BayBranch

backyard urban farming ~ lakewood, oh

Visiting local farms October 13, 2009

Filed under: on the road — jojobickle @ 7:28 pm
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Beautiful fall weekend, so we went to visit some local farms in the region. Below are a few pics…..

Sirna’s Farm

High tunnel growing tomatoes

High tunnel growing tomatoes

Backyard hens

Backyard hens

High tunnel growing variety of veggies

High tunnel growing variety of veggies

Eddy Fruit Farm

We picked 98 pounds of apples and grapes at Eddy’s this year and plan to make applesauce and grape juice. Eddy Fruit Farm is about 97 acres of land. And, a bit of trivia….OH is the 9th largest apple producing state in the country. You can see by the pic below that this is a great year for apples!

great crop of apples this year

great crop of apples this year

Sorry no pics, but we also went to Rosby’s Berry Farm to pick raspberries.

 

Compost – put to bed October 11, 2009

Filed under: urban plot — jojobickle @ 8:27 pm
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The strawbale compost is full…..well, at least pretty full. We covered it with straw in hopes to keep it insulated. The plan is to allow the pile to fully compost and use it next spring to amend the soil. Now we’ve started filling another straw bale structure, which we’ll fill over the winter.

Compost pile

Compost pile

 

alfalfa October 10, 2009

Filed under: in the dirt, urban plot — jojobickle @ 8:02 pm
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So, what’s alfalfa look like? Well, here’s a close-up of the plot where we’ve planted this cover crop and it’s growing quite well in most areas.

alfalfa close-up

alfalfa close-up

 

Sweet……potatoes! October 8, 2009

Filed under: in the dirt, urban plot — jojobickle @ 7:54 pm
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Have you ever planted something and then just kind of left it, thinking maybe that will grow, maybe not…..Well, that’s what happened when we planted sweet potatoes. The vines went crazy. Still, we weren’t sure what to expect since we hadn’t grown sweet potatoes before. Pulling up the vine led us to a few exposed potatoes….we started pulling and realized the potatoes were plentiful and huge! So excited and definitely planting these again.

We made zucchini sweet potato bread using this recipe. I cut the oil in half (and the bread was still moist) and 2/3 of the sugar. Tasty!

sweet potatoes

sweet potatoes

 

tearing up the front lawn! October 2, 2009

Filed under: at the homestead, in the dirt, tools — jojobickle @ 7:58 pm
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Over the weekend, we finally got the BCS out with the rotary plow attachment and decided to put it to use on our front lawn. Who needs lawn anyway? Gotta mow it every week in summer and reseed it when it dies off….what a pain! So, we dug some up as another experiment. Our garden slowly continues to take up more real estate in our front yard. Since we try to stick to the mantra of all things in moderation, we only did a 4′ x 16′ area, most of which will be occupied by a raised bed for garlic. The remainder is for the strawberries to send their runners.

Getting ready to till up the lawn

Getting ready to till up the lawn

After tilling....we are ready to do some planting!

After tilling....we are ready to do some planting!

 

potato tower – results September 30, 2009

Filed under: at the homestead, in the dirt, in the kitchen — jojobickle @ 7:55 pm
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well, the potato tower did not produce that much. in fact, it was quite disappointing, but i think we learned some valuable lessons and we are not so upset that we won’t try again next year. i think we planted them a bit late. we planted in may and they should have been planted in april. we also feel we planted them too close together. but, we have not tossed the potato tower….we will try again next year and report on results.

though, i should say, the few tiny potatoes we did end up with were super tasty….boiled them and ate them with a little butter, salt and pepper….yummy!

Our small handful of runt potatoes

Our small handful of runt potatoes

 

fall harvest means good food September 27, 2009

Filed under: in the kitchen, urban plot — jojobickle @ 9:54 pm
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This season has been so outstanding. We have grown zucchini for the first time…..I know, I know….zucchini is the easiest thing to grow, yet somehow it has eluded us until this year. This season, we actually have sun and space and the plants have thrived! This means zucchini bread, ratatouille, soup….and lots of shredded zucchini in the freezer for winter soups and other tasty treats. Eggplant is another exciting vegetable we’ve pulled from the garden. And, butternut squash are also on the vine and getting ready for soup. Below are a few pics……

that is a regular size spoon for reference

that is a regular size spoon for reference

Ratatouille fixings - all from our garden except the onions

Ratatouille fixings - all from our garden except the onions

Butternut squash

Butternut squash

 

how to build a straw bale compost September 19, 2009

Filed under: in the dirt, urban plot — jojobickle @ 6:58 pm
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following the instructions from Eliot Coleman’s The New Organic Grower, we have built a compost bin out of straw bales. this method is beneficial because the straw bales contain the heat needed for the materials to break down, while also allowing air flow. we have set up two bins side by side, but the first one just continues to diminish (as it breaks down), so we just keep adding to that one. we also purchased some compost inoculate to add the beneficial microorganisms to the pile and help speed up the decomposition process.

where do we get enough organic material? the compost is a mix of brown (carbon) and green (nitrogen). the green – we compost all on-farm organic waste, including grass clippings and weeds (sans seeds) and spink gets about 50 lbs. of kitchen scraps from his company every day (keeping usable material out of the landfill while making us quality soil amendments!). the kitchen scraps are primarily fruits and veggies (lots of pineapple tops and skins – not sure how well that will decompose) and coffee grounds. we add straw for carbon source and try to mix it together so it all breaks down nicely. we plan to use the compost on the farm to amend the soil.

strawbale compost

strawbale compost - 4' L x 5' W x 2.5' H

view from the top, the structure is nearly full with organic material

view from the top, the structure is nearly full with organic material

 

let them run wild September 16, 2009

Filed under: at the homestead, in the dirt — jojobickle @ 9:41 pm
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the strawberries are out of control. despite ordering 50 plants, only about 5 survived and we lamented the fact that this experiment was unsuccessful. however, we forgot about the runners….the strawberries have multiplied and now fill the planter and continue moving outside the boundary of the pyramid. my solution is to dig up the lawn and let ‘em go…..keep running. in fact, just take over! more berries next year. i’ll see what spink thinks of this idea and will post a pic of the growing patch.

this picture shows the runners all over the place - i moved them from the lawn to be able to mow the grass.

this picture shows the runners all over the place - i moved them back inside the bin to get access to the lawn.

 

watermelons! September 14, 2009

Filed under: in the dirt, urban plot — jojobickle @ 9:23 pm
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we grew watermelons this year! looks like we might get 3 or so. the first one we picked a bit too early and it wasn’t quite ripe…plan to keep the remaining ones on the vine longer in hopes that they are actually ripe when we pick them. below is a pick of the watermelon (you can see the vine of the watermelon, but also the vines from sweet potatoes – another experiment).

watermelon