around. Post in community groups.

American Hazelnuts in lower right corner started from seed.

WAYS TO MAKE GARDENING EASIER:

RAISED GARDEN BEDS

Raised garden beds make life a lot easier. My beds are 6’x3’. I really like this size. I can easily reach in from any side to weed. In a bed style of planting, you plant closer together so fit much more food in a smaller space. For example, if a plant needs 6” in between each other, in a traditional garden, you would have one row of that plant with 6” in between then lots of space in between the rows to walk and harvest. In a bed, you plant that same plant 6” in both directions…no rows. This method can be done directly in the ground or in a raised bed.

I realize some do not have the means or capability to grow food. Gardening is physical work. Putting up food is work. Both of these things take time. However, there are methods that can make gardening easier and preserving faster. Gardens can be made to accommodate physical challenges. For those with ground to plant in that have physical difficulty, perhaps raised beds would help. You can make beds deep and use a garden bench to sit while gardening. Everyone is going to be different in this regard but if you really want to garden, find a way if possible. Perhaps someone without the ground to plant in would be willing to do the work on your land and share the bounty.

If you do not have your own ground to plant in, ask a neighbor or friend or family member. Maybe look into starting a community garden. Sometimes grants can be found for these kinds of things. Maybe your community already has a community garden. Where there is a will, there is a way!

This year has been a particularly difficult one for me. Planting was not super high on the priority list. I planted only two flats (72 cell). And then only added to what was already there. This is big folks.

LEAVE A PLANT
One of my best tips for easy gardening is leaving one of each plant to go to seed. Don’t pull it out in the fall. Leave that baby alone! Resist the urge to clean out the garden. Because raised beds are not tilled, the plants freely seed themselves into the beds and you do nothing! They pop up in the spring with zero effort from you. You can then do what you choose with them. You can rearrange if you desire or leave them or give them away. This year I had parsley, cilantro, dill, mizuna, kale, lettuce, red mustard greens, borage, Swiss chard, carrots, garlic, chives, tomatoes, nasturtiums, and sunflowers already growing in my garden. Let me tell you, this was a Godsend for our family. This is the way these plants were designed to grow! It doesn’t need to be hard folks! I filled in the open spaces with seeds and rearranged some. This took very little work. Gardening does NOT have to be hard.

From left to right: Gooseberries, blueberries, raspberries.

So folks, I would like to offer you encouragement to START GROWING! Start growing in whatever way you can! It doesn’t need to be ”perfect”…you just need to start! It is okay if things don’t go exactly as planned. I hope this offers you some inspiration to grow some food! It is wonderful walking outside and gathering your own home grown food! Happy planting!

Last year we added 8 more raised beds around the perimeter for strawberries. We also added a grow tunnel and another front arch.

Hatching Chicks

Posted on April 22, 2022April 23, 2022 by ginamcmanig

This year for the first time, we hatched our own baby chicks. We decided with the world the way it is, it would be a good investment to make in our own food security. I have never been interested in hatching eggs before. I am a big believer in nature. Every year our hens hatch out their own babies. THEY are much better chick mothers than any human I know…they are chickens! It is SO MUCH easier to let hens hatch out and rear their babies. It requires nothing from us humans other than to let them sit on a clutch of eggs. Let’s not forget about having a rooster. The eggs need to be fertilized eggs in order to produce a baby chick. After a momma hen sits of her clutch of fertilized eggs for 21 days, they will hatch. Momma usually sits for about two days once the hatching begins then abandons any remaining eggs in order to tend to the needs of her hatchlings. Watching a momma with her babies is beautiful…chickens, humans, any type! Momma hens protect their babies fiercely from other chickens. They teach them what to eat and drink and where to find it. They keep them warm and safe. They teach them how to be chickens!

So, this year with shipping issues, we decided it would be best to have our own incubator. We had lost 11 of our new hens to a predator. Instead of having to have more pullets shipped in the mail, we would hatch out our own. At least this way the birds would not have the stress of shipping. Everything would still need to be done to mimic having a mother hen, but that was okay with us in this situation. We already have everything for that.

Every time we have bought chickens for either meat or eggs, we have bought day old chicks which are hatched in a giant incubator and shipped in the mail to our home. Pretty horrible trip for the little things being tossed around for a couple days in the mail just after hatching. No mamma hen. Hatched, sexed, boxed, sent. So, not the best way, BUT necessary for us to start our own flock.

We have a child who is sensitive to corn and soy. She started reacting to eggs since this is what chickens are fed. Corn and soy, whether organic, free ranged, or not. All of them are fed corn and soy. I did a lot of research on this and we decided to raise our own without corn and soy. We were successful. My daughter was able to eat eggs without reacting.

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I went online and asked around in some groups I was in to see what incubator others recommended. The Nurture Right 360 was recommended over and over so this is what we bought. I really liked that we could watch the whole process. It is very much automated for ease of use. It maintains temperature, humidity, and rotates the eggs. It has external water fill and you can simply unplug the turner at lockdown time. It made things very easy.

We bought shipped eggs to replace the birds we had lost. See the pictured eggs with marker on them. They were beautiful BUT I DO NOT recommend buying shipped eggs for hatching. It significantly reduces their viability. I learned that a little too late. For the price of hatching eggs and the poor hatch rate associated with shipped eggs, I would rather either find someone local or buy chicks online. It was not worth it for our purposes. That was our first experience with hatching. Our second experience was with our own barnyard mix. We hatched these for our neighbor. That went better. We used a dry hatch method the first two times.

This is an Olive Egger egg. So beautiful. Eggs are eggs, but I do so enjoy natures colors! In my vegetables, fruits, and eggs! Happy hatching!

Starting Seeds

Posted on March 31, 2022April 23, 2022 by ginamcmanig

Ah, new life. There is something so exciting about planting seeds and watching them come to life! Every year after the holidays I get excited to plan what I will grow. Each year we add something new to the mix. One of my favorite places to buy seeds is Baker Creek. I buy almost all our seeds from them. I love looking through their catalog. I also save some seeds to use for the following year. If you are a little on the ”wild” side and don’t mind leaving plants in the garden after the season is over, you can end up with lots of wild plant babies in your garden without the work of planting. I purposely leave some plants to go to seed such as lettuce and mustard greens. I might leave a few chives and garlic too. I find wild plants all around because I leave them to spread on their own. Bonus food.

Why start your own seedlings you ask? Great question! You can purchase seedlings. That is just fine. BUT, there are many benefits to starting your own seedlings. Variety is a big reason for me. I like to grow things I can’t find at stores and markets or that are expensive to buy. More diversity in your diet and oh how I love all the colorful food! That leads me to another great reason. Cost. Seeds are very inexpensive. You can reuse many of the supplies for years. Another reason is you know exactly what went into your plant if you grow your own. The soil, fertilizers, etc. You control how many plants you have. There are places out there that sell nice seedlings but I encourage you to give seed starting a try. At the very least, check out the amazing varieties!

When I first started I had it up high like this. It worked fine but since then, I have hung it closer to the plants. I wanted to give you another view of how it looks for set up.

I use 72 cell trays which can be found locally usually. I have been using the same ones since 2016. I prefer the type you fill with potting soil rather than the type that expand similar to the one below. Mine pictured are the Jiffy brand. I found them at my local Agway.

I usually use one of the two types of soil below for potting seeds. When I have something outside to pot, I use my compost. The potting mix can be found at Agway or Tractor Supply.

Pictured here are those tomato plants after growing a bit (bottom), peppers (top right), sweet potatoes (center top). I start sweet potatoes by slip. I will try to get another post out on starting slips.

This is what happens when you start too many seedlings. You have to put in an entirely new area. I did this at the beginning of covid. I thought others might need food. So, I grew a million tomato plants?! You know, because you can live off tomatoes…it’s the thought that counts right? The year after this, I turned this space into a new raspberry bed easily since I had killed off the grass with the thick black plastic. We moved it, transplanted raspberries and sheet mulched in between the rows. If you have time, laying thick black plastic is a fantastic way to kill off grass and such to start a new planting area. It does take time but is much less work than taking up sod or tilling. This is what we used. It can be reused as well.

Here are some bigger tomato babies that were planted in the garden with lettuce.

These are some of my favorite black cherry tomatoes. I grow them every year.

What happens when you plant seeds? You get food. Lots of food. I LOVE walking outside and harvesting fresh produce from my garden for meals and putting up. I will try to get another post up soon for what to do with all the food!

Steam Juicing

Posted on March 29, 2022December 29, 2022 by ginamcmanig

The cool weather of fall brings the beautiful scent of ripe grapes. As a child, I remember going to the farmer’s market with my mother and getting the delicious seasonal treat of Concord grapes. I loved them. They were definitely a favorite of mine. When we had the opportunity to grow them, we planted 36 vines of which were mostly Concords and Niagaras. We also planted a handful of seedless varieties for dehydrating. In addition to fresh eating, I wanted enough juice for the year. At the time, we were purchasing grape juice for kefir soda regularly.

Grapes are a quick turn around plant to invest in. I say start with your fruit when you ”land” as it takes the most time to produce…but, not all fruit takes a long time. Grapes are pretty quick. And when you taste your first grapes…they will be well worth the investment!

We bought our plants from Double A Vineyards. Before the plants arrived we prepared. I designed the layout. We removed sod. We marked and dug holes. The holes were not sufficient for the massive roots on the plants we received. We had to dig the holes much deeper. I was very pleased with the plants.

This is my version of a modified Munson system which is much like a clothes line. Wires were put into the horizontal piece at the top. The grapes hang down from the top wires for easy harvesting.

Grapes can take a few years to produce which is a short wait when compared to fruit trees. Some vines can produce for well over a human beings lifetime. This makes planting grapes a very good investment. Planting them is simple. We did nothing to the soil. We dug holes and planted at the recommended spacing and provided them with something to climb on. We do not fertilize them nor do we use any sort of pesticide or herbicide on them. We prune them in early spring and sometimes a little in the summer if the vines get in the way of other plantings. Some of our vines are in a bed that has been sheet mulched. Some are not. We simply weed whack around those only for our ease of picking. Grapes are VERY hardy in general. We don’t water them with the exception of the year we planted them. Because the roots are so deep, once established, they do not need watering here in the north eastern United States. Depending on where you live, they may.

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Once you have established grapes, you can eat them! And eat them….and eat them. You can also get yourself a steam juicer and make yourself some juice. Steam juicing is incredibly simple. We use a large harvest basket to gather the grapes. We fill it once, then pluck grapes. I do not like the taste of the juice as much when leaving the stems on. I have some nice stainless steel bowls with lids that I pluck the grapes into. That way I can pop them in the fridge if I don’t have enough for a juicer load. Once done with that basket load, I start juicing.

So, how does one steam juice you ask? My steam juicer has three chambers. One for water (bottom). One for collecting juice (middle). One for your fruit or vegetables (top). To start you put water in the bottom of your steam juicer. Put the juice capturing chamber above that. Pour plucked grapes into the top of your juicer. Cover with lid and turn on the burner. Before long, your home will smell amazing! The best part is this…the juice comes out piping hot. I prepare my jars as usual for canning. I run a small amount of juice through the tube, and dump it back in the top to sterilize the tube. After that, I fill my jars to about 1/4 inch from the top, wipe, place lid & screw top, put on cooling rack. Done. No water bath necessary. If you were canning something non acidic, other methods would be needed. I have been doing this for several years and have had no problems. I love the ease of it. I have a Cook N Home 11 quart steam juicer. Do be sure to check the water in the bottom chamber every now and then. If it runs out the juicer can get damaged and the taste of your juice can be affected.

I place a stool next to the cooktop and place a dark colored towel down to catch any drips of juice that go where I don’t want them to go. It happens and it stains particularly well with concords. I then get a prepared jar one at a time as I fill them. I prefer regular mouth quart size (32oz) canning jars for juice. The regular mouth is easier to pour than the wide mouth. I sometimes do a few half gallon jars for gatherings. I place them on a cooling rack upside down to drain after washing so no dust, etc gets inside. I prefer Ball canning jars. They are made in the USA.

Steam juicing is a simple way to put up juice to enjoy all year! I have also used my steam juicer for apples. Apples are nice to use because when you are done juicing, you can run the pulp through a mill and have sauce. Double duty. I hope you are inspired to juice some fruit! Enjoy!