Alpacas on the loose

I was making my normal afternoon rounds today, feeding and watering the chickens, checking on the garden and walking the dogs, when I spotted one of the neighbor's alpacas on the loose. Actually, it was my dog Molly that spotted it first and after a brief hesitation to determine the best path to cut it off, took off chasing it. The dog was no match for the alpaca (who knew the were so fast?) and Molly stopped the chase about the time she got to the end of our property line and the beginning of the fenced area from whence the alpaca had escaped. This is becoming a recurring happening around here as two of the alpacas have discovered how to go under the fence. About a week ago the DW came in exclaiming that there was an alpaca near the street. So I called my neighbor to tell him and then went over to herd what turned out to be two alpacas, back into the fenced area.
 The renegade alpacas were not of great concern to me until this afternoon when I discovered that the biggest part of my deer fencing around the veggie garden had been torn down. Hopefully this doesn't become a recurring problem. Up until now, we have had great relations with the neighbors. They give me stall bedding to compost and I take care of their waste problems. A true win/win for us both. I am not sure how I will react if the alpacas were to destroy one of my crops. I put a lot of effort into growing my veggies and don't take kindly to having them destroyed by an overgrown sweater.

Garlic planting season

It's time for planting garlic here in the Carolinas, so I took advantage of a beautiful day to do just that. I put in several hundred cloves each of Aja Rojo, Burgandy, and Creole Red garlic. This is in a bed that is new. Last year at this time I tilled up an area about 10'x40' and planted crimson clover. The clover will deposit nitrogen in the soil and make good organic material to help loosen the soil.  In spring I tilled that under and planted buckwheat. The buckwheat is deep rooted and helps break up the soil. It's deep roots also pull up potasium from lower soil levels to the higher strata where your plants can reach them. In mid-summer I tilled that in and planted cowpeas. The cowpeas, being of the legume family, adds more nitrogen and again, more organic materials to the soil. I just tilled that in and planted half the bed with garlic. The other side with more clover that I will till under in spring and plant corn.  When the garlic has been harvested that half of the bed will be planted in beans for the summer.
 The first head of Atlantic broccoli is reading for diner. This is from plants that we started from seed in mid-June, transplanted into the garden a month later in mid-July. Here we are 80 some odd days from transplant to diner table. I think I'll be making a bechemel sauce with some cheddar added to ladle over the steamed broccoli.

Charlie Brown's Pumpkin

The DW and I took a walk in the garden this evening to look at our pumpkin. It is coming along nicely and  I have full faith that we will have a nice sized jack o lantern for Halloween this year. I've included a couple of pictures but the pumpkin is somewhat obscured by all the foliage.
 We have a nice start of a black simpson lettuce patch (the bright foliage pictured below) going and we should be eating garden fresh salad by next week. The radishes are coming along nicely as well, and I've been planting two rows per week.

 I also have a cauliflower head starting to form. I wish I would have been able to take a picture but the batteries in my camera were dead and I wasn't able to get a picture today.  I'll try to remember to take one later this week.

That last picture is of my fat chicken.

Planting fall cool season crops

Well it's been awhile since I posted, but I mowed down all the summer plants (tomato, pepper, melon, cucs, beans, corn, et al) and tilled them under . I also expanded the garden by making the outside beds an additional 3 1/2 feet wider each. As each bed is 70' long, the additional 3.5' on two beds makes for roughly 500 sqft of additional space. I added about 4" of compost to the soil before turning it under. My neighbor has 3 horses and more alpacas than either he or I care to count and he and I make a mutually beneficial trade. I take his used barn stall bedding off his hands as he has limited space  and in return I get to compost it for my gardens. A true win win for us both.
 I have planted most of my cool season crops (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage,  kale, carrots, lettuce, beets, radishes, spinach) and I am going to try to grow some more sweet peas this fall. I have about 18 plants sprouted and will be transplanting them into the garden this weekend. This is my first attempt at growing peas in the fall, wish me luck!
 I also have one pumpkin plant growing in the garden, I planted this plant in the 2nd weekend in July, so that it would be mature around the end of October. Last year I planted too soon and my pumpkins rotted long before Halloween.
 I also made up a new raised bed for some strawberry transplants.  My current bed will be in it's second season next spring, and after some extensive reading and some past experience, I doubt I will get a third season from it. So I am in the process of expanding my strawberry plantings and incorperating them into my crop rotation plans. From what I gather, I will need at least five beds to rotate strawberries through on a 2 years in, 3 years out, rotation. When the beds are not in strawberries, I plan to plant them with cover crops like buckwheat, rye, and legumes.

Like a Furnace

Well, we had a rather cool and overcast weekend last week which made for perfect weather for planting the broccoli starts. I've put 18 plants of Atlantic Broccoli in this year. I've got 6 Golden Acre, 6 Red cabbage plants and some Cauliflower starts to go in later, around the 1st of August. I've also started my pumpkin seeds. Last year I planted my pumpkin seeds around April 15th (with everything else) and the Pumpkins ripened way to quick and were rotten well before even September arrived. So this year I've held off so that they ripen just before Halloween (with any luck). We'll see what happens.
 This is one of the things I love about gardening, trying new things. I like trying to grow different plants, and different varieties and even trying different methods and timing now and again. It is one of the better things about annuals, in that you can try something out, and see the results within that one season of growth. You don't have to wait years to see if that daylilly cross you attempted this year a) sets seed b) if the seed is viable c) if the plant blooms within 3 years d) if the flower is pretty e) if the plant is hardy. If you try a tomato variety this year and you don't like it for whatever reason, you are not chained to caring for it for several years to see if that is indeed the case.
  We lost another hen this past week as well. If has been awful hot and poor Roxie passed away. I believe it was heat exhaustion or dehydration. Roxie got her name from the boxer Rocky. Roxie was born with her bottom beak pointing to the left and her top beak pointing to the right. So eating and drinking were more difficult for her than for the average chicken. I think this caused her passing as she just couldn't keep hydrated enough in our hot summer. So we are down to one hen now. Just the big fat red I've taken to calling Cartman (from the South Park show). Cartman seems happy enough by herself, I may try to add more pullets next spring or I may not, I haven't quite made up my mind on that.
 I'll be sowing some carrot seed this weekend. I'll take some burlap I got from the local Starbucks store and wet it down to lay over the seed bed to keep the soil from crusting over. I also plant them about twice as deep in summer to get them down to where the soil stays a little moister. They should germinate in about 2-3 weeks  at which time I'll take the burlap off.

What to do with your tomato harvest!

It is prime tomato season around here. Just about every type I have is turning ripe. From Box Car Willie, Mortgage Lifter, Stupice, Juan Flamee, and Celebrity. The only one that hasn't produced a ripe mater for me is Kellogg's Breakfast. It's a really sweet, yellow, large heirloom variety that does not produce an abundant crop for me, but what it produces is terrific. So sweet it could be called a dessert tomato!
 On the 4th I picked a bucket of tomatoes and some green peppers and made up 16 1/2 pints of salsa. That will just about get me through football season this winter.  Most of my recipes for canning come from 'The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving', or the instruction manual that came with my canner. One has to use caution when canning stuff. The method and recipe must be just so, to prevent spoilage and ruining your product and endangering your health.
 Tonight I am making 4 quarts of spaghetti sauce. It is quite time consuming, but the end result of having a nice dinner made with things you grew in your own garden is worth it. The taste of homemade spaghetti sauce, made from garden fresh ingredients is something everyone should experience.
 We are starting to get fresh corn from the garden. I grew an heirloom variety named Stowell's evergreen this year. The yield on this variety is not what you will get from hybrids, but the corn is quite tasty, with fair sized ears. We have had more than our share of thunderstorms this summer and they have done a number on the corn. I would guess that 25% of the stalks in my garden are lying on the ground. And I am starting to have regular visits from the deer. They got to my soy bean, green beans and corn. And today I found what appeared to be a tomato that a deer had taken a bite from. I am considering asking Santa for an electric fence set up for Xmas this year. I went to the trouble of planting some green beans outside the fenced area of the garden this year, just as a way to satisfy the deer so they wouldn't bother the garden. No such luck!

Carrot harvest

Well, it's the start of the holiday weekend and I thought I would have been done with the carrots by now. But as it happens, today was the final harvest of the carrot crop.  I decided to pull up the last two rows, about a half a bucket's worth, for two reasons. First, I didn't want to leave them in there too much longer and have them start to get pithy and bitter. And second, I am ready to till that area of the garden and plant a cover crop before it gets too late. I need time for the cover crop, in this case cowpeas, to put on some growth before I turn it under for fall planting. I am going to be putting some onions and garlic in this area around mid September so that leaves a month for the cowpeas to grow, after which I will turn them under and wait at least two weeks before planting the onions and garlic.
 My chickens are happy about the harvest. They just love the carrot greens. And my dogs love carrots, so I give them any that may be too small to bother with canning or have any damage on them.
 The DW and I were out in the garden this evening and she spotted a couple ears of the corn that are ready for picking. We'll be having those for dinner tomorrow night.