Growing Tomatoes

One thing that I like to do when planting tomatoes is to dig a deep post hole where each tomatoe will be planted and fill it with compost. Tomatoes seem to run out of nutrients later in the season otherwise. This also gets organic matter deeper into the soil over time. (This is a small scale "carbon sequestration" that removes carbon from the atmosphere and sequesters it in the soil. Actually anything that increases the amount of organic matter in the soil serves to sequester carbon for a period of time. The more carbon that is in the soil, the less there is in the atmosphere.)

Rotating the location of tomatoes is also important to prevent viral and fungal diseases. There is a pretty good overview of these diseases at

http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetablepatch/a/TomatoProblems.htm

I do not know if all of their recommendations are organic.

Chicken Coops (Moveable)

This is my first moveable chicken coop.

It's built on 6x6 pressure treated (ACQ) skids and is 8' x 8', allowing it to be moved with a compact tractor. The doors on the side open to a storage area big enough for about 5 - 5 gallon pails of feed. Galvanized metal nest boxes are mounted inside on the wall.

The pvc piping on the roof feeds two micro-sprinkler heads. When the temperature gets over a 100 degrees, we hook a garden hose to it and it keeps the roof wet, which drops the temperature inside the coop significantly.



I fiberglassed the floor inside to prevent rot. I use a thick layer of aged wood chips for bedding.

This coop will accomodate 25 hens, though it usually houses about 14-15.

I improved upon some of the details in the second, larger coop that was built primarily for broilers.  This coop is 10' x 12' and is built on a steel subframe and skids.  There are no interior studs.  The 2x4 exterior vertical battens take the place of the studs, and eliminate the pockets between the studs on the interior.  This makes the interior much easier to clean.  Moving this coop is right at the limit for my compact 4wd tractor (about 30 hp).

Bobby's Background

    Since we are all new to this, I figured it would be a good idea to spend a few minutes going over my background in a little more detail than on the welcome screen.

      I am a 19 year old college kid and I do college kid stuff.  I try to surf as often as I can, will jump in any body of water to swim, and love every kind of water sport.  My parents live in a sub-division on a little more than an acre so true agricultural life started for me when I moved to the farm on my 18th birthday.  I was devoted to the FFA (Future Farmers of America) in high-school which sparked my interest in gardening, poultry and livestock.  My initial inclination toward organics was a product of Mac's influence, although I know see the benefit and importance of this lifestyle.

     When it comes to school, I enjoy most math subjects although I've had to really work at it lately.  I am lucky enough to have an academic scholorship that takes care of school expenses.  I will be transfering from community college to a four year university sometime in the next year.  I hope to begin working for an Environmental Engineer before I graduate to get my foot in the door.

     I have a very close net of friends, most of whom live about an hour from me and attend my girlfriends college.  We spend as much time as we can together, they are my foundation.  My family is extended, expanded, complicated, but great.  Both of my parents remarried after their divorce, each adding step-siblings.  Christmas is always a long day, four sets of grandparents and all.

     Right now, the farm is my life.  I rarely vacation too far away because I quickly get homesick,  between the garden, the rolling pastures, the ducks, the chickens, the horses, the cat, and the dogs, what is there to have vacation from?

Freezing Green Beans

     I tried my luck at freezing green beans this week.  I started by picking some of the older beans from Mac's garden and carrying them home (girlfriend holding them on the handlebars of my bike down a half-mile dirt path). 
     I filled a five quart stock pot about 3/4 full and put it on a burner on high.  Elizabeth snapped the ends off then passed them to me to chop them into smaller peices, about one inch long.  I then washed them in a normal collander, picking out any pieces that had rough spots or bug bites.  About the time we had everything chopped, the water had started to boil.

     Now came the fun part, beans need to be blanched to stop the enzyme action that will ruin them, even in the freezer.  Blanching time is important- too little accelerates the enzymes, while too much makes the beans tough.  Exactly three minutes produces the best frozen beans.  I dropped all the cut bean peices in at once and blanched them for 3 minutes and 30 seconds.  The extra thirty seconds was to allow the water to return to a boil.  As soon as the threee minutes was up, I poured the beans back into the collander that they were rinsed in and ran cold water into the pot they came out of.  I added a little ice and dumped the beans back in to cool.  A good rule of time is to cool the vegetables for the same time that they were blanched, so in our case, 3 minutes.  While we waited we marked the freezer bags with the type of vegetable and the date they were frozen.  Then the only thing left to do is to put a couple handfuls into each bag, squeeze out most of the air and pop in the freezer.  I've read that one handful is two servings but my serving size is usually two handfuls.

     This task was easy enough to do several more times this year without too much stress and produces lots of beans with only a little work.  Feel free to comment and point out any errors that I made or ideas that you have.  Links will be added on the right hand side of the home page.  Each has great info and easy links to instructions for freezing other vegetables.