We planted beans Friday afternoon (04/16/10) and potatoes the week before. Those are the only things we currently have in our fields. Everything else is up here with us. Having the terraces and beds so close to the house makes everything very easy to take care of and keep an eye on.

This year's trial potato box.

We are giving the potato box another go this year. Vertical potatoes make a lot of sense so we are going to try and get the system down.

Strawberries are already fruiting.

The asparagus bed is coming along nicely.

The newest addition is the raspberry beds.

Salad greens and radishes.

Terraces and the green house.

It’s the end of the first year for my asparagus bed and time to prepare it for winter. This first year I did not harvest any of the shoots and let them all grow into tall ferns. The first order of business is to let the asparagus grow until the frost starts knocking it back and it turns yellow.

Once it’s turning yellow and starting to die back it’s time to cut it down. I had my lovely assistant cut these off from 1-3 inches above the ground. It’s very important to discard the ferns. If you have an asparagus beetle infection they will leave their eggs behind. We put the ferns into a wheelbarrow, took them to the burn pile and burned them up. This is the best way to take care of next years asparagus beetles.

The final treatment consists of mulching the bed. This will help keep the soil warm and is the first defense against weeds. I just used newly fallen leaves for this application. They are free and plentiful in my area and should do fine.

Mandi also planted her strawberry bed last week. We had destroyed our other when we built our shed. In just one week we witnessed an amazing amount of growth on these things. This is one of the two boxes. Both have seen incredible growth.

Also planted this week were raspberries. A friend offered me enough shoots to for 12 plantings. I gladly accepted and prepared an area. I will give them about 48 square feet. This should be enough for 2-3 gallons a year which will be a nice supplement for freezer jam and a few cobblers.

Besides these items I’ve included pictures of some blueberries, grapes, tomatos and Bubba laying an egg. She is a loud cackler.

First off, we have a new addition around here. Moses the cat. He is the family cat but Abi got to pick him out and name him. We hope he becomes a heroic mouser. That’s the role we hired him to fill.

I was able to plant my asparagus bed. The crowns came in the mail and I didn’t even realize what they were. They looked like really long squid. Quite a root system. Anyway, the bed has been planted and we should see our first growth in the next couple of weeks. Here’s a link to a pictorial on how to plant asparagus and here’s a link to my other posting with just a few technical details.

We are experimenting with growing potatoes vertically. The ‘box’ is made out of cypress so it won’t rot. The potatoes are planted in the very bottom. As they grow you put dirt around them and keep adding sides to increase the height of the box. One gentleman in  Washington has grown 100 pounds of potatoes in one 2×2 spot. Here’s a picture of where we are right now. It’s almost time to add to the sides and put in more dirt. We have filled in about 6 inches so far on these. At the end of the season these should be totally full of potatoes. Might be a really good solution for people in the city with limited space.

Mandi has reestablished the strawberry beds. She really enjoys fresh strawberries. Right next to these is the herb bed. Fresh herbs are fun.

The blueberries are doing really well. I studied up on pruning at the end of winter and tried my best to prune them well. They seem to have established themselves very well. The bees were all over them pollinating and now the berries are forming. It’s really neat to see fruit growing that was pollinated by your own bees. I put out some chicken manure around them yesterday and it rained later. Will help the manure slowly work it’s way through the mulch into the soil.

Speaking of bees, this is what they look like on a damp morning. They don’t like coming out to go to work either.

The grapes are coming on as well. It always seems they are way behind everything else as far as putting out leaves. Then they just take off. You can see the little clusters here. Each spot will be a bloom and once pollinated will make a grape. I also put out some chicken manure around them and then some lime. Grapes don’t like acidic soil so it’s important to keep it more neutral. This variety is a seedless Concord.

This grape variety is my favorite. It taste good but that’s not why it’s my favorite. The land I live on is old family land. My great grandfather, grandfather, and father all grew up here and farmed it. I got this grape from my dad. When he was a kid he said the house these grapes were at was already gone. When I was little he went to the old home place out in the woods and got some of the vines and took them to his home. This year we transplanted this vine here so the grapes are back close to where they came from. He’s not sure what family lived at the old home where the grapes were and now that whole spot has been turned into a cow pasture.  We have the only vines that we know of. We’re not sure of the variety but they are a pink grape.

This is part of our tomatoes. I think we are going to have around 40 plants. These are growing on part of our terraces. We have several heirloom varieties and also lots of Romas for making sauce and canning.

This last picture is of our Bloodgood Maple. This was given to us by some good friends of ours and represents the covenant we have with them.  God is a covenant maker and keeper. Jesus came to be our representative with the Father and to make a covenant with God on our behalf. Marriage is also a covenant. David and Jonathan were in a covenant of friendship. Every covenant had a sign to remind the makers of it. This tree represents our covenant friendship.

This photo shows our new terraces. This section of land had too much slope to farm effectively so Michael decided he would set it straight. He did all the work with the little yellow grader you see. Borrowed it from his son….Michael did do all the work by hand with a shovel and maddock. Then gathered the rocks and built the retaining walls. He’s 35 with the back of an 80 year old from all the improper lifting.

This is my favorite of the day. We have kept bantering around about building an asparagus bed. We’re too far south for asparagus to grow in the wild but I’ve heard it can grow in north Georgia pretty well. I did some research and found that was true. Asparagus likes ph around 7.0. In the southeast lots of our soil is very acidic. This plot tested at 4.5. So I dug up about 10 inches deep and tilled in lime and cow manure. I then built the box box and added top soil and more cow manure. Then tilled it all again. I have a total depth of around 14-16″ of soil that has been cultivated. Added about 150 pounds of composted cow manure. Took me about 4 hours total work. Buying top soil, manure, and asparagus crowns cost a total of about $55.00 but since a typical bed can last from 15-20 years I figured it was well worth it. You can see an update on the planting here.

I also learned that asparagus spears grow best from male crowns and there is a hybrid out now called Jersey Giant that they sell in male only form. I bought 20 JG crowns and 10 Purple Passion. It’s a little sweeter and more tender. Ordered them from Starks Brothers. Will see how they do when they arrive.We’ll be able to harvest a little bit next year and then year 3 begin a full harvest.

We have been adding to our food production as time, space, and money allow. We have been interested in apple trees but had not pursued it. On the property there is an area that is almost 1/2 an acre of pine beetle destruction. Pine trees laying everywhere and in some pretty dangerous angles. I have never thought much of the spot.

Michael checked it out and recommended we put our orchard there. He said it was a great location for fruit trees and with a little cleaning up we could get right to planting this spring. Needless to say, I felt like it would be way too much work to have a suitable spot this spring but since he is a forester by trade I went along with it.

You can see from the first pictures that this was anything but an easy job. We cut and piled, cut and piled and then cut and piled some more. If running a chainsaw makes you feel manly then this was the place to be. After we got everything piled up we got a burn permit and let it rip. There were three large piles for our Phase 1. They burned away to nothing. You can see how cleaned out it is in this area.

The trees are finally in the ground. I started with one red delicious and one golden delicious. Apple trees will self-polinate but you always do better with cross-pollination. These are good pollinators for each other and will also pollinate other varieties well as we add them. These two are semi-dwarfs and will average around 15′ in height. They will produce 12 to 15 bushels per tree on average when mature. I wanted dwarf trees but did not have access to any. That’s probably what my new ones will be. Dwarfs will top out at 10′ at the most and still produce around 6-8 bushels. Either way, these two trees will be good additions to what we are doing. These are also right behind my beehives so it will be an easy flight. I like efficiency.

I wanted to plant several but at $20.00 each I don’t have the money for many. Michael reminded me that overseas they do things when they can knowing it will still be good and that they are helping their kids and other future generations as well. I decided to drop the American attitude about getting it all done now and practicing some patience. Jesus continues to teach me and it was extra nice to learn something through farming since so many of His parables used the same subject.

Phase 2 will consist of continued cutting, piling, and burning. We’ll plant more apple trees in this area and most likely some peaches and pears on up the hill. If you want to run your chainsaw and feel manly then come join us!

My friend Michael had a chicken coup he built at a place he was renting. Since he had moved he wasn’t using it and he took it down and reconstructed it here at the house. It’s a great coup with four built in laying boxes, plenty of roosting space, and enough headroom where I can stand up inside. We hope to have 8-12 laying hens when we are at full speed.

Another friend gave me the 10′x10′ dog lot. We took apart one corner and then attached the sides to the chicken coup. Michael put in a lot of sweat equity and buried some fencing a foot deep all the way around. I put up some netting across the top to keep predators out from that direction.

It’s right next to our shed where we’ll have feed storage and a rain barrel. Should make it much easier to take care of them.

Have been very excited the past few months about building a new shed. I’ve been very blessed to have my dad help me out a lot with it and my friend Michael pitched in some free labor as well. Phase 1 has turned out very nice. Stall width is 12 feet and depth is 14 feet. This gives a shed size of 36 feet wide by 28 feet deep. We left enough room on the left to add another 12 feet of width if we need it.

The current plan is to build a workshop in the back right and back middle stalls. It will include workbench space, table saw, band saw, and a radial arm saw. I’ll also have an area setup for woodcarving, both hand and power carving. The rest of the shed will be used for shelves, hanging tools, and keeping things dry.

Since the shed is higher than most of our property we plan to catch the rain water and use gravity to water the yard and other plants. I found a gentleman on Craigslist who was selling 275 gallon rain barrels pretty cheaply and was able to pick one up yesterday. I like the fact that the shed can be very multi-purpose including catching the rain off the top.

Am visiting Mandi’s dad, Sam, in Ketchum, Idaho. Most people know the area as Sun Valley because of the ski resort but the main town here is Ketchum. Not very big but since it’s a ski resort there is a lot of fun things to do here even if you don’t ski. We do enjoy skiing and I’m sure I’ll post on that later.

This morning I got up and had breakfast with the family and then decided to go out and have some quiet time. My favorite coffee shop is Java and that’s because they have the ‘Bowl of Soul’. I think Java is just an Idaho institution. I’ve never seen or heard of one outside the state but I could be wrong.

The ‘Bowl of Soul’ is hard to describe. They don’t advertise the ingredients but you can taste cocoa, cinnamon, and many other spices. It’s made like a latte but calling it a latte is almost insulting. It’s by far the best coffee drink I’ve ever had.

Town this morning was pretty quiet. Light snow with much more on the way (14″ expected). Sat down with my Bowl and read Proverbs 3 and some on renewing the mind. A great way to spend the morning. If you are ever in Idaho look around to see if you can find a Java and a ‘Bowl of Soul’.