Peas, If You Please

Despite saving a quart jar full of sugar snap peas for seed, I rooted around in my "Winter Seed" ziploc bag in the freezer and pulled out 3 seed packages that I need to plant to keep the freshest seed available for next years' planting.  Seeds from Baker Creek are open pollinated heirloom seed that allow you to save seeds year after year to plant.

Sugar snap peas like to grow on a trellis, so the first thing I did was uproot the t-posts holding the trellis that our Birdhouse gourds and Luffa gourds grew on until the hurricane.  I moved the trellis about four feet north in order to give the sugar snap peas some "fresh" ground to grow in.  The trellis consists of two 16 foot hog panels stacked atop one another.  I use tie wire to fashion it all together.

At first glance this looks like Wasabi Peas, you know, the ones coated with the spicy stuff that makes your eyes tear up when you eat them?  But they are not for eating.  We'll plant these in the ground and we'll get 100 times the return this winter/spring.  These peas are huge producers.  I highly recommend them.

Planting recommendations call for seeds to be spaced out between 4-6 inches.  I plant them a little closer.  They grow vertically and won't be crowding one another out.

I covered up the seed and raked soil over the trench evenly.  After they sprout, I'll rake wood chips around the plants to discourage weeds and retain soil moisture.

By this weekend the peas ought to be popping out of the ground.  We'll be harvesting the sweet potatoes you see in the upper right portion of the photo above.  Once done. we'll plant carrots and lettuce in that spot.

Morning Glory... Indeed!

Saturday morning I asked my wife if she'd care to join me to go check out the squash that we had planted in the bed in the side yard.  This bed earlier this spring had Irish Potatoes planted in it.  They didn't set the world on fire, but yielded enough, I guess.  We have been enjoying "Waffle House" style hash browns the past two weekends for breakfast that Tricia makes for us.  

After Irish potatoes, I planted purple hull peas in the bed.  They yielded fairly well.  We have been picking peas and shelling them on the regular.  Along with a feast for the taste buds and stomach, I planted something to provide a feast for the eyes - Zinnias!  I saved a bucket full of zinnia seeds after I dead-headed all the dried blooms from last year's zinnia crop.  Many came up volunteer from last year, too.  I planted the saved seeds alongside the purple hulls.  Zinnias are so colorful and cheer up the garden.

The variation in colors are nice.  Zinnias are a hardy plant - easy to germinate, easy to grow in both hot and dry conditions, too.  I learned that they are edible, though I have not tried them so I cannot recommend.  From what I read, they don't have much flavor, but can be added to pancakes and herb tea.  I'll be saving more zinnia seed for next year and will plant them thicker to brighten up things a bit.

But zinnias aren't the only flower in our garden.  We planted zinnias, but there is another flower that comes up on its own.  In these parts, it is considered a weed, but it certainly is a pretty weed.  I'm speaking of the morning glory.  This one came up in the side garden near the zinnias and the squash which we just transplanted.  It is a healthy little plant with vines that will take over the entire garden, if allowed to do so.

The flowers on this morning glory are a pinkish-lavender color.  You can see the spaghetti squash plant just to the right of the morning glory.

The morning glory was in the center of lots of activity on Saturday morning.  Butterflies were flying around and honeybees made their way in and out in search of nectar.

The vines were covered with flowers.  It lived up to its name on Saturday, adding glory to our morning.

It Almost Felt Like Fall...

Saturday morning was an absolutely gorgeous day.  It was my first Saturday off in over a month and boy, was I ready!  Tricia and I boiled some water and made a great cup of coffee in the french press and planned our day.  I had a number of things competing for top priority, but we decided to get out in the garden first thing out of the gate.

We had a little planting to do.  The Russian Red Kale I had planted from saved seed did not germinate.  I tossed the seed and Tricia picked up a package of Siberian Kale at our local feed store.  Siberia reminds me of two things - cold weather and gulags.  We had neither of those things at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm on Saturday.  The weather was very pleasant with a hint of coolness in the air that we hadn't experienced in many long months.

About a week ago, I cut back some vines from the sweet potato plants to give me enough room to plant a couple rows.  When we harvest the sweet potatoes in a week or two, I'll have about a 15 foot by 15 foot square within which to plant carrots, lettuce, and mustard greens.  But I can get so busy thinking about all I want to do that I distracted from doing the task at hand.

For now, let's plant some kale.  Kale seeds look exactly like broccoli, cauliflower, mustard, turnip and cabbage seeds.  That's because they are all cole crops.  I stretched out a string and used a rock rake to move back the wood chips that cover the soil.  The newly exposed earth was moist and dark with plenty of organic matter in it from composted leaves, hay, and decomposing wood chips.  I used my hoe to work up the soil to receive the seeds.

Earthworms squirmed in the turned earth.  I grabbed a handful of the soil and held it in my hands.  It has a certain scent to it that is appealing.  It has just the right amount of moisture in it which will be perfect for germination.

I worked in some composted chicken litter from the hen house.  Then, I made two slight trenches side by side and sprinkled the seeds in each.  Tricia worked to cover the seeds in the seed bed.

And just like that, we were done.  The sweet potato vine jungle will be home to the carrot, lettuce and mustard green rows in a week or two.

In 5 to 8 days, little kale sprouts will burst from the dark brown soil.  Planting the fall crops is always fun.  It is exciting also to know that fall is on its way.  On Tuesdays we'll have lows in the 50's and highs in the 80's!  How nice!

Next Up for Harvest in October - Sweet Potatoes!

Before the sun went down on Saturday, I checked in on the status of our sweet potato crop.  Always at this time of the year, the sweet potato vines have covered almost a third of the garden.  Similar to other years, the vines (or slips) just come up on their own each spring.  We've never had to plant them.  They grew from composting the remnants of a Beauregard Sweet Potato we bought at the grocery store.  The annual sweet potato crops where (probably by now) over a thousand pounds of sweet potatoes have been harvested due to that fortuitous activity of composting!

Let me correct something in that previous paragraph.  We did actually plant three sweet potatoes about five years ago after getting an heirloom sweet potato variety called "Golden Wonder" while at a sustainable agriculture conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Both produce nice sweet potatoes, but Tricia likes the Beauregards the best.  I think I do too.  In looking at the vines below, they are lush, thick and healthy.  Although you can't judge a book by its cover, you can usually expect a good harvest if the vines look like this.

Sweet potatoes generally take between 3 to 5 months to mature.  They've been growing since late spring, so in a couple of weeks when October rolls around, I'll clip the vines, feed them to the cows, and begin digging potatoes.  They will continue growing until the frost kills them, but I need that space to plant sugar snap peas, and carrots, kale, parsley, bok choy, spinach, radishes, turnips and other items in our fall lineup.

The cows came running up to the fence when they saw me in the garden.  They share in the sweet potato harvest as we always toss the vines over the fence.  When I tell you cows love sweet potato vines, I am not exaggerating.  I just couldn't tell them to wait until October.  I took my clippers and snipped off some vines to share with the cows.  There you go, cows.  I think they consider this to be an amuse-bouche. 

Rosie, Clarabelle, Luna, Aussie and Clarabull gathered to dine on the sweet vines.  The goats arrived, too.  

When you clip sweet potato vines a sticky, white, milky substance oozes from the vines.  It will get on your hands and stain them.  I'm sure it must be very sweet,  The cows eat the leaves first and then they take their time chewing the vines.  Later, they sat in the shade and chewed their cud, satisfied with their good fortune and looking forward to the weekend in October when they'll get to eat a bunch more.  We're looking forward to that day, too, as hopefully we'll fill a few sacks with fat sweet potatoes.

Back To The Garden

During the first week of August, with high hopes, I planted seeds for the fall garden.  If you are like me, you start the gardening season excited and your mind is filled with expectations of a fruitful harvest of delicious produce.  You plan the layout of the rows and choose the date you plant.  You hold the tiny seeds in your hand and marvel at the mystery of it all.  How can a plant be contained in a tiny, seemingly dead seed? 

This year I planted all the cole crops (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage), along with cucumbers and squash into seed pots that I intended on transplanting into garden soil.  The seeds sprung from the soil with great vigor and the tiny leaves tracked the sun.  

The germination on the seeds was phenomenal!  Those 'dead' seeds had a will to live, to grow, to produce good food for us.  Even some heirloom, non-hybrid seed I had saved from 7 years ago sprouted.  Unbelievable.  

I laid out the seedlings on the back patio, out of direct sunlight where they would be cooked in the hot summer sun.  Tricia kept them watered and took very good care of them.

The cotyledons resemble baby birds with mouths agape, awaiting the momma bird to bring sustenance.  Only in this case, it is the sun bringing what the young plants need to thrive and grow.

The future seemed bright, but then storm clouds grew - literally.  Hurricane Laura did not affect our seedlings, but three weeks growth without transplanting into the soil adversely impacted all of the cole crops.  They grew long and leggy and when I transplanted them into the garden soil without adequate watering because I was working long hours, they baked into the soil and perished.

The squash and cucumbers are hardier plants.  It was quite a task to untangle them and plant them in the soil.  I broke 3 or 4 plants while untangling them, but the majority survived.

I planted the squash in the bed in the side yard, not in the garden.  I'll save room in the garden to replant seeds directly into the soil as a good Plan B.  There is still time.  Plan C is out there as well.  If replanting process isn't successful, I can always go to the feed store and purchase plants.  I'd rather plant from seed, but if that doesn't work out, then planting store-bought plants is fine with me.

I like to keep a little garden journal, marking what I planted, when, and where.  I realize that there are spreadsheets and fancy programs that track days to harvest, etc., but I like just writing it down the old fashioned way.  My wife says I'm hard-headed like that!

Before digging holes, I made my way to the henhouse with a bucket and a shovel and I dug beneath the roosting bars and pulled out some composted chicken litter.  Fresh chicken litter would burn the little plants, but I incorporate a little of this composted manure into the soil in the hole I dig to give the squash and cucumbers some nutrients to give them a boost.

I use an old kitchen spoon to gently lift the seedlings from the seed pots, trying not to damage the tiny roots.  The plant is placed into the hole and the soil mixed with chicken litter is placed around the roots.  I water the plants in and pat the soil in place.

I pull a three to four inch layer of mulch/wood chips around the base of the young plant.  This will keep the moisture in the soil to give the seedling a fighting chance.  Even though it is mid-September, it is still summertime.  Without some protection, the sun would cook these young plants.  The mulch gives a protective layer, keeping the soil moist around the roots.  The mulch and wood chips eventually decompose, becoming part of the soil, providing fertility for this and future crops.

Gardening is not fool-proof.  There are many variables and many things that can go wrong.  There are also many things that can go right, resulting in the satisfaction of a small measure of self-sufficiency as well as the enjoyment of nutritious, tasty meals.

Checking in on the Pullets

 A pullet is a young (hen) female chicken.  I recently ordered 30 pullets of three different varieties to replenish our flock that was declining due to old-age and predation.  In the past, each year I would add 25 pullets to the flock, but our flock grew to over 100 birds.  We want to keep the number somewhere around 50 birds, so over the past 3 or 4 years we've not added to the number.

This year we decided to bring some "new blood" in.  From Ideal Poultry in Cameron, Texas, I ordered 10 Barred Rocks and 10 Rhode Island Reds.  Those are both brown egg layers.  I also ordered 10 Easter Eggers.  Those lay green, blue and pink eggs.  I paid $2.15 per chick.  They are shipped at one day old and we receive them via USPS.  Tricia will get a call from the Post Office telling her that she has a package and that "It's alive!"

Here are the birds 3 weeks later.  They have certainly grown.  They are currently in chicken tractor, but eventually, they'll be set free to roam on 3 acres of grass where they'll be able to eat insects, clover, and worms.  They'll be happy.  In return, they'll lay healthy eggs that we'll enjoy.  I can still remember the excitement our kids had many years ago when we first got in the chicken business when our chickens laid the first egg!

The pullets are healthy and wild!  I chased this one around the pen until I caught it.  This was really my first interaction with the little birds.  Tricia has nurtured these babies with not much help from me due to the hurricane work schedule.  (Believe me, I've caught an earful from my dear wife because of this!)

There was a little trouble with the 30 pullets.  Upon opening the box, 9 of the 30 baby chicks were dead.  We attribute it to the heat during shipping.  It happens, and it is expected.  The hatchery guarantees live shipment.  Normally, they'll throw a few extra chicks in the box to make up for any fatalities, but not this time.  I contacted the hatchery and let them know about the dead chicks.  

They asked if I wanted money back or 9 new chicks mailed.   I opted for the latter.  The chicks were supposed to ship out a day or two after the hurricane and we had no power.  I emailed the hatchery and asked if they could delay re-shipment for a couple of weeks, and they obliged.  We received the next shipment of 9 replacement pullets a couple of days after the power came back on.

So now we have babies at two different stages of growth.  We have the tiny babies in a brooder within the larger brooder, as we had a concern about the older chicks bullying the younger.  The older chicks can fly up to the top of the brooder and plop down with the babies.  They don't really bother them.

As they continue to grow, we'll watch the calendar.  They'll begin laying somewhere between 16-24 weeks and will lay around 280 eggs per year.  That'll be enough to keep our egg collecting basket full again.

Slowing The Pace Down

For the past three weeks, there hasn't been much time at all for life on the farm - for me that is.  I have a great and supportive family.  My wife and sons have pitched in and taken care of business, cleaning up the yard, patching a hole in the barn roof, and taking care of the animals.  I was able to leave a little early from work this weekend, and Sunday was the first day that I was able to see Our Maker's Acres Family Farm in the daylight.  It was nice.

I went out to the garden and picked a 5 gallon bucket of black-eyed peas and purple-hull peas.  Some were ripe for the pickin'.  Others were over-ripe and dried, but that's okay.  They'll eat just fine.  I walked back to the patio and sat down and just gazed at the peaceful surroundings.  I looked up in the live oak tree and saw large "widow-maker" branches that had been broken by the 100 mph winds.  The limbs broken by violence of nature sat juxtaposed against the peaceful backyard and the enjoyable event that was about to take place.

It was time to shell peas.  All you need is time.  Some people have automatic pea shellers and there may come a time when old-age and arthritis requires that we get one.  For now, shelling peas by hand is just fine.  You need a bowl and a bucket to throw the pods in.

Pea shelling is one of those rare things in life in which you get immediate gratification of seeing the fruits of your labors.  A full bucket of fresh-picked peas quickly is transformed into a bowl of shelled peas and a bucket of pea pods that will be returned to the earth when we compost.

Watching the peas in the bowl grow in volume is a satisfying event. Often Russ will come sit down with me and shell some.  You can observe in the bowl below why Black-eyed peas are called black-eyed peas.

You can tell which peas were dried by their sun-bleached color and which peas were ripe, but not dried, by the green color and plump girth of the peas.

Cowpeas are a crop that seems to thrive in the harshest of conditions.  Even in the peak of summer months, they scoff at the heat and drought that assaults them.  And they produce peas packed with protein that will feed our family.

Pea shelling is a satisfying exercise that allows you to slow down the hectic, frenetic pace of modern life into a peaceful, slow, but productive endeavor.  As your bowl increasingly fills with peas, your stress level is reduced.  There's only one thing better than shelling them - eating them.  Tricia will put on a pot of rice and in another pot, shell cook the peas with some smoked sausage.  If I'm lucky, she'll cook some cornbread to go along with it.  It is an easy, but satisfying meal that reminds me of childhood and simplicity and honest country living.

Final Thoughts About Hurricane Laura

Before this storm, I had a pretty set schedule of posting on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.  I didn't post on Wednesday night because of church.  Then I'd post on Thursday and take Friday and Saturday off.  Since Hurricane Laura, I've been working late every night straight and haven't had much time to post.  I'm just tired.

Blogging is a therapeutic thing for me.  It is like journaling and gives me the opportunity to think and compose my thoughts.  Our posting schedule may be abbreviated for a while until things get back to normal.  Tonight I'll tell you a little about what I do at my "real" job.  I am a plant manager at an oil company in Sulphur, Louisiana.  We distribute fuel and lubricants to our customers, farmers, loggers, business and industry.

When Laura bore down with all her fury on our location, our focus was on helping our community in the restoration process.  With the power grid down for weeks, people needed diesel to run generators to begin the reconstruction process, to have lights and to keep cool. As soon as the winds stopped blowing, we were there.

Below is a photo of our office after the storm.  The front awning was in some trees 500 feet to the south and west.  Parts of the roof were gone and the sign blown down.  All of the windows were blown out.  Coming up on 3 weeks since the storm, we still have no commercial power - just generator power.

One can only imagine the strength of the hurricane as it shattered every window in the building except one.

The reception area/lobby was in shambles.  Prior to the storm, I was able to rescue the computers, copiers, phones, etc., but the devastation on the building was extensive. 

Employees in our field of work know that when things like this happen, it is imperative that we get back to work.  Our dispatcher's home is a total loss.  Everyone else has extensive damage, no power, no water, but yet they returned to work - dependable, loyal, hard-working individuals with whom I am proud to work alongside.

The President of our company paid for tree removal companies to cut trees off of roofs and put tarps on roofs and loaned generators, leased campers, provided meals and fuel so that people could work to restore the community without having the overwhelming burden of dealing with the loss of their own property.  I wrote the following messages on our boarded up front door:

Eighteen hour days for 18 days.  Our team worked hard and are still working hard, delivering fuel and rebuilding our community.  Resilient.  Strong.  They get knocked down, but get up again.  It may be a long road, but we'll be back.  In fact, it is getting better every day.  Early one morning while loading his truck with 4,400 gallons of off-road diesel to deliver, I snapped the photo below of one of our drivers named "Boogie."  He is sporting his best Superman pose.

As I sit here tonight and reflect on the past 3 weeks, I am reminded of a quote that I put on a yellow sticky I have taped to the monitor of my computer:

I think the cycle that this quote points to has been true throughout history.  With good times, men feel bullet-proof and like to take credit for their achievement.  In doing so, they become soft and hard times come.  They leave God out of the equation.  Hard times come and go.  We are never promised ease and prosperity and absence of trial.  If we keep our eyes fixed on Him, when hard times come, with His Strength, we can rise above the circumstances, endure discomfort, and find that good times will once again come.  Thank you, God, for being a strong tower, a rock, a fortress in times of trouble.

Paving the Way

The night before last, we talked a bit about making sure your foundation is firm, and we talked about destruction.  Tonight, coincidentally, we'll be talking about a firm foundation, but will shift gears from destruction to construction.

For many years now, Tricia has wanted a front sidewalk.  I have a good wife.  Some other wives want a lot more, but mine, well, she wants a sidewalk.  Over the years she's always said, "Why do people have front doors and NOT use them?  We need a sidewalk leading to the front door to welcome guests."  So we put on our list to put in a sidewalk.  We had contractor come pour the concrete for the sidewalk and leave space to accent part of the walk with bricks.  We had saved the bricks from when our house was constructed twenty years ago and used those to incorporate into the sidewalk.

We are not skilled brick masons.  We've never done this before.  We learned from watching a YouTube video.  Let's show you what we did.  First, we experimented with different designs of brick patterns.  We settled on a criss-crossed pattern with two bricks in perpendicular arrangement and then three bricks parallel.  Belle voted on that design as her favorite.

We measured placement of the bricks so they were even and marked where they were to line up on the concrete with a carpenter's pencil.  Then we started to remove the bricks and prepare for mortaring them in.

The mortar mix was combined with sand and water and then, using a trowel, we spread the mortar on the bottom and began placing the bricks in alignment with our markings.

This was somewhat of a tedious process.  I used a level to ensure that the bricks were level with the sidewalk.  Sometimes I would have to pick the brick up and trowel in more mortar.  Other times I would use the level to squish the brick down into the mortar to be level.

We don't have a mixer, so we made one by cutting a big tub.  We mixed up several batches of mortar mix in the tub because the next job would require a lot more mortar than just lining the bottom where the bricks would sit.

In addition to the two lines of brick accents, we chose to have an arch of bricks at the start of the sidewalk to mirror the arched brick steps.  This took some time to place the bricks at the correct angle.  The gentleman pouring the concrete left us a wide gap to enable us to have room to set the bricks correctly.  This wide gap required a lot of mortar to fill.

You can see how the sidewalk lines up with the brick stairs.

Once the bricks are set, we used a grout bag to fill all the cracks with mortar.  I didn't know what a grout bag is, but it is similar to the bag you use in baking to pipe frosting on top of cupcakes or between layers of a layer cake.  We loaded the grout bag with mortar mix and twisted the top closed.  Then we squeezed out the mortar between the bricks. Tricia smoothed it out with her fingers.

It didn't take long to do.  You can spot the mortar bag in the center of the photo below.

Once dry, I used a wire brush to get the excess mortar off of the bricks and to smooth any irregularities.

Russ and I applied some elbow grease to clean a lot of the mortar off of the bricks.  We didn't want it to look too cleaned up, so we left some mortar on the bricks, giving it an aged look.

And finally, we were done.  We are pleased with the way it came out.

It is not perfect.  It has "character."  There were a few things we could have done differently, including understanding all the directions before getting started.  We didn't follow the directions after we piped in the mortar mix.  We also should have cleaned the mortar prior to it completely drying.

But all in all, we are happy with it and now we have a little confidence to take on other projects.  We hope that our sidewalk is a welcoming path for guests coming to our front door.