Samhain Stare

Bonita gives us her best "Samhain Stare".

(Photo by Erik Kuykendall)

Happy Samhain and Happy Halloween.

Free-Range Baby

(Photo Courtesy of Erik Kuykendall)

Standing in the Garden Last Night

Standing in the garden last night, 

I was inspired to photograph the beauty before me.

The words that came to me were not my own, 

But those of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

May you see and appreciate what is right before you.

Our Chicken Coop Awaits Artistic Inspiration

We scoured blogs and free chicken coop designs for months and had friends bring over old pallets and break them down in an attempt to provide us with materials to create one.  Due to time and resource constraints, it seemed wiser to buy a pre-fabricated coop to get rolling.

We have assembled our chosen coop and the the run and will connect the two after we get it painted and sealed.  The coop is well designed, but we had to throw out all of the original hardware and screws due to quality issues. 

Our plan is to get four Black Australorp chicks this next week and we plan on adding an elongated run as the chicks mature.

This week, we are collecting brooding supplies, looking for an appropriate predator barrier for the bottom, and hoping for artistic inspiration for the coop.

Some paper resources on starting up this important component of permaculture: 

The Chicken Whisperer's Guide to Keeping Chickens
The Complete Encyclopedia of Chickens

Keeping Chickens

Chicken Coops - 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock

And you can't forget the Old Farmer's Almanac any time you are doing something with permaculture, farming, or ranching.

My Friend the Dragonfly

I really enjoyed working in one of the gardens today as my friend would survey my work and come sit by my side.  I look forward to more time together.  

Photo of Brown Dragonfly on Tomato Cage 

Planting Calendar For Travis County

What are the best seeds to plant this time of year?

Here's a planting Calendar for Travis County and Central Texas:

(Feel free to let us know of more plants that work well this time of year)

July	August	September
1-15 Chard Sweet Corn Cucumbers Eggplant Okra Black-eye Peas Pepper Plants Pumpkin Salsify New Zealand Spinach Summer Squash Winter Squash Tomato Plants Watermelon 15-31 Lima Beans Snap Beans Canteloupe Carrots Cauliflower Chard Sweet Corn Cucumbers Fennel Okra Black-eye Peas Pepper Plants Pumpkin Rutabaga New Zealand Spinach Summer Squash Winter Squash Tomato Plants Watermelon	1-15 Lima Beans Snap Beans Broccoli Carrots Cauliflower Chard Chinese Cabbage Sweet Corn Cucumbers Fennel Garlic Kale Okra Black-eye Peas Potatoes Rutabaga Shallots New Zealand Spinach Summer Squash Winter Squash 15-31 Snap Beans Beets Broccoli Carrots Cauliflower Chard Chinese Cabbage Collards Sweet Corn Cucumbers Endive Garlic Kale Kohlrabi Head Lettuce Leaf Lettuce Mustard Potatoes Shallots Summer Squash	1-15 Beets Carrots Chard Chinese Cabbage Collards Endive Garlic Kale Kohlrabi Head Lettuce Leaf Lettuce Mustard Parsley Garden Peas Radishes Shallots Summer Squash Turnips 15-30 Beets Carrots Chard Chinese Cabbage Collards Garlic Head Lettuce Leaf Lettuce Mustard Parsley Garden Peas Radishes Shallots Spinach Turnips

(Chart obtained from the Texas Agrilife Extension of Travis County.)

Areas included in Travis County:

Austin Bee Cave Briarcliff Creedmoor Elgin

Jonestown Lago Vista Lakeway Manor Pflugerville

Point Venture Rollingwood Round Rock  San Leanna Sunset Valley

The Hills Volente Webberville West Lake Hills

Anderson Mill Barton Creek Garfield Hudson Bend

Jollyville Lost Creek Onion Creek

Shady Hollow Wells Branch Windemere

Bluff Springs Cele Del Valle Elroy Kimbro

Littig Lund Manchaca Marshall Ford

McNeil New Sweden Oak Hill Pilot Knob

Relief and Renewed Hope in the Summer Harvest

I have to admit, I was getting really discouraged. Hail storms, one late freeze after another, plagues of birds and ravenous insects...the list of calamities our gardens have been trying to endure has been seemingly endless. We planted seeds as often as possible despite our preoccupation with our lovely new baby girl, Tesla, but each time something new seemed to come along to dash our hopes of eating abundance from our permaculture garden.

Oh, we've had kale and a few other greens, and the occasional beet. But Spring saw little coming from the garden to our table, and frankly I was sad.

But then a trickle came. A few peaches that clung on through the freezes and hail storms. Okra here and there that produced despite stunting from unseasonably cold weather. And then the cucumbers went gangbusters, signaling the rest of the garden that it was time. And today, this:

Yes, we ate almost all of this tonight. FRESH from the garden.

Everything on the cutting board came in today. The jars are full of lacto-fermented relish and pickles from the first cucumber surge a couple of days ago. Well, almost full. It turns out they're delicious and we're impatient. And we're not the only ones excited and a bit impatient about the fresh pickings:

"Tesla, what'cha doin', honey?"

Bye, bye, apple.

Lovely Chioggia beets

So there's an apple (or at least there was), some carrots that amusingly showcased which parts of the garden actually have shallow soil with hard caliche right underneath, tomatoes that were just silly delicious (yes, we already ate them. With the cucumbers. In shopska salata), Chioggia beets that were almost too beautiful to eat (...almost), wild onions that had been hiding under carrot greens, okra (most of it not pictured because I snack while I harvest), zucchini (despite several attacks from squash vine borers), seeds from a sunflower "weed" that got huge in our fertile garden and only a few of the cucumbers (we gave half to the neighbors because we have so many more almost ready to pick). Erik picked wild flowers for us as well, adding a perfect sentimental touch to the joy of eating from our own garden.

It's been a lot of work, a lot of learning, and a lot of energy. I know this is just the start, but I can't help feeling this just got real.

Resources:
Cultures for Health has wonderful fermentation recipes and guides to make your garden food even more nutritious with the bonus of a longer shelf life.
Seeds for our garden came from Native Seeds/SEARCH, Sustainable Seed Company and High Mowing Organic Seeds.

Rocket Stoves to Power our Permaculture Kitchen

We have been experimenting with a rudimentary rocket stove that we built from a number of cinder blocks and one we broke pieces off of to form an H-block for the chimneys of the dual burner stove.

A rocket stove uses small diameter wood, burned in a high-temperature combustion chamber containing a vertical chimney and a secondary air supply which ensures almost complete combustion prior to the flames reaching the cooking surface. 

The heat available from a rocket stove is considerably higher than a stove top and lends itself well to cooking with cast iron and, even more appropriate, a carbon steel wok.  This is a new 14 inch wok that we are seasoning over the rocket stove.

Learn how to build a rocket stove from 6 cinder blocks by watching the video below.

A small piece of advice...  When clearing the oxygen pathway in a burning rocket stove, make certain to use a large diameter, long stick so as not to burn all of the hair off of your arm and weld one of your braids to your beard.  

 Fortunately, I have cat-like reflexes and with a bit of trimming, no one seems to be able to notice a change in my visage due to my potentially hazardous indiscretion.

This is how to build a stove like ours: