New Year Green House

Building a Greenhouse

Three reclaimed doublepane windows make up each side of this simple A frame.

Talk is Cheap

Roma

Basil

Cabbage in coldframe

Putting up zucchini

Growing Food With 75 MPH Winds & No Rain

Living Salad Bar

These images are all from May or early June. It only took us until now to post and publish.

Being busy + Dead Computer = Nobloglongtime

Hop trellis up the house

Sunflowers from last season's seed

Hops on the right and chard and lettuce planted to the left near the footings

Kale from last fall that we overwintered and planted from the last crop's seed

Life > Blog

Batter for homemade/ homegrown waffles

Waffles with our squash and nuts and stuff...delicious

Bar-Be-Que

Marigold

MInt

newly transplanted hops

Spring Has Sprung

A view from the land behind our house.

Pullets are growing fast:

Growing Food

We have a lot going on here this season. In our new hoop house we have seedlings germinating!

-Mizuna
-Spinach
-Kale
-Carrots
-Lettuce

some of these are already up and we just need to cover it up a little more to increase moisture and germination.

Propigating Hops From Rhizomes

When we first started this garden blog a few years ago we got a female Chinook hop plant. It has since given us bitter and aromatic flowers every season that have been used in all the homebrews from the Spotty Dog. It is also spreading like crazy and it is time to divide it up a bit.

Baby Turkeys!

We got one Bourbon Red and a Broad Brested Bronze

Now We Are Getting Serious

This drylands farming thing is no joke! We are stepping it up with the purchase of this 1650 gallon cistern.

Supermoon & Planting

Tonight's Supermoon rising over the mountains

Sowing carrots, spinach, mizuna, kale and lettuce.

Pullets Moved Outside

In their transitional brooder:

Mini Hoop House for a Mini Farm

 Mini hoop house (16' x 3')

They Grow Up So Fast

 See the turken in the above photo?


We are already on the second fifty pound bag of feed.

Quick Saturday Post

It is almost March and we still have some firewood left.


Cutting barrel rings for a hoop house:

More From The Dumpster Diving Chronicles

 

Got a ton of melons, pineapples, apples, cukes, greens and mangoes this afternoon. In this foto Michael is preparing to wheel all that produce down to the chicken coop. The wheelbarrow was loaded and not an easy push. Thanks Mike! Always good to have visitors to the micro-farm.

Dumpster Diving For Nutritious Chicken Feed

 Pretty good score this morning at the produce place.

Week Old Chicks

Bartering With Eggs

 At the Santa Fe Farmer's Market this morning I took a few dozen eggs with and set out to barter our excess of eggs for some other things we needed.

Homegrown Garlic Powder

When your garlic supply is supposed to last a season you find creative ways to use it. With the dried bulbs we grind them up in the mortar and pestle and use it fresh in avocados, marinades, dressings, chile and other dishes. It is extremely potent and can cure a cold. Tastes amazing.

Chicks: Day Two

 For the most part they are healthy and happy. They are eating and drinking a lot.

Baby Chicks Are Here!

A few over fifty arrived this morning to our local post office.

We got the rainbow layers assortment, so they should be mostly female.

Another Chicken Post

...I know, enough already, but these gals are one of the main things feeding us right now.

Chickens Don't Just Make Eggs...

...they also make manure.

 We are amending the soon to be herb garden with a mixture of straw, manure and half broken down food scraps. This is a very rich mix and helps hold water as well as bring nutrients to the soil. We are still building up this garden (the one we buried pots in last year and grew chiles) We are planning on planting mostly perennial herbs here.

Seeds

We went to Plants of the Southwest this afternoon and picked up some seeds. A great place for native trees, shrubs, veggies and herbs. The Santa Fe location is very nice, complete with an adobe building and a rammed earth/ log beam building. Also a really nice adobe retaining wall as you drive in. They also have an Albuquerque location we have yet to check out.

Seeds we picked up today include:

-Purple Podded Pole Bean (100 seeds)
-Carrots- Chantenay & Touchon (200 seeds ea.)
-Early Wonder Tall Crop Beets (200 seeds)
-Mizuna (100 seeds)
-Dwarf Blue Curl-leaf Kale (100 seeds)
-Lettuce Cutting Mix (500 seeds)

Perennial Herb garden:
-Echinacea Angustifolia (50 seeds)
-Oregano (100 seeds)
-Chives (100 seeds)
 -Perennial Arugula (100 seeds)

To be started in trays inside:
-Cherokee Purple Tomato (50 seeds)
-Genovese Basil (100 seeds)

Mailorder Chicks

Ordering chicks at the end of the month. Just trying to decide on which ones.


We want some flock diversity and right now it is just the seven Australorp hens.



Murray McMurray Hatchery has some nice birds at good rates.

I think we might go with fifty of their "Rainbow Layers" as well as another dozen or so of something else that should lay well.

We're splitting the birds with the neighbor so hopefully that'll help on shipping.

Earthships

We visited the world headquarters of Earthship Biotecture in Taos, NM. Some cool concepts for off the grid living and sustainable building. We put up a photo album on Picassa here. Enjoy.