Thanksgiving Break

We had a great Thanksgiving here on the Farm; three generations of family and the addition of friends made for a nice meal and some good catching up time. The really great thing about the Thanksgiving break was the additional days off work for me, which gave me some time to do a few things outside while it was nice. Also, cooking on Thursday and eating leftovers until Monday was great, at least from my point of view!

One of the things we did on was to take down the girl's swing-set. It was twenty years old and well loved, but was beginning to lean beyond repair. When Dave took it down we were glad we had done it, because the wood around the screws was beginning to rot, and it was definitely unsafe. Little bit was sad because she still likes to listen to music and swing, but we will have to relocate the swing to a tree or something for her. Nana lent a helping hand, or at least supervised.

 We also transplanted some hybrid blackberries that a former occupant had planted along a fence row. The problem is that the kudzu and honeysuckle have taken over the fence as well as the berries, causing them to not produce anymore. I have read that they don't like being moved and might revert back to having thorns, even so, thorny blackberries are better than none! The soil around the roots was so loose that it fell right off the plants, so it was like bare root plants from the nursery. Somewhere along the way I either can't count or I lost one, because I thought I had six, but could only find five when I planted.

 We haven't planted this area before, only mowed the weeds we call grass and left the grass to decay, and the soil is amazing! In places it was literally black, and all of the topsoil was filled with beautiful earthworms like this little guy:
They are wonderful for the soil and the plants. I'm so glad that we haven't sprayed pesticides over the years, it really enriches the good critters that live in the soil and garden, and they often will take care of those unsavory critters.

Another little project that we finished was the hoop house, a sort of mini greenhouse. We built it over a existing square foot bed that has some lettuce, spinach and beets growing in it, and I added onions and more beets. More details on this project as we tweak it and make it better. The main thing is that we have added one more way to extend our harvest!



Last but not least, we tried the hot sauce I made from the habanero peppers we grew last summer. I made it several weeks ago, but it has to "age". It is perfect, not too hot, but warm, and with its own taste, not just hot. Now if I could only remember how many peppers I used.......... I found the recipe here: South Texas Sunshine Hot Sauce  and boy is it good. The hard part was finding bottles. I ended up using beer bottles with a reusable swing top.
 

I like them very much, except they are big, and I'd like to share my hot sauce with friends and loved ones, but I can't give away that much at once! We use a lot of hot sauce! So, anyone that knows where I can get reusable, resealable bottles that are in the six ounce range, let me know, and maybe I'll share!

Baby it's Cold Outside!

As the weather grows cooler, I'm trying to find ways to extend our growing season and continue to have fresh, homegrown food to eat. Sadly my fall crop of broccoli, cabbage and collards succumbed to deer/bunny/groundhog attacks so I have no traditional fall crops, other than the Romaine lettuce I planted from seed. Apparently the critters like the other stuff better because they left the lettuce alone, more or less.There shall be a tall, electrified fence before spring, because I love my broccoli!

In an effort to protect my food from other herbivores and the cold, I have built a cold frame. Just the name sounds a little intimidating, but everything I have read about cold frames indicates that they are easy to build, and easy to maintain. We started with an old window and some scrap lumber. I measured the window and my able helper who runs the power tools cut the boards to the specified lengths and I built a box the same size as the window using wood screws. Nails are ok, but my experience with nails and things that sit out in the weather is that they get loose and the whole thing falls apart.


Then I took another board, cut it the length of the short sides, measured an angle from the top corner to the bottom to get two triangular shaped pieces. We also cut an extra back board. Dave wanted to connect the angled boards and the back board with brackets, but I really liked the idea of using dowels and wood glue, so since it was my project, that's what we did. I my way fails, we can still go back and use the brackets to make a repair. I drilled holes in the angled boards, the backboard and matching (I hope) ones on the box and put pencil sized dowels in the holes in the boards using my favorite, waterproof wood glue, Titebond. We used it to hold wheels on car axles when we made wooden toys and the axle would break before the glue would let go.


Next, a bead of glue along the top of the box and a bunch in the holes I drilled.

 Then I lined up the dowels and the holes I had drilled and pushed the pieces together so the top was flush with the bottom and the two pieces were joined not only by the dowels but also by the glue. This did not work out perfectly with the back board as I was not very careful when lining up my holes, so I had to re-drill a couple. In the end the boards on the back didn't meet all the way across and I had to caulk the join so it didn't let all the warm air out.




I added some foam that we had used when
 we were installing the windows to insulate where the window meets the frame, but that isn't totally necessary, except that I joined the short pieces to the long pieces backwards and the window wasn't totally snug. Also, usually a window has a wooden sash and you attach hinges so you can raise and lower the window depending on the temperature; if it is 70 and sunny it can get to 100 in the frame! I just prop my window up, open the screen, or just remove the whole window if it is going to be too warm in the afternoon. I was reading about hoop houses ( another season extender- more on that later) and found that much of the sunlight never reaches the plants because of the angle of the winter sun, and a reflector is good. I found a piece of leftover flashing and installed that in the back of the box to maximize the available sunshine. The next step is to locate the box facing south on some good soil. I used the front of my herb garden near the house since it just had annuals that were about finished. I set it on some of the blue foam to protect the wood from moisture as much as possible, but have since seen a video that suggests setting it on bricks instead. I may change it to that because not only will it be drier and more aesthetically pleasing, it would add some height to the box for the plants.

Finally, I planted stuff! I had Romaine lettuce plants from the fall garden that I moved, and then planted spinach, radishes, more lettuce and carrots.

So far, so good. I take the lid off most days since it has been warm, not only so I don't roast my veggies too soon, but also so some of the moisture evaporates and the bed doesn't get moldy. You can't see it in the picture,  but I put a thermometer inside the box to record the highs and lows so I can have an idea of how things are going. If it is going to be really cold at night I will cover the box with a blanket or something. Otherwise, I'm going to just let it do its thing, it seems pretty low maintenance.

So there it is, your basic cold frame, built with stuff we had lying around, I shelled out $5.24 for the glue, but that is all, and I'll recoup that in lettuce alone. Obviously if you had to buy the lumber and a piece of plexiglass it would cost more, but we had plenty of stuff hanging about. Some people make cold frames from bales of hay and a window, I still have aother window, so I may try that one yet!