Picking Dewberries April 2014

There are quite a few crops that you really have to work hard to weed, water, and worry about pests.  And then there are dewberries.  These boogers just grow on their own in the ditch on the other side of the road in front of our house.  Dewberries are similar to blackberries, but they ripen a little earlier, and grow on sprawling, thorn-filled runners all over the ground as opposed to blackberries that grow on canes or bushes. Dewberries are a little plumper, juicier, and, I think, a little sweeter.  We keep a close eye on the wild crop that grows on its own in the ditch and when they are at their peak, we get out there with buckets and pick them.

Dewberries in the ditch

They are at their prime for only a short time, so after work, we get out there in the ditch and hastily fill our buckets.  We do keep a watchful eye for snakes and wasps. Benjamin got stung on the finger by an angry red wasp as he was picking dewberries yesterday, but he kept right on picking like a trooper.  A man can't let trivial annoyances sidetrack him when there's work to be done.

Dewberries at different stages - green, red, and black

We just stand in one spot, putting the bucket on the ground and use both hands to pick berries and drop them into the bucket.  It goes quickly like that.  The only problem is all the thorns.  Once you're done, your hands are all scratched up and itchy.

Berry Good

Benjamin keeps a quart sized container with him and hops over into the middle of the thorns.  He likes to pick in the remote, hard to get to, spots.  As he fills his container, he comes and dumps the berries in the bucket or other containers we're using to store the harvest in.

Professional Dewberry Picker

Just look at these nice berries!

A nice handful of plump berries

It takes a brave man to pick blackberries in a white T-shirt!

My container is full, Dad!

You have to sample a few of them to make sure they are sweet.  They are indeed sweet, warm, and juicy. When you come inside with the harvest, you have to wash your purple hands stained from berry pickin'.

Stained ha

We've only picked for two successive afternoons, maybe for 45 minutes each day, but the yield has been good.  I figure we'll get out there again tomorrow and pick before they become overripe.

Bucket 'o Berries

This was the haul from the second day.  I put it on the scale and it weighed exactly 9 pounds.  That ain't half bad!

Nine pounds of dewberries

Tomorrow I'll show you how we put these dewberries away so we can enjoy them long after the harvest is over.  Check back with us tomorrow for Dewberry Harvest 2014 Part II.

Planting Sweet Corn

For the past several years I've planted the sweet corn in the garden.  It has produced well, but has proven to be quite a temptation for Nellie, the goat.  She enjoys putting her front hooves on our four foot tall 2 x 4 welded wire fence that partitions the garden from the pasture and craning her neck over to eat the corn once it gets taller. I got tired of losing a lot of the harvest to Nellie.  So I presented an alternative to Tricia and after deliberations in our family's Agriculture Committee (ha ha), I received the go-ahead to till up a spot in the yard to plant the sweet corn - safely out of Nellie's reach.

A good friend brought his roto-tiller attachment for the tractor he was letting me use and we tilled a spot measuring 46 feet long.  There's nothing scientific about that measurement, it's just the way it ended up.  I pulled up a couple of rows to raise the ground level a bit and we were ready to start planting sweet corn.

A couple of rows ready for seed sowing

I enlisted the help of my sidekick, Benjamin, and we got down to business.  Benjamin got an old tomato stake from last year and made a trench approximately 1 inch deep down the middle of each row.

Making the trench to plant the seed corn

I'm using a non-GMO, open pollinated heirloom variety called Stowell's Evergreen Sweet Corn.  I purchased this seed from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed and have had good success with it each year I've planted it.  This stuff is so good, sometimes when harvesting, I'll pull back the husk and eat it raw, right out there in the garden.  Sweet as candy!

Stowell's Evergreen Sweet Corn

Benjamin started dropping seeds in the trench - one seed every 5 inches.  Some publications will tell you to soak your corn in water for a little while to speed germination.  We've done that in past years and it works, but this year, we were racing the sun going down and decided to skip that step.

One seed every 5 inches.

There's something about putting a seed in freshly turned soil.  I think it is the faith involved in putting a seemingly dead thing in the ground and covering it, looking forward to a good growing season, culminating with a bountiful harvest.

Kernel of corn in the trench

This soil is rested and hasn't grown anything but grass in a long time.  Still, I wanted to give it some good, fertile soil to start off in so we filled in the trench with some organic garden soil that I purchased.  The planting guide I was looking at says to cover the seed with 1/2 inch to 1 inch of dirt.  After the corn is about a foot tall, I'll side dress with some chicken litter for fertilizer.

Adding some rich soil to the trench to cover the seed

Here are two 46 foot rows of sweet corn, all planted and covered.  Yeah, maybe our row isn't exactly straight, but that's okay.  When it is on your plate, you don't worry about how straight your rows were!

Crooked rows of Sweet Corn

Now I told you we didn't pre-soak the corn before planting, but Benjamin pulled out the water hose and began to spray down the rows.  I asked him to simulate a good soaking rain in order to make the freshly planted corn swell and begin to grow.

Artificial Rainfall

Benjamin kept at it, walking back and forth to ensure the entire length received adequate 'rainfall.'  

Finishing up 

I then took plenty of hay and used it to mulch the ground right up to where the corn was planted.  I'll keep the soil watered and keep checking on things.  It is warming up and I should see some sprouts in a week.

Not only will the corn planted in the yard keep Nellie from eating it, but it also reduces the amount of grass I have to mow!  How's that for progress?

Mulching with Hay

Yesterday we were talking about the backbreaking discipline of weeding and how it seems to be a never ending job.  Wouldn't it be great if vegetables grew with the vigor and stamina that weeds did?  You never have to 'baby' weeds.  They grow on their own and are healthy regardless the amount of rain, heat or cold, are other adverse weather condition.  Vegetables and plants that provide food on the other hand...

Well, I'll show you a practice that has worked for me so far in the war I'm waging against weeds.  Mulch. When the live oaks put on their new Spring leaves, I mow all the leaves and grass into piles and fill up the areas between the rows with leaves. Then as the vegetables start growing, I'll apply a thick, liberal coating of hay to the entire area.

Hay used as mulch

In addition to effectively blocking out the growth of weeds, the hay provides a nice 'bed' for vegetables.  In the picture below, you'll notice that my green beans are about to bloom.  I've positioned a nice blanket of hay beneath the plants for the green beans to rest upon.  In years past, I've noticed that the beans that sat on the moist ground for any length of time.get spots on them and spoil.  The same thing happens with yellow squash.  Hay used as mulch is effective in stopping this spoilage as the beans/squash stay high and dry, nestled in a nice dry bed of hay.

A blanket for the beans

Mulching vegetables like this really helps the plants during the hot summers, too, as the hay provides a layer of protection from the sun's evaporative power that saps the soil of its moisture.  Underneath that bed of hay is a multitude of microbial action going on along with beneficial bugs and earthworms enriching the soil.

Mulch around beans, tomatoes, and peppers

I wrap the hay securely around the base of the plants.  Any little gap that allows sunlight to penetrate to the soil level will encourage weed growth, so you've got to be vigilant.  One negative consequence of mulching with hay is the seeds that come along with the hay that becomes part of the weed seed bank in your garden for next year.  That is a significant downside to doing this, but it just means that you continue to add mulch year after year to block off each years' weeds that are waiting to germinate.  But I don't want to linger on the negative.  Hay used as mulch year after year decomposes and adds plenty of organic matter to your garden's soil and reduces compaction of the soil.  To me the benefits outweigh the negative aspects.

Hay is an effective barrier for weeds

I did a lot of reading about how people use mulch.  This process is modeled after what happens naturally in the forest as each year leaves fall and trees fall to the forest floor and decompose, building soil.  No one (but God) tends the garden of the forest, and things grow magnificently.  Using mulch just mimics the Creator's process.

Hay around young pepper plants

Admittedly, wood chips are one of the very best types of mulch to use, but I don't have access to wood chips.  Hay is a by-product of having cows.  Cows are extremely wasteful and will knock good hay to the ground, even with a hay ring, and trample it, poop and pee on it, rendering it useless for eating.  But that type hay is raked up and re-purposed for use in the garden.  Nothing goes to waste.  That's the way I like it.

Nutsedge - Scourge of Farmers/Gardeners everywhere

Genesis 3:17-18

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

18 Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;

There is evidence of that curse that pops up every year in our garden and reminds us that while gardening is fun and rewarding, there is definitely toil involved.  I've pulled one of the most troublesome weeds from the garden to show you.  Here it is: Nutsedge!

Purple nutsedge

I pulled this weed from the garden, roots and all to show you.  There are a couple types of nutsedge - Yellow and Purple.  I've determined from research that the offender in our garden is Purple Nutsedge because purple nutsedge spreads with a chain of rhizomes, while yellow nutsedge does not.

In my hand I'm holding the same nutsedge to point out the vigorous growth of the root system.  Oh, how I wish that good plants grew this vigorously!  Pay close attention to the "nut" at the '4 o'clock' position on my hand.  This is the "nut" from which the weed gets its name.  When someone says, "He's growing like a bad weed" in referring to their son, they mean quickly and they are no doubt referencing the nutsedge!

Root system of the nutsedge

I've repositioned the weed in my hand to highlight the 'nut.'  A green shoot will emerge from that nut and form another twin to the green plant from which it emerged.  In turn the new shoot will send out more rhizomes which will yield more plants and so on and so forth until your garden is overwhelmed with this weed.  I wish I could tell you that their spread is easy to control.  It is not.

The rhizome chain of the purple nutsedge

One must be diligent in weeding to control this insidious weed.  Below is the full-scale assault and all out war that the nutsedge is waging on a row of Black from Tula Tomatoes I have planted.  If you could pull up the weeds without disturbing the root systems, you would see that all of the weeds you see are attached and are part of a huge chain that will take over the garden.

You must stay ahead of this weed and be diligent in rooting out the infestation.  If you don't, it will negatively affect your harvest.  In a spiritual sense, the pesky nutsedge is a good illustration of sin.  Sin often starts off small.  Left unchecked the little sins multiply, spreading and crowding out anything good.  Your yield (testimony) will be diminished, resulting in crop failure.  I often wonder what gardening was like before the curse.  One day we will see a new heaven and a new earth.  There will be no more sickness and death, no more tears and dying - and I've got to believe no more weeds.  Until then, I've got work to do!

Nutsedge infestation

My effort involved a lot of bending over, weeding, and being very careful to pull up the root system and not leave any nuts which would turn into other weeds.  The problem is repeated bending over on 35 thirty foot rows will give you clean rows, but will also give you the back of a 75 year old carrot puller.  I'm going to show you tomorrow an easy way to control this troublesome weed without chemicals and without breaking your back.

Attending Hearings on Making Raw Milk Legal in Louisiana

Tricia and Benjamin took another home school field trip this week - this time to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to the State Capitol.  There was an Agriculture committee hearing in the House of Representatives to hear discussion on whether or not it should be legal for farmers to sell raw milk in Louisiana.  If this passed out of committee it would go before the House for a vote.  Louisiana is one of nine states in which it is illegal to sell raw milk and proponents were trying to change that.

We thought it would be a great learning experience for Benjamin to get to see how government works and how people can make their voices heard.  They arrived at the Capitol Building at 8:30.  Benjamin took a few pictures of the capitol.

State Capitol Building

They met with groups of other people who were interested in the outcome and some were prepared to speak before the committee. They had signs made up and many brought cookies and raw milk for the committee members to snack on.

Raw Milk Lovers on the steps of the capitol building

In deliberations proponents spoke about the benefits of drinking raw milk.  Raw milk has not been pasteurized so the beneficial bacteria, enzymes, nutrients, and vitamins are all still available.  It is also about freedom as producers and consumers should be able to come together without the government coming in between them.

Opponents spoke of the fears due to the possibility of food borne illness.  Good points were brought up to try to allay those fears, such as the totally legal sale of Raw Oysters in the State.  Approximately 15 people die each year from illnesses after eating raw oysters, but you can still walk into most any restaurant and eat raw oysters to your heart's content.  There are dangers with most anything, but we don't normally ban everything that has safety concerns - we put in best management practices to minimize the danger.  

Benjamin in Action!

The committee meeting was held in a smaller conference room, but Benjamin did get an opportunity to see proceedings in the House Chamber room with votes taking place.

All in favor, say "Aye!"

In the end after much discussion, a vote was taken and the measure passed, 9 to 6. This bill will now be voted on in the House Chamber in the next week or so.  If it passes there, it goes before the Senate committee.  If it passes there, it goes before the Senate Chambers to be voted on for a law.  We'll be watching this one closely, but regardless, it was a great learning experience for Benjamin to see the process of how bills become law.

As a side note, I pulled up the old Schoolhouse Rock, "I'm just a Bill" video on Youtube and showed it to Benjamin.  It does a good job of showing this whole process, but on the Federal level.  We grew up watching those on Saturday morning and I can still remember most of them.  

Beef Cattle at the Farm in Oberlin

When building the fence at our family farm in Oberlin the other day as discussed in this post:
Mending Fences and this one: The Old Oak Tree, I didn't get to discuss or illustrate the beef cattle that roam the land.  The Angus-cross cattle were put in the rye grass paddock while we repaired the fence.  Once we were done, we opened the gate.  This baby calf must have been hiding in the grass napping when the cattle were driven into the rye grass and had been separated from his momma.  He couldn't wait for us to open the gates so that he could be reunited with her (or her milk, to be more accurate).

Black calf in a field of yellow buttercups

The herd was happy to see us coming and they assembled at the gate, mooing, ready to cross through the pasture and go drink water from the water trough in the neighboring pasture.  In October of each year, we plant rye grass to help get them through the winter along with round bales of hay.  Once Springtime hits and the rye grass plays out, the cows graze on 144 acres of bahia grass.

Lining up

Once we opened the gate, an orderly stampede took place as the cattle ran through, kicking up dust as they made their way across the gully following a trail made by a hundred or so cows walking single file over time.

Move 'em out!

We're planning a round-up in the upcoming months in which we'll corral them and cut off the steers, older mommas or cull cows and bring them to the sale barn in Kinder.  Prices for cattle are pretty good right now and will likely stay that way for a while due to the drought in the west, among other factors.  Additionally, we're planning to bring one to the slaughterhouse and split the meat with Dad & Mom.  If I'm not mistaken, this is the steer right here:

Beef... It's what's for dinner.

This will be our first time to slaughter one of our own and we'll have to purchase another freezer to hold our half since our current one is full of chickens from our recent chicken slaughter, but it will be well worth it to finally have some grass fed beef from our own herd.  In the photo above you can also see the donkey that stays with the herd, serving as the watchdog against coyotes and dogs.  There are a number of new calves dropping right now and thinning out the herd will ensure that the ones remaining have plenty of lush grass to eat to keep the cycle going of beef cattle on the Family Farm that started many years ago.

From the Beginning to the End

Part of homesteading, trying to "do-it-yourself", or even trying to eat healthier, less processed foods require learning to start from the beginning and taking it to the very end.  Here's an example.  We've always loved pesto and make container after container of the stuff, freeze it, and eat it all throughout the year.  It is delicious over pasta or eaten as a dip.  Here is the link from a previous post that shows you how to make it: How to Harvest Basil and Make Pesto.

Now you can purchase pesto from the store, or you can purchase basil to make your pesto, or you can purchase basil seeds and grow your own.  While there is nothing wrong with the former, we prefer the latter. Then you can save the basil seeds and grow basil every year thereafter.  The stuff grows quicker than weeds or our Federal Deficit.  I have a number of basil seedlings that are popping up right now in some containers. Once they put on their true leaves, I'll transplant them into the garden. The seedlings you see below are the beginning.  The end result will be pesto or seasoning for pizza, spaghetti, and other Italian dishes.

The Beginning

As the link above showed you how to harvest basil and make pesto, you still have to serve it over pasta. Prior to last year, we had always bought pasta by the box or in the bag, but we found out that making pasta is super easy.  We use spelt flour, but you can use any flour, I would assume.  All you need is 2 cups of spelt flour, 3 eggs at room temperature, a little salt, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Stir all ingredients and knead until it all comes together.  Voila!  Pasta Dough!

Pasta Deaux

We don't have a fancy schmancy pasta maker.  Tricia picked this one up on clearance from a discount store. It gets the job done.  Essentially, you run the dough through the rollers to stretch it out.  Then you run it through again using a different roller to make different sized pasta.  Today, we're making regular spaghetti pasta.

We're rolling in the dough!

When you crank it through the device after removing the rollers, it cuts the pasta dough into whatever type pasta you want to make.  You'd think this might take a long time, but it doesn't.  From flour to pasta in just a few minutes.

From dough to spaghetti

Then we move it right into a pot on the stove top full of water and cook like you normally would pasta.

Homemade pasta in the pot

Add a little salt and check on it from time to time, but it won't be long until your homemade pasta is done and you can pour it into a colander to drain off the water.

It's done!

Then we grab a bowl and heap mounds of pesto on top of the freshly made pasta, which serves as a delivery mechanism for getting the pasta to your mouth.  Since our basil plants are just seedlings right now, we thawed out a container of frozen pesto from last summer and warmed it on the stove top.

Fresh pasta and pesto 

I mix it up real good to get the pesto flavors all commingled with the pasta and we thank the Good Lord for His provisions...

A nice, easy, delicious meal

And Supper's on!  From beginning to end, this is an easy, delicious meal containing mostly ingredients either grown and/or processed right here on the farm or in Tricia's kitchen. 

Making Sassafras Tea

After church on Resurrection Sunday,we journeyed 30 miles north to Kinder to eat a fine meal at Mom & Dad's house and spend a leisurely afternoon visiting.  My sister and brother-in-law and her passel of kids were there as well.  Benjamin always looks forward to visiting with them and they create their own adventures every time they get together.  Imagine boys running around in the woods with machetes, frogs, crawfish, eels, and mud.  They have so much fun.

Once the meal was over, I led the boys into the woods to show them something that we always did when I was younger - make sassafras tea.  As a kid, me, my brother and our neighborhood crew would often go into the woods and dig up the roots of a sassafras tree to make sassafras tea.  The smell brings back great memories and reminds me of the summers of my childhood.  The first thing you have to do is identify the sassafras tree.  This is a very easy thing that I learned in a tree identification class from both Boy Scouts and 4-H club.  The sassafras tree can be identified because it has a regular looking leaf, a bilobed leaf (looks like a mitten), and a trilobed leaf (looks like Casper the ghost).  They grow like weeds in the piney woods of Southwest Louisiana.

Showing the guys how to identify sassafras

I liked the way the light filtered through the leaves of the sassafras tree, silhouetting the leaves that I just described.  There are numerous trees like this scattered on my parents' 5 acres.  Once we found one we were looking for, we went to work digging around the base of it with shovels.

The diameter of the tree was a little shy of 3 inches and it didn't really have a tap root, just a root that angled off to the side.  It didn't take long to bring the tree down.  The minute we broke into the root, the rich smell of sassafras permeated the air and all the boys started talking about how much it smelled like root beer.

Getting down to the root cause

Benjamin got his machete out and chopped away at the sassafras root until he had uncovered all of it and pulled it from the soil.

Pulling on the root to remove it from the soil

We took the root near the water hose and washed all the dirt off and then split the roots into pieces with Benjamin's machete.

Cleaning/Splitting the roots

Then I got a big magnalite pot, added the cut up roots along with enough water to cover them and started boiling the water.

Starting to apply heat to the roots & water

I would be remiss if I didn't show pictures of the Sassafras Posse armed with machetes and enough energy to power up the electrical grids of the better part of the State.

The Sassafras Tea Party

They had a blast finding something growing in the wild that they could identify, harvest, and actually drink and they all took turns smelling the great smelling sassafras roots again and again.

Boys being boys

Pretty soon we had a rolling boil going in the pot and the roots began to leach out a reddish-brown tint into the water.  We allowed it to boil for a while.  The entire kitchen smelled really nice.

Water turning to tea

Before long the tea was done and the fire could be turned off.  I assume that you can drink the tea hot or cold, but we always added sugar and drank it over ice - just like root beer.

It's done

Only one thing left to do and that is to strain the tea as little flecks of bark (and probably dirt), still floated in the tea.  We poured it through a sieve and into a pitcher so that we wouldn't be drinking any of the solids or sediment.

Pouring through a sieve

And finally...  It's Tea Time.  After we added sugar, stirred and poured over ice, it was time to let the tea party taste the fruits of their labors.  Here's T-boy taking the first sip...

A Spot of Tea, old chap?

The boys liked it - although I think they liked the idea of it more than the taste. Although it tastes good, there is a strong finish to it.  I had several glasses of it and it was like taking a sip of my childhood.

Sassafras Tea

Mom later reminded me that sassafras tea was discovered to be a carcinogen back in the 1960's. Specifically the oil of the sassafras tree, called safrole, caused liver cancer in mice and so it was banned by the FDA. Now root beer is flavored by artificial means or by the birch tree.  Wow, great job, Kyle!  Get the boys all together and give them carcinogens!  Actually, after researching it more I learned that in moderation, it is not bad and that a cup of sassafras is 1/14 as carcinogenic as a cup of beer. Hmmm...  So why'd they ban root beer but not beer?  I certainly didn't give all my little nephews beer and we drink sassafras tea so infrequently that I'm sure no one was hurt by it.

The roots, leaves and bark were first used for medicinal purposes by the American Indians and they taught the Europeans of its many useful properties. One other neat factoid about sassafras trees: Sassafras leaves are dried and ground to a fine powder called Gumbo file' that is used as a thickening agent and flavoring for gumbo. Benjamin saved some leaves from the tree we cut down and we'll make our own gumbo file.  I'll likely show you that process in a month or so.