It's Serious Business Now

While gardening in the summer of 2009 I felt God calling me to start a seed company called Savior Seeds (Save Your Seeds) and produce the educational content needed for anyone to be successful gardening.  Between then and now.... we've been waiting for when the time was right to begin.  My husband, John, and I both felt we were to move forward with this endeavor, but with the many irons we already have in the fire, we were uncertain how we could actually do it.  However, God already had all that worked.  We received confirmation after confirmation that now was the time.  So 2011 is the year that Savior Seeds is beginning.  We are starting with a Garden Collection of Heirloom Seeds (30 varieties) that we will actually plant in our garden and produce video footage of the entire process of starting seeds, planting, caring for the garden, harvest, and most importantly saving your seeds for the next year.  We are beginning with 500 garden collection packages which will be packed in mylar bags for long term storage availability.  We are in the process of taking pre-orders with shipments getting sent our at the end of February/early March.  You can go to the Savior Seeds website to get the latest information.  Looking forward to starting those onions soon!

New Seed Saving Video is in the Works

I have begun taping my new video on saving heirloom seeds. Here is the introduction so far.

Painted Pony Beans

We are so busy harvesting food from the garden,
that I am getting very behind posting on my blog.

My intention is to keep a good journal here, so when I need to look back
from year to year I know what I did and when!

We were busy picking Painted Pony Beans this week. I have never grown this variety and I have to admit, I think they are mighty fine! The beans are very uniform, stringless and taste great!

I have a grand experiment going on in the freezer on these beans.

I took some of the beans straight from the garden and just wiped them clean.

Then I sealed them in an vacuum-sealed bag.

I took some other beans and soaked them in cold water for 5 minutes,
dried them, and then vacuum-sealed them.

Lastly, I took some beans and blanched them for 3 minutes in boiling water,
then cooled them in cold water, patted dried and vacuum-sealed them.

I want to see if the quality of the beans is the same or different
after they've been in the freezer for 6 months.
I would like to see if vacuum-sealing preserves the quality of the beans
without the extra blanching step that I normally do.
So I guess we'll see in Februrary!

Colonel Cluck

Colonel Cluck is our English Game Rooster, and is he a noisy little bugger! He sounds a lot like my friend's guinea hens....always making LOTS of racket. The old English Game birds are very small in stature (they are more bantam size), but what they lack in stature, they more than make up in sound. Colonel has a cute little Missus as well. We acquired these two birds this spring when we ordered our Barred Rock Chickens and Sweet Grass Turkeys from a hatchery in Iowa. At first I thought...."What next?" We already have sheep, pigs, turkeys, cats, and a dog.....well, we may as well have a Colonel and Missus Cluck. Just had to show off this nice little picture! Thanks Chelsea!

Harvesting Summer Squash

Yesterday we began harvesting our first tromboccini squash. Harvesting summer squash can sometimes be tricky because there always seems to be a few that get overlooked and grow to baseball bat size overnight. Harvesting Tromboccini is no exception. Yesterday I harvested 6 nice size tromboccini squash and today I noticed another one in the garden that was larger than any of the others I harvested yesterday. Tromboccini is a very long heirloom summer squash that grows in a curled shape and looks like a trombone. I thought my kids would get a kick out of the novelty of the squash. What I wasn't prepared for, however, was the sprawling vines of the plant. It truly grows more like a winter squash plant than a bushing zucchini or yellow squash. It's a good thing I left quite a bit of room for them, but they are invading everything around them!You can see that a few of the squash were growing through my fence along the garden. Again, I didn't know that the plant was vining, so this surprised me, but I have a pretty vertical garden already so it's no big deal!

My sister-in-law shared an incredible zucchini pickle recipe with me. I didn't think I would enjoy those pickles and was quite shocked by how delicious they were. I plan to make some of those pickles after I harvest more summer squash. I'll post the recipe separately.

I love this time of year.....the quandary of which produce to serve for each meal....such dilemmas!

How to Make a Chicken Coop

I found a nice easy pattern for how to build a chicken coop. It is fast and easy and allows you to move the structure around for fresh grass each day for your birds. Click on the picture to check it out.

While I have permanent structures for my birds on my property, a smaller portable coop plan would be great for when I have a few new layers that I raise with my meat birds. I don't like to raise them together for long, but the layers are generally too small to incorporate into my flock until they are older. A catawbacoop would be the nice solution for those birds for a few months.

I'm hoping my dad will build me one of these for my Christmas present.

CSA Workshare

I participate in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Workshare program. It's not because I have a lot of free time or need any more vegetables than I already grow. I participate in the CSA workshare to learn. I have learned about vegetables I have never grown before. I have learned better succession planting management. I have learned how to better utilize the space in my garden to grow more veggies in a small space. I have learned SOOO MUCH!!!

Last week I helped harvest a beautiful bunch of heirloom carrots.....Atomic Reds, Whites, and Oranges. You can see the harvest here. If you are interested in gardening I can't think of a better place to start....learn from the pros by working for them and then put that knowledge to work for yourself. If you are not interested in gardening, then consider buying a membership in a CSA. You will get to taste foods that are fresh, usually grown using organic growing methods at the peak of ripeness, delicious and cannot compare to store purchased produce. You are also helping support a local farmer which helps the economy on a local level, as well as minimizing the "carbon footprint" that most food (shipped thousands of miles) requires.

Take a look at my CSA at Circle M Farms and then check out a CSA near you!

Acidophilus Milk

I have been making kefir from real Kefir grains that I bought from the Kefir Lady. I bought these grains because I wanted to add more probiotics and acidophilus products to my diet. Milk lends itself well to probiotic and acidophilus cultures.

I ordered my kefir grains and after they came in the mail, I put them into milk to get them working again. It only took a day to get them working. It was interesting to see how long they needed to work in a quart of milk and how often I would need to change the milk. Occassionally I eat a few of the grains because the kefir grains grow and then need more milk or a shorter time to sit in the milk to get a good probiotic product. Sometimes I end up with more kefir than I can use and then I put the grains in a frig for a week or two. I do use the kefir like buttermilk in baking so it is great in my rhubarb coffee cake recipe or in biscuits or pancakes.

I think it is interesting that so many of the things that Americans have given up in their diets in favor of highly refined and processed foods are simple natural items that really boost the immune system. Fermentation was largely used in food preservation up until electricity made it possible to store food in a refrigerated or frozen state very easily and conveniently. However, the loss of fermented food from our diet has really had detrimental effects on our health. Wild Fermentation is a website that has a lot of great information about fermation. Even though I haven't read the entire book, I did sneak a preview at the book, The Revolution will not be Microwaved. It looks like a very interesting read and it is reviewed by a number of well-known, well respected individuals.

Acidophilus Milk, Probiotic Milk, Fermented Milk......all natural healthy ways to boost your immune system!

Fresh Cabbage for Coleslaw

We just harvested our first fresh cabbage for coleslaw. It's fourth of July and we are going to a picnic. I can't think of a nicer way to celebrate than eating fresh coleslaw. I usually only use recipes as guides and I rarely measure so I will tell you how I make my most requested recipe. I use about 1 cup of miracle whip (mayonnaise works too, but you have to up the amounts of vinegar and sugar), 3/4 - 1 cup of milk, 1 T of vinegar, 2 T sugar (or to taste...I like it a little more sweet), 1 pound of shredded cabbage with a little grated carrot for color. When you use fresh cabbage for coleslaw, you may not need to add so much milk because the fresh cabbage has more juice in it. If you have a few hours before you serve, then add less milk initially and add more if you need it later. This variety is the Early Jersey Wakefield variety. I love growing this cabbage in the spring. I plan to grow the Brunswick and another variety for fall. I'd better get those seeds started!

Turnips with Beer Cheese Sauce

I was out weeding the garden today. You know how sometimes there are areas you just avoid and hope they'll just take care of themselves? Well, onions is one of those areas for me. I have three different onion areas and each one of them has been properly neglected up to now.



Nonetheless, today I set my sites on one of my onion rows. This double row is tightly sandwiched in between one row of beets and a double row of turnips. As I was weeding I couldn't help but notice some nice size turnips. I pulled a few. Here is how my row looked when I finished (recipe follows)






Turnips with Beer Cheese Sauce

1 - 1/2 lbs. turnips, thickly sliced ( I washed these but did not peel)
2 T butter
2 T flour
1/2 t salt
1 C milk
1 C sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 C beer

Cook turnips in boiling salted water until tender, drain. Over medium heat, melt butter, blend in flour, salt and dash of pepper. Add milk all at once while stirring. Cook until thickened. Turn off heat and stir in cheese. I add the beer after the cheese is melted. Combine cooked, drained turnips and cheese sauce in 1 quart casserole. Cover and bake at 350 for 30 minutes (or until bubbly). Sprinkle with paprika and serve. Serves 4

Note: I needed this recipe to serve more, so I added extra turnips and it turned out great.

Summer Has Arrived in Wisconsin

It was almost spring when I last posted and now it is almost summer. I can't believe an entire season has flown by. I stopped posting when life became crazy with our first lambing experience. We added 15 lambs to our flock this year and we definitely learned a lot. We had just about every lambing disaster that a shepherd can experience, from nutritional deficiencies to prolapsed uteruses......sigh. But we know how to make things better for our second year.

The garden is now in full swing. I am now planting more seeds for succession planting in the near future. So much to do....so little time.....I'll try to get caught up on what's going on in the next few weeks.

Winter Squash

Spring has definitely made its way to Wisconsin and that's wonderful! A friend of mine planted many early spring garden vegetables last weekend, but my ground was still frozen solid. This week still took our evening temps downs into the 20s, so the ground still hasn't thawed too much, but I have many seeds underway in the house and even moved 8 flats of seeds outdoors into my little cold frames by the garden.

I will be starting my tomatoes very soon so that is very exciting....they are my favorite veggie. I also now have to decide what I will plant in terms of winter squash. I got a little carried away this year when I discovered the Bakers Creek Heirloom Seeds Company. They carry so many heirlooms I'd never heard of before that I had to get several varieties and I had already placed my order to Fedco and Seed Savers. I will list the varieties I have.

I had some Delicata seeds left from last year.

From Seed Savers:
American Tonda
Gutaemalan Blue

From Fedco:
Blue Hubbard
Burpee Butterbush Butternut
Squisito Spaghetti

From Baker's Creek:
Shishigatani (or Toonas Makino)
Sweet Dumpling
Kamo Kamo
Vegetable Spaghetti
Pomme D'or
Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato
Musquee de Provence
Australian Butter
Galeux d'Eysines

I know that in order to be able to save seeds from this year's planting that I will either have to only choose a few varieties and plant them far apart or else I will have to do some hand pollinating (that's what I will most likely do). Plus I have the added benefit of helping a few other gardeners and we can use one variety in their garden and then we will have pure seed to save.

Keep coming spring!!!

Chicken Delight

I lost my Cuckoo Maran Rooster as I mentioned in my last post. But yesterday as I was talking to a friend, I asked her if she was going to be ordering from the McMurray Hatchery anytime soon and coincidentally she was planning on placing an order today.

So she tacked four straight run (will contain an assortment of males and females) Cuckoo Marans onto her order for me. Yippee!!! I'll be getting a new rooster and a couple new hens, so I'm happy. They will be coming in April about the same time that my order of Barred Rock Chickens are coming so they will all be raised together....JOY!

I will have to make sure and tag the Cuckoo Maran's legs as they look VERY MUCH like the Barred Rock Chickens and I know I won't be able to tell them apart once they get bigger.

I am trying raising the Barred Rocks as my main meat bird this year as they are a heritage bird that is listed on Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste. What is Slow Food USA? Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world.

The Ark of Taste is a catalog of over 200 delicious foods in danger of extinction. By promoting and eating Ark products we help ensure they remain in production and on our plates. I am happy to report that I am currently raising several of the items on their list and will soon be adding even more!

Raising animals is a lot of joy and I am glad I have something to be happy about after such calamity in the chicken coop.

Calamity in the Chicken House

Last night we had our first real calamity raising chickens. Our son was in charge of closing up the coop at nightfall because I was not home. However, he forgot to do it and by the time he remembered he went out and discovered 5 possums in the coop and our Cuckoo Maran rooster, Coke, lying dead on the floor. He rushed in the house to call me. By the time he got back out to the coop the possums were gone. So we had our first loss due to predator issues. It's a good thing our son passed hunter safety a few weeks ago because he can definitely work on eliminating this large population of predators.

We still have our rooster, Cocky, who is an off-spring of our original rooster, LeRoy. But I am very disappointed about the loss of Coke. I was planning on isolating him with the five Cuckoo Maran hens we have and hatching out more purebred chicks. I love these chickens because they lay very dark brown eggs and it broadens the spectrum of colors of our chickens' eggs. A new Araucana rooster will be coming in early April that I plan to breed with our three Araucana hens for more purebred Araucana chicks, so I still have that to look forward to. Araucana eggs are also delightful as they can range in color from greenish to bluish to pinkish and they are so pretty along side the light brown and dark brown eggs from the other chickens.

I guess I'll have to take a picture of a typical dozen eggs we get so you can see the large color range.

Say a prayer that we get the possums before the possums get the chickens.

Fixing Heisman

Today is the day Heisman was fixed. My friend, Jodi, came over and showed me how to band his tail and his reproductive unit and we gave him his first dose of cd&t. This was all very helpful to me as I had never done it before and soon I will have about 30 lambs to do this for. We plan to keep Heisman as a whether and knew we would not be breeding him. We have a ram for our next year's breeding program and Heisman is not the breed we want in our offspring...although he is darling. So fixed now he is.