The Bean Harvest

Last year I discovered the joy of Good Mother Stallard beans.  I bought a packet of seeds and grew one 15' long trellis.  They did nothing all summer, then at the end of August they started going nuts.  It turns out they're a cool weather bean that won't set beans in the heat.  When the nights begin to cool down the beans finally start to set.  You let them grow and mature to full, lumpy pods, and continue to let them hang there until they become dry and crispy.  At that point you pick 'em, shell 'em and store 'em.

So at the end of last year I had a good quart of pretty red and white beans.  I picked out a big handful of large beans for seed stock for this year, and the rest went into soup over the winter.  Those beans made the most incredible soup ever.  The flavor was superb to the point of being irresistible.  I resolved to increase my yield this year so I could have more of that incredible soup.

I planted a 10' row of beans in a row with the spring peas (which were still producing).  By the time the peas were done the beans were just climbing the strings and getting started.  I also planted a 30' row of Mammoth Russian sunflowers and put three or four bean seeds around each one.  The sunflowers went to 8' and when the heads matured I cut them off to dry to feed the chickens as a winter treat.  The beans went up the sunflower stalks and eventually outgrew them, leaving a huge mass of foliage at the top of the insufficient, dying stalks.

I tried to prop the whole thing up with some ropes, but the stalks became too weak and fell apart.  I had to resort to throwing the vines over the rope trellis I had laid out in hopes that some of the beans would mature.  Ultimately I cut the bean vines off at ground level and carried the whole tangled mass to the open shed for drying.  My long suffering wife and I picked the beans off those tangled vines and set the bean pods in the basement to dry some more.  After a week or two in the basement, with a little help from a cozy fire in the wood stove, the beans were dry enough to shell.  We spent two or three romantic evenings settin' and shellin' together.  It's amazing that marriage counselors don't recommend this as a means to a healthy marriage.

So our hard work is finally done.  Now we have a bowl of about 6 quarts of the prettiest beans you've ever seen.  Even taking out another big handful of seed stock for next year, we should have enough for plenty of tasty soup recipes for a chilly Pittsburgh winter.

 The beans on the left were also dried and shelled, but there's only a few cups of them, and I don't even know what they're called or if they're any good.  That's a story for another time.

Dropping a large tree

In our annual quest for 4 cords of wood we do manage to drop a lot of trees.  I never top them or do anything fancy - I look for standing trees that I can turn into lying trees for easy cutting.  Today's adventure started like most others - badly.  I normally throw a line into the tree so it can be "helped" to the ground and guided in the direction that I would like it to fall.  Today the tree went straight up for 20 feet then forked with a narrow crotch that made a challenge of throwing anything through it.

After 10 or 15 minutes I managed to get my rope and branch thrown through the crotch (the branch is about a  foot long, with the rope tied in the middle - you throw it through, give it a pull and it (ideally) wedges crosswise and you can pull against it easily).  After I got the rope through I made my cuts.  The first cuts remove a large shallow wedge from the direction you want the tree to fall.

 Next is a plunge cut that leaves a hinge right behind the wedge:

The side view shows (starting at the left) the shallow wedge, hinge, plunge cut that goes all of the way through and a ligament that holds the tree steady.  The problem with the traditional wedge/backcut is that the tree becomes increasingly unstable until it falls.  The beauty of this method is that you can get to this point and have a safe tree condition.  Then you make one quick cut through the ligament and the tree comes down right where you expect it to.

At least that's the way it should work.  Today I tensioned the rope, made the last cut and the tree didn't move.  I went and pulled some more on the rope and the tree didn't move, but my rope and anchor branch did; they came right out of the crotch and fell into a pile on the ground where they were doing absolutely nothing about helping to bring my tree down.  I spent 20 minutes trying to throw my rope through again, broke a rope with a come-along (10 minutes), threw a smaller piece of rope with a weight on it through the crotch (10 minutes), pulled a larger rope up, secured it to the tree with a running bowline, and pulled the tree over with the help of a very entertained neighbor (thanks Tim).

Another hour of cutting (while Patty gave the splitter another workout) and the tree was reduced to nicely burnable chunks.  A few loads were brought up and stacked in the woodshed today, and tomorrow we'll bring in the rest and be ready for another cold Pittsburgh winter.

"Cut your own wood and it will warm you twice."   Indeed.

Wood extravaganza

Bringing in the wood for the year is always an adventure, especially when it starts late, begins with an injury (bruised ribs), doesn't move along well because of weather and includes a lost day because of a Jeep stuck on the back hill.  We finally had a nice, sunny day to take care of the trees we had cut down - three elms, one a massive beast with an 18 inch trunk rising straight up for 20 feet.

Pieces were already bucked to length and stacked/strewn carefully.  I borrowed my friend Tom's hydraulic splitter and we were off to the races.  Normally we have the system pretty well coordinated - I muscle the logs into place and Patty works the valve to cycle the cylinder.  We had already split the truly huge pieces, but there were still a bunch that needed to be split before they would fit into the firebox.

Moving the wood to the woodshed is excellent exercise - especially for Patty.  She often ends up walking from the back of the lot to the woodshed and back - a lot of times (it's uphill and about 200 yards) - otherwise she stands and waits 10 minutes while I drive the round trip on the tractor.  But yesterday we found another way to keep her busy while I was moving the wood.

She was able to wrangle the logs into place, split 'em and stack the splits while I hauled it away.  I had a hard time transporting as fast as she was splitting, and we ended up getting everything that was down put away for winter use. 

I'm always amazed at how adaptable that woman is.  She not only hauled and split at least a half cord of wood by herself, she also learned how to start the log splitter, and was analyzing the wood grain to get the easiest split and figuring out how small to split the pieces based on how wet the wood was and how long the piece was. 

Is it any wonder I love her?

The only good hornworm...

Is one that's completely covered in wasp eggs.  When these hatch they'll devour the hornworm then grow up to hunt for more of the voracious pests.  Almost makes me feel sorry for the hornworm.  OK, I'm over it.

August 10 Harvest

There's nothing like a harvest to pretty up a kitchen counter.  Tomatoes, peppers, white cucumbers and mexican sour gherkins (aka mouse melons).

But all is not beautiful in the garden.  Something got in and has been defoliating the soybeans - leaving bare stems and sad little underdeveloped pods.  I'm suspecting rabbits because the tomatoes aren't being decimated like they would if a groundhog were at work.  I sprayed with a mix made with egg whites, garlic and capcacin - I'm hoping that will do it, but I'm also making rounds with the pellet gun hoping to perforate the little fiend that has nearly destroyed my hopes of edamame this year.  The Long War continues. 

July 28 Update

Things are busy these days.  There are things to harvest and lots of weeds to pull!  First the report on the beautiful braided onions: stupid idea.  I should have known it, too.  I pulled the onions before the stalks were fully dry so I could prepare the bed for a sequential planting of kale.  When you wrap wet foliage into a tight bundle everyone knows what happens - compost.  The braid decomposed and two of the bundles plummeted to the ground before I could take the rest down.  I figured out what happened, un-braided all of the onions, cut the stems to 3 inches and I'll tie them with twine in a row in bundles of three so they'll get plenty of air.

The pole beans are going gangbusters and it will be hard to keep up with them over the next few weeks.  The rattlesnake snap beans are producing like mad - apparently the heat is no problem.  The Kentucky Wonder bush beans are producing OK, but I'm not liking the squatting to pick - I won't be putting those in again.  The Ideal Market pole beans are doing very well; not quite as prolific as the rattlesnake, but very well.

The batch of Good Mother Stallard beans growing up the sunflower stalks are coming along well.  They grow and flower well, but they don't put out any pods until it cools down in August.  All of the sunflower leaves have been trimmed back, now it's just the beans soakin' up the rays.

The tomato rows have been dressed up with marigold bushes - they're regular marigolds, but they're twice the size they were last year.  I figure it's because I'm using the organic fertilizer recipe I found through Mother Earth News.  Everything is coming in super huge this year and that's the most obvious variable.

Also showing incredible growth is the cucumbers.  This year I put in a white cuke variety and a novelty type sold as a "mexican sour gherkin" or "mouse melon".  Looking forward to harvesting both of them.  Should be a good crop if the foliage is any indication.:

Succession planting for the year includes kale, beets and carrots (paris market variety - it produces a root like a golf ball so the soil depth isn't a problem) and two varieties of winter squash.  I planted the squash late, so I hope to have enough season left to produce and mature some fruits.  They were planted on July 23 and looked like this:

Next year I need to remember to put them in earlier to ensure enough time for harvest.

July 17 Harvest

The harvest is getting into full swing with the sunflowers completing their blooming in stages.  There seems to be a large variation in the maturation dates for this variety (mammoth russian).  Some were ready two weeks ago and some are just starting to flower.  Keeps things interesting and the early maturation is good; I had been planning to use the stalks as poles for beans, but not all heads are cooperating well.

Harvested sunflower heads hanging to dry.  Slipknots tied around the stalk failed on the string on the right so the whole thing hangs too low.

Sunflowers with heads harvested serving as poles for Good Mother Stallard beans.  Most sunflower leaves trimmed off to provide more light for the beans, but some leaves were left at the top to help keep the stalk alive a little bit longer - don't want it falling over when the beans start to ripen.

This has also been the week to harvest the onions and garlic.  The onions probably were pulled a little too early since the stalks were still green, but I want the space to start planting kale so out they came.  I counted 75 garlic heads and 100 onions from this years plantings.

Onions laid out for drying.  They'll be brought inside to hang this afternoon.

Likewise, the garlic will be hung to dry today.

Trying a new method (for me) of preparing the beds.  A layer of leaves, newspapers and more leaves with slots left open for planting the kale.

A bed prepared crosswise for planting carrots and beets.  I find it easier to weed and cultivate the smaller plants if the beds are crosswise.  Long rows don't allow for easy use of the hoe.

There is definitely a tomato getting ripe, and there are swelling little buds on the cucumbers.  It won't be long now!

Update: The onions and garlic are hanging in the open air shed.  I bundled the garlic by tens and braided the onions.  The bunches shown here are braided in bundles of two dozen.  The rest (hanging on the back porch) are bundled by the dozen.

Sunday harvest

Dinner today was sleek which is a dish of greens, beans and onions.  It's a new favorite around here.  The harvest was good:

Swiss chard and onions.  My recipe calls for kale, but the swiss chard is a valid variant.  Here's my recipe with some added commentary:

    1-1/2 cups cooked black-eyed peas
    2 cups water
    1-1/2 pounds kale, washed and chopped
    1/2 cup bulgur wheat
    2 onions, diced
    1/2 cup olive oil

Directions:

1. In a saucepan, heat beans in water to a medium heat, then add kale, cover, and cook for five minutes.

2. Rinse bulgur and add it to the saucepan. Stir well. When cooked, drain with a colander and set aside.

3. In a saute pan, fry onions in olive oil until browned, then add the mixture you had set aside.

4. Cook over low heat for five minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Use dried black eyed beans- soaked & rinsed of course- and boil them WITH the chopped kale (you want to keep as much nutrients as possible in the mixture)...then add the bulgar at the end, when the kale & bean mixture is draining in a big colander. Set aside (can be frozen in Ziplocks once thoroughly drained) & when you want to eat, sautee onions (LOTS) in a wok with olive oil till caramelized, and throw in the greens/peas. Never use canned blackeyed peas & frozen or canned kale (doesn't work well- too wet- one of the secrets is to let the greens drain til almost dry so the dish doesn't get soggy when fried with the onions.

Photo of the day - This look is the reason I try to stay on my best behavior.

...and a mechanic too

After clearing a forest of weeds from down by the road I went to get the little garden tractor to help move the debris.  It started OK, but it sounded funny.  I drove it from the shed down to the garage and tried to diagnose the problem.

I took off one spark plug wire and it died immediately; it's a two cylinder so it should have kept running, just very rough, so I started checking the other side.  Everything seemed to be in order, so I took off the spark plug wire and started it, and it started and ran exactly the same as before.  So I put the spark plug wire back on (while it was running) - not exactly the best idea, since it feels a little like the electric fence when you do that, but it did confirm that the cylinder wasn't firing and that the spark was definitely strong.

Since I don't know much about small engines (or big ones for that matter), I started my normal mode of diagnostics.  Take off likely looking things until something happens.  I got lucky this time.  I took of a dish shaped cover and found the overhead valve compartment.  Inside I found this:

It's a pushrod and it's supposed to be straight.  I quickly noticed that it's not.  If you noticed that too, then you're as good a mechanic as I am, I suppose.

According to one web site, this model engine (Briggs and Stratton Intek V-Twin, 26 HP) has a known problem with valves.  If the fins get blocked and the heat can't get out of the cylinder, the aluminum head expands more than the valve guide sleeve and the guide sleeve slides out of the head, cocks and jams the valve stem.  See if you can guess which cylinder I was having trouble with.

If you said, "the one on the left with the mouse nest on it?" then you get a gold star.  I've ordered two new push rods, a new guide sleeve and a dozen mouse traps; now I just need to figure out how to get the valve spring off the stem.

Oh, all that stuff down by the street that I went to get the tractor for?  My beautiful Farm Wife dragged it across the road, bit by bit, and tossed it over the hill while I was learning about engines.  Later I used the Jeep and a chain to drag the big branches away.

Broccoli day

About 2.5 lbs of broccoli from the garden.  Picked in the cool of the morning, blanched, bagged and frozen.

The chickens loved the cabbage worms that we picked off the heads during the cutting.  They also love the Japanese beetles picked daily off the beans and sunflowers.  I dump the picked beetles into the water bowl so they can't fly away and the chickens crunch away at them as fast as they can.  It kinda sounds like they're eating celery.

Although everything I have read says you can't put chicken poo straight into the garden, I thought I had a way that it would be OK.  At night I put a piece of newspaper under the roost to catch their night time output.  One morning I wrapped the newspaper up and put it in the garden between two sunflowers.  My thinking was: sunflowers need a lot of nitrogen and the newspaper will slow the nitrogen transfer down and allow it to enter the soil gradually.  Nope...

I placed the paper between these two.  The flower on the left is stunted and badly deformed at the top.  The flower on the right is healthy, but has the shortest stalk, biggest leaves and biggest flower of all.  The only difference in the entire row was that one piece of paper.  OK, so the common wisdom was right after all.  From now on the poo goes into the compost pile first for a little seasoning.

For April and May we were about three inches of rainfall above normal, for June we were down an inch and a half.  Right now tomorrow has only a small chance of a thunderstorm, the rest of the 5 day forecast is beautiful and sunny.  I guess it's time to use some of that water I have in reserve.

Watering a big garden on the cheap

Pouring bought water into the ground seems like such a waste.  I don't mind paying for things, but paying to dump something that falls from the sky for free always grates on me, so in my garden I don't do it.  I catch rain when it's falling and water the plants with it when the rain decides not to fall.  Overall it works out well.  I haven't had many times when I ran out of water and desperately needed more.

The water system starts at the house.  I first placed a 55 gallon plastic barrel under the rain spout.  It has an overflow that sends excess water into the storm drain, and a line in the bottom that I can tap the water in the barrel from. 

That worked very well, but Stevens' Fourth Law wasn't satisfied with this (Stevens Fourth Law states that if it's worth doing it's worth over doing).  So I had to take it up a level with four more barrels for a capacity of 250 gallons.  This web page shows how to make the fitting for the bottom of the barrel to get the water out.

Then a step further - a farm pump so I could move the water up to the garden.  The garden is a good 10 feet above the level of the barrels.

That was better, but it still wasn't sufficient.  250 gallons is a good days watering when it's very dry here, and the summers can have stretches of very dry weather.  So clearly I needed more capacity which looks like this to me:

That's three IBC (Intermodal Bulk Containers) which hold 275 gallons each, which brings my total capacity to over 1000 gallons of rain water storage.  The IBCs (or totes) come with an 8" opening on top and a 2" ball valve on the bottom.  I have them piped in so the top one fills and the valves can be opened to let the water drain into either of the other two.  Only one valve is open at a time during watering, so even if I leave a hose running too long I won't lose more than 275 gallons.  I quickly learned the importance of leveling the stacked containers and providing a solid foundation.  When both of the stacked units were full we had a lot of rain, the ground got soft and the tower started to lean a little; then a lot; then the whole thing went over with a fantastic crash.  That's about 1500 lbs of water falling up to 8'.  I'm glad I wasn't anywhere near it when it went.  I set them back up on a solid, leveled foundation, and they're ... well, right as rain.

The totes are made of a plastic that breaks down in sunlight, so I took each plastic tank out of its cage, wrapped it in black plastic like an enormous Christmas present then carefully stuffed it back into the cage.  The top unit has the water just dumping into the 8" opening - the black plastic is pulled up to the PVC pipe and duct taped to it to minimize insect invasions.  On the other two I just drilled a bunch of 1/8" holes in the 8" cap to let the air pressure equalize.

The totes are on the uphill side of the garden, so I can water anywhere with just gravity feed.

The water drains from the tanks through a 1.5" PVC flexible pipe which ties to a Fenco fitting (rubber boot held on with band clamps) to a 1" PVC ball valve to a 3/4" hose fitting. Many hours were spent pondering the possibilities in plumbing aisles across most of the greater Pittsburgh area to come up with the final product.

Garden update - June 25, 2011

The garden is looking good this year, but I have planted too close together again.  The broccoli is crowded by itself and the Kentucky wonder bush beans.  The sunflowers seem like they would like more than the measly 1' of space I have given each of them.  The tomatoes are OK, but I bet I could plant them at more than 2' apart and they would do better.  Time for a quick photo tour:

 The triticale (a wheat/rye cross) is doing well.  The chickens will love it in the winter when they get a handful at bedtime.

Onions in the foreground with flowering cilantro on the right, basil and Greek oregano in the rows, and tomatoes at the far end.

 Row of tomatoes.  Experimenting with ways to hold them up.  The poles on the right are held up by wires, the PVC on the left is bent and poked into the soil.  I have three varieties of tomatoes, plus whatever volunteers come up from last year.

Cukes, a mystery variety of beans, and ground cherries at the far end.  Ground cherries are an annual bush that grows like a weed, is native to PA, and makes abundant little fruits that grow inside adorable little paper lanterns.  The four plants I planted (and the numerous volunteers) are great for snacking and sharing.  People are always amazed when they try one.

Swiss chard, lettuce and a row of mexican sour gherkin cucumbers - they are thumb sized, look like a watermelon, fall off the vine when they're ripe and are sour, like they've already been pickles.  To the right of the cucumbers is an emerging patch of soybeans for edamame.

A row of pole beans without the trellis up yet.  That job is coming very soon...

 Pole beans climbing the twine trellis.  This trellis is suspended from a rope top "bar" which is held tight by posts set in the ground and guy wired to stakes.  One end has a movable knot on it to adjust the tension.

A volunteer sunflower in front of the peas and pole beans.  I had read that the peas die down about the same time the beans really get started so they can be planted in the same row.  We'll see.

 Garlic coming on strong.  I harvested all of the flowers and stalks (called scapes) and made a garlic scape pesto that was fantastic.  Froze most of it, but brought one batch to work.  It was widely enjoyed by my co-workers.

Sunflowers on the west side of the garden.  The tallest is currently over 7', and they're not done yet.

The garden princess squinting into the sun as her doting subject weeds and takes pictures.

I have 1,000 gallons of rainwater in storage right now for the dry part of summer, but that's not here just yet.  rain possible tonight and likely tomorrow.  Glad I got my weeding in while it was still dry.

The Chicken Palace

We recently acquired three mature chickens.  These barred rock ladies give us an average of two large brown eggs per day.  When we first got them they had been housed in a small A frame chicken tractor for a year, with only limited backyard privileges.  When they got there they had the run of the place and were only "cooped up" at night.

Then they started pooping on the back sidewalk.

If they accidentally dropped one while passing by that would be one thing.  No, it seemed like they were saving it up, or hanging around on the sidewalk just in case nature should happen to call.  The poo and the flies led to the Homestead Manager to note that a new approach was called for.  I always do what she says, so I began planning my chicken coop construction project. 

The whole thing is designed around a sheet of plywood for the floor which leads to a 4x8 coop.  Some leftover metal roofing, cheap fence pickets, a batch of 2x3s and a huge number of decking screws and we were in business.  It took two weekends and numerous evenings because I was making it up as I went and I often had to stop and plan the next step.  Carefully.  Sometimes from the sofa with my eyes closed.

For being an ad-hoc project from someone who never owned chickens, I think it turned out all right.  The girls have the top level (penthouse), outside ramp (promenade), lower level (basement) and the run (yard) to enjoy. 

 The front features four feet of floor to ceiling ventilation, the outside ramp leading down to the basement, and the door which leads to the yard.  The basement is well protected from predators with welded wire fencing, just in case we are out late and can't secure the front door before dark.

The back view (during construction) shows the large cleanout door on the left side, the double doors for water, food and general access on the right, the door mounted feeder, and eight feet of ventilation across the entire back.  The whole thing was built under the overhang attached to my tool shed which means I didn't have to protect the north side from the weather.

 The view from the cleanout door showing the nest boxes to the left, and birds on roosts straight ahead.  When I tuck them in at night I put a piece of newspaper under them to catch what they drop during the night.  It helps to keep the coop a little cleaner.  The poo filled newspaper gets put into the garden or compost pile.

I figure this house will hold 5 birds comfortably year round and maybe an additional 5 in the summer when they can get outside and stretch their little legs.  Next year we may try raising meat chickens from Tractor Supply peeps.