#thestudentfarmer

Hello hello :)

Garden update today 😀

The free ball patch has been cleaned up and out of all the dead and dying

Looks very need now, I added 2 bhsofcompost an threwouta variety of random seeds. Good luck to the seeds! Ive left some flowers so I can get abitmore seed from them and some what I cutrentlybelueve us mullien starts (I want the leaves for herbal tea and for smoking purposes)

The tomato doesn't seem to be growing all that much, nor are the peppers. im hoping it's a plant issue, rather than bed issue.

Also direct seededsome zuchinni seeds here, though i have yet to see growth.

Some of the Easter egg rafishs are growing, ill likely be leaving most of them to go to seed toreplenish the bag that was lost.

Green onion still flowering throughout the garden

Corn and replanted area. I see 1 lil stalk starting 🥳

Thy grass grew back fast. If the corn cant or grows in Poorly i may do corn transplants with the next batch, just to see if I can.

The other batch of radish is flowering more and has started developing pods

Ill be collecting these pods. I am not yet sure what ill be replacing the radish with yet when the time comes.

Thr chard got a serious trim and bounced back fast!

I was hoping the trim would force more bolting,but it didn't yet. The chickens will continue to enjoy more chard once a week for awhile longer

A close up of one of the 2 chards which is getting ready to seed

Last but not least, the carrots.

Couple are getting ready to flower, if ive time i intend to going and thin out/harvest som of these carrots and just let a few go to flower and seed.

In addition i direct seeded some melons in oneif the beds and bush type beans in another.

Sadly the chayote squash is planted kicked the can, but one inside has sprouted by accident, so thy will be planted soon

Got some seeds started for transplants

Pear tomatos

Louffa

Watermelon

Tobacco

Zuchinni

Armenian cucumbers

Bird gourds

Okra

At the moment, as well ive slowly been getting the back garden into some sort of order. Updates to come when its a bit more ordered.

And i believe thats it for the current update

Thanks for stopping by :)

Full side view

Row 1= a pumpkin, variety of sunflowers and Valor beans

The pumpkin has two fruits on it at the moment! I'm gonna post a few pics of what it looks like currently a little further down.

For the sunflowers we just mixed a bunch of different ones together so there's some Mammoth, Boss (black oil sunflower) and some stuff we had left over from the last sunflowers we grew!

Row 2 = nasturtiums further away and cabbage

A little view of row 2

Row 3= Armenian cucumbers and egg plants

The Armenians aren't spreading out too much but that's more our fault than the plants, it's not in a super sunny spot and it tends to do better when it's slightly sunnier spot in the winter.

Row#4= more valor beans closer with some remnants of cabbage, carrots and radish.

Close up of the pumpkins!

One of the eggplants is starting to show signs of getting flowers/fruit.

A valor bean on the plant

While they aren't really branching out one of them does have a lot of little cucumbers starting!

Went to get some green onions from the garden and found a couple of super big and thick ones 👀👀 just had to share them cause I was startled how big they got!

Like that stalk is huge!

If you cant read the spoon thats a tablespoon for size comparison

I used them for dinner (baked cheese potato cassarole with Mexican seasoned beef), a crockpot of pozole and i still have a 1/2 pint sliced in the fridge just from the greens. (Probably will use for omlettes, or burritos)

The stalks i think ill be slicing and freezing for quick use or saving for soup stock next week.

Anyways just wanted to share these ginormous beauties 🌱

Hello hello, time for a little garden update!

First up. The freeball patch 🌱 as soon as the weather is less drizzly out, I need to get in here and thin out/weed a bit

From the back side

From the front

Peas next

No blooms yet, though im hoping we shall see some soon

The breakfast radish

This is the bed made of the old bookshelf, I cleaned out one side as id like to plant some rainbow radish :)

Rat tail radish

Im starting to see a few lil pods, hoping the birds wont help themselves before we get a few.

Sunchokes

The flowers on this one didn't seem to last very long :( when the shrubbery bit dies back im gonna dig them up and likely just replant them for now.

Corns next

There's some ears now!! :D ill be harvesting and replanting soon

New green onion patch, just a few lil sprigs popping up yet. The weeds here will go to chicken salad soon :)

The old green onion patch, I trimmed about half of them for now.

Chard that self seeded 🌱

I cant put any more pictures but the cucumbers are doing well. Ive harvested o believe 10 more since the last post. Half i gifted away and I swe plenty more getting ready to come in.

The broccoli is seed started, about half have sprouted. Soon as their a bit bigger ill be transplanting them.

In addition i got to visit a seed program recently and got a lot of lovely seed, update on what I'll be planting (di tree with seeding and starting) soon.

Thats it for now

Ladybugs!

Ladybugs everywhere! Full grown, lady-gators and the pupation stage in between! Im sure somewhere even is the eggs, tho I haven't yet seen them.

Enjoys the pictures of all stages :D

And a pic of their food sources, aphids that went nuts when fhe dill and cilantro/ parsley started flowering.

This one's just some seeds coming in :)

Hello hello~

Garden update!

The weather is finally cooling down enough I can be outdoors a bit more 🥳

So as long as im able to healthwise i will be gardening as often as possible 🌱

The cucumbers that self seeded, there are now 3 cucumbers growing in there 🌱

This chard also self seeded, im letting it grow for now until my broccoli starts get rolling. Once their big enough for transplants these will go.

The corn thats grown so far, there is 2 seperaye seedings here. I will soon be planting a third as I want to see how long throughout the winter here in zone 9a-10b will allow me to do so. Im pushing this year lol

The rat tail radishs, strangely enough I haven't seen much branching this grow. Just the root has been growing massively.

The breakfast radishs, I've gotten 5 harvests (I usually pull 6-15 at a time) so far. I think i will be leaving some to go to seed again. It was kind of a pain to collect the seed but absolutely worth it long run.

The front "free ball" seeding bed. Im seeing some okra sprouts, purple basil, what im hoping is mullien but might be one of the flowers and some leftovers from the lambs quarter (which i will be pulling with extreme prejudice as soon as they get a few inches tall)

The peas are finally sprouting!! And im not sure but there might be a cucumber there too, im just kinda letting it go for now but will be trimming it hardcore to see just how much trimming and shaping the armenian cucumbers can take.

Ive also started some broccoli seed starts, hoping to ahve time this week to get some other stuff, like peppers and tomatos started.

We also had a visitor! Its been quite some time since we've seen a red tailed hawk. This one came to visit twice while I was hanging out laundry to dry.

That's it for todays update :)

Hello hello,

Been a bit busy round the homestead with the weather change, but being busy seems more common than not being busy lol

The month olds hot moved outside, to make way for the new chicks inside

Given everywheres been sold out consistently and that nature will do as nature does, we'll likely continue hatching out through the summer.

Onwards to the garden,

I uppoted these melons and some zuchinnis so they can get just a lil bit bigger before full transplant. Any extras I'm gonna try to sell this year for garden funds.

Very little growth on the tomato and pepper seeds, I had hoped I'd be lucky with the weather but I guess I'll have to wait on having either and hope the one si left to overwinter start producing soon.

Not much in the new strawberry bed. The peas are producing a decent snack amount now, so I'll need to figure a way to double the size of pea/bean areas.

Did some dye work on some pants. They went from olive green, blue and khaki to as black as I could. Also hemmed them for summer wear.

I used rit dye and idye poly. Currently I would recommend both. Idye poly took a looong time to run clear before I could give them a run in the washer, they 100% covered the thread and buttons the rit dye did not.

Their not dark enough for the wearer yet, so I'm on the hunt for another dye to try. If anyone has suggestion the fabric is cotton and I believe a polyblend of some sort for the thread.

Also we got a composter, as we are pretty certain the city's recycling/green program hasn't been back to normal since the virus closures reopened, and ive seen both barrels picked up by the same truck more than once since. While we can't do much on that (except call up, complain/explain and take action), we decided it was time to learn composting to close and lesson our waste stream more if we can.

On the bonus side, when its done we'll have fresh dirt for our garden which is always a win 🏆. The worst so far has been figuring out a good collection and take out system for the daily bits 😂.

In the kitchen,

Ive been saving every citrus peel i can (using a veggie peeler to make strips) and drying them out. Some ive used for tea, some for dry seasoning flavor (super excellent btw, I cannot believe i ever enjoyed the dusty stuff in the cheapo bottle.) And fresh in sauces. I'm also saving seeds to give a try at sprouting them. Figure why not, it's good practice 🌱

Alright, ive got to get my day started so I'm heading off.

Hello and Good day,

Garden update~

There was a bit of a suprise in the garden. One of the cucumbers from last grow season it appears rotted enough to self seed :) so there will be some cucumbers this season!

The rat tail radish and breakfast radish are growing quite well so far, im very excited for the rat tail as they are from seed saved on the last 3 seeds (I threw them out in the back wild patch, fully expecting nothing to happen! But suprise! They grew and ended dup creating seed!) The breakfast radish will be thinned out soon to get some bigger globes.

Rat tail is growing in pretty nice so far

Breakfast radish below

I used the cornstarch slurry method to seed these, seems to have worked a lot better this time, though i think I cut the bag hole way to big as I didnt get the neat rows id been hoping.

This morn I went out and replanted the peas and beans as I think the added on compost/soil has had enough time to settle and leach as needed. In 6-12/14 days hopefully ill see some starts coming up :D

The front wild patch shows a teeny bit of growth. Not too much. Ill let it be a few more days for the currently sprouted things to get some legs up and replant/sow some more in the bed.

The sunchokes are growing pretty good

The green onions below, ill likely be trimming them back to ground level and letting them grow back one more time

Corn below, the second planting seems to have taken much better than the first.

The seed starter table has been almsot completed, I just need to get some sprinklers to adjust. Then I can get started on this winters starters. 🌱

Next for the back garden is a total clean up, which will involve weedeating, raking (disposal to the chickens, they love weedeating day!) Cleaning out all the currently placed garden beds (and likely tarping off one of them as it got very overgrown with grass while i was down and out of commision) and checking the lines and watering timer for any damages.

I also am working to get rid of ant problem that moved into the back wild patch so that I can do some actual amending upon it

🐥🐓🐔Chicken update

We did end up with just 4 out of 9 for the last hatchout of Heiheis eggs.

Unfortunatly for our replacement hens it does look like we may end up with 2 roosters. We will more than likely end up processing them for home eating as the usual venues for chicken trade and fundraising has not been busy.

In a few more days I will be starting another batch of eggs that will be sired by our current roo, Little Red.

🍳🍽Kitchen stuff~

So far with the good deal chicken ive made.....

Chicken seasoned with pickle juice and ancho chile seasoning (marinated overnight then baked) baked veggies carrots and broccoli. Served with a portion of rice (rice was cooked with the leftover juice from the prior night's baked chicken)

Today im making a garbonzo bean and Chile chicken soup (with celery and carrots too)

Since the chicken is on the drums I cut the meat off and saved the bones/"scraps" and set it aside to make stock broth. Tot he stock broth i added the carrot ends and peels, the onion butt and top, and the celery bits I didnt use for the soup. To it i added a cube of frozen chile sauce (homemade) and a cube of frozen diced ginger. The broth that'll be made in the end i intend to use for making rice.

I've also made tortillas this week, which got eaten up so fast I already need to make more lol

I hung up some jalapeno peppers to dry that I got from the grocery store as they were starting to turn red, when their dried up ill be grinding them to make chile powder for seasonings.

Some limes I got this week as well were peeled and juiced, the peels are currently drying and will be ground for seasoning mix later. The juice we've been using for limeade and cooking.

I believe for now thats it on the update :)