Inflation Woes & Grow Your Own

Great resource for food gardeners

We’ve all been hearing about food prices going up. But when I looked at my grocery co-op sales receipt yesterday, I saw the head of lettuce I’d purchased had gone up a buck! I mean, in just a few weeks, the price hadn’t increased by 25 cents or 50–but an entire dollar in one fell swoop.

My first thought was, I’m sure glad food growing season is starting. My second was, it’s time to get busy!

Although I’ve written a gardening guide, I’m always happy to come across new information and gardening insights. So I heartily recommend “Mini-Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre,” a gift from John’s daughter. It’s loaded with detailed tips and techniques to increase your food-growing productivity and efficiency. 

Some examples of tips I found especially helpful:

*Use only vegetable-based compost for carrots. Composted manure may work well for many crops, but can make carrots bitter.

*When creating a new bed, dig the soil deeply, as much as 2 feet! That way, your crop can access more nutrients and moisture from the soil and subsoil. 

* Adding lots of compost to your soil every year will build that soil over time, with the same healthy-plant benefits as deep-digging.

*Trellised varieties of vegetables are more productive than bush types—this way, the plant gets more of a 3-D benefit from more light and room. 

The author runs some numbers regarding how much money you can save by growing your own produce, but it’s way outdated: the book was published in 2009, and we all know how much food costs have exploded since then! Still, the book does give you an idea of the economic benefits, and at the same time, shows the many, many advantages of growing as much food as you can.

I just learned that next week, April 3-9, is National Library Week! You just might be able to find Mini-Farming at your local public library—lots of public libraries will let you make a request for any title too. I have a handy list of more gardening resources at the back of my gardening guide, Little Farm in the Garden!

Hens' Recovery

 

Hens being hens again!

I thought they would stay in their coop forever.

After a red-tailed hawk killed one of our three hens (see February 24 post) the remaining two spent their days huddled in the coop, hardly eating or drinking.

The girls were obviously very traumatized. They’d not only stopped laying eggs, they had stopped acting like hens.

It seemed like they were fading away…and I was afraid they would eventually succumb to starvation.

After 10 days, the hens began leaving the coop just once or twice a day for a few minutes and peck listlessly at their feeder, like they’d lost their appetites. They wouldn’t even go on the side of the pen closest to their yard—and certainly nowhere near the pen door, several feet from where the other hen had died.

Even when John and I visited their pen, to coax them out into the world again, they weren’t interested. Then the day came when, accompanied by John and me, the two hens very slowly ventured into their yard.

They pecked at a few blades of grass—but eating like they had before: a couple of pecks, then lifting their heads to look around.

Clearly, the girls still didn’t feel safe. I wondered if they’d eat and explore the way they used to. And if they'd ever lay eggs again.

They still weren’t engaging in normal hen behavior: taking dust baths or scratching. I decided, let’s mix things up a little—shake the girls out of this funk!

Next to their yard, there’s a narrow area between the outside of their fence and one of our woodsheds. It’s chock full of weeds and big clumps of grass. I figured, surely in such a confined space, they could let down their guard. And if that juicy green grass doesn’t get them scratching, nothing will.

So John and I herded them into this small space, closed them in with a length of steer wire, and hovered again. They did seem to like the grass, and gave it a few pecks. Then they wanted OUT.

“Girls, give it a chance,” I coaxed them. “Just a few more minutes?”

Oh, no. The girls continued to pace the short length of wire, making distressed sounds. I didn’t want them to get re-traumatized, so John and I let them out. They made a beeline for the coop.

I said to John, "I guess our experiment failed." 

Or had it?

The next few days, the two girls began to spend more time outside the coop. When I came into the pen to feed them, I could tell they’d been eating more. Then one day, I saw signs they’d been dust bathing! 

The next day, when I came to see them, the hens ventured into their yard without too much coaxing. They pecked at some grass, and actually started to scratch a little. Yay! They were finally back on track!

Then…a large bird flew over our place.

Immediately, they looked skyward, then the bird made a Caw. Those girls scuttled right back into the pen. "C’mon girls," I told them, "it’s only a raven, you’re okay. It’s not even that close!" But they wouldn’t come out again.

Another day or two went by, and the girls were starting to spend most of their days in their pen. Not in the coop. I could see more signs of dust-bathing. And they had found their appetites again. John and I gave them another chance to come out into the yard, and they pecked at the dirt and even scratched a little.

Then, low and behold, three weeks and a day since the attack, I found an egg in one of the nests!

Since that first egg, nine days ago, the girls seem eager to get out in their yard again. They’re scratching with gusto, and even climbing up on the old maple stump—all happy hen behaviors. And judging from all the droppings in their pen, they eating normally again. Maybe making up for lost time.

And we’ve gotten five more eggs!

We still can’t let the hens out in their yard unsupervised. The hawk attack came without warning—the big raptor hadn’t first made an exploratory pass over the yard or anything. Just boom!—attack. So John and I can’t trust this bird won’t try again.

I regret the girls can’t go back to free-ranging all day, and get the light and scratching time they need, which makes them happy.

Still, for me, this experience was a lesson in hen-keeping. Our girls, it seemed, needed to recover in their own good time. Not according to humans’ timeframe or expectations.

It’s how nature works, isn’t it? Everything happens when the time is right…and not before. By the way, Happy Spring!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Irish Novel on Sale + "Behind the Scenes" Look!

Warmhearted Irish novel

My Irish love story, Becoming Emma, has been selected for a special Women's Fiction Sale on Kobo starting today! 

The sale pricing applies to Kobo's UK, Australia, and New Zealand regions—and is also available on Amazon UK and AU, Apple, and other ebook retailers!    

While this blog is mostly about gardening and homesteady stuff, here’s a little of what I do when I’m not working around our place…

Behind the Scenes...

Becoming Emma follows Dublin girl Emma Carey's search for love and home and family in the most unlikely of places. One of the story events is actually is a big St. Patrick’s Day party...so I thought I'd share a brief look at how the story came about.

Although much of this novel takes place in a new locale near Seattle, Washington, another big part of Becoming Emma takes place in the village of Ballydara, my fiction series set in County Galway, Ireland.

My Irish stories are set in a rural area that’s been inspired by a few other places, real and imaginary. As a country-dweller who lives in a somewhat remote area, several miles from a tiny town nestled in fir-covered foothills, I incorporated my favorite elements of my true-life, local village into my fictional Galway setting—for example, the beautiful scenery where I live and the fact that there’s no mobile signal or high-speed internet. 

I also invented an Irish version of our village: both have a small shop, a church, and of course, a pub, where, as they say, “everybody knows your name.”

In creating Ballydara, I also drew a bit of inspiration from two beloved BBC series: Ballykissangel, set in a little Irish community, and Doc Martin, which takes place in another picturesque locale in the British Isles, on the coast of Cornwall. Hopefully, the residents of Ballydara are as endearing as the television characters, but not quite so daffy!

It’s funny, how one’s fictional characters and story worlds evolve. I began a novel about my Emma character and her love interest Declan O’Donoghue years ago, with a different title. But the story just didn’t come together the way I wanted it to and I put it aside.

As a few years passed, Declan’s family became so clear in my mind I wrote two “novelette-length” short stories about them--the first from his dad Frank’s point of view, The Secret Well. The second story, The Christmas Visitor, is from his mother Maeve’s point of view. But it was Hazel, Emma’s mysterious sister, who changed Maeve and her family.

Both stories were deeply entwined with the bigger story about Declan and Emma, still waiting to be written.

 I was still scribbling little bits and bobs about Declan and Emma, even a chapter here and there, but I still wasn’t ready to get going on their story. I went on to write two other Ballydara books, The Hopeful Romantic and The Galway Girls.

Then the time came when Emma and Declan insisted that I tell their story—and Hazel’s too. As I finished a huge, rambling draft of a novel, titled Becoming Emma, I had an epiphany: this very long book was actually two novels—at around 800 pages, it was just too much story for one book. 

Then for a fun, summertime project, I wrote a prequel about Emma, before she met Declan, The Little Irish Gift Shop—and all three novels became The Fairy Cottage Mini-series. I went on to publish Becoming Emma, then...

I ended up releasing a Special Edition of Becoming Emma, which includes the two connected short stories The Secret Well and The Christmas Visitor in the correct reading order. The second part of this big story, The Fairy Cottage of Ballydara is the sequel to Becoming Emma, and will be out this spring!

If you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, I hope you’re enjoying your Irish festivities... Just for fun, here's a couple of pics from our trip to Ireland a few years ago. You can find more about my Irish novels and my homesteading too, at www.susancolleenbrowne.com!

John and I at St. Patrick's Mountain, County Mayo

A wee traveling cart in Dingle, County Kerry

 

Mulching and Compost, Magic for your Garden!

In my experience, mulching is the single most important factor in organic food-growing success. Mulch builds your soil fertility, suppresses weeds, prevents winter soil heaving, and helps regulate your soil moisture and temperature—it’s the magic pill for your garden!

I go into detail about mulching in my free ebook, Little Farm in the Garden. So for this post, I’ll just share a few ideas I’ve had lately about the mulching process—the quick and dirty version!

Do #1: Ideally, I put my food-growing areas to bed for the winter by covering the soil with chopped leaves (or leaves that have been decomposing for a while, known as leaf mulch), then a layer of compost on top. I also use a lot of dead brakenfern, because we literally have acres of it.  

In any event, we have such a rainy climate that the leaf matter and compost stays nice and moist all winter. Until it doesn’t.

A couple of weeks ago, after all the snow had melted, a late winter Northeaster—very cold, dry air—roared through Berryridge Farm. I’d thought the soaking rains we’d had just before this storm would keep the leaves wet enough to stay put. But no. All the chopped leaves and my lightly-applied compost dried out in no time flat.

Watching that high wind peel most of my mulch right off the beds, the mulch I’d applied so conscientiously, I realized where I’d gone wrong.

I generally am not able to create enough compost for all my beds from my kitchen compost pile —there are just two of us generating fruit and veggie scraps for the raw material. Which leads me to:

Do #2: For fall mulching, unless you have enough compost to cover the entire bed with at least two inches of it, you might try this instead. You can still top the mulch with whatever compost you have available, but then cover your mulched beds with lots of heavy vegetative material. You can use prunings, bark, or even cardboard, if you weigh it down. But I’ve had plenty of cardboard fly off my beds too!

If you’re thinking of re-mulching your beds for spring, you don’t necessarily want a super thick mulch layer. Although it will retard weed growth, it will also prevent your soil from warming up for seed germination.

What I’m trying is scuffing the top layer of soil a little, then lightly incorporating a layer of chopped leaves. I’ll still put compost on top, but this way, I don’t have to see an entire layer of leaf bits fly away in a brisk breeze.

John has created a good sized pile of thick bark from a big old alder he’s been processing for firewood. For my spring bed prep, I’m going use the bark on top of the mulch to control weeds, then I’ll remove the bark maybe two or three weeks before putting seeds in the ground to let the soil warm.

Do #3: Keep a supply of mulch for top-dressing your beds. Or at least for those crops that require mulch for a decent harvest.

For example, when I plant garlic in November, I top with soil with a very thick layer of chopped leaves and a LOT of compost. This is one crop I thoroughly cover—after all, being underground for 3 ½ months before sprouting, the seed garlic needs to be protected from weather before the little green shoots appear.

Potatoes are another crop that needs lots of mulch. Without some kind of top dressing, the spuds near the surface often get exposed to sunlight, which turns the skins green. Those green spots are toxic, so keep those taters covered!

Count blueberries as a third crop that definitely requires mulch. The roots need to be kept very moist, but they are shallow—many of them barely below the surface. So applying mulch will keep the roots happy. But…do not apply composted chicken manure. Blueberries love acid soil, and any manure-based mulch or compost is too alkaline.

Do #4: If you’re short on leaves and looking at options other than home-grown mulch…In the last couple of food-growing seasons, I’ve covered my veggie beds with cardboard. It’s generally because I haven’t kept the beds weeded, and the weeds got so dense I had to apply a “killing mulch.” Cardboard does indeed do the trick: cover an empty, weedy bed in fall and you’ve got beautiful soil by spring.

The good news is, earthworms love it.

The bad news is, so do slugs. So anywhere you have moist cardboard, you’ll be sure to be raising a good crop of baby slugs. The other downside is, after a long winter, your cardboard will often be in tatters, and you’ll be picking up those pieces of cardboard all over your yard all spring and summer.

It’s true, the cardboard will eventually break down in a couple of years, but unless you have a spot out of sight for all that rotting cardboard, it’s pretty unsightly. I have also used thick layers of newsprint as a killing mulch, but again, there's all that decomposing paper to deal with by spring.

On to “Don’ts”...

Don’t #1: It’s a small but important detail: Avoid using fruit tree leaves or prunings for mulching. They generally contain a lot of funguses that you don’t want to add to your soil.

Don’t #2: Well, it’s not exactly a Don’t, just a caveat: Use other killing mulches with caution.

True Confessions: I have sometimes let my beds get so weedy I need something stronger than cardboard: I have to “fry” those weeds—covering some areas with scrap steel roof panels. In the summertime, the ground beneath gets so hot the weeds just cook to death in a number of weeks.

The problem is, the soil “cooks” too—including all the beneficial microbes and other goodies. I have noticed the crops where I’ve used steel panels on the soil have never thrived. This year, I am rebuilding the soil in those areas’ with more leaf mulch. I’ll still use the panels, but only on pathways.

Black plastic: it’s one of the most commonly used killing mulches. And it sure does work! Once year we bought two large packages of black plastic sheeting and used it all over the place. Our weed problem was solved.

But solving one problem often creates another. Being the thrifty gardener that I am, over the next few years, I reused the plastic. Over time, that plastic breaks down, and I subsequently spent many, many hours picking bits of it out of the soil. My concern was, and is, that birds will think those shiny little bits are yummy bugs and will eat it. So, I’m not longer a fan.

Little Farm in the Garden has an entire chapter about mulch and compost—I hope you’ll take a look! You’ll find the free ebook at Amazon, the Apple Store, Kobo and all other ebook retailers. 

If you’re a food gardener, what are your mulching dos and don’ts?

Hawk Attack Aftermath

Last two hens

It’s been over ten days since a red-tailed hawk killed one of our hens--and the two remaining girls are still traumatized.

For the first five days after the attack, they wouldn’t leave the coop--not for food, not for water. It appeared that they were spending the days just milling around the coop floor or hanging out on the platform under their roost.

I would open the man door and try to reassure them they would be safe, coax them out with feed or scratch, but they wouldn’t budge. All I could do was sprinkle some feed on the wood chips on the floor, which they would peck at halfheartedly. I put a bucket of water in the coop too, since they wouldn’t come out to drink out of their regular waterer.

Their eating pattern had changed too: usually, fresh feed in the feeder would have them eating with gusto. Now they’d only peck at the bits, once, twice, then stop eating, lift their heads and look around.

Finally, the day came when they came out of the coop of their own accord. Since then, they are emerging once or twice a day to eat--once again, do their "peck-peck-look around" for only a few minutes. Then they'll disappear back into the coop.

Yesterday, I did see an encouraging sign they might return to their normal, energetic girls: there were little round depressions in the loose dirt in one corner of their caged pen—they’d been dust-bathing! 

Dust-bathing is an instinctive behavior of laying hens: they will scratch out a shallow hole, and sink right into it, fluffing the soil around them with their wings. The goal is to get dirt in and among their feathers, which apparently discourages parasites.

Despite that positive sign, there’s another distressful indication that things aren’t right: they’d been excellent layers before the hen was killed, but the two girls left haven’t laid since the attack.

After a hawk killed one of our hens years ago (our first flock), the five girls remaining had also hunkered down in the coop--but only for three or four days afterward. These two hens are clearly less resilient.

I wonder if it’s the breed: the girls are Buff Orpingtons, more of a gentle type of laying hen. And since this flock (before losing the three to predators) has been so prone to broodiness, it could be they’re very comfortable spending days on end inside their coop.

But it’s sad to see them decline. Without light, their combs are turning paler. And they seem to have lost their zest. What wouldn’t I give for one of them to peck at my legs again, telling me, “C’mon, I want some special treats!”

With the constant pressure from predators around here, sometimes I feel we’re in a losing battle. Our neighbors lost a 3^rd hen the week before the attack at our place—and now they’re down to only three chickens. They, and John and I, have come to the same conclusion: our only solution to get our hens back into light and free-ranging opportunities is to cover their yard with netting or steer wire.

For us, it’ll be a big job: our yard is at least 15’x15’. We’ll need some new supports going down the middle, and the way hens scratch, making huge divots in the ground, it’ll take a lot of muscle to bury the supports deep enough.

For now—at least until our two girls are interested in venturing back into the sunshine—their caged pen will have to do.

We have already changed our egg consumption. Gone are the days of being lavish with our supply, having eggs whenever we wanted: 3-egg omelet, anyone? 

Not any more. We currently have a bunch stored in the shop fridge, but without any expectation of more eggs, we will be parsing out our intake. The next step is buying store eggs for baking, to help stretch our own supply.

But whatever adjustments we need to make to our eating or our homestead, I just want our girls to feel safe again.