Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[Montegriffo]

Wheat yield low although the straw is good.
Barley was poor, just too dry in spring.
Beans (fava) good crop and high price as Egypt has a real shortage this year and is buying up every last bean.
Cox apple tree didn't produce a single apple, probably due to hard frost at the beginning of the year.
Hay crop decent despite lack of rain. Very good weather for turning and drying out.

[C-Mag]

My garden pretty much sucked too. Weeds, more than anything, as we didn’t have time to take care of them. Two toddlers is just too much.

We did manage to keep the immediate area clear around our plants though, and we got a few lbs of cherry tomatoes, a dozen cucumbers, and some more. Didn’t do beans this year, but didn’t need to. We’re still finishing off the pile from last year.
Onions did well too, which was a shocker. Couldn’t even get them to come up last year.

I planted 2 more apple trees, and my grapevines gave their first little bunch.

It’s about time to take it all down and plant the winter wheat cover crop. Hopefully this will refuel the soil for next year. I’m planning to use my little farmhands all summer.

Hey, who gave you permission to reproduce

I'll be interested to hear how the winter wheat crop goes.

[C-Mag]

Wheat yield low although the straw is good.
Barley was poor, just too dry in spring.
Beans (fava) good crop and high price as Egypt has a real shortage this year and is buying up every last bean.
Cox apple tree didn't produce a single apple, probably due to hard frost at the beginning of the year.
Hay crop decent despite lack of rain. Very good weather for turning and drying out.

Cool.

Do you bale hay or stack it ?

[Montegriffo]

Wheat yield low although the straw is good.
Barley was poor, just too dry in spring.
Beans (fava) good crop and high price as Egypt has a real shortage this year and is buying up every last bean.
Cox apple tree didn't produce a single apple, probably due to hard frost at the beginning of the year.
Hay crop decent despite lack of rain. Very good weather for turning and drying out.

Cool.

Do you bale hay or stack it ?

Round baled for the cows to eat over winter.

Only long stalk wheat was grown this year (23 acres) but some was just combined as it couldn't all be sold for thatching.
I was disappointed about the cox as they're my favourite apple but the neighbour's kid who usually makes cider with the apples moved to Toronto last year so there wouldn't have been any made anyway.

[SuburbanFarmer]

My garden pretty much sucked too. Weeds, more than anything, as we didn’t have time to take care of them. Two toddlers is just too much.

We did manage to keep the immediate area clear around our plants though, and we got a few lbs of cherry tomatoes, a dozen cucumbers, and some more. Didn’t do beans this year, but didn’t need to. We’re still finishing off the pile from last year.
Onions did well too, which was a shocker. Couldn’t even get them to come up last year.

I planted 2 more apple trees, and my grapevines gave their first little bunch.

It’s about time to take it all down and plant the winter wheat cover crop. Hopefully this will refuel the soil for next year. I’m planning to use my little farmhands all summer.

Hey, who gave you permission to reproduce

I'll be interested to hear how the winter wheat crop goes.

Don’t think I’ll harvest much from it, but the straw will be excellent for weed cover next year.

[C-Mag]

It's early Winter. The last of the tomatoes picked at the end of September are coming ripe in the root cellar. Spuds, onions and spaghetti squash are still holding out.

I just finished making my winter sausage batch I affectionately call my Christmas baking.
25# Pork Breakfast Sausage
25# Summer Sausage - 15# Elk, 10# Ground beef
25# Kielbasa - 15# ground Pork, 7# Elk, 3# Ground Bacon.... large link sausage, smoked for 12 hours.
25# Garlic Sausage - all Pork, family recipe, key ingredient, 1# of minced Garlic, stuffed in rings and links, smoked 12 hours, and some left unsmoked.

The garden was put to bed in October. I have been using collected leaves to insulate the strawberrys and raspberrys against Winter kill and it has been working out quite well.

I inhereted a 20 gallon Red Wing crock that's been in the family for over 100 years, and the cabbage slicer that goes with it. I did a restoration on the cabbage slicer, dismantled, cleaned, knives sharpened, wood lightly sanded, treated with mineral oil. The wood was extremely thirsty. I made a mix of 4 parts mineral oil to 1 part bees wax as a sealer for the wood. The cherry wood looks great now.

Sometime in the next few weeks I'll be starting a batch of Sauerkraut. Old Bavarian recipe in the family. The crock is sitting in the root cellar and will stay there. When filled with veggies and brine, I won't be able to move it. After I make a batch of Kraut, pickles are next.

I'll try to get some pics up.

[Montegriffo]

Wow, someone's been a busy boy.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I managed to keep my kids alive. That’s about the height of my ambition for this past year

[C-Mag]

Survival of the species is the end goal.

Atta boy.

[SuburbanFarmer]

We used one of those crocks to make kraut last year actually. They’re fantastic.