Larsen Poultry Ranch - homesteading journey

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

The guys made a lot of progress on the roof this past week and got the first half done before the rain on Saturday. Now they are working on the second half of the roof. At the edge you can see how much the new eaves have extended the roof.

This shenanigans was under the roof over the living room pop out. Gee I wonder why it wasn't draining properly and leaked?

Bonus pictures of the garden since I was already up on the roof.

 

[Baymule]

WOW! New roof! Having done that myself in June, I know how great it feels to have a new roof! That’s awesome!

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Roof is still in progress, I'm hoping they'll get it completed this week though. They are busting through the popout ceiling today.

 

[Baymule]

Progress!

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

All the plywood sheets got put on and the underlayment paper stuff too, before the rain. The rest of the shingles are ordered but not picked up yet. The rain hasn't been too hard today, mostly on and off. The flashing around the fireplace flue was planned to be changed by hubby, so they put a plastic bag over the spot to keep the rain out. Guess where it's leaking?

Stupid deer keep getting into the garden and I think some of the trees aren't going to recover. They've munched most of the lettuce, spinach, Swiss Chard, and Brussels sprouts I planted. I picked off two tomato hornworms off the tomatillo and one of the tomatoes, one was absolutely massive, as big around as my finger. I need to harvest the few okra that have grown before the deer chomp them.

I harvested about a cup of goji berries, and I might get some more once the next set grows in. I harvested a bunch of pinto and black beans, and shelled most of them. I picked a bunch before they were finished drying, so I have them in a wire basket hopefully finishing drying. There's more in various stages still on the plants, but some of the plants were dead and brown so I chopped those down but left the roots in place. Dunno how the beans will react to the rain. I'm definitely learning a bunch about growing beans this year. Next year I'll try growing more varieties. I'm thinking it might be smart to go through the ones I harvested this year and pick the best looking/sized and try growing those next year, since they might be more acclimated to growing in this specific zone than the store bought beans.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Guess it's been a while since I've posted. Munchkin 2 is finally starting to sleep a bit better at night. Hubby blocked the garden gates a little better and combined with the recent rain causing plant growth, the deer don't seem to be attacking.

I removed all the pumpkin plants as they hadn't set any fruit at all and with the weather getting colder they were unlikely to be productive. I weeded the whole row and planted onion sets, hopefully they do ok and the squirrels don't mess with them too badly. I also planted some bok choy, lettuce, golden beets, and garlic.

I created a garden journal on my computer to take notes of what I'm doing when/where, and started a spreadsheet to track my trees/plants. I was able to add metal tags to quite a few of them too, to help keep track of them so I don't lose the variety info. Apparently I have over 14 figs, and at least two are duplicates of the others.

 

[SageHill]

Sounds great and huge YAY on the deer.
For the first 3 yrs I lost track of what I did in the kitchen garden beds except for what I added into each of the boxes. LOL after enough time I couldn't even say exactly what box had zucchini and which ones had tomatoes. .
This year I got plastic envelopes with a zip closer, I cut a piece of cardstock for every box and hung a plastic envelope in each box (15, 4ftx4ft raised beds) with what I put into the box (dirt, manure etc), what and when I planted, and when I pulled the plants and dates for everything on each box card. When I pull a plant I put some quick note on how the plant grew and produced. SO FAR - it's worked great, it took a little bit to set up, but after that it hardly takes any time and when I'm out there looking at something I can always check the card. And each box now has a history at my finger tips.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Sounds great and huge YAY on the deer.
For the first 3 yrs I lost track of what I did in the kitchen garden beds except for what I added into each of the boxes. LOL after enough time I couldn't even say exactly what box had zucchini and which ones had tomatoes. .
This year I got plastic envelopes with a zip closer, I cut a piece of cardstock for every box and hung a plastic envelope in each box (15, 4ftx4ft raised beds) with what I put into the box (dirt, manure etc), what and when I planted, and when I pulled the plants and dates for everything on each box card. When I pull a plant I put some quick note on how the plant grew and produced. SO FAR - it's worked great, it took a little bit to set up, but after that it hardly takes any time and when I'm out there looking at something I can always check the card. And each box now has a history at my finger tips.

That sounds awesome but I'd be terrified I'd lose the card it it stayed outside.

What I'm trying to get set up is a map of the bed/plant locations along with the spreadsheets to track the data. I have Microsoft Access, which is a database system, so it'll end up there and hopefully I'll be able to get it to generate reports and graphs too. Each tree has been assigned an identifier to track it. I'm probably getting a bit geeky on this but if it works and encourages me to be in the garden more then that's what I need.

Trying to do a similar thing with the rabbits too.

 

[SageHill]

That sounds awesome but I'd be terrified I'd lose the card it it stayed outside.

What I'm trying to get set up is a map of the bed/plant locations along with the spreadsheets to track the data. I have Microsoft Access, which is a database system, so it'll end up there and hopefully I'll be able to get it to generate reports and graphs too. Each tree has been assigned an identifier to track it. I'm probably getting a bit geeky on this but if it works and encourages me to be in the garden more then that's what I need.

Trying to do a similar thing with the rabbits too.

The will be fantastic! DH wanted to get me a program that would map out the garden and keep track of everything. I told him no, I wanted the garden fun and low-tech!

 

[Bruce]

You plant, he keeps track and creates the reports