Tillage Radish Cover Crop Update Four

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Larry Braley

Larger Tillage Radish bed 11-20-12

Here’s update number four in my Tillage Radish experiment this year.  The pictures below were taken last week.

We’ve had many nights in the low 30’s, high 20’s but still some fairly warm days and nights for this time of the year in east central Missouri.  The leaves of the radishes are starting to show signs of dying back due to the colder nights, and growth of the tubers has slowed although not completely stopped.

Large Tillage Radish tuber

I continue to be amazed in the size of the tubers in several of the plants.  These things are huge!   When the plants completely decompose, they are going to leave some very large aeration holes in their place.

Tillage Radish bed 11-20-12

If you’ve been following these updates, what do you think about these radishes so far?

Here are the past updates:

Update Three (10/5/12)

Update Two (9/5/12)

Update One (8/10/12)

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Extending Fall Lettuce Harvest With Floating Row Covers and Other Tips

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Larry Braley

Floating row cover on fall lettuce 11-22-12

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends in the U.S.!  We’ve enjoyed another great Thanksgiving as a family and we pray you had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well.  There is much for us to be thankful for, and one of the things are family is very grateful for is living the country life in America.

With all the activities this week, we’re a little behind on our end-of-week post, yet I thought it would be a good time to post on a few tips for extending the growing/harvest season for fall lettuce and greens.

A colleague of mine where I work was asking me about some ways to keep his lettuce and greens growing longer.  He’s a novice gardener and planted his greens a little late for a good harvest with the nights now colder and days shorter.   However, here are a few low-cost tips I gave him that could provide him more time to get a decent harvest:

  • Cover the lettuce/greens bed with a floating row cover.

Fall lettuce still hanging in there - some burnt tips 11-22-12

I use this technique to extend my growing season by several weeks.  We’ve had many recent nights in the low thirties, high twenties and our lettuce shows some signs of burning.  However, with the floating row cover, our plants are still growing and in fairly good health.  I planted this bed in early September.

  • Above the floating row cover, set up a mini hoop tunnel with a plastic sheeting cover.

I didn’t use this technique this year, but I have used something similar in the past.  With the row cover and plastic sheeting, this adds a double layer of protection for the plants and also provides a warmer microclimate to help the plants continue growing a little longer.  This technique will not work if the seeds are planted very late in the season and there is not enough time for them to get to a sufficient level of maturity.

  • For more strategies for extending the harvest season, my go-to sources are books by Eliot Coleman—the guru of winter gardening.

One of my favorite books by Eliot is the “Four-Season Harvest” published by Chelsea Green Publishing Company.  If you’re new to extending the harvest season, check it out!  It’s a great resource.

What techniques have you used to extend your growing/harvest season?

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Thanksgiving and Thriftiness

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Laura

Well this week starts a lot of baking, shopping and yes, spending lots of cash on groceries.  We all have those favorite desserts we want at Thanksgiving or maybe that extra bottle of Welch’s sparkling white grape juice—my 8 year old seems to think he has his own personal bottle each year!  Before we know it, our merry-making has cost several hundred dollars.  How do we keep the cost down for our family feast, but not skip on all the yummy fun?

My biggest Internet help is found at Money Saving Mom.  Crystal Paine is a stay-at-home mom who started this wonderful website several years ago. Her Frugal Journey is an inspiring read. There are tons of great tips, coupons, menus and even Black Friday deals found on this site.  Each week I receive updated grocery store sale ads sent to my email.  This helps me plan my weekly shopping trip.  Check out her articles on Thrifty Thanksgivings at Money Saving mom.com.

This year we are trying to keep our cost down by shopping the sales and buying in bulk.  Who doesn’t need lots of butter to bake with over the next month?  Aldi has butter on sale this week for $1.99 for a pound.  I bought a bunch and froze what I did not need right away.  My kiddos love mini-marsh mellows in their hot chocolate or we use a bag or two on Thanksgiving for candied sweet potatoes.  Aldi carries these also.  Shopping the sales along with coupons can really bring the cost to a manageable level and still provides all the treats we all love.

What ways have you used to be thrifty for Thanksgiving?

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Whole Wheat Muffins

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Livvy

Muffins right out of the oven.

With the holidays around the corner, I thought this would be a great time for me to share with y’all a wonderful whole wheat muffin recipe.  They are so extremely fast and easy to make that you can just whip ’em up at the last minute!

I am taking this recipe from a great cookbook called The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook.  I changed it a little by replacing King Arthur flour with our freshly  milled whole wheat flour.  I also replaced the white refined sugar with all-natural sugar called Sucanat to make it healthier.

Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 cups Sucanat (sugar)
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup of oil
  • 2 eggs

Step #1

Preheat oven to 500 degrees, and mix all the dry ingredients together in medium size bowl. Set aside.

Step #2

Beat milk, oil,and eggs together in small bowl. Set aside.

Step #3

Make a hole in dry ingredients then pour wet ingredients into the hole.  Stir for ONLY 20 seconds.  Spoon batter into muffin tins and place in oven.  As soon as you put the muffins in the oven,  turn the temperature down to 400.  Bake for 15 minutes.  ENJOY!!!!

What are your favorite recipes to whip up real fast?

 

 

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Winter Firewood Cutting

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Larry Braley

Wood stove and fire wood.

It’s that time of the year again when the family works together to gather the firewood for the winter.  Cutting our own firewood can be a lot of work, but we all enjoy being in the woods in the fall and early winter.  Besides the benefit of reducing our winter heating bill, cutting our own wood is a great life lesson for the kids in diligence, responsibility and team work.

Skidding a log back to the house

Everyone pitches in to do the various chores to gather the wood.  I do the felling and limbing of the trees in our woods and then skidding the larger logs to the house with our old Farmall M tractor—what a great machine!  Olivia has started learning how to skid the logs and really enjoys learning to handle the tractor.  Skidding the larger logs to the house cuts down on much of the loading and unloading work and is a big time saver.

Theo catching a ride with Liv.

Bucking a log

I buck the smaller logs in the woods, and all the kids get in the act of collecting the wood and loading them in the old Dodge truck.  They really enjoy the ride back and forth to the house.  I buck the larger logs near the furnace, and the kids help in rolling the cut rounds to our Husky splitter where Theodore enjoys manning the splitter with his sister.

Theo the splitter man

We burn about eight to ten cords of wood each winter in our Hardy outdoor furnace.   With a twelve hour burn, our Hardy provides both heat for the house and hot water.   I load the furnace twice a day once in the morning before going to work and then again at bedtime.  I like a warm toasty house in the winter and the Hardy fits the bill.

A nice thing about the Hardy is that it will burn somewhat green wood as long as I have a good mixture of cured wood with it.  This helps when I’m a little behind in getting trees ready for the winter—which usually happens for me.

Do you enjoy cutting firewood and working with your family?  What are some ways you have made the process easier?

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2012 Fall Party

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Livvy

The hayride all ready to go.

This last Saturday our family hosted a great fall party.  Fall parties are one of our favorite things to do on our country homestead.  Many our wonderful friends came and we had a blast!

We had a huge bonfire and lots of good food.   Dad hooked up the hay wagon to the old Farmall M tractor, and we enjoyed riding down the country roads in the starlight.

Friends getting ready for bonfire

It was a time of great fellowship and fun for everyone.  Thanks to all our friends who joined us for this wonderful day.

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