Where do you get your seed garlic/what kind do you plant. All my bulbs were small and I would like to start over with some fresh seed. I prepped my small bed today. I only do a small plot with bout 25 plants or so.

Another few very good producers and low maintenance are berry bushes.
Raspberry, blueberry and blackberries don't take a ton of room once you train and trellis them. They produce a lot for jams and fresh fruits.
I struggle with trees. They are insect prone and take years to produce.
Its easier to buy a bushel of apples , peaches, pears than to raise them

Thanks Rich I am going to market this weekend and may drive by this place in Fulton. I sent off lefty the pig today, cows go in Dec.  still have a row of taters to dig and some sprouts left. That's it.

Put down a few hundred pounds of 10/10/10 yesterday and today in anticipation of the rain we are now having- first in a while.
Like the blend- acts fast and doesn't burn- also can use it on our plentiful flower beds.
Cut back about 75 Iris yesterday- only bout 300 to 350  more to go.
Also cut back 3 long Peoney beds.
Tulip are all in and need no  work.
Also started working on several dozen Hosta as well as wildflower beds and some annual climbing flowers.
Trimmed out the Rhodes and after the rain will attend to the Lilacs -they tend to branch out during the Summer.
Just let the Roses keep on keeping on till an early  Spring trim.
Next will be covering the Strawberries with several inches of Pine needles from the back yard.
Apple trees will get a late winter trim- heavy one too this year.
Dont do veggies to any great extent.
 
 

" Person needed for maintenance work in Fertilizer Factory, 12 bux an hour plus all the curl and squeak you can find!"
 
My "limited to pots" Garden season ends tomorrow, and the sauce gets made Monday.  Hardly bought any peppers this year, I'm hoping that was not a mistake.

Had a baby calf this am and it seems to be doing ok..  I saw it feeding this afternoon and that's the best sign.
We let nature decide on the calfs and do little to intervene .  yes I will help pull a little and do what I can  but I will only struggle with it so much. Sometimes I try to bottle feed if necessary but I will not struggle and fight with it. The strong survive and thrive. My grandfather said ''Why spend $200 on a vet bill for a $60 calf'' we heed his wisdom.
Pig hung out at 170 and in the freezer. Picked my sprouts and the last half bushel of taters. Cleaned pig pen and mixed with sawdust thinly  applied to garlic patch and will cover with leaves in a few weeks. The rest went on the big garden.  I planted like 30 of German hard neck. 10 of Italian soft neck and 10  of what I planted last year?????.  I know I will have a few surprises as I unearthed at least 5 bulbs that I ''missed'' . We will see.  I applied leaves to strawberries and took the fence down around the back garden. I am canning a few butternut squash that had bad spots and canning one large pumpkin that had a bad spot . Pumpkin will be for baking at thankgiving and such and the squash will be easy dump and warm for meals.  PEELING A PUMKIN SUCKS.  Froze the sprouts.  The remaing pumpkins will be saved and fed to the chickens over the winter . Also have a fair supply of spaghetti squash and butternut squash that will keep. Done other than minor clean up. I have to more weeks off and then bark to the grind, it has been nice being ''retired '' for the alt two months LOL 
 
Cows go to shop on 10\21

We canned 89 qts sauce
48 left including tonight's meal.
Not bad on the garden and farming.
I think our total produce and meats bill has dropped below 100 per month. I consider that great from a 100 per week. Our total groceries have reduced to about 50 per week. It's the bi products that hurt. We also don't eat out.
Need to get wife on board with reuse instead of single use and trash.
Now if I can only figure out the power situation. I'd truly like to be off the grid

It disappeared for 2 days , I thought the Yotes got it. It showed up today. I am trying to get stuff done on my oat week off. Putting double doors on a shed to give it more function so we can keep a tractor in it rather  than wood. I stopped going from split to shed, from shed to home. Taking a step away. Just half way piling where it falls from the splitter, then right in the basement

I keep  15  to 17 cords in the basement. A whole wall piled 6.5 high and 3 rows deep.   There is usually 2 cords on the wagon covered, one in the back of plow truck, which is inside and usually a cord or 2 left over in the basement. This lets me burn 4 to 5 cords of dry stuff seasoned 1.5 to 2 years.  when the stuff brought in from the current year it is usually close to a year since dropped and 6 to 7months  seasoned since split It finishes  drying out in the hot basement for a few months while burning the dry stuff . I cut my trees in the fall right after leaves are gone, buck and split in the spring and it sits in piles till brought in , in the fall. I guess it works. This year I am way ahead and have 6 more cord out back stacked between 2 trees  with a tarp on top. I may almost have enough cut and split for next year without cutting any so I am going to try to stay ahead of the game from here on out. I have been cutting our stone wall and its easy accessibility and not going in the woods is saving me a ton of time and work. Should be enough for 6 or  7 years on the wall, but as soon as I find a reasonable winch to purchase I will go back in the woods. Its a labor of love LOL

I covered mine with leaves this weekend .  I also took a bunch of left over cloves and randomly planted them in a bunch of spots to see if I can get some grow ''wild " . I found a few bulbs growing this year around an old shed foundation that my grandmother  remembered  it fell in when she was a teenager, so 75 plus years ago. So possibly that garlic growing was originally planted way back when...........
I found Another calf on Sunday  I think born on Friday but dont know for sure  as it looks very similar to the first one so I could of missed it thinking it was the first one.  not more than a week old though its cord was dry , but still long

Well its dark when I leave and dark when I come home, I wish I had an hour.......

Well 4 calves doing fine and our trial with round bales is working well.  I should of known better , but I have been letting the chickens out the alt few days. I lost five yesterday to a fox by the prints in the snow. To make matters worse all 5 were the years birds so I am left with all 2 year birds now that do not lay as much. Will have to start over next summer.   I am running at half speed as I had a stress test a few weeks ago and ended up in the hospital for a few days.  I had been getting short of breath with shorter and shorter walks.  3 cardiac caths , 2 nuke stress tests and ct scans and they found nothing really wrong with my heart, but  my arteries are spasmodic cutting off blood . I have one more test coming up. Lots of meds making me tired, but able to walk farther with no issues.  After the MRI  I will feel more secure with the diagnosis and hopefully the meds work.

Good news with the cows. I think they will make up for the chickens. Any losses though suck because of the time put into things.

Medically:
Take it slower brother.
Stress seems the biggest ailment. At least from all the same tests I've had also. It cost me a fortune and doctors found nothing wrong on the diagnosis except throw pills at me. I dumped them all after 4 months of wondering what am I doing.
I went to working and worrying less and have felt much better.
I hope it passes soon and quickly .
Don't get those winter blues, lol

I know its early but with the lack of ice and winter, I'm getting stir crazy. I know the wrath is coming and some say in like a lamb- out like a lion but we got less than 60 days of frigid weather that can happen. There will be not burned out after 20 weeks straight walking on water giving up for me this year. I haven't been out once in 2020 yet.

Anyway, I cut some free roadside firewood tonight given limited daylight.
There is a huge powerline clearing going on and its getting while getting is good thing. Starting on next years pile is always a good thing.
I'm also giving garden and livestock lots of thought.
Since I took over half my garden for garlic in the fall I need to come up with a plan for my necessary crops. We did 100 tomato plants from seed last year. 89 quarts sauce.
We are doing well in usage and I think I can scale back to 75 plants.
Less cucumbers also, we are pickled out. I did 8 cucumber plants last year.
Things I'd like to improve on is more perenial things like asparagus, fruits and berries.
We love cabbage, broccoli, califlower and zucchini but fail at preserving them for long term unless pickled which we can only take in moderation.
Suggestions welcomed. Blanched and freeze ? Pressure cann ? I'm not familiar with this much..
We do well with green beans, corn and peas doing that but not the above .

Livestock :
My haul was 50 meat chickens. 25 spring, 25 late summer. We think they are awesome but I'm overstocked. 40 total would suffice I think.
We also did 2 pigs for us ( 1 other for son ).
That seems just about right with 2.
My 50 lbs bacon is now at 5 lbs uncured.
By summer all pork will be gone.

The dilemma I have is should I expand for others or scale back for just us.
I always want to raise enough food to feed an army and it will get put to good use .

Mention home made Kraut annnnnnd ya got my attention. Kraut freezes very well too, so if ya want to freeze some while ya let the rest ferment a little longer.... OHhhh BOY!! [he said drooling]



Hey Lucky, I herd steamed Broccoli goes well with trout. Cauliflower is great mashed up like taters annnnd who can resist fried zucchini and/or zucchini bread.

Speaking of smashed taters, roast up some garlic and toss it in the mix.

Dam it...... now I need a snack.