Happy Farming . com

Now that the snow is covering everything around here I’ve had a chance to look through the stacks of paper documenting my food growing adventures in 2009.

This is a log describing the food I’m bringing in from my garden grown in 2009. I’m using the following beds:

Raised bed, 3 m x 1.2 m
Raised bed, 5 m x 1.2 m
Bed, 6 m x 1.2 m
Bed, 6 m x 1.2 m

(Note: The list below is not fully updated yet…)

———————-

Peach:

2009-08-19: 1 pcs. (90 g)

———————-

Cucumber:

2009-08-10: 209 g
2009-08-06: 400 g
2009-07-25: 211 g
2009-07-21: 2 pcs. (439 g)

———————-

Strawberry:

2009-06-24: 173 g
2009-06-17: 357 g
2009-06-13: 36 g
2009-06-10: 185 g

———————-

Parsnip:

2009-10-15: 2 pcs. (1532 g)

———————-

Tomato:

TBD

———————-

Beans:

2009-08-06: 230 g (bush)

———————-

Peas:

2009-07-23: 30 pcs.

———————-

Onion:

2009-08-14: 1 pcs. (119 g)
2009-08-08: 2 pcs. yellow (288 g)

———————-

Red beet:

2009-11-22: 1 pcs. (194 g)
2009-10-15: 5 pcs. round (770 g)
2009-07-20: 1 pcs. round (243 g), 2 pcs. long (556 g)
2009-07-13: 3 pcs. round (743 g), 3 pcs. long (748 g)
2009-07-12: 302 g
2009-07-11: 432 g round
2009-07-03: 1 pcs. (480 g)

———————-

Squash:

2009-08-10: 863 g
2009-08-06: 1 pcs. (1500 g)
2009-07-26: 2 pcs. (899 g)

———————-

Radish:

2009-06-17: Red (112 g), white (221 g)
2009-06-11: 3 pcs. Ice (26 g)

———————-

Carrot:

2009-08-15: 11 pcs. (472 g)
2009-08-14: 3 pcs. (196 g)
2009-07-23: 377 g
2009-07-22: 5 pcs. (271 g)
2009-07-21: 4 pcs. (287 g)
2009-07-20: 3 pcs. (267 g)
2009-07-17: 5 pcs. (410 g)
2009-07-15: 144 g
2009-07-12: 1090 g
2009-07-04: 3 pcs. (267 g)
2009-07-03: 182 g
———————-

Spinach:

2009-06-17: 197 g
2009-06-05: 135 g
2009-05-30: 132 g
2009-05-22: 78 g

———————-

Lettuce:

2009-06-20: 268 g (1 head)
———————-

Potatoes:

2009-07-22: 1170 g (2  plants)
2009-07-20: 1204 g (2 plants)
2009-07-17: 1263 g (2 plants)
2009-07-12: 901 g
2009-07-11: 725 g
2009-07-07: 268 g (1 plant, 1 shoot), 1033 g (1 plant, several shoots)
2009-07-05: 606 g (2 plants)
2009-07-04: 811 g (2 plants)
2009-07-03: 670 g
2009-07-01: 724 g
2009-06-30: 860 g Asparagus

———————-

Oh boy have I been wanting to use that headline! Free Heirloom Seeds™ is what everybody wants, right? Well, me too. And to some degree, the heirloom part is even true in this case. I’m offering 5 bags of spinach seeds from my garden, seeds I saved in 2009. Maybe one year is not entirely what you would define as heirloom, as 2009 was my first year collecting seeds, but anyway, if you want a bag to experiment with, please send me your address either via the contact page or email and I’ll send a bag to you. If you have a garden blog I can also post a link to your blog.

I have only tested two spinach seeds last summer to do a quick check of their ability to germinate, so please don’t be too disappointed, if the seeds won’t grow for some reason, but I think they will.

I’m curious to find out if any bags of seeds will be confiscated by the Empire. Being spinach seeds I believe they have a chance of passing through the system. If the bags were full of Marijuana seeds it would be a completely other story I mean, outlawing a plant?? Isn’t outlawing plants the same as outlawing roads, because roads can be used by bank robbers?

ANYWAYS – if you get a bag of seeds it would be fun hearing about your experiences with it. There are 5 bags up for grabs, and one bag per person, each with about 200 seeds. If enough people are interested I can make more bags, but at the moment my fingers are hurting from separating seeds, as spinach seeds have an amazingly rough outer layer and sit closely together.

I don’t know about you but I’m beginning to look forward to spring!

Photo by Irene2005.

Last year I decided to sell my property. I never really thought about how much space we would like to have when raising two kids, so the house was suddenly a bit small (92 sq m) when they finally arrived. After that I received notice, that I was going to be fired in the summer of 2010, but it felt like I was one step ahead already, because the main reason I moved to this town was because there was a job for me, and now that it’s gone I might as well move. At least there’s not much holding me back and the same its true for my girlfriend.

I would really like to do more experiments in my garden, like for instance building a giant biodynamic compost heap, or try to store potatoes in the ground covered with straw, or maybe try out new ways of improving the soil with manure from animals, but I’m pretty sure that this would not always be a pretty sight. It would be messy. And that’s okay when you play, but it’s not okay when you live in a pretty neighborhood.

I don’t know how people play, when they live in a pretty neighbourhood. Maybe they play games on the computer, but I like going outside and play and get some fresh air and dirt on my clothes. And as the saying goes, the only difference between boys and men are the size of their toys. I would love to have at least 10,000 sq m (108,000 sq ft) to play on – man I would get myself some toys.

It’s like the chicken-egg problem – if I had this size property I could grow lots of fruits and vegetables for sale, and the money earned would pay for the property. So at the moment I have to rent a smaller place and at least get something going. As the majority of people live in cities and urban areas today this is maybe what is needed; more creative ways and examples of growing food in these crowded places. I can’t figure out if it’s only me who think cities and urban areas are crowded or people feel they are forced to live here. As I see it the more crowded it gets the more diversity is lost. At least this is true for the plant and animal kingdom. You’ll never find a goat or a cow strolling down a busy street in a modern western city, you’ll have to live in India to see that. In my small family we’re so disconnected from the plant and animal kingdom, that we’ll have to turn to books to find out what it’s about. An hour ago I read a bedtime story to my 2 year old daughter about a girl and her brother spending their vacation on a self-sufficient farm in the countryside. Why would anyone want to print this kind of books, if there wasn’t some kind of need to connect with the animals or the plant kingdom? She plays with plastic animals, for Christ’s sake. I feel poor in a rich country.

Exciting times ahead for happyfarming.com! I’ve been told that I’ll be fired from my cosy engineering job in the summer 2010. A part of me is freaking out because I’m afraid that I won’t be able to support myself and my family due to this change, but another part of me is excited, because I’ve often dreamed about moving on during the last three years. Apparently it has been tougher to do than I thought it would be, so I choose to see it as a blessing that I have been kicked in the butt from above.

The problem I’m facing now is, that the bank won’t let me borrow money to buy the farm of my dreams, since I won’t have a job for long. A smaller place would also do, but it seems it’s not going to happen. So I’ll probably end up renting a property to have a place to grow stuff. I have looked into buying what people in the UK or USA refer to as an allotment or plot, but last time I checked the price was 34,000 USD for a 400 m2 plot, which means: it ain’t gonna happen! I’m under the impression that around here it’s more about socializing and banging each other on the head with rules and regulations than it is about growing something eatable.

This is Magnus showing the most efficient way to harvest sea buckthorn. Well, he doesn’t exactly harvest the berries, but he only takes away the raw juice, which is good because he doesn’t harm the buckthorn shrubs:
Part 1:

Photo by Arthur Chapman.

I’m not growing sea buckthorn in my garden (yet?…), but it grows along the coast of Denmark, so it’s available for free around this time of the year, if you bother to go out and harvest the berries.

A thank you goes to Dorte for the juice recipe below!

“Sea buckthorn juice is able to keep fresh for about 1 year when it is stored in a cold place, without a preservative, because it exists naturally in the berries. When the juice has been extracted from the berries, you can drink it as “schnapps”, since it is very “strong”. Or you can mix 600 g (21 ounces) of cane sugar per 1 l (4 cups) raw juice. The raw juice and sugar is stirred without heating up.

Juice for drinking: Mix about 1½ dl (½ cup) of the sugar mixture and 8½ dl (3½ cups) water (depending on the taste). The sugar mixture will separate, so you will have to give it a shake before mixing with water. If you don’t drink the final mixture right away you will have to stir again, since it will also separate.”

I’m still struggling with my five old apple trees in my garden. If they are left alone they grow like crazy, sending up a massive number of shoots:

They’ll quickly grow too big for my garden. Maybe if I only had one tree it would fit in the garden, but since they have always been pruned the limited area was never a problem. Last year I pruned them really hard and removed all shoots so only the bare stems were left (thicker than 5 cm / 2 inch in diameter). That resulted in not a single apple being produced. Bad idea.

So this fall I’m leaving a single shoot per stem, hoping that apples will develop on those shoots next year, where they’ll be one year old:

I guess the lesson is that apples won’t develop on wood younger than 1 year.

The ideal situation for me would be to plant an apple tree in a place with lots of space around it, and then forget about it until I would go out and collect the apples. And then let it grow according to its own genes and chop it down once it stopped producing apples.

When you start pruning hard it’s like you can’t go back to free growth without letting the tree grow into a big mess. So I have to live with the decision of the former owners and learn how to prune properly, as I don’t want to chop the trees down, since that would force me to go to the supermarket instead.

This is the process I went through saving seeds from a squash I picked from my garden this year. I wasn’t able to save any seeds from this particular squash, but I think the method is still good though. As with my cucumber project I think the lack of usable seeds is due to the varieties I’m growing. Apparently I have chosen varieties that are not suitable for seed saving, I believe it’s the F1 varieties, but I’ll have to investigate the problem further.

Anyway, here’s what I did:

Cut the squash into halves:

Dump the soft insides into a bowl of water:

(Hmm, that actually looks like something from the movie ‘Alien’ )

Use your fingers to rub out the seeds:

Use a sieve to collect the seeds:

Spread the mix on a filter bag to absorb the rest of the water:

Pick each seed with a pair of tweezers and move them to a new filter bag. This is were I began noticing a problem, as the seeds were divided into two different size groups:

The big ones looked like commercial seeds, but what’s the deal with the small ones??:

When I allowed all of the seeds to dry up for several days suddenly NONE of the seeds looked healthy:

I guess I have to use better seeds for the mother plant before this will work. Another possibillity is that the squash fruit wasn’t ripe enough. It didn’t change color as I was told is necessary with cucumbers, if you want to save seeds from cucumbers.

After successfully saving seeds from this years tomatoes I set out to save some cucumber seeds. It didn’t go as planned.

I saved one particularly healthy looking cucumber from the plant growing up the south facing garage wall:

It was dark green when I picked it but I stored it for several weeks inside the house to let it mature, turning yellow in the process. It actually started  to smell bad, as it had a couple of spots. Apparently my girlfriend is very tolerant since she’s able to put up with things like this laying around the house. It was probably a wise decision to tell her in advance what I was doing :

With much anticipation I cut the cucumber open, only to find that it contained no frekkin seeds!:

A little miracle in itself. A lot of hard work must have gone into creating cucumbers like this. I think I have to go talk to the nursery again. Or buy heirloom seeds and raise my own plants next year.

If you cut the tomato around the ‘equator’ it will be easier to get the seeds out:

Use a teaspoon to dig out the seeds. Be careful to leave as much goo in the tomato, or it will get in your way later on in the process:

Fill a glass with about 3 cm (1 inch) of water and put the seeds in the water:

The mix will now have to ferment, so a piece of cling film is needed on top of the glass to limit the oxygen. Prick a couple of holes to create a bit of ventilation though:

Leave the mix for 3 or 4 days and any unwanted goo will start to dissolve:

Healthy seeds will fall to the bottom of the glass making it easier to remove the goo with a tablespoon and add fresh water:

Remove the red stuff and add fresh water a couple of times during the fermenting process and you’ll end up with this:

The seeds will still be coated with gel. I believe it’s some kind germination inhibitor. Being in the water for some time makes the gel easy to scrub off by dragging each seed across the filter bag with a finger:

Move the seeds to a new filter bag and let them dry for a couple of days. Here is the end result, ready for storage in a seed bag until spring:

Note that I have not tested if these seeds will actually germinate and produce plants, but I must say that the result looks very professional.

I’m very excited to find out what the tomato plants from these seeds will look like next year, and if they themselves will be able to reproduce.