Hot times on the August Homestead

Ahh, so you had been there. For some reason I had the impression it was a new area to you, but see now that it was just new compared to Boone. I've only been to Bluefield...and that was so long ago I don't remember what part of VA I was in. It was beautiful tho!

Bluefield is on the VA-WVa line about 75 miles from here. Pretty country, a bit steep and craggy... coal is king there. In fact, coal is king all along the VA-KY line, as well as the VA-WVa line.

Yep, It was a culture shock for me. I'm from West Texas, possibly the flattest place on earth! I went bug eyed visiting homes perched on the side of those mountains.lol

We live on the edge here... literally! LOL

Disappointed today. Some of my Fall tomato plants are starting to bloom but some have late blight. I had to pull up about 90 plants.(single vines) Those 90 plants were concentrated in one area in the greenhouse on the side that gets all the west blowing storms. After I pulled up the most infected plants, I drenched the rest with copper fungicide. I am down to about 300 plants/vines. That will definitely lower my fall income. Wondering how Cauliflower will grow in the bare spaces. I think some would do ok but some spaces would get too much shade from towering tomato vines. Maybe Turnip Greens ? Sigh.....Hate to see a bare space........ Lettuce!?
I have about 288 fall crop plants to set out in a few weeks. Have to get the small garden plot ready for turnip greens and have to finish getting the other raised beds ready for the other fall crops.
All these veggies are important. What I sell will financially fund the Spring Greenhouse plant sales and more produce. I spent all my spring and summer income this year on building the house. Everything is riding on fall tomato produce sales or I am going to be in big trouble.

""I am running so far behind, I thought I was first.""

It's been a bad luck year everywhere for vegetables I think. It was so late drying around here, and then it dried all the way up. Then it got hot as all the fires of hell and damnation. Then it rained buckets and lots of crops were "scalded" as some of the oldsters say. My cherry tomatoes are coming on like gangbusters, but my cole crops are pretty much a bust. It's just a really bad year for gardeners. For a few who actually got their stuff out between the early rains, it's been a little better, but still not great. I just pray next year is better.

I'm with you, Nik... Hope next year is better. If I had to survive on just my garden this year I'd be pretty skinny come spring!

Cricket, shame about the toms. I didn't get a single tomato the past 2 years. Must be some "quick" crops that can tolerate the tomato shade?

Cricket, I feel for ya. Praying for a good fall crop all around. I can't imagine what farming
families are going through at the moment with so many failed crops this year. Have you considered raising pork? Do you have a lot of left overs from the garden to feed them?

Even tho our summer garden was short lived, I've lost all the crops I intended for the animals or had to use them sooner then I wanted. I lost the mangels...guess they couldn't take 20 days of 105 temps.lol I'm hoping feeder piglets will be cheap this fall. I still have all those frozen eggs from spring time and there is always hope I can get a decent crop this fall to help feed the pigs.

Fruit was a total loss this year. My figs dehydrated on the trees. A few berries, no plums, no peaches and I don't see any persimmons forming. Out of 5 mature pear trees, I got 5 quarts :0(

Here, the fall garden is going to be a tuffy too. While cleaning and getting it ready this week I've seen so many critters, rats, bunnies and some strange rodent that looks like a chinchilla....cute, but I'm betting it eats plants.lol

Tough year here too. I finished "digging" my tater bags and my sum total just filled a 3 gallon feed bucket. I have planted in the bags for 2 seasons now and I think I have learned something that will hopefully help me next year. The plan was to put compost in the bottom of the bag, plant the tater and then fill in the bag as the plant grew. The premiss was that the tater would make fruit all up and down the plant as it grew taller. That did not happen for me either year. All the taters were in the compost at the bottom so next year I will fill the bag at the beginning and let the taters grow down and fill up the bag. It can't get any worse.

I pulled all but 3 beet plants. I left them for seed. They did pretty good considering the challenges of the hard, rocky soil they had to call home.

I have spent the morning cleaning in the garden beds. Pulled up a couple squash plants. Was going to pull the last 2 but they have squashes on them and I certainly don't want to waste them. At this point, every one counts.

My maters are all but gone. Blight did them in early on. Sad and depressing. I did make one good discovery this year. My Honkin' Big Black Cherry made enough for me to get a taste of them. I had not grown them before but I will not be without them from now on. I was a big champion of the Galena's Yellow Cherry but I have a new fave now. I got enough of them to save enough seed for next year.

My eggplants are just now starting to fruit. I have 5 plants. All are different so I will have a nice variety. One plant is small and I will be very suprised if there is enough time for it to make. It was buried under the squash and I moved it today when I was cleaning out.

I am hoping to get my winter Sugar Ann pea crop in shortly. This is the first year I have grown them and I really enjoyed them.

I hate that everybody has had such a rough gardening year. I pray next year is better for us all.

I did manage to put some squash in the freezer. I mixed all the kinds I had (yellow scallop, cocozelle, trombocino, yellow straightneck and green zukes) and saute'd them with onions, garlic, sweet pepper and lemon and lime basils. They were very tasty. I also got a few bags of tomatoes in the freezer. They were a gift from a friend who had a very good year with tomatoes. I put up some apples too and look forward to getting more of them. The first ones to come in were a variety called Stark's Jumbo. Delicious apple. I am looking forward to the Arkansas Blacks to come in. They are last but I think they are my favorite apple.

I froze 5 1/2 dozen extra eggs for winter. I put 6 to a bag for omlets and 3 to a bag for cakes. I will do some with 1 to a bag later because I like to use those little Jiffy box mixes for muffins. I use the cornbread mix to make hushpuppies. The eggs are not selling and I don't like just giving them away. The feed is very expensive. I do give some eggs to the elderly folks around me. I am trying to sell half my flock and get a new pen build down the hill before cold weather sets in. If I can't sell them I will put them in the freezer.

I made my goat cheese and the second attempt was successful. I flavored it with green onion. Now I have to get some crackers. I salvaged some blooms (all male) from the squash vines I pulled up. I am thinking I might stuff a goat cheese mixture in the blooms and batter them, then deep fry them.

The schnoxer pup got snake bit. It was really bad at first. Swelled so bad I was afraid it would cut off the circulation in his toes. His foot looked like a hand with the fingers all spread out. He got bit on the inside of his foot just below the ankle and it swelled to his shoulder. I gave him a 25mg benadryl tohelp with the swelling and next morning it was very much better. No swelling now and he is running around on it. Must have been a copperhead. The bite marks are about 1/2" apart. I think a rattler that big would have made him a lot sicker or maybe even killed him. He only weighs about 10 or 12lbs. Looks like he may be getting a little infection around one of the fang wounds so I'm going to keep a close eye on it. He is keeping it clean but if it doesn't get better quick I will start him on some penicillin injections. Poor little tacker has had a rough month.

I lost a layer and it was like nothing I have ever seen before. She was laying dead in the pen without a mark on her. I cut her open to see if I could figure out what tooke her. Her vent ws stuffed with what looked like boiled egg yolk. No shells at all. Just the hard yolk. I opened her up and all her "egg laying apperatus" was filled with yolk. Never saw anything like it. Have any of you ever heard of such a thing? She was a RSL.






This message was edited Aug 18, 2011 12:35 PM

Here is a pic of the yolks.

Caj, what variety of potatoes did you plant? I just read that early ones like Yukon Gold set their spuds all at once rather than up the stem as you hill them like late potatoes.

NO idea what caused that Cajun. Thats horrible. I want to freeze some eggs too..Speaking of chickens. Some of mine have gape. I have seperated the ones that look like they have gape==which is only two at the moment. It was a new chicken coop. I guess they picked something up in the soil. So sad. All I can do right now is sweep the coops clean of litter and keep it clean every day for a while and finish picking out the ones who are infected. crap-o-la.
Your poor PUP! ====Congrats on your cheese. YOu sure do live a busy life. I bet it never gets boring around there.

Any wormer should take care of the gape worms. I use 0.6 cc of liquid pipirazine.

I have no clue on your hen's problem, Cajun, weird!

Aww, poor pup. I always feel so bad for them when they get so puffed up.

Does this look like what you had...I just had dinner.. didn't look too close!
http://familycow.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=chickens&action=display&thread=42805

Here is the rest of my chicken puzzle. It turns out that gurgling is a symptom of chicken having gape worms. The newest rooster I brought home---that ameraucana rooster has a gurgling problem. A week after I had brought those ameraucanas home, I had put all my young rooosters in a new coop next to the ameraucanas. So it seems the amerucana roosters originally had the gape worms..... My young roosters started gurgling like he was. I thought it was a rooster "thing"....I found out that older mature chickens will survive much longer than young chickens with gape worms. The only worm meds I have here is for roundworms. I gave every chicken worm meds in the water today.
Sadly, two roosters that I had separated earlier today are now dead. They suffocated. I have 4 more young roosters showing signs of sickness. Runny noses, coughing, gurgling. Also have an ameraucana hen who is acting like she is grasping for air. The person I bought the ameraucanas from aint gonna like me blaming them for the sickness but I sent them a message anyway so they could check on their chickens. After I had put those young roosters next door to the mature ameraucana rooster, they would do rooster dances at the fence line but wasn't able to physically harm each other. I am assuming the ameraucana coughed his worm eggs over into the other coop while doing his dance.
I guess I learned what gape worms are and how to diagnose it. In the future, I will also give the chickens a dose of Apple Cider Vinegar. I need to find a good deal on apples.

The fact that they also have runny noses makes me think they have a respiratory infection not gape worms. In any event they cannot pass gape worms directly from chicken to chicken; they have to get them from eating earthworms or some other intermediate host. Check the "sticky" at the top of the Poultry forum to see if their symptoms fit any of the described diseases.

This message was edited Aug 18, 2011 8:15 PM

Darius, I planted Pontiac and Kinnibec (sp?). Neither did any good.

I think Pontiacs are early 'taters but not sure. Kennebecs are what my mother grew and they hilled them. K'becs are good keepers and usually don't get blight. Sorry you lost yours.

Since moles/voles got my Yukon Golds, the only 'taters I will have to store is whatever sweet potato crop I have. Since I've never grown them before, I don't know what to expect.

I usually raise spuds in tires and do pretty good at it, but this years were a bust. all potatoes will give a more plentiful crop if they are hilled up. I have sweet potatoes in the ground and the vines are looking good. I was planning to leave them in the ground until frost. Ithink that next year I am going to start my own sweet potato slips again, but I'm going to get 2-3 roots going so I'll have more slips at once.
Spreading manure again tomorrow and then Sunday we're discing and laying cardboard and leafmulch over the new garden. I talked to the village guys and they are going me at least 3 more truckloads of leaves this fall. Next years garden had better be awesome!!!

Sounds like a deal, Nik!

I don't understand "I'm going to get 2-3 roots going so I'll have more slips at once." Does that mean each growth off a SP (with leaves on top) can be segmented to plant, or just having more individual "stems" coming off the SP's?

Sure wish I had trees in my yard, for leaves. We have 19 acres, mostly all woods but no trees close enough to the yard to gather leaves in fall.

Darius I wish I could trade you leaves for cheese! :0) In the Fall here if I don't clean up leaves at least once a week They get knee deep.

LOL Neener, you could... if you didn't live so danged far away!

My yard in Asheville only had a couple of huge old oaks, but enough leaves to mulch the whole garden. Of course, I didn't grow vegetables back then other than a few Brandywines.

I usually buy sweet potato slips at am Amish Greenhouse that I patronise. But this year I started my own by setting a sweet potato in a jarof water. But I never got more than 3 starts at a time. Next year I want to get 3-4 potatoes going so I can get a dozen or so starts at once.
I went to the produce auction when I got off of work today and bought 3 pecks of multi coloured sweet peppers for 6.00 bucks. I can start making stuffed peppers to can and of course, they go great when you sautee them with onions for brats. Or in a big skillet of the O'Brien. Ahhhh! that's good eats!!!

That's a great price!

Thanks Nik... now I understand you did just what I did after so many of the slips I ordered died within 10 days of planting. I was able to get enough slips grown from 3-4 SP's to fill in the gaps. I have no clue how many SP's to expect from about a dozen plants total, since this is the first time I've grown them.

I want to buy a bushel of butternut squash to store but I doubt I'll find such a good deal as you got on the peppers. Butternuts keep very well and I love them roasted. I usually grow a bunch but mine didn't do squat this year... although I did get a bunch of volunteer acorns and several Thelma Sander's Sweet Potato Squash (similar to an acorn but a sorta chestnut taste). Neither of those store for very long... 3-5 months at best.

Next year my garden will be geared to more storage crops.

The heavier soil will usually yield bigger rounder SPs. The Amish have a produce auction not far from me, in fact I go past it as I go to work. I saw 1/2 bushel boxes of canning tomatoes go for 1.25. They had lots of squash, but I didn't get any. They'll have more, and the auction runs 2wice weekly.

Lucky You!

Wish we had such a market.

You'll only get one sw potato per vine. I tried rooting six this last spring and only three rooted. Makes me wonder if they are treated with something to prohibit rooting? Still only got about 10-12 slips from each that did root. They were too staggered in rooting as well.
This fall, around the time they go on sale, I'm going to root some in a jar and let the vines get as long as possible. Then cut each vine into segments and reroot.
I'm not sure if this will work. They will reroot from each leaf node, won't they?

That was kinda my question to Nik, for I surely don't know!

Each of my original vines seem to have forked several times and spread, some rooting along their travels. Might this mean more SP's?

I think it does mean more sweet potatoes darius. My rooted vines roots were looking like sweet potatoes when i dug the plants up. They just didn't have enough time to grow bigger. I think if the vines were covered as they grew they will take root sooner and will have more time to maker bigger potatoes on the new roots.

The morning after my roosters died, I traveled the whole town looking for answers and meds.
I was told again that my chickens could have gapeworms and that infestations of gape in the chickens lungs can
cause respiratory infections (was told that at the feed store). A game bird breeder suggested they just had a respiratory infection due to the runny noses...(like porkpal has suggested). I treated them all for worms and all have had antibiotic in their water and will continue antibiotics for 10 days. 11 chickens were wheezing(gurgling) really bad and they got antibiotic shots.
some information i found on gape worms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapeworm
My barn looks like a chicken hospital.

Other than nursing chickens back to health, I been picking muscadines to make wine and juice. Bought apples to make apple cider and vinegar. Bought pears to go with the pears I grew to make perry. I also bought an old 6 gallon churn to make the perry. This is going to be so fun. Been buying canisters for my kitchen. I didn't have any due to that house fire. But anyway, I bought a set of Mushroom canisters that were made in 1978. You remember the ones that actually look like a mushroom with a mushroom on the lid and mushroom imprinted and painted on the front. They were in excellent condition considering how old they are. With matching salt and pepper shaker, a napkin holder, and two of the enamel dishwares with the plastic lids.

I picked 2 gallons of Scuppernongs this evening for wine making. I will be picking scuppernongs muscadines for the next two weeks.

Sorry you are having such bad luck with the chickens. I hope they all get over it soon whatever it is.

I love muscadines!! And I love scupernongs even more. My brother has vines in La. My Momma makes lots of jelly. I'd just love the juice.

Are you going to make your own cider? That is great. I love cider. A guy we used to go to church with would bring us some from a place in Ohio. It was sooo good. I could drink it by the gallon.

Please, tell me what is "perry"? It sounds interesting.

Perry is Pear Wine or Cider. I don't know much about it....just that folks call pear wine Perry. But from what I have read , Perry is a type of pear and thats why it is called perry....Its kinda confusing to me and I still have some learning to do. Somebody sent me to this website on Pear Wine History.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry

Thank you, Pod. I'm still doing something wrong then. I wonder if I don't water them enough. Do you know if they irrigate sw potato fields?

Sorry about the chickens, Cricket. I had the same issues a few years back when I purchased some birds. Very frustrating, hang in there.I hope they get better.

I don't think water is as important as the correct soil. I tried growing them last year and had long, skinny, gnarly taters. I believe my soil is too compact. I will either need to improve it or had considered developing an appropriate soil for them in a wading pool. That is a future endeavor though. The soil also needs to be the correct PH. The plants require moisture while growing but it is recommended that moisture be withheld for the last 3 or 4 weeks. This was a fairly informative read that I had saved. http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/2420/how-to-grow-sweet-potatoes

Cricket ~ the perry sounds wonderful. Amazing I had not heard of it as the old native trees here grow tons of winter pears. Of course, this is also deep in the bible belt so we still have 'dry' areas. Perhaps they didn't approve...

Interesting article, pod, esp. about the slips. However, I disagree about washing with a hose after digging. Almost any tuber, most storage vegetables, and all alliums store better if the dirt is merely dry-wiped off, either before or after curing.

I will agree there. Logic would tell you not to worry about 'clean'. When air dried it will dust off easily.

Still have found no answer to the one potato to a vine though.

pod, there was an estimate in that article you posted, I believe.