A pleasant surprise

Years ago, we filled a couple old tractor tires to make some raised beds for stuff like carrots.  Now, I know some will cry you shouldn’t use tires because who knows what chemicals leak out of them.  That is a concern, but I also know that in the area I live for the past century or so, if you had a pile of brush to burn but it was wet, just throw some used motor oil on it to get it going.  Or, if you had an old tire lying around, even better.  So there’s no telling what chemicals have been raining down on my regular garden for the past century.  And still raining down.  I sadly live in an area where I probably don’t have to go too far upwind to find someone who thinks climate change is all a communist hoax to take away their guns.  They probably burn a tire every weekend just to show the libs.  I am in the process of getting some metal raised beds to grow food in, so in a few years these tires will just be growing flowers. 

Anyway, when these tires were filled, they were just filled with some fill dirt we had.  I wasn’t overly happy with this, because I joked this fill dirt was half gravel, but we didn’t have any good soil to fill them.  Over the years, I’ve added compost and picked out some of the bigger rocks, but I’ve always wanted to screen the dirt to get all the rocks out of it.  But that would mean building a screen.  Which, I just never got around to doing.  One day I was looking online, and I came across these little round pans about ten inches in diameter with three different sized screens you can put in them.  I ordered one, and it works pretty well.  It’s just I have a lot of dirt to screen.  But once it’s done, I won’t have to do it again.

The way the tires were laid out wasn’t that great, so last fall I decided to move them.  Once I get them all moved, the lawn mower will fit between them so I won’t have to use a weedeater to mow.  But with the wet weather last fall, I didn’t get much done.  So I wanted to get them done now, but with the spring wet weather, it’s slow going.  And it turns out my joke that the dirt was half gravel, probably isn’t too far off.  I use the medium screen to get all the sizable rocks out, and then I screen again with the smallest screen, and it seems about a third of what makes it through the medium screen is little pebbles caught by the smallest. 

Besides rocks there have been some unpleasant finds.  I’ve found a couple bits of broken bottles, a couple pieces of metal wire, and an old, rusted latch, or something.  These probably haven’t negatively affected our plants, but it’s better to not have them.

I’ve also found some good things.  There are a bunch of old leaves that fell into the tires as well as small clumps of grass clippings I used as mulch last year.  And there’s bits of old compost, such as flecks of egg shells, shreds of old tea bags, and small pieces of well-rotted wood.  But the biggest surprise are the worms.  It seems about every screen has one or two worms in it.  I don’t know if it’s just because the tires are black and therefore warm in the cool spring, or if there is enough organic matter in the soil for the worms to live on.  One of my biggest worries has been the soil quality not being that great.  Hopefully, I’ve added enough compost over the years to build up some okay soil.  And once I get all the rocks out of it, hopefully plants will grow even better.  Well, the plants I want to grow, not just weeds.

Garden roundup for March

During the month of March, our chickens laid 107 eggs, which is a good chunk of the 250 they’ve laid so far this year.  I guess they’re happier not having to deal with the snow.  But 17 of these were broke.  If there is a hen eating them, I think it is a rare occasion.  I think they’re breaking just because possibly one hen isn’t eating the oyster shells.  There is one hen, at the bottom of the pecking order, who seems to always be off by herself, so maybe the others don’t let her at the feed.  Of course, when I do sprinkle in some oyster shells in their feed, they look at me as if saying, “That’s not food.” I had hoped that warmer weather would let them eat better, and while we’ve had plenty of nice days, we’ve also had rainy, cold spells.  Maybe once spring fully gets going, whoever is laying weak eggs will get the right nutrients.

I’ve started digging our parsnips.  Most are smallish, but I have gotten a couple monsters.  In previous years I’ve dug all the parsnips in a day or two, but this year my mom is having issues with her hand, so she can only peel a few at a time.  So I’ve been digging a basket, then washing them up so she can peel and slice them.  Some we’ve eaten, but at the end of the month we had 7 quart bags of parsnips in the freezer.  And I’ve probably dug up not quite half of what we planted.  Of course, one end of our parsnip patch is shaded a bit, which might be why that end gives smaller ones, while big ones come from the other end.  I’ve been digging at various spots, but I’ve dug most of the ones from the smaller end.  So there might be a few more monsters waiting.  Now I just have to wait for the rain to stop and the ground to dry up some.

The only other gardening news I have is to report our onions aren’t doing so well.  These were ones that started to grow, so I planted them in a pot, hoping I’ll be able to transplant them outside.  They might still be alive, but not so great.  It’s probably just that I have them sitting next to a window and they’re not getting enough light.  We’ll have to see how they do.

First parsnips of the year

The way I’ve always grown parsnips, is the way my parents have always grown parsnips, which is the way my grandparents have always grown parsnips.  We plant them in the spring, let them grow, then leave them in the ground over winter.  The next spring, once they start to regrow, we dig them up.  I think the cold, and then the process of regrowing breaks up the starches and makes them sweeter, but don’t quote me on that.  I think I looked up the reason one time, but since it’s not something I thinking about all that often, I don’t really remember.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago it was warm and I checked our parsnips but they hadn’t started regrowing.  It then got cold for a couple of weeks, but the last few days have been warm.  Today, my mom said, “Why don’t you pull a few parsnips and we’ll have them for dinner.” So I went and dug a few parsnips which were starting to regrow.

Here is them after the dirt was washed off of them.  I’m not sure what happened to that one in the middle.

I got busy doing other things, and my mom peeled and … rectangled them?  They’re not cubed.  Right now, they’re floating in some water waiting for dinner time.  Maybe I should have waited on this blog to add a picture of them fried up in some butter.  I guess I’ll save that for if I ever doing a cooking post.

Garden roundup for February

During the month of February, our chickens laid 75 eggs, which – even with two fewer days – is more than the 67 laid in January.  Unfortunately, 17 of these eggs were damaged.  At first, I thought it was just that a few hens weren’t eating their oyster shells, and while that might have started the problem, I think at least one hen is eating eggs.  I don’t know if, with the cold and snow, there aren’t any bugs or worms for them and their feed isn’t protein enough.  It did seem that when it was really cold every day there was one or even two eggs ate, but it has been somewhat warm this last week or so, and some eggs have been eaten but not as many.  We’ll have to see if warmer weather will break them of this habit.

The only other garden thing was I potted a few more onions that had started to sprout.  Last year was a pretty good year for onions, and I had two dozen or so nice big ones.  I hung them up to dry, and I thought they had dried enough, but earlier this month I went to grab one to use and most of them were starting to rot.  The smaller onions – that I figured I’d plant this year – are holding up pretty good and getting used.  I guess I’ll just have to be extra certain to dry any big onions I get in the future.

Garden roundup for January

In January, our chickens gave us 60 eggs.  Well, they laid 67 eggs, but seven were damaged in some way so they didn’t make it to the house.

The only other gardening news I have for this month, is I found three onions that had sprouted.  So I put some potting soil in a pot and planted them.  This is something I’ve done a few times in the past, but I haven’t had too much luck with.  Last year, I was able to transplant a potted onion into the garden, but that was when the onion held on until late-March, or April before it started to grow.  I found another onion growing back in November, or December, which I planted, but I think it’s mostly dead now.  We’ll have to see if any of these make it to warm weather to be planted out.

Garden Roundup for 2023

I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks now, so I’m just forcing myself to finally finish this, so it’s probably a bit rough.

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I only started keeping track of how many eggs we got each day at the end of May.  But between then and December 31, our seven chickens gave us – assuming I didn’t miss some – a total of 598 eggs.  Which is almost 49 dozen.  We used some of them, but we also gave some out to family and neighbors.  I even sold a few dozen to co-workers. 

Besides keeping track for the whole year, I should also keep track of how much feed we buy for them.  Then I can figure out how a dozen of our eggs costs versus store bought ones.

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For the last several years, my mom has kept track of how much we freeze or can on a legal pad.  She’ll have green beans, and every quart we can she’ll add a tally mark.  She tries to keep up to date, but I think she misses some things, or double counts others.  And even though I help her most of the time, some things on her list I don’t remember canning.  So in 2024 I’ll try to do my own list.  But reading her list as best I can, this is what we froze in 2023: 25 bags of blueberries (1 bag makes 1 pie), 15 bags of sliced apples (1 bag makes 1 pie), 7 bags of grated zucchini (1 bag makes a couple loaves of zucchini bread), 2 bags of rhubarb (I think 1 bag makes 1 pie), 10 bags of parsnips (1 bag is probably worth 2 meals), 2 bags of broccoli, 4 bags of green peppers, and 9 bags of peas, although some of the peas were later canned with some other stuff.  And I think all the green peppers we used for spaghetti and pizza sauce we from 2022.

This is what we canned in 2023: 9 pints blueberry jelly, 5 pints grape jelly, 3 pints mixed berry jelly, 3 quarts and 8 pints of applesauce, 1 pint of pears, 6 pints of green beans, 2 pints of mixed vegetables, 1 quart and 15 pints of sweet corn, 9 pints of tomatoes, 15 quarts and 1 pint of spaghetti sauce, 1 pint and 9 half-pints of pizza sauce (1 half-pint is enough for one pizza), 18 quarts of grape juice, 5 pints of beets, and 19 quarts of potatoes. 

We also bought some items to can, such as 6 quarts of pears, 5 pints of peach jam, and 7 pints of strawberry jam.  We also froze two containers of sliced strawberries.

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2023 was a busy year, but we’ll have to see what we do in 2024.

First egg of the year!

 

Unfortunately, the second egg broke so this one was covered in yolk.  There’s one hen that gets picked on, and I don’t know if the other hens aren’t letting her eat the oyster shells or what, but it seems like every other day or so there will be a broken egg in a nest.  I don’t think any are eating the eggs, so I think it’s all just the shells being thin.

When I got this one, there was another hen on another nest, and when I went out later there were two unharmed eggs there.  So, “four” eggs from seven aging hens in the middle of winter, isn’t too bad.