Black Thumb

As I stated earlier the garden didn't quite turn out like we had hoped it would. Although it seemed like it was gonna grow out of control it faded rapidly and we lost a lot of crops. I'm mystified by most of it, but we were able to figure some things out.

The big loss was our tomatoes! At one point the plants were huge and we had lots of green tomatoes and that's when the tomato bugs moved in. They didn't seem like to much of a problem though. We would just pick them off (although they are well camouflaged and hard to spot) and smash them on a rock. However, just as the tomatoes began turning red I started to notice the leaves wilting and white speckles on the ground around the plants. I thought this white stuff was tomato bug droppings and so we increased our efforts to destroy the ugly little creatures. Yet, no matter how many we got rid of the plants still looked sickly. Before long the tomatoes started to develop nasty brown spots on them and became mushy. at this point we had lost the crop but didn't quite know why.


After some research and talking with other gardening folks we came to the conclusion that our tomatoes had been hit by Blight. Not positive about that or how they contracted it, but by next season I hope to know for sure. All and all, Melissa was able to harvest some cherry tomatoes for salads and such, but our big canning dreams had to be canned.

Our corn, having survived an early deer ambush, did produce fairly well. I'm not sure exactly how many ears we harvested, but the ears were small. They tasted good and we froze about a dozen of them but i was pretty disappointed in their overall size. I think I need to plant more corn next year.

Cucumbers did well and we canned a lot of pickles and we ate a ton in our salads. no real complaint here, although next year we want to plant more....we really loved those pickles!

The Squash plants grew like mad, but just like the corn, the squash were stunted and never matured into anything edible. I did learn that I planted too many and had they ripened we probable would have had more than we needed.

Onions were good for the most part, but we never got any large ones...they just wouldn't grow. I even bent all of the plants over as I heard this would promote the onions growth. it did a little but mostly we just had small bulbs.

Radishes did fine, at least the ones that grew which were only a handful. Again not sure what happened here. Can't figure out why most just seemed to die.

The potatoes were also a big disappointment, but I think I'm to blame. First of all I think I planted a few weeks to late, and second, I didn't buy seed potatoes. I just took ones we had that had sprouted eyes...cut them into smaller pieces and buried them. We did harvest some but not nearly enough; maybe 10 pounds but that is being generous.

The green peppers did well I thought, we just didn't plant enough. Again, we'll be putting more in the garden next year.

Pole beans...didn't do so well after the deer attack. We did manage to get a few handfuls but we had lost most of the plants to the deer.

The watermelon never matured, but I think that was partly due to planting them to late. The plants grew good, but the melons never matured....same as the squash.

So that's the short of it, but I do think I learned a little from the experience.

1: My soil isn't that great. I have heard that I can get it tested to see what it is lacking and I definitely need to get that done. However, i didn't want to have to buy a bunch of stuff to add to the soil, but I may not have a choice.

2: Protect against deer and other animals early on. The stuff I did do worked; I just need to do it right when I plant.

3. Plant at the right times. To be honest I was a little overwhelmed when it was time to get the garden started and wasn't as prepared as I should have been. That won't happen again.

4: Learn more about the plants I am growing. I had researched a lot about general gardening when we started, but I think I really need to advance my studies on the specifics. I had thought if you plant it it will grow...I was wrong. There is a lot of wisdom needed in gardening.

All and all, for our first garden, I think we did OK. if my soil is poor and it was indeed blight that smoked are tomatoes i won't feel so bad about the slim harvest. yet, since our goal is self sufficiency I need to get this gardening stuff down. It's hard to eliminate buying food when you don't harvest enough of the things you grow. If this were the old days and we didn't have a grocery store, it would be a very hard winter for us.

If anyone has any ideas after reading this and viewing the pics...Please share your thoughts!

100% Homestead!

This photo depicts an entire meal from food we grew and raised ourselves!!! YEAH!!
Herb seasoned pork steak, fresh corn on the cob, herb seasoned red skin potatoes, and fresh veggie salsa! The meal was one of the best I’ve ever had and I’m sure it something to do with that fact that we did it all ourselves. It was so satisfying knowing we can provide for ourselves and actually eat VERY well!

“Hunger is the best pickle.” Benjamin Franklin

Cucumbers were True North's first veggies to grow out of control. I swear they grew by the minute. Each day I am getting at least 4-5 cukes from the garden. After eating as many as we could in salads, with dip, soaked in vinegar with onion, we finally decided it was time that we canned some of them. And what else do you do with cucumbers? You make pickles. MIL got a recipe from our Aunt Vivian that is said to be easy and tasty. Well so far is rings true for the easy part. We will see in 2-3 weeks of the tasty part does as well. Below is the recipe. I used my fresh dill from my herb wheel as well. We ended up with 6 jars of pickles.












Aunt Vivian’s Dill Pickles
Recipe for 1 quart

-1 head of fresh dill in bottom of jar
-Add whole cukes or cut into spears to fill jars (clean cukes)
-1 garlic clove added
-1 more head of dill on top

The following combined and brought to boil

-¼ t of Alum
-1 cup of white vinegar
-1 cup of water
-2 T of Kosher salt

Pour over cukes in quart jar. Cukes will be ready in 2-3 weeks!

The Herb Wheel

This past winter I read many books about gardening and in one of them they had diagrams of cool herb wheels. Basically an herb garden in the shape of a wheel instead of the standard square garden. Pat and I decided to make our own this summer. We had some odds and ends laying around from years past of landscaping décor so we lumped it all together to see if we had enough to make one. Low and behold we did! We started with black edging and made it into a circle then nudged the circle here and there to get it the right circumference. We dug a line around the circle and inserted the edging into it to keep it stable. We used more of the edging to make spokes and then filled all the sections with nice fertile dirt from the pig pen. We then outlined the outer wheel with brick to reinforce the circle walls. We used bricks in the center and I hand painted the herb name that would grown the in corresponding section to add a little personal touch to it. The center piece are parts of our pine stumps that were used earlier to make the pine stump fence and a few deer antlers from deer pat killed from years past. We planted Rosemary, Parsley, Cilantro, Dill and Basil. With lots of weeding, watering and sun....all came up very well, except for the Rosemary. Not sure what I did wrong there but no growth! I love using fresh herbs when cooking and I will dry the rest to use for the year.

Home Grown!

Garden Update:

The Garden is doing really well, at least we think it is. Since this is our first time growing anything I guess even a little success goes a long way! Melissa is keeping an actual tally of what we have harvested so when it's all said and done will post up what our overall haul was.

Corn:Right now the corn is looking good even though deer ate most of it early on. The few stalks they didn't eat have multiple ears on them, and the ones they did eat still managed to survive and are producing. Not ready to harvest yet, but I think it will be soon!

Cucumbers: I planted six hills of cucumbers; 3 normal ones and then 3 that are a 'pickling' variety. Two hills of the normal ones and one hill of the other type are pumping out a vast quantity of cucumbers. We've already been eating them and soon we'll try our hand at making pickles.

Watermelon: Like the cucumbers I planted 6 hills. Although all came up, only three are really producing. We have a couple of tennis ball sized melons and quite a few more smaller ones. The ones that aren't growing well, I believe, has more to do with getting behind on weeding than anything else.

Peppers: All the pepper plants are doing good and producing. No complaints here...we've been eating them on a regular basis!

Egg Plant: My mom had bought a few of these plants so we planted them and lo and behold we have a bunch of them producing. We just harvested one Egg Plant yesterday and fried it up. Never had it before and it was pretty darn good as a side dish.

Squash: This stuff has grown great right from the start. They all came up and we have a ton of squash growing...I'm a little worried. Next year I'll probably only plant half of what I did.

Onions: The first round of Onions we planted as seed and nothing grew. We then planted bulbs and they have been doing nicely. We hopefully will get some large onions out of them, that is if Melissa can keep her hands out of them, lol.

Head Lettuce: At first we didn't think they where going to grow, but we did have a handful come up. They look ok, but I think they are a long way till harvest. We'll see what happens.

Green Beans: They took a beating from the deer, but what we do have left are producing. I just took a handful of beans inside today. I'm not sure if we'll ever get enough to can or freeze but at least will have some for a couple of meals.

Potatoes: Plants look good and we've been doing a lot of research on when to harvest. We're not there yet but we believe its close.

Tomatoes: We've got tomatoes! Big ones, medium ones, and little ones. We've ate a couple, but most are still green. I have a feeling here in the next few days we are going to be neck deep in tomatoes. That's exactly what we want though. We've got a lot of plans for these red veges!

So that's it, but what have we learned to do and not do?

First, protect against deer. Early on, the deer came in and ate most of the corn and green beans. Although those things have survived I think our harvest would have been better had it not happened at all. After the attack, I set up a few fence posts and hung shiny tin plates from strings that I stretched between the posts. I also tied human hair (from our brushes) on the posts, about half way up. I then took some hair clippings and scattered them around the perimeter of the garden. Lastly, I used a mixture of 1/2 bottle of hot sauce to a gallon of water and sprayed that occasionally on the plants. I'm not sure what worked or if all of it did...but no deer since doing this. I haven't sprayed the sauce mixture in quite awhile nor have I refreshed the hair, so maybe the plates were enough. Next year I'll have my anti-deer defense set up early.

Bugs: Hadn't seen any sign of these types of pests until just a few days ago. While tending to the tomatoes I started notices what looked like little black poops littered around some of the plants. After a few minutes of investigation I saw the culprits. Nasty green monster worms! We found 8 of them and promptly squashed them. Now I look every day...haven't found anymore yet!

Weeding: Don't ever get behind! A camping trip and a few days of not feeling well and things got out of control in a hurry. Btw, I love weeding! It;s very peaceful in the evening...kind of like a reflection time: to think of things gone by and things yet to come.
Advise: We are getting it from where ever we can. Family, friends, strangers, books, Internet....there is so much info out there, and a lot to absorb! We've got time though and I feel we've learned so much already

We have been told that our abnormally cool summer has stunted growth this year. I can only agree. Things have been pretty hot lately and I think that"s why we have seen a growth spurt.

All in all though it has been well worth the trouble. Melissa mentioned the other day that it has been so nice eating fresh vegetables daily...and we're broke. Normally, when short on cash the fresh veges would wait. Not the case anymore! Feeling more self sufficient is always good too...it's a big motivator. I have to say...the whole family seems to love the garden (the work included)!

They keep growing and growing and growing....

The garden is taking shape! We have the following growing successfully; watermelon, onion, 3 kinds of tomato, acorn squash, pole beans, potatoes, corn, 2 kinds of cucumbers, peppers and radishes. Crossing our fingers for the lettuce to come up. We planted strawberry's that were already established in a bed and dug up and given to us (Thanks Norm). They seem to be doing good.

We were unsuccessful with our first batch of onion, cauliflower, broccoli, seed peppers and carrots. I think we planted the seeds to deep in the ground with the combination of the not-so-warm weather here in Michigan. We even had a frost in June.

A few things we have learned:
1)Plant seeds inside before season starts.
2)Plant like package says or what fellow family/friends say who have grown it before.
3)Check the weather to see if rain is coming, no need to waste our own water.
4)Don't always count on the weather....LOL

MIL says we should be able to harvest the radishes soon. They were our first crop to be planted and looking nice.

Oh the NOT so little, 3 LITTLE PIGS. Yes they have grown. The are so damn big I think we will be butchering them sooner than expected. The guy we bought them from is coming out today to let us know what he thinks. We were told it would take from March to July to fatten up. About 4 full months. I think ours did it in about 3 and 1/2 months. So far the girl (black one) has fattened up a bit larger the the boy (white one). We still have to make a final decision on the butcher. We've had lots of info thrown at us. We need to keep our costs as low as possible. We halos need to get rid of the other pig. Our plan was to eat one, and sell one to pay for the one we eat. Well at the very least cover as much of the costs as possible.

A few things we learned:
1) Pigs eat ALMOST anything. If they get good scrap, feed and can graze, they leave the greens (grass/weeds/corn husks) til last and may not even eat them at all because they are full.
2)Pigs are pushy and taste test everything. Walk into the pen and suddenly you and your tools become a food samples.
3)Even a big heavy feeding trough and water trough get knocked over. Better to have them nailed to the fence.

Little Enlightenment's

You must plant seeds like the package says. Even if you think you have a green thumb.

Drying laundry on the line does not take as long we thought!

Tools break the more you use them, buy quality to begin with.

Struggles

With so many things that have happened over the last month. I struggled to decide which topic to write about. I decided how ironic it was that I struggled, when that is kinda what I wanted to write about... struggling. LOL, I know I'm not making any sense, but hopefully that will change.

It seems that lately we have been overwhelmed with things... things to do, places to go, people to see, jobs to do. I have found that the hush of winter is not at all as bad as I once thought is was a few months ago, when I was bored out of my mind. I have found that things when thought about or dreamed about are oh so much more romantic and well lets just say it...EASY. But you add the above "tasks" to your dreamy little wonderland, and you have struggle.

Yes I know we were warned that things would be hard and they are, but I don't want to lose sight of the goal. It gets overwhelming when the journey is not enjoyed, when all you want is the end of your task to be near.

Money struggles. Yeah I know cry me a river, but we all are going through it so I though I'd share our story, it's our blog after all! We've not been desperate yet, not starving yet, but we have gone without, and a bill or 2 have been late. It's definitely not for lack of trying, just didn't balance the budget properly and my work is unstable at best. We have managed to keep our heads above water thankfully for now. But it has put jobs behind, like the chicken coop. We have yet to finish that, so it sits partially done and we still have no chickens.

Garden struggles. Ok we all know that this is new territory for us. We've NEVER done the majority of things we have attempted to do, but yet we still try pathetically. The garden, oh the garden. She's a force to be reckoned with. It's a love/hate relationship we have with our garden. So far she has been planted for about 1 month. Well the first half of it anyway. The out come in 1 month is 3/4 of it didn't sprout, so we replanted a bunch and cheated and got some starter plants. Well it was MIL who got them, I think she felt bad for us slaving away and getting no results. The second part of the garden is all Pat. He has been a regular ol' farmer!! He's spent hours sowing, and weeding, and just loving it and it's worked. And the result...we have growth!! Well I should say sprouts, but it's growing and that's all that counts. Now we're told the hard part comes, the bugs...haven't had to deal with that yet, as nothing had grown before. But we're armed and ready with piles of books, magazines, and precious advice from loved ones.

Time struggle. Where does it go? I remember sitting by the fire this winter and anxiously awaiting for the sun to warm us and spring to get sprung. Obviously summer is nearly here and you can tell by the looks of our barren blog that time has gotten the best of us. I think time is one of the hardest struggles of all. But we have all been through it and I'm sure all want and need more of it. But alas...that's life right?

So I thought with this post, I'd put a few pictures of around the homestead here at True North. Hope you enjoy..

True North's Homesteading Principles

As we make decisions along our way towards true freedom, we decided that we need a list of our core homesteading beliefs to help guide us as we travel this exciting and unknown road. With these principles in hand we can make sure that we never lose sight of our goals and dreams.

I. A Lifestyle Of Simplicity:
As we remove ourselves from the clutches of commercialized society we can reclaim the simple things that we have taken for granted most of our lives. With all the noise of the world around us we have stopped paying attention to the very things that we hold so important to our lives. Our relationships (or lack there of), with our family and friends and the community that surrounds us will be reestablished. Our own creativity and self awareness will be rediscovered, along with knowledge of the natural world and all its wonders. Jesus Christ will no longer be a distant friend in our lives, but a true companion and guide as we embrace this simpler way of living.

II. Self Reliance 101:
In the spirit of Homesteading we will embrace the virtues of self reliance. By learning new skills and relying on the ones we already have we will be able to provide for ourselves in a very new and exciting way. With these skill sets and a refocused frame of mind we can make what we need...instead of purchasing it, and take on the Do-It-Yourself attitude that will bring us more satisfaction than any paycheck ever has.

III. The Art Of Frugality:
By being frugal we can achieve a standard of living that is far beyond one that we have always tried to purchase. This cannot be understated for it is perhaps the core of what we are trying to accomplish. The simple act of spending less will buy us piece of mind, and the closeness of being together instead of slaving away trying to be the best consumers we can be. We will fix what is broken, mend what is torn, buy "used" instead of "new", and discover the hidden treasures of free fun as opposed to purchased fun that comes with the hidden price tag of guilt. The guilt we have felt when hard earned money was spent for something that in the end...wasn't all that fun anyways. For those things that we need, we will save for, and debt will be cast aside along with the "have it now attitude" that has been with us since we were children.

IV. Living With The Land:
In respect for the property that has been given to us, we will no longer see it as a burden, but instead see it for what it truly is; an opportunity. With our land we will grow our own food and raise livestock so that we can feed our family in a way that adheres to our other principles. With knowledge and practice there is nothing we can't grow, raise, or hunt. The satisfaction of supplying our own food will be worth all the hard work that it will take to collect this wonderful bounty.

V. Getting Off The Grid:
By relying on the powers-that-be to supply us with the energy we need, we have become willing participants in the "Plug & Play" game. This attitude has made it far to easy to simply power up anything for convenience's sake without regard to its cost. By taking on new applications of alternative energy we can free ourselves from the exorbitant costs of the electric company and have a deeper awareness and appreciation for the energy that we use. Appliances will be judged on their usefulness and ranked via priority instead of their supposed convenience.

This list of these five basic principles is a start, and perhaps, down the road it will be added to. For now though, it is a compass that we can use to help find our way.