Still Time for Sweet and White Taters?

I may fail at this but I'm going to try and beat the odds. It's late August almost the end of summer with the first freeze date of October 26th. It a gamble.

So what am I doing? I've had russets and sweet potatoes sprouting all over the place. The humid Georgia summer is to blame. I planted them all this week. I must be insane, right? I planted vegetables that require 89-120 days to mature.

I'm second guessing Mother Nature here. But, check my reasoning. We've had some down right, cockeyed weather this year. Our spring had a late start. We had lows near or at freezing until mid June. So the summer heat didn't consistently really start until July. It's still in the 90s with lows in the 70s. So there's plenty of time until the projected freeze date for sweet potatoes to get some great growth on to form tubers. It's the same for potatoes, but they'll love the cooler temperatures. I'm banking on a day in the first freeze date being off by 30 days or close to it.

I'll dig up the tubers around Thanksgiving (US) giving them a full 90 days. The tubers will/may be smaller than if I had planted them at the proper time, but every mouthful counts in the lean times, AKA winter.

I may fail, but nothing ventured nothing gained. Worse comes to worst, I'll leave some of them in the ground and they'll put on new seed growth when the temperature is ripe for them to next year. I'll just mulch them heavily over winter and add compost in the spring. Or, I'll have a fabulous harvest. It's anybody's guess. Wish me luck.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Three Sisters Method of Planting

I REALLY want this from Amazon!

As many of you readers know, we don't do anything by conventional means on this Cockeyed Homestead. Last Sunday. I touched on the way I plant our garden. I do what works for me. I grow an adaptive garden which makes it easier for me to care and harvest my produce. I use the square foot gardening method to plant my garden in zone, but I'll also interplant these zones with multiple crops of vegetables and herbs.

Now I not only do square foot gardening and companion plant, but I throw succession planting also. With a small amount of growing space (less than 1/8 an acre), I can harvest what we need for a year. I get triple duty and harvest from the same square foot of space I have to garden in for optimum results. I don't make raised beds anymore but use the whole garden set up in "rooms" or different sections. The whole garden has had years of ground up tree stuff, hay, straw, cardboard placed on it for years to build and condition the hard packed clay soil into a nutrient dense growing medium. Why would I plant in single rows with plants two foot apart. To me, it's a waste of space.

Hey, what can I say. I'm the eclectic minded in all things. There are many ways to build a gardening and gardening. I do a little bit of most of them in my organic garden.

This leads me to today's topic, the three sisters method of planting. Now if you follow the square foot gardening method, you can plant four corn seeds in a square foot section, or nine climbing beans/peas, or one squash/pumpkin/gourd/sweet potato per square.

I don't do that. I expand my square to two feet. I'll plant three corn seeds 6" apart, seven bean/peas around it three weeks later, I'll plant more for a bumper crop harvest of dried legumes. I'll plant squash/pumpkin/gourd plants in each corner. In the spaces between the squashes/et al, I'll plant nasturtiums and marigold flowers to deter nasty insects and diseases. I'll skip the next square foot and do it again on down the row or section. I do leave myself 3' around each mound to maneuver.

This year around my 46 bi-colored corn, I'm planting black eyed peas, kidney beans, and baby lima beans to dry next week. Two weeks after they begin to sprout I'll go in and plant more bean/pea seeds. Since the peas and beans will be drying on the vines, I want to have plenty to harvest. I planted my corn transplants in my garden last week so next week I'll plant seeds and transplants of vegetables and flowers around the corn.

I honestly love this method of planting. It's a no brainer for weed and pest control. Yes, it takes up space in my little garden, but oh, the havest! In case you are wondering, I do not like pole or runner beans. No fencing required. The stalks will remain in place until the last of the beans.peas are harvested. 

Down in the orchard, I'll be planting my dent corn later in the summer. The ears will dry on the stalks and harvested before the first frost. This is my winter chicken feed and my grits/corn meal/ corn flour. We won't be 100% self sufficient in this, but close to 75% but that's better than having to purchase it all. Oh, Before I forget the mention it. I'll grow three black oil sunflower seed in the 6" center space in the corn. So I guess my cockeyed garden is FOUR SISTERS. 😄 I'll also be planting them in and around my dent corn too. My bunnies and chickens LOVE their snacks. 

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

So It Begins Again

It's Planting Season! Ya!!! Yippee!!!! Yes, it's that time of year again. Busy, busy, hurry up, and wait. The anticipation leading up to the next few weeks has been building all winter. We've actually had a few days of warm (almost 80 degree) weather. So we've gotten a lot done for planting the garden previously. I'm still trying to dig all the compost out of the bunny/chicken hoop barn. It's slow going with a garden rake and shovel.

During the waiting period while things grow in the garden and indoor seed starts, we'll be dismantling the bunny/chicken hoop barn and eventually the chicken coop and run by the food storage out building. We're realigning them better and rotating them 90 degrees so there's less muddy areas. I don't know why Mel didn't think of it when she first built them.  In their current position, they run against the downhill slope so rain water gets trapped.

Meanwhile, we went to Tractor Supply and bought some Rhode Island Reds and Americana chicks to increase our flock of egg layers. They were straight run so we'll have to see how many hens to roos we get. We did try wing feather sexing them, but they are far from day old chicks so we'll have to wait and see. If we end up with more than 2 roos in a bunch they'll be destined for freezer camp. We could sure use the meat, but egg layers is what we want. The roos are nice for producing fertilized eggs for hatching but that's about it in our enclosed pens. Right now, Mel is saying "no" to hatching eggs, but we'll see. She also says "no" to butchering our own chicken. Again, we'll see. You do what you have to when facing the possibility of going hungry and Mel's a huge carnivore.

The latest stay at home dates is the end of April, but honestly, it could be longer. I'm not a fear monger. I'm just looking at the numbers of new cases each day. Eggs are in short supply in the grocery stores now. You'd be hard pressed to find raw meat in our grocery stores. Most of it is processed with all that breading and chemicals. Yuck!. With our stores building running low in meats and vegetables, I'm just praying we have enough to see us through this SHTF scenario until we can restock our pantry.

The longer America in general stays out of work, the harder it will be for the little guys (businesses) to survive and the shortages will get worse. Fresh foods will be harder and harder to come by.  People will be sourcing food wherever they can, even from us lowly homesteaders. I have no problem feeding others once our own needs are taken care of.

There are church based or community food banks that have almost bare pantry shelves now with this virus. Some food banks have even closed which makes matters worse. Desperate people do desperate things when faced with hungry children at home. Making it dangerous for everyone. I've seen it happen before and didn't expect to see it happen in the US, but it very easily could. Yes, I partially bought into the 'land of plenty line.'

I just ordered a pound of yeast from Amazon and more powdered whole milk while they still have it. I was running low on both. Have you noticed how many "Not Available" postings there are on Amazon! I never thought I'd see the day. There's more available listing for brewer's yeast than baking yeast. Now that's scary keynote to the times. More people are interested in their daily bread than drinking. Usually it's the other way around.

*Note to self- make a sourdough Herman. I let the old one die. Bad Jo, bad! In my defense, I did spend more time in the hospital and recovering last year than I have in almost a decade.

Now, if you are truly desperate, there's Ebay. Ebay used to be the place to find cheaper things. Now, it's home to price gougers. A friend of mine bought two mega rolls of toilet paper for three times the store prices. Yes, she was that desperate. Here's a woman who washed her husband's diapers and pads, but won't use personal cloths for herself. It sort of boggles the mind, but to each their own. I offered to send her some, but she'd already bought it.

Back to the topic of this post. The quail cages are built and awaiting quail. While I'd planned to do this in March, too many other income eating things occurred. So now, I'm calling a local breeder for adult quail and hatching eggs next week.  I'll buy two dozen birds and two dozen hatching to begins with. This way I can cull unneeded males immediately for freezer camp. In 18 days, I'll have a dozen chicks or more given a 50% hatch rate. In six to eight weeks, these will start laying eggs and they extra males will go to freezer camp or be sold. I can incubate more eggs, but Mel can also sell the eggs too. Three or four quail eggs equal a chicken egg. So it will take more of them to make anything with them. At $6 for a dozen eggs, or breeding quads for $30, this will add up to quick income for homestead expenses and expansion plans. It will provide income while Mel's chicks age up to lay eggs (6 months). That's a nice chunk of change in the interim.

Now, honestly, what good is money? Other than paying bills with if you can't buy groceries? Everyone has to eat. My Momma used to say when people asked why she gardened, "You can't eat money?" You see, my Momma had experienced the food shortages in WWII Japan. Her father was wealthy, but they couldn't buy food. So he bought out a bombed out air field and offered a place for farmers a safe place to farm. The American wouldn't bomb an air strip that had been destroyed already. In those days, most air strips had their own water supply and ponds. So with no electricity, farmers came to farm the land. My grandfather built huts for their families out of recycled bits and pieces. They paid my grandfather a portion of their crops. Food was used to eat and to barter with for other essential needs.

My Momma also said, "There will always be an again." She prepared us for living without and how to survive. My grandmother did the same thing having raised a family of ten during the Great Depression. I never forgot their teachings. So ask me now, why I homestead and try for a more self sufficient lifestyle. While this virus may only create hardships for a few months, it's a wake up call to the US just when everyone was forgetting 9/11. Get ready. There will be an again. So, the busyness of spring time begins again on our little homestead.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo