Fall harvest thread

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Originally posted by Blairza:
[b] I've tasted some fine Ice wine, does anybody in Canada make fine brandy? [/b]

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There's only one I've heard good things about: Kittling Ridge. Most Canadian brandies are cheapies made by the big liquor distillers; Kittling Ridge is an adventurous winery.

Kittling Ridge also does ice wine, and a brandy/ice wine blend. I've tried that - it was nice, but not clearly indicative of the quality of either one separately.

Invite a couple of us there, and we'll clear up that problem in no time!

Hast seen the White Whale?

I have this urge to watch the John Huston/Ray Bradbury film version of Moby Dick now.

Oh ye dam-ned whale!

I was out planting bulbs (Border Lilies) today that should blossom next June or later - depending on when the ground thaws after this winter. Next, whenever they arrive from the shop, will be more bulbs - All Summer Blooming Coneflowers, and a Reblooming Daylily Collection. If they all grow, in addition to my existing Marigolds, Daisies, Sunflowers, and other flowering plants, I should have some nice gardens next summer. I quit growing tulips because they don't do well here outside in the wind.

I had a weird thing happen today. Woke up, grabbed my coffee and looked out the window. "Gah!" Frost all over the lawn and meadow and me not having all my tomatoes picked yet. Durn it, that wasn't what the weather said. So I threw on some clothes and ran outside. Frost was everywhere, except for the actual garden. It literally came up to about 3 feet from the edge and just stopped. It was bizzare, like the whole area was shielded and everything was fine.
So I came back in and rechecked the weather. It's actually warming up this week again so I'm just going to leave the green ones a week longer.

I didn't have time to do anything today because we had to take a 7 hour trip to pick up next years gardening labor force. So now I'm sitting here listening to 20 peeping, day old chicks that are in a box in my dining room. Spent the last few hours making sure they figured out where the water is and jumping up at every over loud peep to make sure they're okay. What a total trip. I've never had chickens before and I'm a total nervous nelly. LOL.

I've learned one thing today. That when chicks fall asleep they just drop where they are, splay out and look totally dead. We were sitting here and it got really quiet so I went over to check. The whole bunch were just spread out everywhere and I freaked out a little. For a few seconds I thought I had somehow killed them all. LOL

[ 07 October 2008: Message edited by: ElizaQ ]

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Originally posted by Bubbles:
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How do you use chickens as a garden labour force?
In my experience, chickens will totally demolish small garden plants. They love the young green leaves.

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As 'Chicken Tractors' You use them in preparing beds and in the spring before planting on existing beds. They weed, fertilize, airate and eat bugs that many have over wintered. There's several different techniques either with portable fencing or like this: [url=http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/tractors.html]Gallery[/url]

I've got about half and acre of field that I want to get into cultivation so will be pasturing them in sections in a portable pens and they'll be on clean up and prep duty on the current beds before they are planted. It's basically a hybrid between free range and coop living.

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Keep track of the temperature you keep your small chicks at. If they are splayed out, it could be an indication that they are too warm. Also avoid putting them on a smooth surface, such as news papers, especialy if you have meat birds, they get easily leg damage from that.[/b]

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Thanks for the tips. I do have a themometer in the box and am keeping it at the recommended temperature but will keep an eye on it more and adjust if necessary.

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Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:
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Field? Back on the farm, my kitchen garden was about half-an-acre.
[/b]

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Yeah I just call it our field. Our property is about 2 acres, which beyond a small patch of lawn in the front is totally overgrown. The previous owners just kind of left it. This year I managed to get decent size garden going but have plans to expand it next year. We also want to get a orchard planted in the old pasture.
I'm working with permaculture and micro-farming principles. We're aiming to be a self-sufficient as possible with what we have to work with.

Bought last April/May some twenty laying hens (day olds) to replace the laying hens that we have had for three years now. Yesterday we had our first eggs from them. Now the question is what to do with the old laying hens. Would be nice if I could give them away as 'chicken tractors'. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

I know that our chicken pen is very fertile because of all these 'chicken tractors' working it over for the last some twenty odd years. Although I suspect that all that scratching and digging that the chickens do, has a negative effect on the humus content of the soil. If it was not for us dumping each fall about ten inches of leave litter all over the chicken pen, it probably would be a sandy waste land by now. Mind you the chicken pen is a great place to dig up fat worms when going fishing.

This year I used some goats and sheep to clear the weeds and long grass from a 80ft. by 120ft. piece of old pasture next to the chicken pen. Then divide it in four strips with chicken wire.
One strip I will now seed with some winterwheat and rototill it under. The chickens can then harvest and consume it by next june/july. The second stripp I will seed next spring with peas, barley and oats. The bees can collect the nectar from the peas a few weeks later and the seeds the chickens can harvest and consume in August. The third strip I am planning to seed down with some Buckwheat, again for the bees and the chickens (around september). The fourth stripp I am planning to seed with sweet corn and sunflowers. This time not just for the bees and the birds but also for our own use. Provided I can keep the racoons away from the corn.

I went on the most fabulous bus tour in Hamilton last week. It completely gave me a new meaning to the phrase “Field Trip.”

It was a tour of different sorts of fields in the Hamilton area, starting at an organic farm, then the Dundurn Castle vegetable garden, which was recreated after gathering information about the original 2-acre plot that fed the family who lived there, and later to a place called West Avenue Growers, which was the small backyard of a few twenty-somethings who turned began to grow all sorts of crops, feeding their neighborhood.

It culminated at a community centre where we ate local foods, prepared by Hamilton’s chapter of Food not Bombs.

It was an absolutely fabulous event run by OPIRG McMaster.

I think ontario icewine is concidered really good and icewine is the best of the best.

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Originally posted by Boom Boom:
[b]Ah, Ontario plonk. Used to buy it by the gallon - it made a nice mouthwash. [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img] [/b]

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Oh I don't know...emigrate to Morocco!

I hae attempted to save both rosemary plants out of the herb bed and they are now in a pot in my office. I think I need a full-spectrum lamp to keep them healthy over the winter, though.

I also brought in a "passion flower" plant that was in one of my big containers. Somehow managed not to get touched by the frost and is a vine about 8 feet long. I think I'll see if I can get it to grow up/down the wall in a sunny stairwell.

Last of the chard is in the garage, we'd best eat it up this week.

Same here, it's like the herbs give up all hope around the end of February that the sun's ever coming back. I'm going to try a light this time and see if it helps.

Either way, I get fresh rosemary at least partway into the winter months -- the stuff in the produce dept. of the grocery store is always dead as a doornail.

We're Zone 3, so far as I know. Rosemary just won't make it out here. Although I do have a lavendar that's survived a couple of winters, so who knows...

Well, we're on the other side of the tracks and a few blocks down, but yeah, the games are pretty audible from our place. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

I have a friend who lives about a block away from Taylor Field, I'm pretty sure her windows rattle!

I put a cardboard box full of leaves over my lavender, which did the trick last year - but Lu ate the box in a fit of boredom. I'll have to go find another one and spritz it with bitter apple.