Time To Talk About Next Year

[digitS']

I tried to downsize in 2012 by leaving behind 1 garden. Then, I decided I wasn't working hard enuf that year.

So, I expanded the big veggie garden on new ground, making up all the square feet I lost the year before .

Downsize could mean to just finally grow those "compost crops" that I've always wanted to grow. Or, grow some green manure crops and till them in - a spring cover crop & a summer cover crop . . . maybe a 3rd cover crop in the fall . That won't keep me from planting labor-intensive stuff from here to the horizon in 2015 but I will have tried.

Steve

 

[Jared77]

I keep trying to figure out what I want to do next year honestly. The biggest thing for me is to not have it be such a mad scramble next year. I really don't like being up till the wee hours of the morning running the canner because I have more tomatoes & they are starting to get pressure damage to them and go bad. But I've been so busy with other things that now Im scrambling. Done that too many times & it's just getting old.

I'm trying to be more aware of what we're eating so I'm being more efficient & not growing as many things because they are cool. I'm still going to gave fun things but just not as many at one time.

I really want to raise some meat birds late this year since the whole rabbit thing I really think is getting put on the shelf for right now. Kids have to be 9y.o. to exhibit any livestock so we'll let it ride for right now. Plus with any meat birds Im not housing any breeding stock for the long term either which right now is a good thing. If I did keep any breeding stock I want rabbits not chickens.

Really leaning towards Cornish roasters vs Cornish cross so I have a little wiggle room to compensate for the learning curve with raising them.

Just trying to find my groove & not take on too much. Nothing worse than a bunch of half done projects or projects held together just enough to hmake it for the minute on so I can move onto something else. I hate that. Been there done that when I was laid off & won't do it now.

I've got a lot of things I want to do. Landscaping, play structure of some kind for the girls just to name a few. It will get there.

 

[digitS']

Do you have storage for things that are not canned, Jared?

I don't find it much bother to dig potatoes and get them downstairs. I do a little at a time, have some for the kitchen and take the extra to the basement. Where I get in trouble (kind of) is growing varieties that are harvested during the heat of the summer. The basement is cool but not that cool. If I was to begin digging in late September, it could still be a process of many weeks and my basement room would be plenty cool by November. (It is 51f down there right now and I can expect it to drop another 10 soon.)

Outdoor storage is also a possibility. Lots of us probably have good places for squash, onions, garlic, carrots, beets, and (I'll just mention) shallots and celery root .

Steve

 

[Jared77]

I have a full basement & under the addition that was put in they cut part of. Thpe block to allow access to that area for storage. I had to put up 2 baby gates stacked on top of one another to cover the hole & keep the cats out of there. Been meaning to get a thermometer down there to track the temp & use it for cold storage.

I think it will work just need to confirm it. My problem are the summer harvested produce & using them either canned or consumed before they go bad. My problem is I have too much at once that's when I run into problems. I'd love to have a bunch of root veggies stored in cold storage if it's realistic.

 

[journey11]

What I'd give to have a root cellar...

I know what you mean, Jared. I am surely in the same boat--so much to be done, so little time!

I believe the birds I got this year were actually MMH's Cornish Roasters instead of their Cornish Cross. So I am still butchering chickens a month after I had hoped to be done with them. :/ They started out much healthier than the CX--no leg problems, no sudden chick losses (not that the percentages of that were very high with the 3 batches of CX I've done, but these had none by comparison.) They free-ranged a little on bugs and grass and were more active. However, I don't know to what degree it affected them when my tractor blew over the hill and I had to change my management of them in the last 2 weeks before processing, but at the end it turned out that I had more health problems with them. I've had several with congestive heart failure (meat and growth otherwise ok), 3 so far that had ascites, aka. water belly (much smaller birds and liver failure), one sickly runt that will just be culled and not eaten, and one with necrotic tissue in the breasts (tossed it all out except for legs and wings). I've got 5 left to do that we didn't have time to finish last Saturday. At least one has a respiratory issue and I suspect it has congestive heart failure. I didn't like having them around so long. Increases the odds of things going wrong. I also lost one to an oppossum the other night after I moved them into the old chicken barn when we had that big storm warning.

The thing I liked with the CX was getting it all done and over with quickly. 7 weeks on the males/9 on the females. I like the high yield and the tender meat on the CX (even the legs are nearly white meat), but traditional meat birds are so much more sturdy and reliable. You have to expect at least some losses with either the CX or the Cornish Roasters. With the CX I've done in the past, I usually lose 1 to 3 chicks suddenly early on and about 2 to leg problems in a batch of 40.

I had 4 Easter Egger cockerels that we processed at 6 months old when we processed the 11 week old male Cornish Roasters and I was pleasantly surprised how meaty those compact little birds are. Dressed out, they were nearly as big as the Roasters. Since I really like the EEs for egg layers, I'm considering getting a larger batch of straight run on them next year and trying them out for meat birds instead. They'll probably do even better in the tractor.

 

[so lucky]

Journey, I think my Easter Eggers have sort of grey-blue skin. Is that off-putting when you process them?

 

[journey11]

Might be the type you have, since they can vary a lot in their genetics. These I had this year had white skin, but the legs were slate/blue. I've seen some people get put off by the blue/green eggs, thinking there was something wrong with them. I can see how blue skin might ruin your appetite!

 

[the1honeycomb]

I keep trying to figure out what I want to do next year honestly. The biggest thing for me is to not have it be such a mad scramble next year. I really don't like being up till the wee hours of the morning running the canner because I have more tomatoes & they are starting to get pressure damage to them and go bad. But I've been so busy with other things that now Im scrambling. Done that too many times & it's just getting old.

I'm trying to be more aware of what we're eating so I'm being more efficient & not growing as many things because they are cool. I'm still going to gave fun things but just not as many at one time.

I really want to raise some meat birds late this year since the whole rabbit thing I really think is getting put on the shelf for right now. Kids have to be 9y.o. to exhibit any livestock so we'll let it ride for right now. Plus with any meat birds Im not housing any breeding stock for the long term either which right now is a good thing. If I did keep any breeding stock I want rabbits not chickens.

Really leaning towards Cornish roasters vs Cornish cross so I have a little wiggle room to compensate for the learning curve with raising them.

Just trying to find my groove & not take on too much. Nothing worse than a bunch of half done projects or projects held together just enough to hmake it for the minute on so I can move onto something else. I hate that. Been there done that when I was laid off & won't do it now.

I've got a lot of things I want to do. Landscaping, play structure of some kind for the girls just to name a few. It will get there.

I grow Cornish cross and really enjoy the ease in caring for them, feed bill is high but the meat is totally organic and sweet.

 

[bj taylor]

i'm very much at the starting gate w/food production despite being not so young. I know so little about the growing and the preserving, so i'm still on that steep learning curve. I have these three big raised beds. i'm going to keep that footprint. I've got a good source of manure now with chickens and goats so I can enrich pretty easily I think.

i'm very interested in getting a hard grasp on foods that preserve well, have high nutritional return, and will thrive in this hostile environment (Texas). i'm going to build a drip irrigation system for these beds for next year. my energy capacity and my endurance are pretty limited & I hate it when I waste crops or don't grow them correctly.

various types of beans are high on my list of foods to grow. I almost succeeded this year - but didn't quite make it. I learned a lot - especially from y'all.

Monte, it's exciting that y'all are going to build a new house. that's quite an undertaking. I look forward to reading your posts on that.

 

[NwMtGardener]

BJ, i think my automatic drip irrigation system is the biggest time saver, i absolutely love it. Now that i have the main bones set up in my garden (which didnt take very long), every spring i only spend an hour or two dialing it in, moving drip heads, putting new extensions off the main shoot, zip tying some closed. It takes occasional monitoring, but thats it! I'm sure you'll appreciate saving water too, our water is not too expensive but i definitely think the drip is much better than when i ran sprinklers.

BTW, i made a mistake when i first started buying my stuff. There's all these different drip heads - all different rates of water flow. I didnt know where to start, so i thought "bigger is better, right!?" but my containers would flood - too much at once. Then i realized that its a much better idea to do a slower drip rate, just setting my timer for a little longer.