Brazenly moving us into the new month from here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1152842/
And to finish the poem the header is from -
The stormy March has come at last,
With winds and clouds and changing skies;
I hear the rushing of the blast
That through the snowy valley flies.
- William Cullen Bryant "March"
But my favorite March quote is , from Thoreau's buddy ol Emerson
Our life is March weather, savage and serene in one hour.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Share a cuppa coffee or tea and windstorm prep, frustration from unexpected freezes and general griping about it isn't hot enough, cold enough or consistent enough and talk about seedlings we're all nurturing :)
Homesteading - "The stormy March has come at last..."
Beautiful poem! Can't complain about today....65 and sunny! :)
I've been pulling dead plants out of my large containers in the tunnel I covered a couple of weeks ago, which is now covered with shredded plastic thanks to the rounds of storms lately. I bought some duct tape to re-enforce the folds of the replacement plastic I'm putting on it the next time. Still too muddy to play in the garden on my hands and knees.
What an idyllic picture!
My cows too are pleased with the greening of their pastures.
Y'know, the best (most nutritious) butter comes from the cow milk after the first greening of the pastures. Highest in Omega-3.
I'll tell the girls.
LOL
Oh yes, lots of nutrition in that grass-fed milk! Tho, in terms of appearance, beta carotene has at least one draw back. I baked my MIL a birthday cake with a buttercream icing. The icing turned a disturbing neon orange (much brighter then pictured), not food coloring. That was the color of my yolks and butter.lol
Hey, it makes the cake shout for attention!
Cool color, none the less!
Doesn't your Mother In Law like orange?
Love the welcome to March, the irridescent frosting and the contented cow!
We enjoyed a bait of fresh yard eggs last night and am always charmed by the gorgeous yolks. Makes me want to keep breaking eggs just to admire them. lol
No sunrise this morning but maybe it will bring the 'greening rain'. In spring, there is always one a rain that will make the woods jump up and say spring is here!
Yay... the harbingers! I noticed yesterday that my potted figs stored in the root cellar have buds, as do the Nanking cherries I planted along the driveway. A few bulbs are sending up greenery too.
Lovely bloom, Pod. it's glowing!
Wonderful, Darius. One of the things I love about DG is watching how spring wakes up. You can almost time the blooms in weekly increments depending on the zone. I always keep a close watch on people in the Texas hill country. I'm almost exactly two weeks behind them.
I'm making fertilizer today. I've decided not to purchase anymore natural or organic amendments. Between the manure, feed amendments, borage, whey, compost..etc. You'd think we should be set for garden fertilizer. But, I may exhibit a form of Dts going without fish emulsion.lol I loved that stuff.
Porkpal, I keep meaning to ask. What kid of cows do you have?
I think if I could only have one amendment, it might be EM (Essential microbes) to start and keep culturing. Of course, I've never done it, but I realize more and more that none of the amendments are any good without beneficial microbes to do the conversion to food for the plants.
Right on!
When bokashi (sp?) was introduced to DG readers. It really opened my eyes to EM. While I don't know and doubt that I'm using the same strains as bokashi. A lot of it I think I can reproduce in the garden.
bokashi uses yeast ...I pour the liquid off bread starter.
Bokasi uses kelp..but good ole pond water has plenty of good microbes.
Bokashi uses lactobacillus..found in whey from yogurt . And there is plenty of sugar and other good guys in raw milk.
If I wanted to really wanted to emulate bokashi I could simply ferment food scraps in whey, pond water and yeast. I tried to explain that years ago in one of the bokashi threads, but I think it fell on deaf ears...
I highly respect your thoughts on nutrition and soil knowledge, Darius. Do you think I'm way off on my bokasi ideas?
Nope, I think you are Spot On!
My cows are mostly Beefmasters, but I have one Limousin, a Charolais, a Hereford, and an old Long Horn who is my lead steer.
I don't know most of those cow breeds.
If I ever get a cow, I'm thinking Jersey or maybe Dutch Belted? Something that gives milk with a high fat content.
It's one of the amazing things about cattle. Each breed is spectacular when you realize what specific traits they were bred for.
The Hereford holds a soft spot in my heart. You don't see them much anymore. After the dust bowl depression half of my family went into herefords. The government gave monies to convince people to grow grass instead of cotton. Those that went into cattle fared far better in the long run. Then some, like my grandfather decided late in life he hated cattle and cotton. Moved to the Texas valley to raise citrus.lol
It's worth looking into beef breeds for milking as well. A lot of 'beef' cattle have high butterfat. It's how they raise those enormous calves in such a short time. My girls are Jersey x holstein. But I'm going to continue to breed them to beef till I get a girl that can milk and maintain her condition on more grass, less grain.
There are a few people on my Family Cow forum that milk beef and beef crosses.
"Moo Too" is very photogenic:
One droughty spring I let him lead some of the girls into the back yard to graze. He took a drink out of the bird bath.
Cool pic, Porkpal!
Lovely bloom Pod, and what a shexy long horn, he's really beautiful Pork...err beef (lol)
Now you've got me thinking Cocoa, re: bokashi/microbes/plant food stuff.
Ornamental pears lost their buds here when we had two days below 30 this week, but I picked a beautiful bunch of daffies from an open lot to spruce up the kitchen windowsill this morning. Neighbor's shed burnt down last night, not sure of the cause (neighbor is a relative term, as in someone within two miles of me).
But here is my finished alternative raised bed, with trellis. Planted peas in there today.
And, for a nice March photo...my stolen daffs on the kitchen windowsill today :)
Good Job!
Ditto on the good job! It's going to be fun watching everything grow and fill in.
I wouldn't worry too much about having the clear containers. The things growing up your trellis will shield them from a lot of the sun shining on them. If it looks to be a problem on the other side of the containers, pot up some single plants that get a little bushy and set them on the other side of your clear containers.
Love your window pic.
Ahh, I'm pea green over your pea set up. They'll look great climbing around the porch, how fun. No peas for us this year :0(
I love how you brought spring to the kitchen too...almost makes doing the dishes fun!
The snow flakes have started blooming here, but their foliage still looks cooked spinach.
Tonight, the chickens got into the beet bed. Not too much damage, still... I have enough trouble with beets without their help.
Then one of the calves had crusty, watery eyes. I thought, oh no, please not pink eye! Got close to him, not pink eye...skunk! poor guy!
Ack! I bet he'd take a ton of tomato juice to de-skunk!
edited for typo
This message was edited Mar 4, 2011 8:05 PM
Speaking of stinky stuff, I was just reading how some people used chopped fish in their gardens. I'm wondering if I can make my own fish emulsion without grossing myself out.
Normally we would put our fish guts buried deep into the center of the compost. Our compost piles were large circles of cattle panel and the dogs couldn't get into them. Now we want to stop using the panels and start using free standing piles to turn with the tractor. I can't bury the fish scraps in the compost or the ground without the dogs going after it.
Any ideas how commercial fish emulsion is made? Is it fermented?
Yes, it is fermented. AlohaHoya here on DG does it.
You might send her a dmail. She's vaguely related to me, and we correspond occasionally. That's how I know they ferment fish. They use it to inoculate biochar for the orchid growers.
It's 40* now and our rain finally moved on (sorry Cajun, Darius and Dyson) but it's still completely cloud covered. Just down right yucky looking.
We're getting close to spring around here! I started several seed trays a few days ago and my little seedlings are popping up left and right. Hopefully I'll be able to plant my peas and beets in the garden after this next round of rain Tuesday and Wednesday. This time last year the garden was still lawn. It's so nice to walk out there now and already see my raised rows ready for planting with very few weeds brave enough to make an appearence in MY garden.
Amen
Robin, here's a shot from the house... ONE hour after the pic you saw on sailor's thread... We now have SNOW, plus flooding. It isn't over my garlic and shallots YET.
