Upcoming Attraction

photo by Kathryn Pasternak

Meet Gail of Deauville Farm, the queen chicken whisperer of an upcoming documentary film Doeville the movie: The Fight to Know and Grow Our Food.  I can hardly wait until the final film is completed and wings its way to me as a digital copy!  One of the neatest things about this film is that viewers can show support for the film and Gail's work educating people about the importance of knowing and growing good food.  You can do this by connecting with the filmaker through an indigogo project (find out more information and see the trailer for the movie by clicking on this link).  There's a variety of cool perks you can choose from, if you opt to show your support by sending a donation.

While we've never met, I think Gail and I are destined to be friends.  After all, she's a Chicken Lady, too!

Potato Update

The potatoes took a long, long time to poke up any plant above their developing roots, but now that it has warmed up a little they are shooting up and looking great.  I was worried about my container plantings, what with all the rain we've been having, but while they took as long as the ones in the bed to grow any green leaves, they are certainly happy now.  In fact, they are nearly tall enough to need to be mulched with some additional compost and straw!

As for the potato bed, they are also growing well, now that they got started.  Unfortunately, the flea beetles have found them and are busy making little tiny holes in the leaves.  A Colorado potato beetle was spotted yesterday, but I can't find any larvae or other adult beetles...yet.  I have my coffee can with gas in it, already to frizzle their nasty selves on the daily scraping of the leaves, and I have a stash of BT powder and Pyola spray to duo-treat with.  There usually is a low level infestation in my potato beds all summer, but the trick is to keep it managed so the plant doesn't get completely denuded and stop growing.

It's a bit of work, and there is always the fear of blight wiping out the whole crop, but I do love growing potatoes in the garden anyway.  In a few weeks, they will flower and it will be time to harvest the new potatoes--which are excellent grilled and served with chive-spiked sour cream.  I can hardly wait!

Simple Fix

Courtesy of www.gemplers.com

This funny looking fabric is called "shade cloth", and is essential, apparently, to keeping things slightly cooler in the hoophouse.  Since early spring, I've been tracking the daily high and low temperature in the hoop house via a remote thermometer sensor.  On a sunny day in late winter/early spring, it can peak about 130 degrees Farenheit.  In the summer, it is even higher. (Last year, the regular outdoor thermometer I had out there melted and fused itself, stuck above 150 degrees.)  On a cloudy day, unless it is very dark and overcast, it still reaches about 95 degrees.  Add some moisture, and you've got yourself a recipe for roasted plants and misery.

So, what's a gardener to do?  Well, I could plant some trees, but that would defeat the goal of providing a warm environment with southern exposure.  Luckily, someone somewhere had this same problem at some time, and developed a woven product that drapes over the hoophouse covering and blocks out 50% of the light--hence reducing the heat by a few degrees.  Today, a sunny warm day with a slight breeze, at 2 PM it is only 92 degrees in there.  Last week, on a similar day, it was 140!  So far, so good--but the true test will come in July, if we ever get one of those classic, 100+ degree days with no wind in this cool, damp season we are having.  The hoophouse looks interesting to have the cloth on there, but not too shabby.

Plus, I decided to plant peppers in there, and peppers looooooooooove the heat.  I may not be able to handle the resultant heat in my salsas, but they should grow very happily all summer long.

Breakfast of Champions

Most mornings, I have eggs and toast.  (I have chickens, after all.)  But some mornings, I feel like something a bit more involved--and that usually means pancakes.  So when I thought: Hey, I feel like pancakes today! the other morning, I took a look through the cupboards and made up a version that hit the spot.

Banana Nut Pancakes

You'll need: one banana, mashed; one egg; about a cup or so of milk; 1 1/2 cups organic flour; 1/4 cup brown sugar; 1/2 cup chopped pecans; 1/2 teaspoon each salt, baking powder, and baking soda, plus 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.

Combine flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a bowl.

Add the mashed banana, egg and milk--blend until mixed and somewhat smooth batter.  Fold in the pecans.

Spoon out about 1/4 cup worth onto a preheated griddle per pancake, allow to cook until the "open hole" stage, then flip and brown on the other side.  Goes great with maple syrup and butter!

Food Quality

I've been thinking a lot about my meat rabbits, and what they eat.  Right now, it's a lot of hay and a good quantity of Purina Rabbit Chow pellets.  But as I do eventually harvest a rabbit or two for the freezer, I'd like to get away from the commercial feed if I can...but there's the problem.  There are no organic pellet formulae out there that is affordably obtainable.  I've found some on the internet, but it would cost hundreds of dollars to buy a pallet's worth of bags, and to have shipped here from wherever it is at (Pennsylvania and North Carolina, mostly).

So I've been watching videos and reading little articles online.  The conflicting discussions are just hilarious--some people apparently cook meat to feed to their vegetarian rabbits!--and some are just completely unaffordable.  I'd need a third job just to feed them, seriously now that is just a bit too much.  Certainly I want them to eat well and be healthy, but I am not buying a 50 pound sack of expensive goji berries to mix with various dried grains and herbs.  I liked this video, as the videographer seems reasonable and sensible and gosh, I think I could see this happening on my little Farmlette.  The greens get challenging in the winter, but there's always the delicious hay that I usually have on hand to get them through. 

Now, to track down sacks of organic barley and oats...

Creeping Vines

It may never look quite so lovely as this building, located at Selwyn College in Cambridge, UK, but I have high hopes for my new planting of Virginia Creeper.  With any luck, it will start climbing up the trellised walls in the next few days.  And then, it should creep and creep on, climbing and covering the walls.

It should, perhaps, give the rabbits a little more shade in the late afternoons when the sun streams in from the west, and it may even help keep Max the Wonderdoodle from going into hysterics every time the poor bunnies move an inch.  He can't keep himself from barking, poor thing, but it sure is irritating to everything else in the vicinity.  Woof woof woof.

I am really looking forward to seeing it in the fall, when it should turn a lovely bright red, such as this:

Isn' it pretty?  Oh, I really hope it doesn't do poorly!

I Have a Dream...

and it is to go to this farm.

I want to live this farm.

Really, I want peafowl.  But, my neighbors would probably come by with pitchforks and waving torches and drive me out of the Farmlette.