Peacock Orchard

Country life

Pumpkin — This pumpkin has been eaten by the turkeys since this picture was taken.

Kitchen garden is having it’s ups and downs. I have a squash bug infestation. This is made a bit better by the spider that has taken up residence at the bottom of the squash. The squash that have managed to grow are getting eaten by the birds. Turkeys I think. I’m going to have to make that fence a priority.

The wine bottle hot box looks good. Things are really growing now. Flowers have bloomed and we are excited!

Corn is growing well as well as the tomatoes, peppers and green beans. Green beans have been harvested twice already and are still growing strong.

We took a nice walk last night. Son was excited to wear his boots and walk in the puddles from the rain the day before. Daughter rode in the backpack. That thing is a life saver.

We have purchased a new macro lens and I’m having a heck of a time figuring it out. Tried to take a nice picture of one of our many sunflowers and this is the best I could get. Ugh!

Vetch pod

I have a few random plants growing around the property. Wind blown seed, never watered. I’m impressed with the fact that this has grown at all.

Pig Roast Fun

August 8th was a big day for us. It started early, well to be honest we just never went to bed. We got the pig ready Friday night and Saturday at 1a.m. it was on the grate cooking. Ok, let me start from the beginning.

We cooked our pig in a sort of makeshift grill made from cinder blocks and expanded metal. A roof was fashioned from metal sheeting and 2×4’s. Holes were drilled in certain blocks to fit rebar supports.

We ordered our pig from a butcher fairly close to where we live. They went and picked up the pig and butchered it. Unfortunately they did not cut it right, gave us the wrong pig (our pig went to someone else and the pig we ended up with was even bigger than expected) and then laughed and blamed the whole thing on us. As if we are responsible for them writing “split” instead of “splayed” and giving us the wrong pig. We won’t use them again. So it started rough. We salted the pig up and waited for Husband’s family to come assist in pig surgery. We could not have the pig split like that, it wouldn’t flip well at all. So wire was used to sew it up.

We used hardwood coal to keep the temperature in the pig around 260 degrees.

There was no wind when we started the pig and getting the coals going was difficult. It came up fierce in the morning though and the coals were burning hot and fast. Everything else was also blowing away. I tried to get some sleep and woke up around 8 with Daughter’s foot in my face. We went out and visited the Pig and brought Husband breakfast. All was good until the turkeys arrived. They were biting us, trying to get on the table and eat the food and generally testing our limits. We ended up holding a fly swatter and whacking them until they gave up and went away, temporarily.

PIG IN THE MORNING — This is after 8 hours of cooking.

Then Husband went to bed and I babysat the pig. I tried to watch a movie but……

I gave up.

After 14 hours of cooking the pig was done. Everything was set up and we awaited guests. The party was wonderful. However, we have TONS of left overs. We will be eating pig for the rest of our lives I think.

Oh, here is the pig being consumed by guests. The legs came off on the last flipping.

Daughter had a grand time once she decided she was ok with eating Pig. It took some doing. She felt like they were friends and wouldn’t eat it to begin with.

We had some rain and quite a bit of wind which graced us with a lovely rainbow and a beautiful sunset.

Zucchini Tian- An amazing way to use squash

My husband and I stopped at Safeway to pick up a few things on Monday. A few things turned into me spending our entire lunch in the produce aisle picking over the vegetables. I had no real idea how I was going to cook anything, just that I wanted to try it all. Husband just shook his head as I loaded up our basket and told him I’d look online for recipes later. That is why I love Pinterest. I find some of the best recipes and ideas there.

Zuchini Tian — This is one of my favorite finds now.

This Recipe from feastingathome.com is absolutely amazing. I’d never made anything like this before and I didn’t have high expectations. The recipe was easy to follow and thanks to my nifty Mandoline,
prep was quick. Just make sure you wear these gloves. I’ve harmed myself pretty severely with the mandoline before. We made it in our fairly new cast iron skilletas suggested and it worked pretty well. I think I might slowly transition all of my cooking pots and pans to cast iron. The cast iron dutch oven I have is a dream! I also really love just going from the stove top to the oven.

I used 2 small yellow squash, 1 zuchinni, 1 super large black krim tomato, 1 yellow onion and parsley picked from the new planter box. My quantities didn’t match with the recipe exactly. I don’t tend to be great about following recipes to the T. Still, turned out amazingly well!

The squash was served with grilled pork tenderloin and wine, of course. I got distracted looking at all the peppers I have growing and the pork got overcooked. It was pretty darn dry actually. My husband should be sainted for eating all of the food I forget I’m cooking.

We are all about making enough dinner to have leftovers for lunch at work. This packed up beautifully and reheated really well. I did under cook the squash slightly so it would not be too soggy when microwaved. I will be doing this again for sure!

This post contains affiliate links

Removing Canadian Thistle the fun way

I’ve been slack with several parts of the property lately and you can tell. The flowers beside the house have been completely taken over by canadian thistle. Oh my. A thorny, pain filled mess of a fast spreading nightmare. What was a girl to do?

The thistle had set seed and the seed heads were beginning to open. So the obvious solution, to me, was to collect the seed heads and burn them. That’s what I did!

So we started burning the seed heads on our S’mores making plate. The wind was a a bit too severe to keep flaming pieces of plant material there though, so we moved them to a bucket and had some fun!

While we didn’t use the seeds for a s’mores roast I thought I’d include pics of how we make s’mores in Wyoming Winds. Yum!

Why I don’t trellis my tomatoes

I see many tips and designs for tomato trellises out there. Some quite fancy, some nothing but string. I am not using any of them. My tomatoes are doing just fine growing wild and free.

WHY I don’t trellis can be credited back to Joseph Lofthouse on permies.com. He is a pioneer in landrace gardening. You can find him here. A few of the quotes that had an impact on me are:

Some people say that landraces arise only by natural means. My response is that landraces are always domesticated, and domestication only happens because farmers select among this year’s crop for the traits that they hope will show up in next year’s crop.

I noticed that plants from my saved seed grew differently… Because my vines tended to arch upwards to keep the tomatoes out of the dirt… Since I don’t stake tomatoes I only save seeds from tomatoes that are not touching the dirt and rotting. So I had inadvertently been selecting for genes that keep the tomatoes suspended in the air without staking.

Now, I’m a lazy farmer. I have a lot going on in my life. Lots to do. So trellising takes valuable time, energy and money. I don’t have any of those resources to spare for something like that. So I planted them and guess what, they’re doing what Joseph’s have done. They are supporting themselves, growing up, vining without support. It is AMAZING to see my tomato bushes. I love how easy it has been. I water every once in awhile but otherwise I’ve done nothing to my tomatoes. I believe we are going to have a bumper harvest this year and I’m a excited to get to eating/freezing and drying these wonderful tomatoes.

I will be saving my own seeds, of course.

Tomato plant in planter box.

Tomato plant in tire of kids sandbox. Lower stems are supporting this main stem in growing fairly upright.

My tomatoes sure are busy this year!

Cider Orchard Establishment

I am happy to announce that our cider orchard is almost done. Ok, let’s just say it’s officially started. We took a portion of the backyard and fenced it off. We tilled and planted clover and wildflowers as mentioned in this post. The clover and such are filling in nicely, so are the weeds.

We have a lovely cattle panel arch leading into the cider orchard. I have a kiwi planted near it but that kiwi has been hit and miss for some time so I don’t know that it will recover. If it doesn’t I’ll eventually move some grape cuttings into the area.

We have the swales running in a circle around the orchard. They have proven that they can collect water already, though it was more of an aesthetic and ease of watering thing for me.

The trees are newly grafted heirloom varieties. It took us quite some time to get the infrastructure of the orchard up and thus the trees were in tree pots for some time. These tree pots. They didn’t do all that well in them. It was really hot but I did water them daily. Even still it is my guess that they cooked in the pots. The ones on the outside of did poorly. Some died but the rootstock of some lived. I’m going to let it grow and re-graft later on.

Not all the plants in the cider orchard are cider apples. I have hidden rose apples planted in there because I want to have them close to the house for my personal enjoyment. I also have a black currant bush in there that can be used as a mix in for cider or just for personal enjoyment. Eventually I’ll have a few specialty plums thrown in as well.

The wild flowers and vetch seeds were thrown onto the berm of the swale and into the back of the cider orchard where it is too shady to grow trees and also already has established willow trees.

Where the barn is it is very shady a lot of the time. Thus I am planting a shade garden. I have some hostas, a golden bell flower and a few other things thrown in. The wildflower seeds are doing best in this area.

Eventually I hope to have a lovely table and chairs and picnic amidst the flowers and trees. I think it will be a lovely retreat for us!