We have been eating out of the garden for a little while now, both the inside garden (photos) and the wicking beds (photos) outside, which are both very efficient on space and water.

However, now that the rains have started, we have planted the big outside garden. Corn, greens, beans, sunflowers, squash, potatoes and a few other bits and pieces.

We have had some of our young trees produce fruit this year, not a lot but enough to give us a taster of what's to come.

We will also be making hay from our property. We cut the old grass on our top pasture, so that we can collect the new green grass that grows. It is a fruitful time of year.

For more photos, click here.

Our weekly chores

We seem to be so busy at the moment, what with running the homestead, earning money, additional projects and anything else we can squeeze in before the baby arrives (we know from experience that we will not be getting much done right after Nico arrives in about a month). So we decided to organize our chores into a weekly schedule, to help us remember to do some of the bits and pieces that need to be done every week. Then we fit all the other stuff around this list.

If interested, here it is:
Monday - Rabbits: breeding, weighing, weaning, separating females that are due, butchering, tanning hides, etc.
Tuesday - Watering trees. Moving chicken pen and tractor.
Wednesday - Garden: making soil blocks, transplanting, planting, collecting seeds, canning, drying, etc.
Thursday - Day off... well, day off chores at least, but that just makes it a better day to tackle big projects!
Friday - Water trees. Check on bees (every other week). Clean house.
Saturday - Laundry (by hand of course). We will now be starting to use the rest of this day to work on our site, as it is in pretty dire need of an update.
Sunday - Mushrooms (every other week).

Wicking Beds

This weekend Abe got a couple of lads from the village to come and help him make two wicking beds (I am not much use with a pic and shovel at the moment).

A wicking bed is basically a box-type planter, which is watered from the bottom.

To build it, they:
- Dug into the ground a little, making sure the bottom was level.
- Buried 6 stakes, which mark the corners and middle of the box.
- Attached shade cloth to the inside of the stakes.
- Lined the bottom half of the box with black plastic and a vinyl tarp (to protect the plastic from being torn by rocks.
- Put a 4" drainage pipe (with holes along it) in bottom of box, and then put 4" PVC into it. This is where you water your plants from.
- Filled up bottom half of the box with gravel and sand.
- Filled up rest of box (where there is just shade cloth, no plastic) with compost.

You add water into the PVC pipe, which drains out into the gravel. The soil will then wick the moisture up to the plants. To wick well, it must have high organic content. It is highly efficient with water. We will also be adding a frame above that can hold either shade cloth or greenhouse plastic.

For more photos, click here.

Our gray water interior flower beds work on a very similar principle. As you can see by the photo, it seems to be working pretty well. Here are some more photos of them.

New trees

We just bought and planted 7 new trees - 4 cherries and 3 peaches. The cherries we planted in our orchard area, which has a drip irrigation system. The peaches are now within the garden fence, so that one day they can offer the vegetables some shade.

We are trying to start some new trees each year, especially as our water situation gets increasingly abundant. We already have some well established plum, apricot, cherry and apple trees. The apricot and cherry are now starting to bloom.

For more photos, click here.

Property Updates

I haven't written much about the place recently, so I thought I'd do a little update on how things are doing.

Building
We haven't done any building since we finished the bathroom and hot water system. We really have everything we need, so no need to hurry on to the next construction projects, at least until well after the baby is born. We'll probably make the pantry (a big cupboard in the entranceway) and another shelf or two, but that's it for the next couple of months.

Hot Water system
This has really changed our lives and is the greatest luxury on the place. There have been a couple of small issues to work out, but Abe figures them out and fixes them. Unless it's cloudy for several days or unless we use the floor heaters a lot, our tank temperature sits happily at 130 degrees and will almost burn you!

Compost Heater
This did not work out as well as we had hoped. Although it heated Leo's wall a lot at the beginning, it does not do so steadily. We will have to tweak the idea to make it more effective. At least we''ll get a big old pile of compost out of the experiment.

Pigs
The three pigs are growing at an incredible rate. They more than doubled (and one of them almost tripled) their weight in the first month we had them. We made a pasture for them and they love to run around in it, root up the dirt, eat grass and play. When you arrive, they come running up to be petted, scratched and fed scraps. They consider Leo one of them. Photos

Chickens
We replaced most of our chickens a little while ago with some young layers. They have recently started to produce eggs. So far we are getting about two a day, but that will increase with Spring. It's Leo's treasured job to collect them (although he is only allowed to carry one back to the house).

Rabbits
The rabbits are amazing. We have kept a lot of the best females to pad out our breeding stock. We now have twelve females, four of which are still not ready to breed. By March, when they are all of breeding age, we will be getting a litter a week. Right now we have a little over 40 of them, of all different sizes!
They are truly the easiest animals in the world to keep and a joy to watch. Photos

Gardens
We didn't plant anything for winter outside. There was a lot going on at the time and we decided to let it go for this year. The inside dining room planter is on the other hand doing great, with all kinds of herbs, greens, carrots and garlic going crazy. We will shortly be doing soil blocks for the living room one.

Road
For the grand old price of $15, we got our road graded the other day. Most people don't understand what this means, but to sum it up for you, our road is long (2 miles), dirt and was in terrible condition after the rains we got this year. It now feels like a super highway, and my increasing belly is very grateful.

Rain Season

The rains have now officially started, with three days in a row of heavy downpours. And they are very welcome.

Everything has cooled off and has been well and truly doused. Within a couple of weeks, the land will go through its biggest transformation of the year - it will become blindingly green. It already seems to have a pre-green sheen.

Yesterday was a big storm. The rain was so thick you couldn't see two feet out the window. Luckily, we had walked around the property right before it rained, broadcasting extra seeds that we had (squash, oats, beans, herbs, corn, sunflowers, wheat, etc.).

This morning, we planted the rest of the garden - all beds are now seeded. For photos of the garden and trees so far, click here.

Our pond also got a lot of water. It never filled up last year. The grass on our property is pretty healthy and we have very little runoff, except on roads and paths. So this year we have made a couple of trenches to help guide water into the pond, and they made a big difference. We will be digging a few more soon.

Our tanks are all full. We are currently digging out a hole for a new cistern. We had made the hole last year, but we are making it an extra foot and a half deep. As soon as it's all dug out, we will begin construction on the tank.

Garden Paths

Although not yet finished (as the rabbit shed is more of a priority), I thought I would post a photo of the new garden paths.

The garden started off on a slope. On top of that, we are continually adding compost and mulch, so the soil is growing. These two factors had led to each bed spilling over itself and making it difficult to maneuver the garden. So we decided we should spend some time rectifying the problem, as the garden is a place we spend some time.

I made a small brick retaining wall on the uphill side of each bed (downhill side of path), and then filled in the path with rocks and dirt, making them nice and level and easy to walk on. I then used Juniper branches to retain the downhill side of the beds. It's much easier to get around now, and allows space for the beds to continue to raise.

For more photos, click here.

Food systems

I think I have already mentioned this, but now that the house is so comfortable, we are focusing our attention this year on the power, water and food systems.

The power system is now done, at least for now. We will one day add another solar panel and get a freezer, and build a couple more wind generators (even though this site is not great for wind, we have the parts and we love wind power). For the first time, we have free refrigeration - having switched form propane to electric. We run what we want when we want (although we are conservative by nature - force of habit, I guess). We recently put a fence around the solar mount.

The water system will be addressed in a couple of months, so stay tuned.

As for the food, we are really enjoying working on that system. Until we have our big tank, we are taking it slow, not planting the majority of our seeds until the rains come - next year, we will be able to go crazy! For now, we have lettuce, beets, cabbage, collards, tomatoes, onions, carrots, leeks, radish all in the ground in the garden, growing like weeds on compost and worm tea. Inside, in seed blocks, we have turnips, eggplants, arrugala, chard, cherry tomatoes, rhubarb, comfrey, purslene, asparagus. We should be transplanting most of them this week.

Under the trees, we have all kinds of squash, beans, spinach, melons planted and they are getting big. All our trees are doing great and we will even get some fruit this year, which is incredible considering we just planted them.

The trees are on a drip system and they get watered twice a week. Their water comes from a small tank we set up uphill from them. We have a fishtrap in the river and we are trying to stock this tank. So far, we have 4 perch, 1 bass and 1 carp in there. We have a little solar powered pump set up that oxygenates the water. A small system, but Leo loves it. It is his job to feed them worms, which he also loves.

Of course, there's the bees and the chickens, mentioned in previous blogs.

And last, but not least, rabbits. We haven't actually got rabbits yet, but we are starting to work on their house. While I have been making garden paths, Abe has been leveling a 20' x 10' area. We will build a shed for them in this space, and then have pens coming off that. We are going to be keeping the rabbits in a colony setup instead of cages. We'll keep you informed.

Odd Jobs

We've been doing lots of odd jobs around the place.

Our small worm farm has grown so much that we had to make them a new worm bin. We cleaned out the old one and split the worms between the two bins. Both of us had handfuls and handfuls of worms, like spaghetti. Now that our original two small tubs have grown so much, we will soon be setting up a proper system for them, which separates the poop (which goes on the garden) and the worms (which help compost scraps and feed the chickens).

I finished the toilet's sawdust container.

Abe planted 10 more apple trees, given free by the local council. All the ones we planted before (cherries, apricots, plum) are now leafed out and pretty. The only one that hasn't is the pecan, but it is certainly very healthy.

We're making a movable hen house and pen. We have lost too many to coyotes free-ranching them, so we are now going to do a chicken tractor system, where you just move their pen so they can continue to graze grass. The house will be on bike wheels, so we can just push it to a new location.

We're also working on the garden. We have a bunch of plants outside now, and another 132 soil blocks started inside. It is now super warm (no more socks or sweaters, windows open, etc.), and no more chance of freezes.

Another super exciting addition to the family is a beehive. Abe was asked to remove a hive from someone's house, and we got to keep the bees and honey. Stay tuned for Abe's account of that episode!

Winter Planting

We made use of bad weather this week to do some gardening.

We harvested all the beans, potatoes and most of the winter squash. All that's left now is collards, cabbage, turnips, carrots, parsley and lettuce.

We cut all the weeds and plants that have already produced, making a huge compost pile. We then replanted most of the beds with wheat, rye and barley, and spread compost on top of everything for food and mulch.

This year's focus has been the house. Next year, we hope to concentrate far more of our time on the food systems.

Gardens/chickens/worms

This year has mainly been dedicated to building, so we have not had as much time as we would have liked to work on the food systems. Next year we plan to mainly focus on this, with the additions of fish ponds, rabbit tractors, and planting trees, as well as increasing our gardens.

However, we did still plant our garden once the rains started. The soil is so much richer than when we first started – it has grown from clumpy clay to a rich, dark, crumbly soil, all through the addition of compost and mulch. So far we have been eating squash, green beans, collards, cabbage, herbs. We have turnips, beans, corn, beets and various other things growing. (more photos)

We have also started a worm bin. At the moment we are feeding them and letting their population increase. Once we have a lot more, we will start adding them to the garden, the humanure pile and feeding them to the chickens.

We did have some chicks this year, but disaster struck. The mama hen had made her nest outside of the coop, so we did not put her up at night with the other chickens. She hatched her eggs, but was then killed by a predator. We saved two of the chicks. Abe built them a chicken tractor. This is a movable pen, so that they get to graze one area, and then before they do any damage we move the pen. They seem very happy in there and we hope to buy some more chicks to keep them company. (more photos)

Pumpkin

This fall, we harvested, among other smaller squash, two 40 lb pumpkins, one of which we gave to some friends. Today we processed our one.

We cut it into chunks, cleaned the seeds and fibers out, then steamed the chunks. Once they were cooked, we scraped the flesh off the rind.

The seeds were cleaned and dried for next year. The rind and fibers went to the chickens. And the meat was turned into:
Two pumpkin pies
A bunch of squash, banana and honey leather (sun-dried)
Squash salad
Pumpkin bread
The rest I put into ice trays and froze them for our teething nine month old son.

The big, winter squash are great. They last for a long time, so produce a lot of food in winter when your fresh vegetables are at their lowest.