Happy Farming . com

In about two weeks a new garden adventure will begin for me, as I’ll be moving to a new property together with my girlfriend and our two small kids. What’s new for me is that this time it’s a rented place compared to our current house, which I own myself. We had a brief talk with the landlord, and it turns out that the former renters were allowed to put up a greenhouse,  and we’re free to do what we want in the garden as long as it “appears cultivated” as he put it. I’m still a bit unsure about what I can and what I can’t do, but maybe it’s better to ask for forgiveness instead of permission in this case Of course I’ll leave any old trees alone, but I’m certainly planning on converting part of the lawn into vegetable beds. Whether I’m bringing in a truckload of concrete slabs to be used as paths between beds I’m not sure, but I guess most of what I would like to do in the garden can be cleaned up and removed in a matter of weeks. The ultimate garden dream is still to have my own land to play on. I’m looking forward to that.
I’m leaving five old wonderful apple trees behind, but luckily there are two old ones on the new property and according to the owner they produce loads of apples and they are free for us to use. I’m glad we bought a high quality juicer last year, perfect for apples too. The apple trees provide shade in the garden, but it also has an open space with lots of sun. To the south west there’s even a small stream running by, and across the stream there’s a field with grazing horses. Very nice scenery.
Unfortunately I’ll have to leave my 30 sq m (320 sq ft) garage behind and cram most of my stuff into a much smaller, unheated shed, in like only one fifth of the area. I’ll have to sell or give away some of it, but that’s okay, this was never meant to be a high tech operation anyway. I’m keeping the shredder though – that is just an awesome piece of equipment, a Bosch AXT 2500HP. I’ll post some pictures and videos of that beast later on. It has helped me produce great composting ready material, so I’m seriously considering moving my three compost heaps with me to the new location, if the content is not too gross. Gotta feed the soil, right?
Speaking of feeding the soil – sometimes I get carried away and just go on and on, talking about  soil and manure and homesteading, and somewhere along the road my girlfriend somehow convinced herself that rabbits running freely around the garden is a total win-win situation. When will I learn to shut the hell up? I’m not sure I agree entirely with that But at least neither one of us talks about chopping them up for meat like good old John Seymour did. That’s just too old school for us vegetarians. I’m sure the kids would love to play with them though. We just need to convince them that it’s NOT candy that’s scattered all over the lawn

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.

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.

I have 6 runner bean plants in my garden this year, climbing up bamboo sticks. I’ve checked all 6 six of them to be sure, but pictures of the three of them is enough for what I want to show you:

Notice which direction they all turn around the bamboo stick? Counter-clockwise. This is good to know if you want to help them get a good start up the trellis. Supposedly they’re going to untie themselves until they are allowed to go the preferred way around. I believe they’re going the other way around on the southern hemisphere, but I haven’t verified that Please leave a comment if you have checked it out.

If you take a closer look at bolted spinach plants you’ll find the seeds grouped in small clusters:

The seeds can easily be rubbed off the stem although some will stay together and you’ll need to separate those. From a single spinach plant I saved enough seeds to fill at least two normal seeds bags, maybe even three:

I pay about $4 for a single bag of spinach seeds. I now got seeds worth 5 * 2.5 * 4 = $50! (I had 5 dried plants hanging beneath my roof). Amazing. If they will all grow, that is.

I planted a couple of rows of onions rather late this year, but it seems like they wanted to grow anyway. In fact so well that they needed to be thinned many weeks ago. I’ve been busy indoors lately since our second daughter was born 6 weeks ago and our first daughter aged 1 ½ years doesn’t really know how to appreciate vegetable gardening I finally managed to find time to thin the onions. Looking at the small scrap onions I realised that they looked exactly like the onion sets you buy in the stores:

Fortunately I had some free space in my bed where the red beets used to be, so in with the small onions:

Hopefully they’ll survive the transplating and give us twice as many onions as planned.

So you like onions huh? Well me too.

In the YouTube video I showed you in a recent post Scott McGuire talks about the use of the word pest. He deals with pests by growing more produce and accepts the loss cause by so called pests. No doubt that when we experience some kind of pest it’s due to an unbalance in natures harmony. It’s not a slug problem, it’s a duck problem. There are too few ducks living in modern urban areas, actually close to none. And that’s fair enough. Most people want to control their garden down to each grass leave. If I were living out in the country side I would gladly encourage ducks to come live with me. So that would be a solution to the slug problem. But I’m getting a bit stubborn here, I’m not ready to give up my urban vegetable garden yet. I’m aware of and have tried most of the recommend slug fighting tactics just to wake up and find slugs partying between my onions… (nooo, that’s really gross, stay focused here ) Something about the way that Scott McGuire handles pests gives me new hope. So, what do slugs eat? In particular, what does Arion lusitanicus eat? And then I felt really dumb when I came across the document “The palatability of 78 wildflower strip plants to the slug Arion lusitanicus” from 1998 by Briner T. and Frank T.: It’s well known what the slugs love to eat – why the hell didn’t I provide those plants then? Let’s feed the poor bastards. Them hungry! Why eat sour onions and beets when you can have something like:

• Rapeseed (Brassica napus)
• Corn Poppy (Papaver rhoeas)
• Shepherd’s Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris)
• Red Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum)

Yum!

Wildflower slug fence, coming up!

(palatability. really?… come on guys )

Here’s an interesting video from YouTube about back yard sustainability. Janaia Donaldson is interviewing Scott McGuire from Oregon about the project he’s running in the backyard of his rented property. The picture is lagging but that’s worst in the first 10 minutes when they talk face to face. After that they take a tour in Scott’s garden and the lagging becomes tolerable.

In the video you’ll find:

• Experimenting with growing wheat and amaranth
• Growing a medicine border
• Growing sun flower seeds
• Greenhouse for starting plants from seeds
• Drying herbs in greenhouse
• Dog kennel as chicken house
• Growing food for your animals
• Crimson clover as nitrogen fixer

and some other small but interesting things:

Planting three tomato plants in one grow bag creates a mess, although the self-watering boxes are prepared for three plants having three internal tubes reaching down into the water.

When you’re dealing with cucumber plants it’s even too much with two plants in each grow bag:

One cucumber plant in each grow bag is a better solution.

Last year I did in fact only plant two tomato plants in each grow bag, with a good result. Here’s a picture from last year:

I’m building up my courage to try and grow tomatoes without the self-watering boxes and just grow them directly in the ground. I guess the boxes are not old school enough for me after all