End of Year

It's the end of the year; a time for reflection and planning.  Our homestead feels a little empty with no chickens to take care of.  We started the year with 5 laying chickens, raised and butchered 25 meat chickens, and then butchered our laying chickens when they stopped producing.  We are already planning on getting 6 laying chickens in March.

Right now we are excited about growing two or three pigs in our current fenced in chicken yard.  One pig for us, and the rest for our families.  Our families are excited about the prospect of us growing some pigs for them as well.  These pigs would be butchered right around the time when the new layers are ready to occupy the space.  Although I'm not throwing out the idea of raising them on concrete in the barn as my neighbor does.  One of the benefits would be the ability to collect and spread the manure on our fields.

Speaking of fields, if I had laid out my beds better, I could have got one more bed in the field and used up all of our seed.  Our goal this year is to sell 500 pounds of garlic, which would make the tractor payment for the year and purchase a new raised bed maker from Buckeye Tractor.
http://www.buctraco.com/3%20Online%20Catalog/Model1921-Dx.htm

We are also looking forward to planting a half acre of corn.  After talking with our friends, family, and neighbors, we've decided on a the types of corn and are preparing our seed order.  We haven't yet figured out how we are going to plant the corn.  I've seen 1 and 2 row planters at auctions for less than $300 that need some work, but for only 1/2 acre I could get a brand new walk behind planter.

As the year winds down, we have been spending time looking at more acreage.  Wooded acreage for cutting firewood, hunting, and building a small camp.  Tillable acreage for expanding our garlic crop and raising beef cattle.

Reflecting on our garden and our harvest the last few years, we have to make some changes.  We have raised beds that need repaired/replaced.  Our 1 foot wide beds are going to expand to 2 foot wide for our tomatoes.  Our walkways need to be repaired and finished.  And finally our soil/compost mix needs to be refreshed in all of the boxes.  We've talked about putting up a greenhouse on the south side of the barn so that we can get an early start on everything and even grow some things year round.

We will not get all of the projects done that we envision for 2015, but we've come to realize that is just a part of homesteading.  There is always more to get done than there are hours in the day. 

Overall, we had a good year and we are looking forward to 2015. 

Farm Income

We did it, we finally made some income from our farming enterprise.  With all of our garlic cleaned and weighed, we wound up with 67 pounds to sell, about 1/4 of what I thought we would have.  It is all sold and we will get our first check this week.  And even though its not much, it did pay for the garlic we purchased last year to get started.  We are excited.  After 2 1/2 years of planning, purchases, and prep, we finally have money going into our account.

Garlic ready for delivery

Next year, even if we still end up with a 4x yield, we will make enough to break even with the tractor payment. Anything above a 4x yield would be actual profit.  And with the changes we are making, I'm confident we'll be closer to 6-7x yield. 

When we set out, our goal was to sell the majority of our garlic to a seed company in the Midwest, but we have to get a higher percentage of our garlic heads bigger than 2 inches.  So now that we've found some garlic festivals within reasonable distance, our goal next year is to sell 300 pounds at one or two festivals, while continuing to improve our fields and select the biggest & best heads to increase our average size.

It's taken 2.5 years to get any revenue, hopefully 1 more year and we will be profitable.  Time to review and update our farm plan for the next 1-3 years.

Lawn Mower Fixed

I've always prided myself on being self-sufficient, being able to fix anything that comes up, growing my own food, etc.  That's the way I was raised and it just seems normal.  So when our lawn tractor died, I did what only felt right.  Instead of throwing it away or scraping it and getting another one, I took it upon myself to not only fix it, but to improve it.

The trouble with our tractor started the first summer we had it.  It has always thrown belts, ALWAYS.  Then my wife hit a piece of concrete and ruining the bearings in the middle spindle.  Over the course of 5 years, I've kept the bad spindle packed with grease and have kept the tractor mowing at least decently.  Then 3 weeks ago, I hit a very large stone which shattered the left spindle. 

I found a 2 pack of spindles on Amazon.com for 1/2 the price of one spindle elsewhere.  3 new OEM blades, 2 spindles, 1 belt, and 45 minutes later I was ready to mow.  We mowed our grass once without issue.  Then the next attempt the tractor stopped running and would only run on choke.  So I tore the carburetor off, checked everything, cleaned it up and we were ready to mow again.  However this time, it just kept throwing the belt every 50 feet.

The belt on our tractor is 147.75 inches, so I went to get a belt that was 147 inches, taking out any play.  Unable to find a belt that size, I decided to get an OEM belt and replace the tension spring on the deck. I bought a heavier spring at Tractor Supply, quite a bit heavier.  With everything in place I was finally ready to mow.  Finally, the tractor mowed as good, and actually better than when we first got it, no more thrown belts, no more lines where the blades missed pieces, but finally a good looking lawn.

So for a total of $157 we had working tractor that mowed better than when it was new.  Thinking about not only saving our tractor, but making it better is quite a satisfying feeling.  And for anyone thinking about being a homesteader or living a more self-sufficient life, more important than growing a garden or raising some animals, is being able to look at anything and say, "Yeah, I can fix that."  Once you can do that, you are ready to make your move.

Garlic Yield

I had counted on a yield of close to 10x when I started this venture last spring.  After harvesting all of our garlic, our average yield for year 1 was 4x.  Since we are planning on planting 25 pounds of each variety ourselves, we were left with only 30-40 pounds to sell.  So, we wound up making enough to make one tractor payment and replace the fluids in the tractor, but was so far off the mark, that it is really depressing.

1/2 the garlic hung to dry

After a few days, much thought, and discussing it with the family, I've come to the conclusion that this is just like any other business.  There are start-up costs, learning curves, and you can't be successful right out of the gate.  So, things are in motion for year 2.  We have a bigger plot, with better soil that is growing the second round of buckwheat right now.  We have 100 pounds of quality garlic to plant.  We have found several avenues to sell our garlic next year.  And we are excited to try some new things.

We will definitely be mulching the garlic for weed control.  We will attempt to use a potato plow to harvest the garlic much faster.  We will try washing the garlic with water before hanging to cut down on the time it takes to clean the garlic for sale.  Hopefully we can get our yield up, harvest faster, clean faster, and make a profit next year.  I need to figure out a faster way to bunch/hang the garlic, but I have 10 months to figure that out.

Some other things that we will be doing next year is growing a pumpkin patch for friends and family.  We want to have a fall gathering, take everyone on a hayride around the country roads, and send all the kids home with pumpkins to carve.  We are also in the planning stages of growing a large plot of corn. We haven't decided if we will grow field corn to feed our chickens or sweet corn to feed our families.  And we are looking into growing pigs instead of meat chickens in the spring.

Needless to say, there will be plenty of activity next year.  Now we start shifting gears and thinking about firewood again.

Best Onions So Far

We picked our onions yesterday and were pleasantly surprised.  I usually end up with about 50% being rather small, around 1 - 2 inches, however this year I only had about a dozen or so that small.  Besides having a lot of nice onions, we had several that were the size of a baseball or bigger.

A couple of our large onions

If we can continue growing onions of this size year over year, I will have to change the spacing in my square foot garden from 9 onions per sq.ft. to 5 per sq.ft.  I'm going to have to give credit to the weather for our harvest this year.  We have received steady rain and temperatures have been rather pleasant.  We are excited to see how the holland onions turn out.

Water Bath Canning, Botulism, and Absolutes

This is not a post on how to can, what to can, or how to do it safely.  There are literally thousands of pages with information about canning on the internet.  This post is about how most of those pages tell you, in absolutes, that you can't can beans, potatoes, meat, or anything else low-acid in a water bath canner.

I am not encouraging anyone to go against the recommendations of the government or state agricultural universities when it comes to canning.  But I will say this, YES YOU CAN PROCESS BEANS, POTATOES, MEATS, AND OTHER LOW ACID FOODS IN A WATER BATH CANNER!  Ok, I shouted it, but it needed to be shouted. 

Beans, potatoes, meats, low-acid foods will be referred to as simply LAF for the rest of this article, mainly because I'm a lazy writer and you really don't want to read all of those words each time I refer to them.

My first issue is with speaking in absolutes.  I've read some sites that say "You can't process LAF in a water bath canner" OR "You absolutely can not process LAF in a water bath canner.' OR "You must process LAF in a pressure canner."  These absolute statements mean that it is not physically possible to can LAF in a water bath canner.  HOWEVER, the old Ball Blue Books have processing times for LAF in them, so at one point in time you COULD do it.  Therefore, those absolute statements are simply false.  Now a statement like "You SHOULD only process LAF in a pressure canner" is much more acceptable and true.  By speaking in absolutes about something that is not absolutely true, you have immediately disqualified yourself from giving advice and I won't listen anymore.  But by making a very strong suggestion, you have my attention.

"You must breath in order to live." That is an absolute statement that is true and I don't doubt it.  But a statement like, "You can't dunk a basketball" is an absolute statement that is not true.  Yes, it is highly improbable that I can not dunk a basketball right now (I'm 5'5", can't palm a ball, and have a short vertical), but it is not impossible.  And given some training and practice, the probability increases.   Here is an absolute statement: "You can not rob a bank."  That statement is totally false.  You CAN rob a bank, however you either have to know what you are doing OR deal with the consequences.  The same thing goes with canning with a water bath canner.

Now some background; the reason I KNOW you CAN process LAF with a water bath canner is because my mom did for years, and we never got sick.  My grandmother did for decades and nobody ever got sick.  It has been done over and over again for years, by many, many different people.  So anybody that says "you can't" or "you must use a pressure canner", is really just reiterating the government/ag universities statements.  So let's look at the statistics.

According to the CDC, from 1990 - 2000 there were 47 events of botulism and 70 incidents (e.g. an incident = 1 person being sick, an event = 1 outbreak of the disease.)  The population in the US in 1990 and 2000 was 249 million and 281 million respectively.  So during the time frame of 1990-2000, we'll average the numbers and call the population 265 million.  That means that out of 265 million people in the United States of America, 70 got sick from home canned foods.  70!  SEVENTY!  Divided by the 10 year period and that's an average of 7 people per year.  Your chances of getting botulism from home canned foods in a year is 1 in 38 million.  Compare that to your chances of being struck by lightning in a year, which is 1 in 1 million (see NWS Page), and you are 38 times more likely to be struck by lightning that get botulism from home canned foods.  And yes, I am aware that not everyone of the 265 million people cans food, so not everyone is at risk of getting botulism from home canned food.  Not everyone goes outside during thunderstorms either, but the lightning strike data is calculated based on the total population, so in order to compare the percentages, the botulism stats also need to be applied to the total population as well.

Lets take a closer look at the CDC numbers CDC Table. 

Type of processing/food	No. eventsb	No. cases
Noncommercial,home canned
Total	47	70
Restaurant-made
Total, contiguous states and Hawaii	102	160

You are over 2x as likely to get botulism from eating at a restaurant. 

And again in more detail:

Type of processing/food	No. eventsb	No. cases
Noncommercial,home canned
Tomato juice	1	1
Potatoes	1	1
Pickles	1	1
Noncommercial, not home canned
Bread pudding	1	1
Apple pie	1	1
Potatoes	3	3

Tomato Juice is a high acid food.  Potatoes are a low acid food.  If we assume that the tomatoes and potatoes were canned according to the recommendations, then you have an equal chance of getting botulism with either one.  Even if the canned potatoes were canned "improperly" using a water bath canner, you are still as likely to get botulism from the tomatoes as the "improperly" canned potatoes.  Same with pickles, which have vinegar, pickling salts, etc. added.  Now if you look at the non-canned foods, there were 3 times as many events with uncanned potatoes as there were with canned potatoes.  Now that could simply be explained because most potatoes prepared in the home are not canned.  But then you have apple pie and bread pudding, with the same number of incidents as tomato juice and pickles.  However, you don't hear too many people giving you absolutes on preparing an apple pie or even worrying about botulism from apple pie.

I will again state that I am not advocating anyone to go against the recommendations of the government, universities, family members, friends, or your neighbors.  I'm simply stating that yes, you can process LAF in a water bath canner.  I will not tell you how.  If you want to know the times, buy an old Ball Blue Book from Ebay.

Now, after all of that, will I can green beans in a water bath canner?  No.  Not because I don't believe it isn't safe, but because it takes 3 hours per batch in a water bath canner!  And during that 3 hours, you have to keep adding water to keep the level above the jars.  Compare that to the 25 minutes in a pressure canner and it becomes a matter of time/economics.  I won't tell you that it can't be done, that you must use a pressure canner, or that it is unsafe, though you could process four batches in a pressure canner during the time it takes to do one batch in a water bath canner.

I will give some advice to anyone that is processing LAF with a water bath canner.  Don't be stupid!  Don't open a jar of meat or beans, and eat straight from the jar without cooking first.  All of the venison, beans, and potatoes that my mom canned was cooked thoroughly, THOROUGHLY, sometimes beyond thorough, before we ate it.  No matter how you can your food, check it before you eat it.  If the seal is popped, throw it out.  If it's seeping liquid, throw it out.  If it smells funky or looks funky, throw it out.  If there is mold growing on it (and somehow it passed the "looks funky" test), throw it out.  If in doubt, throw it out.  Put dates on your jars and throw it out when it gets old.  I wouldn't open a jar of meat that I canned 3 years ago and eat it, that just doesn't make sense to me.  Don't cut corners on sanitation or processing.  This man used a pressure canner, as is recommended, but shortcut the process: Home Canning Hobby Leads to Near-Fatal Medical Emergency.  And finally, don't be afraid.  Respect your food, respect the process, respect the bacteria that could be living anywhere, but don't be afraid; be smart instead.  After all, your chances of getting botulism from canned tomato juice is just as high as getting it from apple pie.

Be safe, be smart, and enjoy your canned foods, however you process them.

Injured Chicken

We were driving home the other day and as we pass the main road field, which is where our meat chickens are, we could see something odd going on inside their pen.  Upon investigation, I noticed the chickens torturing one chicken.  I don't know how it happened, but this chicken had a bloody head and it looked like it had a decent gash on the top of it's head.

Head Injury starting to heal

I watched for a while and sure enough, there was no way that chicken could stay in there.  So I put it in with the 5 layers we have.  Those chickens didn't peck at it's head, but they didn't want this new chicken in their area and they let him know it.  They basically stayed away and I figured after a couple of hours, they would all be used to each other.

I went out right before dark to check on things and the injured chicken was gone.  Disappeared.  We looked all over for it, but couldn't find it and eventually figured that it decided to go to a neighboring farm.  The next morning, he was back, inside the pen, as if he never left.  A couple hours later and he's back outside the pen.  So I captured him and wanted to see if he could go back in with the other meat chickens.  As soon as he went in, the torture started again.

So, I had to put him in the barn.  He's now living in the same kennel that they all lived in until his head can heal.  I know he would rather be outside, eating grass & bugs, feeling the breeze, but at least he isn't being eaten by other chickens.

Life in a dog kennel

I guess this serves as a lesson to make sure you have a "triage" area to put injured or sick chickens away from your other birds.  I thought about making a small moveable pen that I could use as a triage area.  But the dog the fold-up, portable dog kennel is fast, easy, and stores in a small space.

Bushels of Scapes

After playing 6 games of baseball in a tournament, my son still had the energy to help me pick the scapes this evening.  Almost 4 full half-bushel baskets.  We'll be busy making pesto the next couple of days and hopefully sell a few.  Time to find a farmer's market!

Garlic Scapes Pesto

9-10 garlic scapes, knobby seed-pod removed
1/2 cup slivered almonds
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste

Rinse scapes in cold water
Chop into 1/2 inch pieces
Pour scapes and slivered almonds into food processor
Blend 30 seconds, or until texture is smooth
Scrape sides of bowl.
With the processor running SLOWLY add olive oil and process until thoroughly mixed (about 15 seconds).
To chill place pesto in a glass bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap


Yields about 2 cups

Weeds and Scapes

The weedeater worked decent in between the rows.  We finally got everything weeded, just in time for the scapes to come on.

Kids running in the weeded garlic field

Andromeda helping with the weeds

We are working on a price for the scapes.  Since they are really a by-product of growing hardneck garlic, I'm not looking to make much off of them.  I might have my wife call a couple of upscale restaurants and see if she can unload them in mass.

Garlic Progress

I am extremely satisfied with how well our garlic is growing, considering this is the first year growing a mass amount and not in 4x4 raised boxes.  That said, we messed up by not mulching the garlic in the spring before the weeds started growing.  So now we have a large task of weeding ahead of us.  Since the garlic is planted in raised beds, we are going to try weeding the beds and in between taking a weed-eater through at ground level.

We are on track to weed 1 row per day in the evenings when it's not too hot.  Hopefully we'll only have to weed 1 more time by harvest.

Below are before and after pictures.  You can see the first three beds on the left are weeded down the slopes and there is still a large mass of weeds in-between the beds.  Since our field for next year is twice the size, it will be imperative that we mulch in the early spring to get on top of the weeds.

Before

After

Chicken's New Home

We decided that our chickens needed more grass.  We have been letting them out of their run to walk around as they want, but they are too interested in the garden.  So I marked out a 40'x50' area next to the garden for the chicken's new home.  After pricing out fencing, I decided on welded wire fencing and NOT buying the T-posts, but to use the posts from the split rail fence we had lying around.  And since we were using the posts, we figured we might as well put the rails in too and make it look nice.

I dug 5 holes the first day and set the posts.  Then I decided to invest in a 3pt post hole digger.  After that, we got the rest of the posts set in just under 2 hours.  With the split rail fence up, we set out putting up the welded wire fence.  I went with 4 foot high fence and made sure that the coop and waterer were far enough away from the fence that the chickens couldn't jump/flap to the top of it.

The chickens love their new home, with all the grass and bugs they can eat.  With 2000 sq.ft. of space for 5 chickens, I don't expect that they'll be able to mow this area down to dirt.

Meat Chickens in Moveable Pen

After swearing to not raise meat chickens again, we decided to have another go.  Only this time instead of raising the Cornish X, we went with a more traditional breed, White Rocks.  Yes, they take longer to grow out, but we aren't running a meat factory.  Our purpose, and likely most people raising meat chickens in their back yard, is to raise chickens without chemicals or antibiotics, and to allow the chickens access to grass and bugs. 

So we bought 25 chickens at the local Tractor Supply, put them in the large stock tank that we have as a brooder, and got ready for meat chickens, part 2.  The 25 chickens outgrew the brooder fast, so I set up a portable dog kennel in the barn until they feathered out and could go outside.  In the meantime, I started on a chicken tractor using only what we had laying around. 

My idea was to build a 10x10 moveable pen, half covered with metal roofing and the other half in wire.  I started with two 10' treated 4x4 posts, cut the ends at an angle so that they worked as skids.  I then ripped a couple of treated 2x6 and 2x8 into 8 foot long 2x2s.  I couldn't dig out enough 10' pieces, so our pen wound up 10x8.  I some of the 2x2s into 2 foot long pieces for the sides, with 5 pieces down each side and 2 on the front and backs.  I then too 5 longer pieces built the roof supports, connect the uprights from side to side.

We had some extra roofing material in the rafters of the barn from when it was built.  I cut several 2 foot long pieces and screwed them to the sides and back.  Then cut 5 foot long pieces for the roof.  We had some welded 1x1 wired that I wrapped around the sides and front on the front half of the pen.  Then took some chicken wire we had laying around and attached it to the top.  For an access door, I cut a 2'x2' square in the top of the chicken wire and wired a screen window to the frame.  Then I realized that I needed access to the roofed area to put the food so that it wouldn't get wet, so I cut some wire and took a loose piece of siding and just lay it on top.

So we wound up with a rather sturdy moveable pen and it cost absolutely nothing.  Everything was already on our property, including the nails (we have 5 gallon buckets of nails from the previous owner).  All of the wood came from when we tore down the old deck, and the roofing/fencing was in the barn.

Here is the final result, with 25 chickens enjoying the grass and fresh air.


Chickens in moveable pen

This specific pen is kind of heavy and moving more than the 10 feet that we move it every 2 days, is pretty tough. The 4x4 posts on the bottom are the main weight issue and in hindsight, they could probably be replaced with 2x2s or 2x4s to cut the weight drastically.  If we stick with this pen, we'll likely end up drilling holes in the back to attach wheels when we need to move it.

Our chickens are extremely happy and with the grass & bugs, they are only going through 1 gallon of feed every 1.5 days.  If everything continues to work out well, we have already discussed raising another 25 or 50.

Auctions

After the coldest winter I can remember, spring is finally here, and with spring comes "auction season". Our local sales paper gets flooded with auction listings in the spring months. Whether you are just getting started in farming or homesteading, or have a few years under your belt, auctions are a great opportunity to purchase equipment. Machinery and implements, hand tools, supplies, even household items can all be found at huge discounts at an auction. My personal experience is that the older pieces were generally built heavy and built to last.

If you've never been to one, be prepared for a fast paced day where almost anything can come up for sale. Here are a couple of tips to get you started:

1. Don't get into a bidding war. Once you've hit your price limit for an item, stop bidding.
2. Set a price limit on items you are interested in.
3. Show up at least 30 minutes early in order to look over everything and take a closer inspection of anything you might want to bid on.
4. Keep track of what you bought. Write the items and prices down on your card. Keep small items in a pile.
5. Take the family. Most of the big auctions around here have food, drinks, kids running around.
6. Have fun. You can learn a lot at auctions and over time you'll get an idea of what price items usually sell for.

We're looking forward to a great spring and a busy auction season.

The Buck List: Eight Great Homesteading Sites

The Buck List: Eight Great Homesteading Sites

Lessons Learned with Rabbits

We received 4 Rex rabbits in mid-October, 2 females and 2 males (although the guy we got them from thought they were all females).  Here are some lessons that we have learned about raising rabbits.

1) They poop a lot.  I mean way more than you can imagine.  Our 4 rabbits come close to filling a 5 gallon bucket with manure ever 2 weeks.  This, to me, is a benefit of rabbits.  They are little manure factories and will provide me with tons of nutrients for my garden and/or garlic fields.  However, you need a way to gather the manure.  If you don't stack your cages, you can let it fall to the ground and use a shovel to gather it up.  If you do stack your pens, then you can use dropping trays under each pen.  I didn't want to mess with the trays, so I used some plastic, corrugated roofing set at an angle toward the back under each pen.  The urine and droppings drain to the back and fall into a piece of plastic rain gutter, which is set at an angle and empties into a 5 gallon bucket.  My manure maintenance is as easy as emptying the bucket when it's full and hosing off the plastic roofing & gutter to keep a clean rabbitry.

2) They do not like to breed in the middle of winter.  I've tried breeding my rabbits right after Christmas and the females were not receptive at all.  This has led us to the conclusion that it might be better to buy 4 rabbits in the spring, breed them throughout the spring, summer, and fall, then butcher the breeders.  Otherwise, we end up feeding 4 rabbits all winter with nothing to show for the cost of the feed, kind of a cost/benefit analysis.  If you do the last breeding late September, you can butcher the bucks and stop feeding them.  Then once the young are weekend, around Halloween, you can butcher the mature does.  Then you'll butcher the rest of your rabbits around Thanksgiving, before it gets really cold.  You can save the feed costs from Dec - Feb, and get new breeding pairs in March.  You should end up breaking even in the spring with the savings from feed and the time savings.

3) They require more maintenance during the winter.  This is due to us not having a heated water supply for them or any type of constant flow water system.  I'm guessing that most people WON'T have these things when they start.  So we end up going out every morning before work and every evening before bed to fill their crocks.  We also have an extra set of crocks that we thaw, so added supplies for keeping rabbits during the winter months.  Again, if you don't keep rabbits during the coldest months, Dec - Feb, you don't need the cost of crocks or the time spent filling the water 2-3 times a day.  That money can be used to buy your new breeders in the spring.

My next post will walk through the details of setting up my rabbitry, building the pens, the rack that holds the pens, and the manure collection system I have.

2013 Catchup

It's 2014, a new year and a new set of goals for our farm (yes, we've started to call our homestead a farm).  But before we get into a new year, I need to catch up on the fall of 2013 activities.

I lost my job in September and started a new one which requires me to be at the office from 7-4.  This has really thrown our lives into a disarray.  I'm now waking up at 5:30 AM in order to take care of the chickens and rabbits before driving to work, and returning home right around dusk.  Getting off at 4:00 will be nice in the summer months, allowing me to work outside from 5:00 - dusk, but in the winter, it's just darkness.

We planted approximately 50 pounds of garlic in October.  We started breaking apart the heads the night before and continued the next day, a task that we greatly underestimated the effort involved.  Altogether we had around 15 man hours just getting the cloves prepped.  With the help of my mom, we planted all of the garlic in 5 hours.  In order to speed things along, I gave everyone involved a nail apron to fill with cloves.  I then put the holes in the ground to drop the cloves in by screwing pieces of 1 inch diameter dowel rod to a 4 foot long decking board.  I would put the board on the raised bed and step on it, pressing the dowel rods into the soil.  Our estimates for next year are that we should harvest around 400 pounds of garlic, sell 300 pounds, and plant 100 pounds.  I will definitely need to recruit more labor for breaking the heads and planting.

Raised beds ready to plant garlic

 We received 4 rex rabbits for free from a friend.  My original design of suspending the cages from wire (as described in the Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits) did not work too well.  So I built a rack out of 2x4s and placed the cages on it.  The rabbits have done well and I'm looking forward to breeding them when the weather gets warmer.

I think that wraps up what happened during the hiatus.  We have lots of things planned for 2014 and my goal is to update this blog weekly with more tips, how-to's, and advice.

Stay tuned, it's going to be a great year.