Flagg Beans Overview and Spring Update

Posted on April 23, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

As most folks know I really like rare old plant types and I collect a number from Europe but I also have a love for old Canadian or N.A. heritage plants with a special interest in those of indigenous background. If they were from any of the local area’s of Ontario or Quebec even better.

Flagg Bean is a rare bean that also goes by the name Skunk or Chester in some circles. Got to love when a bean has three different names 🙂 It is considered a Iroquois pole bean that has been around a long time, it produces really lovely black and white beans with the odd white bean or the odd mostly black bean. It is a pole bean and it will climb 12 feet if you let it, have a very strong structure for these, you can bring it down to more standard five or six feet in height but it will need to be helped to grow sideways etc

Its a very short season bean, I have seen as short as 80 days listed or as long as 90 days listed, I say that is about right considering the weather and such.

This bean has been grown on the farm in normal years, drought years and flood years and it has proven itself going strong in all the ways.

I do eat the very young green beans here at the farm but once they are of size, you will find them tough if you want to fresh eat them or freeze them, however I find they outstanding as a pickled bean when used young and tender and of course as a dry bean for soups and stews! Very heavy producers, I have always offered them very rich soil to grow in with reasonable drainage in a normal year.

I didn’t mean to do this but I am now on my second year of overwintered beans on the vine, I left the vines and the last beans on two years ago and they overwintered nicely in 2016, I thought huh and just for kicks planted them out in 2017 to see if they would grow and grow they did..  last fall, we picked lots of fresh green beans and I have lots of seed left from my proper harvest of them in 2016 so I told hubby just leave them, we will get to it in the spring 2018

Well, there was ton’s of dried pods on the vine, looking really nice with full clean and plump looking beans in them.. once we picked, cleaned and sorted, we got 2 pounds 11 oz of really nice second year overwinter Flagg or Skunk Pole Bean Seeds. More then I will need for planting this year but I will do some to see if they will grow and overwinter here on the farm for year 3.

 

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Cheap Labour aka Fire

Posted on April 22, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

While this only works to a point and must be done safely, the truth is when it come to spring clean up and labour, fire can be a very useful tool.

Update (got a note from one of my awesome readers) yes please check if you are allowed to have open air fires, if you need to burn in a pit or if you can burn on the ground or if you need a fire permit from your local county.

In our case, we are allowed a 1 meter fire year around (so three feet by three feet) and we can use a burn pit or barrel. In regards to the photos shown, you must rake, roll and disconnect the plant material from the ground and take it to the fire in smaller limited amounts that keeps it within that approx. 1 meter fire. That is why it took us x hours to rake and x hours to burn.   You can get a much bigger burn permit when needed for a very reasonable fee in our area.  

What you can NEVER get is permission to burn fields, ditches or lawns.

Most of the time we have the time an energy to collect, haul,, build a compost pile or hugelbed the tree offering, the bio mass from last year. its wanted and its very useful indeed.

Fire is used every year at certain points, you always want to burn sick plants or wood trimming, never adding them to your compost piles or as below burning extra burdock seed heads that I do not want going to seed.

However this year, I am using it as a helpful labour tool, I am have smaller very carefully created and watched in place fires where I am raking and burning that dried, winter kill bio mass in both front, side yard an yesterday in the main garden.

 

It still took three hours on our first round of raking-cleaning and five plus burning but it saved many more to do it this way. The Strawberry Bed needs some more work but I love seeing the new growth on the wee plants

The ground is still frozen under a few inches in a number of places yet and the rest is still to wet to work when I started, so that needs a few more drying and warming days yet before I can work those ones up.

Today I will spread the cold ashes in a thin layer in the old potato beds from last year and mix it  into the soil itself for later spring planting for root veggies, clean ash is very good in small amount for your soil, I use a quarter inch or so of clean burned wood ash every second year in the gardens. remember to keep your stored ash dry before putting it on and mixing it in.

 

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Horse Trough Garden

Posted on April 21, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

I have seen new Metal Horse Troughs used on Facebook and I will admit that they do work well but if you can find old ones that have rusted out, it’s going to be a lot cheaper than buying new from the store’s. This big old trough cost us 2 dollars at a farm sale, no one wanted it because it did not hold water. This just meant that it had drainage to me 🙂

I have used this trough as a hot manure box it was a very raw of mixed straw and manure from the barn but its last fill up was in 2015. This what I started with all the left over bits from last year as well as blow in stuff including leaves.

I am trying to figure out why I had placed a rock in last year.. but it’s just not coming to me now..

Cleaned it up but still very chunky and in need of work. I decided that I would give it a double dig if it was thawed though enough to do it, I also really wanted to see what was happening downward as I was thinking about growing root veggies as the second crop and that only works if I have the depth to do it with.  Because I had lost 30 to 35% of volume in the composting process, I needed to decide what I wanted to do this spring, I am going to use it as is and will top it up in late fall.

I dig down till I hit bottom and just look at how crazy well that composted down in place, After I turned it all, I needed to work the soil to a finer point.

Then I seeded it out for an early spring crop of kitchen garden foods, there is all kinds of early mixed greens, radishes and such and then it got covered with a topper of glass to increase the heat for the next while. It means that I will need to water it but it will also increase growth of both the seed and the plants.

It was great to get even one small garden plot cleaned up and planted out, one at a time will get it done. This is a very easy form of raised garden bed, the challenge for the average person is going to be the cost to fill it.. it takes a lot of soil and of course it will also need to be watered in a way that in ground often does not.

 

 

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Friday off.. sort of

Posted on April 20, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Well, I was off the farm lots today, I had one of those days that homesteaders and farmers rarely talk about on the blog.. those days were we run all over the country it seems trying to get all kinds of ducks in rows and there is always something waddling off this way and that.. LOL

I got up at normal time and did get some morning chores but thankfully I had checked my calender the night before, I thought I had to get there at 9:30..nope 8:45.. ok that’s a bit faster.

Marble and River Kitten’s had been caught at 6pm last night and crated up till this morning where they were driven to the vets to get their spays and required by law vaccines. Marble cost me a pretty penny more because she was not done before she was an adult.. timing on things just didn’t work out and now I have to pay more.

Thankfully River is still under a year in age and so she did get the kitten discount.. still all said and done, its pretty much 300 per cat.. better than other places in cost but still a huge! chunk of cash for an outdoor barn cat that tomorrow could be gone.

Its something that needs to be done as I do not want kittens on the farm, I want an altered only group of cats. It’s not hard to find farm cats or kittens in need of a new home if I want to add a new cat to our little farm pride. There is a new program called Barn Buddies that does farm cat clinics for altering, Its my understanding that they are 120 per female cat, but nothing else is done.. no checks, no rabies, no overnight after care and no working relationship with the vet afterwards.

It’s a mixed thing to me.. on one hand even with the gas driving to the pick up and drop off point, it’s still a savings of about a 160 per cat but then none of the above.. so I paid more and left the spots (which were totally filled) on the Barn Buddy spaying slots for someone else in the area that needed it just a touch more.

Then I was off to doctors for follow-up on a few things and renewals and I need to mail something.. well that was just not meant to be, first post office system was down and so no go, I took the time to drive over to a different town afterwards and arrived five minutes after 12 and they were closed for an hour for lunch.. I know they all close for an hour for lunch from noon till 1..  Small town living at its finest 🙂

However at the point I gave up and came back to the farm. It was a busy morning in a very different way but still productive in its own way. Did my 3:30 check call to confirm that the girls were recovering well and all is looking good.

Then I did some outside chores and started working in the gardens, I needed to do some looking here and some looking there to figure out what I am doing next and I have got it pretty figured out at this point..  I will take photos as I go, but I do instead to get at least one or two beds ready and planted this weekend.

So much raking to do in regards to picking up tiny and not so tiny branches do to the ice storm and I need to figure out if I want to burn than or if I want to use them in a new Hugel bed. We will see, I need to have a good look at the other beds and see if I need to top them up more then I need a brand new bed.

The weather today has been outstanding, plus 7 with little wind and sunshine.. you need a coat on but who cares.. LOL It finally feels a bit like spring!

 

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Ice Storm 2018 Ontario Ottawa Area

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Well, the ice storm arrived and we were without power for three days pretty much..

We got ICE!  It snapped power poles like they were toothpicks, it brought down tree’s and ripped roofs off and more.. We lost a number of tree’s in the pasture, part of the sheet metal on the big barns roof and a huge part of one of our big grandfather tree’s, that thankfully missed the deck and the old part of the house but if it had fallen different, it could have struck the house easily enough

The prep work for the farm worked very well and thanks to dear friends we got a helping hand on a few other things that were needed including being asked over to have a hot shower and to get a hand on getting our sump pump running again.. Grateful!

I was grateful for the warm feather quilts made by the Hutterites made by our friends that helped keep us warm and for the wool blankets gathered over the years from our local farm sales and second hand shops. The biggest issue we had was trying to dry out the outdoor gear between chores.. Thankfully we have extra’s to use as needed. Mom’s little dog enjoyed her time on the bed and on the couches with her blankets, she was not quite as pleased to be wearing a baby lambs coat for the worst of it, but she gets cold easy and it helped keep her body heat in.

As always the Ecozoom stove is outstanding.. four little tiny sticks an you can boil a gallon of water, cook a meal and with the Shuttle Chef, you can hot water on demand, I really must get another one, so that I can keep hot water for drinks, washing etc in one and a meal ready in the other. You would be hard pressed to do even a faction of it with a regular fire with 1/4th of a standard wood stove piece of wood.  the kindle cracker comes in very handy for this as well. I used pre-cut and pre-dried pine for the stove during the icestorm. That is the joy of the properly done kettle stoves.. little fuel for big payout!

Well, I had better get back to the farm, how was your weekend? I did learn of some gaps in my preps for ice storms and I will try and figure out what I want to change or add and update more once I settled on what!

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Slow Start to the weekend.

Posted on April 15, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Well, the storm is certainly coming  but its been slower to start then they said for our neck of the woods at least. We are close to a full day behind what they said it would start, I am ok with that, it has given us time to do more prep work and it also gave me rest time We have stuffed all the outdoor rabbit hutches as full as possible to keep the rabbit kits protected from this bitter wind and cold.

I needed to move my big boy Jack, the buck goat, normally this just means leading him with a bucket of grain or at the worst grabbing his set of horns and helping lead him to were we want him to go.. but yesterday he had gotten himself in a bit of a pickle and the easiest way to get him out of it and back to his stall was to help lift him over a gate.

Normally I would have had the head-front and hubby would have had the rear but as my darling man is off the lifting area, I had him shake the bucket with grain so that Jack would stand up on the gate to get to it and then I lifted him up and over it.

Dang that is one heavy big buck and once he got his front legs down to the ground, and had the ability to really do so.. he kicked out with both back legs and his feet nailed me, one just under my jaw and into the jaw (felt like I took a nice upper cut punch) and the second hit me in the lower throat area..  They went red and swollen pretty much right away and it gave me a heck of a headache for most of Saturday.

I got the rest of the chores done and then I took some pain meds, something to help bring down the swelling and I went to bed.. hubby looked after the house, the dogs and made a lovely hot supper. I was grateful for the rest.

I woke up expecting something and we just had a tiny bit of snow, so the morning went well but by lunch the winds and some freezing rain was coming in.. we did the last round of chores hours early as the radar shows solid color coming in.  I will be working in the house for the rest of Sunday

Farm Gal Tip of the day.. When your canned fruit is starting to get lower in numbers, extend it by making lots of Jello fruit salads or desserts. A little fruit in a bowl of jello goes much further then eating fruit alone 🙂

 

Posted in At the kitchen table | 3 Comments

Great Week Indeed

Posted on April 13, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

The walking onions are just starting to poke up out of the ground, I have a few patches of them that need to be thinner out and replanted out into a new area.. that is something that always makes me smile when I see that.. you can never have to many onions on the farm

So many big and some smaller new from last year Comfrey plants starting to show themselves. Most of them will be used for fodder (livestock feed to the sheep and goats, and a smaller amount to the rabbits and the chickens) with the rest of the extra being used in the garden or the food forest as a cut and drop feed.

I need to split out and replant a number of my horseradish plants, these are not used for the roots but for the greens for fresh and cooked eating. One of the easiest greens to grow in the gardens and they make outstanding dried greens for the kitchen as well

Not much nettle growth yet but they are there and starting but many of them are only a inch or two at this point, a few might be three inches but lots of growth to go on them before I will be able to start even smaller harvest amounts. I always find it interesting that some of the nettles come up purple in the spring and others come up green

This week has been a good one, I have had visits with friends, have had laughs and more, I have worked on this and that on the house and in the yards.. I am working on the basic plan of keep up on the chores, keep up on the basic’s in the house and then find a way to do 15 to 30 min each day to do extra farm-yard work,  garden work and extra more in-depth house work.

I am very pleased with the work that got done, we are under a ice storm warning, we had a amazing day, this afternoon was sunny and I put in a couple hours of extra chores it was plus 9, that is the about as nice as we have had. It is to start raining today, which is to turn to snow and then we are under a ice storm warning for late Saturday and all day sunday and into Monday.

And then they say it will change to rain and that its going to really! rain so we will see how it all goes. I have lots of work to do in the house so as long as we do not lose power, it will be a productive weekend.

Posted in At the kitchen table | Tagged | 5 Comments

A little Lamb Love

Posted on April 8, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Big Female (single) at the back, then first born set of twins, Ram Lamb in the middle an his sister at the front, with a touch of Jada a yearling goat rear end

Only one of the second born set of twins, they are both ram lambs, and no photos of the newest yet, they are out of the wind, safely tucked in the jug, nursing an growing

man, the drought year 2016 an the flood year 2017 has done a job on my pastures.. and will need to hire again this year to have the pastures dragged

Let me check out this big new world with my nose I can learn much by smell as well..  she is so darn cute! her brother is sweet as well

 

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What a clean up needed!

Posted on April 7, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

I went out to take photos of the main garden and then decided that a short video to show just how bad it really is would work so much better.

The bones of the garden are still there, the rich soil and the pathways are there, even if overgrown at the moment.  This is the worst garden that I will be working with.  Its not the same as starting from bare soil by any means but its still going to be a rough go on it.

Let me know if you liked having a little video to go with, since I upgraded the blog last year I can post them much easier. I also have a new data plan, so I could do a short one once or twice a week if folks liked it?  I thought it might be fun to show how this garden goes though the season.

The perennials will be the fastest to clean up.. clear out the pathways, and bed them down well.  Dig out all the new babies and pot them up, use them,  Sell them or gift them away. they can stay in the pots until later in the season.

Then over the next six weeks I will do as much food harvesting as I can while I clean up, if not for house use, pretty much everything other than fleabane can go to the big barn, the little greens and the young budding branches will be much-loved from the new momma’s and the pig will be happy to eat any roots I want to send his way.

I need to set up an electric pen for him to come out a dig and eat on a patch of thistle roots this spring and turn the soil for me to heavily re-seed it.

Then it will depend on the weather to large point on how much early soil working I can do, how much early season planting can happen, however I will need this garden fully working and planted out in the next six to eight weeks.

 

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March Challange round up 2018

Posted on April 6, 2018 by Just another day on the farm

Well my March Challenge didn’t go as expected, nothing quite like getting derailed. Hubby and working the farm plus lambing and voila.. add in the flu for me an no time for posts, no time to be creative on meals, I wanted them simple, easy and salad at every supper and fresh fruit in the house for daily use for hubby’s healing needed.

I spent 36 dollars on the third week for hubbies needs and I spent 29 in week four, I didn’t go crazy and I was a good girl in the fact that I eat canned or fruits, I kept all meats, egg and milk from the farm..  Also all the green onions you could want in top form.

Dang fruit, veggies and bread are crazy costly! I have to admit that I really was unhappy about buying bread but I just have not got back into the bread making like I should be since my mom moved to the house.

We had another set of twin lambs born in the barn overnight, they were not there on last check and were there on morning chores. I moved the last set of twins out of the jug and into the momma-baby pen and moved the new mom and babies into the jug after a bit of freshening up. Still pretty new and pretty hollow but bonded.

Everything is was frozen this morning, now we have a sleety wet rain with mud being tracked. I am well enough that I am making five hours as my max up before I need a rest. Hopefully that will be extended soon.

My mom is quite sick in Alberta, viral pneumonia and such.. she has been sick and on meds for a while now and going back to the doctor today for another round of help. Part of me wishes that she was hear so I could give a helping hand and part of me is glad she is not hear and didn’t get my flu thing on top of her current illness.

Hubby is slowly, very slowly getting better. He did go to work for three days this week with one teli-work day.  I think that he is back to work now full time but still off the farm chores for another six weeks.

Everything is shedding out their winter coats, grooming the dogs daily at this point trying to keep the amount of hair needing to be cleaned up in the house down and if you walk by the horse’s they will shed half a horse on you!

Goodness are they muddy beasts and so much pasture clean up is required..  I swear they laugh at me when they greet me at the gate after a fresh mud roll.. Their Bromance is going strong. I had to laugh at them when I came out with halters, they were both so excited to see them.. clearly they are looking forward to doing ground work and going for walks. They have had their spring worming. I have been just going out and grooming them free style but maybe I will halter them up and do a tie and groom just to give something new to it.

The weekend is to be warmer then now but still below freezing. However next week appears to be more normal spring temps.. or so they say now.. we will see..

 

 

 

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