Drainage Issues and Compost Corral

This is a closeup of the make shift trellis I made to keep the melons out of the water.

It's just part of living here. Unbelievable rain amounts. It doesn't just drizzle, it dumps buckets and buckets of rain for days and days. Unless the pumps (those are the huge pumps they use to keep our area from becoming a lake) are running, the rain quickly fills the ditches covers the road and creeps up the hill our home is built on.

The water drains off fairly quickly once it stops raining or they turn the pumps on. Yet parts of my yard and garden keep very deep puddles until there is enough let up in the rain for the sun to either evaporate it or the water table to go down. The hot sun evaporating the water from underneath the veggies is murder on the vegetables. They get steamed right in the garden. At times the ground is completely saturated and the only place for it to drain is through the drainage ditch and into the swamp.

So...I believe it is time for some drainage issues to be addressed. I am thinking of putting in drainage pipes in my potager (they are the red lines.). This is a drawing of what it will look like eventually. The paths will either be mulched or covered with gravel. We are implementing each stage as time and money allows. I'm glad we had these rains recently to reveal the drainage flaws in our garden before we have to tear anything apart to fix the problem.
The following is a video of the compost bin we are going to build. His "compost corral" will be a much better fit for our land size. It's such a simple idea yet brilliant!

A Little Overboard

I went a little overboard with the skirts, but I had a blast doing it. Here are four little skirts for four little cousins. There's going to be a lot of "Oh my gosh, those are sooo cuuute!!!" going on. The fact that they're pink is enough to bring on the "sooo cuuuute" comments. Of course, I get to play the, "I love you more than all your other Aunts, because I seeeew for you, and they don't". I'll say this with raised eyebrows while casting side glances at my sisters' jealous looks. Hee Hee Hee. Being an Aunt is such fun.

Sewing is a lot of fun. As I said before, it was surprisingly easy to sew these simple skirts. They could be frilled up quite a bit by making the ruffle a contrasting color, adding ribbon or rickrack, or even a tulle under ruffle peeking out would be really cute. The whole pattern was only two pieces cut out twice (a square and a long rectangle), straight seams, and the ruffle.
Now I would like to pass along the award I received recently from Egghead. I would like to send it along to Sugar Creek Farm. I really appreciate her sharing their real farm life (while I'm still in pretend stage). They do a lot of things I admire: raise crops, kids, cattle, poultry, sell at the farmer's market and numerous other things. All the while keeping a really positive attitude while dealing with the challenges of farming and figuring out how to get all the ends to meet up eventually. Thanks Sugar Creek Farm for your fun inspirational web site.

Around the House and Garden

This is why I plant river birches.
A southern heirloom crookneck white cushaw pumpkin.
My makeshift trellis to keep the melon vines off of the soggy ground. We've had rain rain rain and heat heat heat, so most of the plants are sulking. Not the melons. They seem to love it. I'll have to prepare better for trellising next year.
The only plants that love this weather--tropicals. Hibiscus and gingers.
A corner of my garden. Mexican sage is in the foreground. That's agave in the hidden urn. Shell ginger in the background which bloomed beautifully. I believe I posted a picture of it's bloom earlier this spring.

Seeds and Tomato Trials

When on vacation, I love to seek out plants! Whether I buy seeds or sneak a pod or cutting off of a tree or vine, there's plants in my car when I arrive home. I have been know to pinch a tip off of a plant and stick it in my pocket to root later. Around here there is a saying that, "stolen plants grow better" and "never say thank you for a plant or it won't grow". Maybe there is a way to test this theory. I'll just go around stealing plants without even a "thank you"!

So now there are a bundle of new seeds waiting to be fit into the planting schedule. There are several packets from the Thomas Jefferson Heirloom collection and some I found at a seed store in Bird In Hand Pennsylvania. I have heirloom Anne Arundel Muskmelon, Red Wethersfield Onion, Golden-rain tree, striped french marigold, Romanesco cauliflower, Early green broccoli, Broad Windsor bean, Dutch Beets Baby Ball, and Henderson's bush Lima beans.

Here in the New Orleans area there are three seasons, hot and humid, warm and humid, and cool and humid. We have few frosts and even fewer short freezes. Once in a 10 to 15 year period there will be a freeze long enough to threaten citrus. The upside of this is we can grow all year long. There is time for a second crop of tomatoes. So maybe I can find redemption. We ate maybe two tiny tomatoes from my first crop before the armies of armoured stink bugs took over. Hand picking does not work. There were just too many of them. I am going to give it another try this fall and I am going to try planting earlier next year. Hopefully I can get in most of the crop before the plague o' stinkbugs shows. If this doesn't work, I am considering building a screen house. Kinda like a greenhouse except made of screen. Maybe this will allow me to grow tomatoes organically and actually eat some.

So far I haven't found a local resource that can provide me with all this information so I don't have to learn the hard way. C'mon Dan Gill, Give up the chemicals. Teach us how to grow Louisiana the healthy way...hmmm? Please!?

My First Blog Award!!

Thank you Egghead for the award! Egghead recently received this award for her blog The Little Egg Farm and she passed it on to me. Thanks Egghead for thinking my blog is AWESOME! I love going over to the Little Egg Farm and reading about all the mysterious happenings in her hen yard and all about living in the northwest. Now the fun part...who can I pass it on to?

Hanging Out the Clothes

It's important to me for my children to understand and appreciate how things come to them. When they experience first hand the time and effort that goes into providing clean clothes, clean home and yummy food it encourages thank fullness. A thankful child is a happier child.

My children mostly enjoy doing these chores. Especially if it's new and novel to them. Like hanging clothes to dry, planting seeds, cracking the eggs to scramble, following a recipe, measuring things, mopping....of course age appropriate chores. It's educational and builds their confidence in who and what they are and what they are capable of. I believe children miss out on a lot of growth and happiness when parents do or have every thing done for them.

Here is Seleste hanging clothes to dry. I snuck up behind her and took this picture. She was having such fun.

BBQ Shrimp

BBQ Shrimp mix from farmers market. I'm not sure why they call it BBQ Shrimp. It doesn't taste at all like traditional BBQ. It taste like nothing else. It's a mixture of herbs (rosemary and others), peppers and butter. 1 lb of butter sauce mix and water.
Louisianan Shrimp bought from the small fisherman right off the boat at dock.
BBQ Shrimp from the oven.
Outta sight.

Let me introduce you to a few of our chickens.

Figuring out what breed each of our chickens are has been a lesson in patience. They're like my nephews. They change quickly! I think I've got a few of them figured out beyond doubt...I think!
Here is our roosters--Smith
and Wesson.
The Giant un-named Black Giant Chicken.
Bobcat the Ancona chicken
Icicle the Light Brahma Chicken
Shirley the Partridge Rock Chicken
Taylor the Silver Laced Wyandotte chicken
We are getting 3 to 4 eggs daily now, and two of our chickens are laying double yolked eggs!

Canning Fig Jam

8 lbs of Brown Turkey Figs
Canning tools.
The quartered figs with sugar, lemon juice, and water beginning to cook.
Jars being processed in boiling water.
Here's the harvest preserved!

Here's the basic recipe. If you want to learn to can, a wonderful simple book on the topic is the Ball Blue Book by Ball canning company. Canning is really pretty easy.

Fig Jam

Figs

1 cup of sugar for every pound of figs

about 1/4 cup of lemon juice for every 5 pounds of figs

about 3/4 cup of water for every 5 pounds of figs

Enough boiling water to cover figs

Enough sterilized jars and bands (for 8 lbs of figs I needed 2 qt jars and 11 pint jars)

New canning lids (place in a bowl of hot water)

Large pot of boiling water for water bath

Large pot for cooking figs

Wash figs and drain. Cover figs with boiling water. Let set for 10 minutes. Drain. Cut off stems off and quarter figs. Place quartered figs in large pot. Add sugar, water and lemon juice. Cook on high stirring constantly until mixture reaches gelling point (when mixture clumps or sheets as it drops from the spoon it is ready). The mixture will also get more difficult to stir. Reaching gelling point takes a long time. Turn off heat.

Fill jars one at a time leaving 1/4 inch headroom. Wipe rim clean put lid and band on jar. Set to side and fill next jar. When finished filling jars, place jars in pot of boiling water (enough water to cover tops of jars). Process jam filled jars in boiling water for 15 minutes. Remove and allow to cool. You will hear the tops "pop" as they seal. Yummy.

Flossie

My cat Flossie smelling flowers from the garden.