Farm Update April 13, 2015

Bought an old Howard Rotavator tiller. Having the driveline fitted. Will till soon.

Picked up three Broad Breasted turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Transplanted a few black locusts.

Farm updates

Wester Tent Caterpillars

Today we found these voracious beasts, above, on one of our Satsuma Plum trees. They're Western Tent Caterpillars. They will eat every leaf on a tree, every tree. They especially love Choke Berry. I'll have to find their natural predator and plant some habitat for the good guys.

Megan, Kahena, Henry and I were busy planting hops rhizomes (for glorious beer). Hopefully, in a few months we'll have some Chinook, Willamette, Tettnang, Centennial and Nugget nuggets to make glorious beer (which is glorious).

We intend to build trellises for the vines so they create a natural pergola to dine under--while drinking glorious beer, of course.

Juana's Orange Amaranth. It's a grain
plant and good fodder for animals.

I also transplanted about 50 Juana's Orange Amaranth from the hoop house to the farm. I didn't have water for the sprouts as I was relying on the predictions of Weather Underground that we'd have rain tonight. But by the time I'd dug the trenches, filled with dirt, and lovingly placed each sprout, the weather predictions had changed to clear skies and, ominously, 'may freeze'. 

Water helps plants survive freezes so I bucketed some from a full swale and, well, we'll see who is alive tomorrow.

The boss and her crew

Speaking of untimely demises.., the big gal in the photo above is a Bourbon Red turkey we got about three weeks ago. She (or he, I'm not good at sexing) is the only survivor of a cadre of four. I was warned that turkeys are extra hard to start so I kept the first batch warm, really warm, too warm, apparently. It is enough to say that there are going to be three more little creature souls waiting for me, along with a host of ants and bugs, to explain myself on the other side of the great divide.

Royal Palm turkeys

Here are a couple of the replacements. They're Royal Palms. Some of the problems with heirloom turkeys (heirloom pretty much means not big breasted, not modern industrial breeds) are that they're a lot smaller, take longer to mature and they can fly. But the advantages are that they're smarter, hardier, and some, like Royal Palms and Bourbon Reds, are great foragers.

These turkeys will all be housed under netting, so flying won't be a problem. And they're going on bug patrol so they'll earn their keep.

A mature Royal Palm Tom

The surprise was when we put the new chicks in with the older Bourbon Red and she immediately took to protecting them. I was expecting to have to concoct another enclosure to keep them separated until they were old enough to defend themselves, but I got lucky. I think the Bourbon Red was really lonely.

Heirloom Hulless Oats

A couple of weeks ago I planted some hulless oats from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I can't figure out how to rotate the image. Aargh. But the oats have already sprouted. There weren't many in the pack, frankly, but that's what you get when you go boutique heirloom. I'm hoping I can save seed this year, maybe next, and start to build up a stock for the Zombie Apocalypse. 

I'm trying hulless oats because they are supposedly easier to process and are also high in protein, thus covering two necessities: enabling laziness and providing veggie protein.

Green fencing

The image below of a portion of our farm, from google maps, shows fencing helps regenerate soil fertility.

The three light colored spots directly to the left and
below the hexagon are fruit trees, and two brown spots
near the lower right edge of the photo are Japanese Maples.

In the photo the small hexagon in the upper left corner, 750 square feet in area, is markedly greener than the rest of the field. It was fenced off. The rest of the acreage is open to any critter. This photo was taken in the late, dry, summer of 2014.

We watered the trees, but we also watered trees in other areas that do not show similar increases in greenness. It appears that the fencing ended grazing pressure from rabbits, turkey, and deer. The longer grass, bushes and trees shade the soil, keeping it cooler and more moist, setting up a soil creation feedback system--more protection more green, more green more protection, etc...

We have since added considerably to this fenced area, now up to over 10,000 sf. This photo makes me want to fence my entire five acres.