|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 15, 2019 23:03:10 GMT -6
While the weather has been cold, rainy, windy, and otherwise, too finicky to plant a garden, I've been devoting all my spare time to building a goose run for the poultry on our farm. Here are a few photos of the goslings and the goose house project, so far. These are my mail order, Coton Patch Goslings, 7-days-old. There are four of them; two females and two males. Cotton Patch geese are sex-linked; meaning they can be sexed by color at hatching. The boys have pink bills and lighter colored fuzz, the girls have darker, gray-brown bills and darker fuzz.
The goose run was converted from an old hoop house, moved from the garden, to the shade of our woods. The plastic covering didn't even last two full seasons in the high winds we get here. It proved too expensive to maintain, just for the 75 tomato plants I had inside it. When I changed from raising tomatoes in the hoop house, to raising okra, I soon found the plastic served as a death trap for my pollinators. I would find masses of dead honey bees and whatnot, piled in the corners, where they became trapped and unable to find their way out. As a result of poor pollination, I began harvesting less than average crops and slowly decommissioned the hoop house over time. I think it will serve better as a safe place to keep our poultry or other baby farm animals as time will passes. This project has taken 132' feet of treated 2x6 lumber, 50' feet of 2x4 treated lumber, a steel door, from a second-hand building supply store, 250' feet of 72" inch high chicken wire, and 8 cattle panels, 16' feet long. It must be a labor of love, because I'll never get all my time and labor paid off. Oh, well, it was time spent doing something I enjoy, so I don't suppose that can really be counted as labor can it? Side view of the goose run; it's 48' feet long, and 16' feet wide, to accommodate the 16' foot cattle panels I used to protect the chicken wire from predators tearing in. I am burying 24" inch chicken wire, horizontally along the borders to prevent predators from digging under. I'll probably add an electric fence about 6" inches out from the sides, just to discourage our persistent neighborhood pack of dogs. We lost all 18 of our laying hens last Autumn, one day while we were at Church. That's why all the security here. I am tired of losing poultry to the marauding pack of un-fed dogs, that irresponsible people tend to dump on out of the way country roads around here. As many dogs get dumped out here annually, I suppose city folk believe that farmers will care for all of them. I assure you, quite the opposite is true. The dogs end up turning wild and running in packs until local farmers and ranchers have no choice other than to put them down, to protect their livestock. It is mostly cattle country around here. These people take no chances that calves might be mutilated or killed by a pack of wandering, half starved dogs. (Please, if you have an animal that you don't want to provide for, call the Humane Society). Your pet will get much better treatment there, than it will get by wandering, lost and un-fed along miles of country roads.
|
|
|
Post by Zane on Apr 16, 2019 6:32:30 GMT -6
Ron
How or where can I purchase Heavy Hitter Seed? Thanks
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 17, 2019 12:58:13 GMT -6
Zane,
Sorry, it took me so long to reply, I've been busy working on my Hoop House and haven't checked my okra thread for a while.
Email me, at, heavyhitterokra@gmail.com
Happy gardening, Ron
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 20, 2019 6:42:39 GMT -6
Fair
32°F
We had another very close call this morning. Even though the forecast called for a low of 40 last night, a low of 32 is what we really had going on at sunrise. Fortunately, warm air, rising from the soil, due to yesterday's high of 63, prevented frost from killing my transplants that were only inches tall this morning.
Still, the forecast was a full 8 degrees off, so I failed to cover any of my plants. (Thank you, God, for looking after me on this one.)... Whew!
|
|
|
Post by macmex on Apr 20, 2019 12:36:14 GMT -6
The frost caught me off guard here. I think I lost a number of tomato plants. Fortunately, I have replacements for most. I went out to do chores before the sun came up and only noticed the frost as the sun was rising. I suspect that the temps dropped rapidly just before dawn. I had some trays of seedlings on top of our well house. The trays themselves had ice on the edges (lots of it). Yet all those seedlings survived. I just rushed them onto our sun porch, where they could warm up gradually. The tomato plants in the garden didn't fare so well.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 22, 2019 23:22:26 GMT -6
I thought I had lost the single, Super Fantastic, tomato that I planted in a wheeled tub on March 21st. It looked pretty sorry after the light freeze we had on April 20th, but it pulled through. Today, it was starting to green back up and appears that it might be okay.
I finally got all my Plasticulture beds raised today. I have turned the garden over about 4 times already this Spring, but every time I did, we got a toad strangling rainstorm the next day and that would set me back another couple of weeks. I've spent the past month working the ground, getting rained out, then waiting a week for the ground to dry up enough to work it again.
I broke it for the 3rd time last week, then we got another 3" inches of rain right afterward.
It was windy this morning, so I broke my garden one more time, in hopes that it might dry faster. My plan finally paid off by about 4:00 pm and I got my beds raised and covered with plastic by sunset.
Hopefully, within the next week or so, I'll get my first okra planted.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 23, 2019 17:02:32 GMT -6
One of my seed customers told me, that they plant onions as an understory crop, between okra plants. I've never tried it myself, but I'll bet it would work if you planted far enough out to avoid the okra's root zone.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 23, 2019 20:01:40 GMT -6
To all my garden, gun-jumping, seed happy, friends; I finally succumbed to, 'Spring Fever' today and planted my first 50 okra seeds. Those will only be a drop in the bucket as far as my total okra crop goes, but this afternoon, the first 50 seeds went "Bombs Away!" I kind of think it may still be too early to avoid those 45-degree nights that tend to stunt so many of my plants, but if so, I can always up-root them and re-plant later in the season. I worked all day, yesterday, raising beds and laying Plasticulture. It was more than I could stand, to just watch it all laying there with no seeds planted. This year, I left quite a wide margin of bare soil at the 'head end' of where my irrigation lines will be laid. I'll do some bare soil planting in those margins. I just haven't decided what I'm going to plant there yet. Onions? Maybe, some popcorn? Possibly, peanuts? could be sweet potatoes... Who knows??? The 50 pounds of Russett Potatoes that I planted in March are about 4" inches tall right now. They sure are pretty this time of year, before any Colorado Potato bugs come to ruin their perfectly rounded leaves. The reason there are so few rows is that I set my rows on 11' foot centers this year, so I can avoid breaking branches while tilling with my tractor or while harvesting with my truck. With the wide middles, I can just drive through the garden with all my okra and tomato boxes loaded on the tailgate. I use homemade wooden boxes made from 1"x12" lumber. They get really heavy, really fast. I use those because I can stack them in the truck on 'Market Days'. They don't spill out while I'm driving the 12 miles from my farm to the Market. I experimented with the wide-set rows last year, for the first time. I decided I liked them that way, I just need to adjust the width; wide enough to avoid damaging the plants with my machinery, but not so wide that I have to spend more time tilling than I do harvesting. One year, I had an apex harvest of over 300 pounds of tomatoes in one day. Back then, my rows were a lot closer together. My family had all gone to New Iberia, to visit folks and I was left alone to do the harvesting. By the time I had carried all those tomatoes the full length of my garden, I was nearly too played out to sell any of them. Days like that, make for a long day at the Farmers' Market, and an even longer week of peddling homegrown tomatoes. I end up changing something nearly every year. Last year, I changed my row spacing. This year, it was the length of the plastic. Maybe, someday, I'll have a system that I really like. I suppose I'm still developing that final plan. These rows are 150' feet long, 30" inches wide, and set on 11' foot centers. I plant them double; one seed on each side of the drip tape irrigation, about midway between the drip tape and the outside edge of the row. That way, some of the lateral roots can reach outside the Plasticulture to take up nutrients that I add along the row edges when I spread my compost in Summer. Right now, is a magical time of year, when there are no weeds whatsoever within the boundary of my freshly tilled soil. That won't last forever, but for a week or two, it sure is nice to enjoy that thought.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 24, 2019 22:22:13 GMT -6
Spring onions are always a good crop. They make me feel good this time of year when nothing else is really greening up yet. I used to sell them for 10 cents each at the Farmers' Market in Tahlequah. They clean up really nicely. I'd fill a bucket brim full of them with a little water in the bottom and trim all the tops off evenly with hedge clippers. They sure make a nice presentation and go great with a good, Springtime fish fry. Makes me wish I had one right now.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 29, 2019 19:26:57 GMT -6
55 days until Okra Time!
The Heavy Hitter Okra that I planted on April 23rd has germinated and most of it is about 2" inches tall with both seed leaves open already. H. H. puts on blossoms 55 days after germination and has pods ready to eat about 4 days after the first blossoms close.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 29, 2019 19:39:57 GMT -6
I planted a full 150' foot row of Heavy Hitter Okra today, trying to beat the heavy rains that are supposed to be starting tomorrow. I didn't soak these seeds, I figured the Lord, would do that for me, soon enough, from the looks of the forecast.
I hope the flood warnings are not as bad as they are calling for, or my recently tilled soil may all end up in my neighbor's cow pasture.
As dry as the ground is, maybe, it will pack down hard before any of it washes away... I was meaning to plant field corn today as well, but crawling on my hands and knees for a couple of hours changed my mind.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on May 1, 2019 16:50:46 GMT -6
We got so much rain here that it will be a few days before I can get back into my garden. The tomato plants I put out are really doing well on these cloudy days. That was good timing for them, they'll have time to grow roots before the sun comes back to bake them.
The first 50 okra seeds that I planted on April 23rd are popping up and looking good too. I was concerned nighttime temperatures might not be settled above 45 yet, after the frost we had a few weeks ago, but so far, so good. The okra seedlings are doing well.
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on May 2, 2019 22:19:43 GMT -6
I took the Cotton Patch Goslings with me to the garden this morning. The first thing they went for, was my okra seedlings. The entire garden is bare dirt right now, except for those few seedlings. They just saw something green and went for it. I stopped them before they could eat any of the okra sprouts and redirected them to my potato patch.
They don't like potato leaves, so they only eat the green grass that's growing between the potato vines. They don't like mint leaves either, so that's where we headed next. The goslings are only 25 days old, so they don't eat grass nearly as fast as I can pull the weeds by hand, but every little bit helps.
We are only in the training phase right now. It's amazing how quickly they learn a routine. I train them the same way I train horses or mules. I'm careful to follow the same path every day and to do the same things at the same time of day. I repeat 'key' words as I do each task, so they associate the words with the thing we are doing.
If I'm driving them, I say the same words each day. If I'm leading them I say a different word, so they'll know to follow. When they do a good thing I reward them verbally. They catch on pretty fast.
Yesterday, I fell asleep in a lounge chair while they were out in the pasture with me, grazing. My stock dog; "Buddy" came over and pawed me awake because my lead chicken was harassing the goslings and making them cry; she wasn't hurting them, she was just chasing them with her wings spread. Buddy protects the geese and the chickens both and can tell them apart.
Later in the day, all the geese were following behind me. Buddy was bringing up the rear, and the most aggressive little female gosling left the line to turn back and chase Buddy away.
As soon as Buddy took off running, she hurried back to catch up to the rest of the troop. It's funny to see something so small take an offensive action to protect the rest of us ahead of her.
When we got to our destination, Buddy came to my side and sat down. The little female laid into him again, as quick as lightning, just biting the fur on Buddy's tail for all she was worth. She can't hurt him, but she was giving it her all.
Buddy just sat there, taking it all in stride as he turned to watch her ripping onto his backside, then, he looked at me to see what to do next.
I pet him on the head and told him, "How do you like that Buddy? You go to all the trouble to save them from getting eaten by a chicken and then they treat you like that."
Buddy agreed wholeheartedly and eventually, the little gosling got her fill with a rump roast of dog and left him alone. I think she'll eventually figure out what side he's on and may even defend him some day.
Animals usually have the capacity to figure things like that out with a little encouragement from humans. I think everything will work out for the best, in the end.
Farm animals are amazing creatures if you take the time to get to know them.
|
|
|
Post by macmex on May 3, 2019 4:34:47 GMT -6
That's so fascinating Ron! I love hearing about your cotton patch geese!
|
|
|
Post by heavyhitterokra on May 4, 2019 7:41:19 GMT -6
Bon,
I think everything is sensitive to Black Walnut trees. They produce a natural herbicide in their fallen leaves and twigs, to keep other trees from sprouting near them. That's part of how walnut groves are established. Even earthworms avoid walnut trees. In fact, I know a couple of old Indian tricks involving crushed, green, walnut husks that are probably not good for the environment.
you can take a bottle of water, mixed with crushed, green walnut husks and pour it on the ground where you think any earthworms might be. If they are in there, they'll come straight to the surface to avoid the concoction. Once you've captured them, you must wash them in clean water immediately or they'll soon expire.
I won't say what the other trick is because it poisons the water.
|
|