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Thread: Homestead goals for 2021

  1. #41
    Senior Member herbgeek's Avatar
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    I think I will clean out the two boxes and plant for fall. Suggestions?
    Fall greens, like radicchio and endive along with more lettuce. The bonus with the radicchio is that if you don't finish harvesting it all, it will come back early in the spring and you can eat it then.

  2. #42
    Senior Member herbgeek's Avatar
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    Every year, I vow not to grow so many zucchini and cucumbers and this year I didn't and am lamenting that I haven't been able to make pickles or the many dishes I make with extra zucchini. Some people are never happy.

    Tomatoes not doing well this year, or sweet peppers. The hot peppers are great - have already fermented a batch of jalapenos. Had a good sugar snap pea crop. I had 2 varieties I'd not grown before and they were tasty but very small. Spring lettuce is mostly gone (bolted). Herbs were off to a slow start but are doing well now except for basil which has little black insect spots on most of it. Just harvested a boat load of garlic, so I'm safe from vampires for another year.

  3. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by herbgeek View Post
    Fall greens, like radicchio and endive along with more lettuce. The bonus with the radicchio is that if you don't finish harvesting it all, it will come back early in the spring and you can eat it then.
    Thanks for the suggestions. I was going to try more lettuce, and I'll look through the seeds and see if I have any other others.
    To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer." Mahatma Gandhi
    Be nice whenever possible. It's always possible. HH Dalai Lama
    In a world where you can be anything - be kind. Unknown

  4. #44
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    Rosa, the cumin seed was in a green bean dish. It goes into the oil and starts to darken before you out the beans in. It’s a little bit nutty and the flavor is more concentrated/separate than with powder.

    I feel like growing spices I am going to use whole is easier than ground spices - I don’t have a spice grinder and the idea of cleaning it adequately between varieties is a lot.

    I’m giving away an extra rooster today.

  5. #45
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    So, it’s been just over a month since I updated this.

    I’m doing a good job keeping records and have been looking back at some of them already. I think they will be useful for planning next year.


    Vegetable garden:
    I finished all my spring/summer planting right at the edge of on time and put in a few things for fall.
    we have been eating a preserving a lot from the garden. Not as much as I would like, but a good amount. I’ve tried some new things. I’m trying to be more relaxed about the reality that I am also growing food for the chickens - the garden us supposed to serve me. Not the other way around.

    by December - clean off the fence line, remove sagging/rusted fence section, have everything inside the fence planted or under mulch/sheet compost - this one I haven’t really worked on.

    herb garden:
    Decide what I want to plant in it next year (this year is a few perennials plus “tuck things in randomly”)
    finish rock border - no real progress. Keeping it weeded. Dh agreed to move the camomile to a decorative bed.

    fruit garden:
    mulch and maintain strawberries and raspberries (both planted this year), elderberry starts (last year) and blueberry bush.
    learn to make more elderberry starts. - Raspberries done and in good shape, strawberries half done, blueberry mowed around, elderberries lost in the weeds.

    Chickens:
    Chickshaw done, in test phase with a few “spare” roosters. Chickens will probably start moving in a week.
    prep winter quarters for new layer flock (will not keep all 43 - chickshaw sleeps 40, but will probably cut back to 36.) - after chickshaw transition.

    Goats:
    new pasture fencing for buck pen and new rotational pasture - the fence guy finally came out yesterday and should be sending an estimate, but can’t start until at least February.
    sell bucklings - I put a hold on this one as I am rethinking my genetics and might want to keep one.
    Breed all 4 Does - exposed two this week - I think one will take but I’m not sure about the other. More breeding will have to wait until October due to the timing of a trip I have to take in February.
    buy two goats IF and ONLY IF I find just what I want. - found a possibility, but it didn’t work out.

  6. #46
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    Yesterday one of the spare roosters got eaten by a hawk - so they are too small to be out.

    the fence quote was good, so I asked to be put on the schedule.

  7. #47
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    That’s sad CL.

  8. #48
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    Growing berries are new to me but my black currant finally did its thing and produced lots of berries. I made some refrigerator jam but DH said it was too seedy. The flavor is fantastic though. Some of my squashes cross-pollinated and we got what looked like fat zucchinis but they taste fine. Due to the drought, I am pulling up tomatoes soon and putting in fall lettuce, spinach etc since the temps are finally cooling off.

  9. #49
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    More jam for you pinkytoe!

    I just tried ground cherry jam for the first time, and it was also very seedy.

    I got some more mulch put down this morning to. One strawberry bed is now completely surrounded.

  10. #50
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    Mulched around the blueberry bush today.

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