The Almost-Failed Living Fences Experiment

Just the other day, I was reading one of my favorite homesteading blogs, NorthWest Edible Life. Erica posted about Being Everyone – drooling over the pretty close up pictures and seemingly no-fail efforts of other homesteaders and green livers. I can soooo relate. I read other blogs, then look at my wilting cucumber vines, missing walls, and garage siding that’s been waiting for almost 2 years to get finished, and think “I suck at this homesteading thing.”

Our living fences experiment is one of those projects that really, really makes me wonder if I can actually do this homesteading thing. After all, we’re talking about a woman who, just a few years ago, couldn’t keep houseplants alive. I haven’t updated our experiment because, well…I thought I had completely bumbled the project.

I planted six osage orange trees along the outside line of my garden fence. Of the six, only a few ever came out of dormancy. No big deal, right? I followed the directions from the nursery to a “t.” No big deal if all of them didn’t wake up – especially since we weren’t even sure the trees would grow in a hot, humid southern climate. I counted myself lucky that any of them started sprouting. That is, until the cat, a few bees, and my teenagers came along.

I realized my first mistake was not properly mulching around the plants when I put them in. First, the cat mistook the bare dirt circles as a wonderful gesture on the part of her humans to offer outdoor litter boxes. Oreo, that beloved pain in the neck feline o’ mine caused one little struggling sapling to turn brown and wither. Hmm…knock out one of the few plants that woke up from dormancy. Apparently, osage orange plants aren’t cat pee-hardy.

My no-mulch failure was further evidenced by the grass and weeds that almost immediately started to battle my little horseapple babies for the same space. Bermuda grass almost immediately grew back over the little bare dirt wells around each tree. I tried in vain to pull the stuff up, turn the dirt over, anything I could think of, short of spraying something that could potentially damage my little plants – no luck. Eventually, I ceded the battle and resigned myself to simply weedeating around the trees, to keep the boys from accidentally mowing over my living fence protigies.

Enter the bees and said teenage boys. I was weedeating around the trees and fence line one day earlier this summer. I was being sooo careful to make sure I kept clear of the tender little sprouts. Just as one of the boys called out “Mom!” in typically ill-timed teenagease, I spotted a yellow jacket buzzing around in front of me. Whether it was the boy’s call, the sight of my arch nemesis (I’m deathly allergic to bees stings) who knows? But the end result was a jerk and a jump – naturally, in just the right direction to chop down not one, but TWO of my three remaining bare root tree babies.

I nearly cried. I felt like a homesteading idiot. If I had paid more attention, done more reading, had a clue what I was doing, I wouldn’t have needed to get a weedeater anywhere near my little darlings. This is where Erica’s post struck a chord the other day. I have done that “I suck compared to everyone else” guilt trip on myself – and those horseapple trees are but one shining example.

BUT…

There is hope, even for us less-than-perfect, unworthy, no pretty close-up picture type homesteaders. Sometimes, Mother Nature has her own way of counter-acting us bumblers.

I walked outside yesterday to snap a few pictures around the farm – mostly to document our garage-soon-to-be-barn project. (More on that later this week.) I’ve had to support my ONE remaining osage orange/horseapple tree with a brick, since it seems determined to grow at a weird angle. I was adjusting the brick and checking to make sure it wasn’t rubbing the tender bark off, when I spotted leaves peeking out of the well next to my solitary survivor. Little tiny green leaves, sticking up from one of the once-thought-slaughtered saplings.

Holy kaw! You mean it didn’t die after all? So I checked the next one…OMG! It was sprouting a bunch of little leaves. I checked the next well…more little leaves! Even one of the bare roots I thought didn’t wake up (and intentionally lopped off with the weedeater) was sprouting leaves!! Hot damn! The little buggars are comin’ back – in spite of my murderous slip of the weedeater!

Woo hoo! Granted, these little guys are barely more than 2 inches tall (compared to almost 2 feet tall for the formerly sole survivor) but I don’t care. They’re alive! Maybe, just maybe, I’m doing something right after all. Or at least, not terribly wrong to the point that Mother Nature can’t fix it.

So, while I’ll still drool over Erica’s fruit trees, and fluffy leafy veggies, I don’t feel quite so much like a failure…today. Tomorrow, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

How to Dry Home Grown Herbs

I have herbs coming out of my ears it seems. While some stuff in the garden doesn’t seem to be doing so well, other stuff is exploding – especially my herbs. So naturally, since I have more than I could ever use fresh (and I need to trim back the plants to encourage healthy growth and nice shapes to the plants) I’ve started drying them.

I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful it is to be able to walk out the garage door, open the garden gate, and start snipping stuff to spice up dinner. Even nicer that for recipes (like homemade spagetti sauce) where dried herbs are a little better, I get to use my own stuff.

So far, for my rosemary, basil, parsley (the non-curly kind) and oregano, I’ve found the best way to dry them is just using paper bags. I don’t know if it’s the Georgia heat that helps dry them so fast this way (and with such good flavor) or what, but I’m loving the easy-schmeasy style.

It’s really simple. Before I turn on the sprinklers in the morning (after the sun comes up and dries any dew that might be on the ground) I snip a bunch of whatever herb needs snipping.

I bring it into the kitchen, label a plain brown paper lunch bag with whatever the herb is, punch a few holes in the bag, then put the bunch inside the bag (snipped ends hanging out of the bag just a little.) I take a generic ponytail band and wrap it around the bag/herb ends like a rubber band.

Once I’m sure the band is secure (but not cutting into anything) I just clip the end of the bag to a little piece of ribbon I have stretched across one of the kitchen windows. In about two weeks, all the herbs are nice and dry.

If, by chance, I forget to snip before I water, or if it’s been raining, or for whatever reason the herbs are wet when I bring them in, I’ll hang them without the bag for the afternoon to give them time to dry out. (Otherwise, I’ve been told, they can grow moldy while they’re drying in the dark bag.)

So far, everything I’ve dried has been wonderfully flavorful – with a natural herb smell you won’t get from a spice jar at the grocery store. Each bunch I dry seems to be just right for the glass spice jars I have. (My mom or my mother in law – I forget who – gave me a nice glass & chrome spice rack she never uses. I just dumped out all the old spices, ran the jars through the dishwasher and Voila! Perfect spice jars for my home grown herbs!) I think the only bunch of herbs that I’ve dried that didn’t fill a jar was rosemary – that took 2 paper bags of dried stuff to fill.

What about you? Do you grow herbs in your garden? Do you use them only as fresh herbs, or do you dry them to use later? I’ve found that for spagetti sauce and similar stuff, I like the dried herbs better. Basil and parsley, even when I snip them very small as I put them in the sauce, still wind up looking like little bits of wilted spinach mixed into the sauce. Maybe if I had a food processor I could mince them up smaller, but the stuff I’ve dried works just as well & tastes just as yummy – without the wilted spinach look.

Learn Something New Everyday…

Folks who’ve known me for any length of time know that I have a truly black thumb. I’ve never been good with plants – ever. So my thinking that starting a farm was a great idea is simply evidence of my unwillingness to accept defeat.

Although in the past I haven’t been able to keep even the simplest, hardiest, ignore-worthy cacti from dying, I am determined to overcome my black thumbedness. As such, this year’s garden has definitely not faired as well as I had hoped, but I have enjoyed some successes. Most importantly, I’ve learned a lot about growing stuff. I’d say my black thumb has gone from pitch black to more of a wilted brown.

Late Blight on My Tomatoes

For example, my tomato plants have done fairly well until recently. There’s evidence of late blight on two of the three plants, and one completely succumbed just this morning. Had to yank it up roots and all when I found several green lil maters on the ground, lookin’ rather peaked. I had hoped the blight would advance slowly enough to allow the tomatoes already on the vine to mature, but obviously that’s not happening with the one I yanked up.

The other two plants have bad spots I’ve removed, but they’re still flowering and the greenies already on the vine aren’t lookin’ too bad. I’ve already picked more than a dozen nice ripe maters and made a batch of homemade sauce – which was divine! (I grabbed a few off the vine a few days ago and whipped up a batch of seasoned puree to use as a based for the next round of sauce.)

Birds Like Onions? Really?

I planted white onions that were doing beautifully…until the birds came along. Thanks to the fencing, we’ve had no issues with squirrels, deer, or any other critters using my garden as an all you can eat buffet. However, there’s not much I can do about the birds. For whatever reason, they picked my onions as their favorite. I came out one morning to find every one of my onion plants toppled over and pecked at, save one lone survivor.

I didn’t know until nearly two weeks later when I started turning over that section to plant something else that the onions could still develop without their upper parts. Not as much as they would normally, but enough that I accidentally dug up a basket full of little pearl onions. I left them on the kitchen counter to dry and have been dipping into those whenever I need a little onion flavor in a particular dish.

Bolting from Heat & Humidity

The radishes and iceberg lettuce I planted have been sittin’ in the ground for weeks, doing nothing. I noticed flowers on the radishes back a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t realized what that meant. I pulled a few plants, hoping to see nice little red bulbs on the end, but nope. Nadda. Just long, boney lookin’ red roots. I had thought that perhaps because the seeds were old, they weren’t doing too well. Same with the lettuce. Lots of nice deep green leaves, but no heads developing. Obviously, I must have missed a step, not watered enough, maybe watered too much. I certainly didn’t plant too late as I started both the radishes and the lettuce indoors back in early February.

I wasn’t sure what the problem was until Thursday morning, when I noticed pods on the radishes. I broke one open & saw seeds, so naturally I looked up how to harvest them so I could try again some other time. Lo and behold, in researching the best way to harvest the seeds, I found the answer to both my radish and lettuce problem.

We’ve been hit with a very, very early summer here in Georgia this year. Temps started hitting the mid 90s back in early May. Normally, those temps don’t become the norm until mid to late June. May is suppose to be an average of around 85, without the brutal humidity just yet. Not this year. As such, both my radishes and lettuce, known for being cool weather crops, went straight to seed. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. It’s a process called bolting, brought on by high heat and humidity. Ah-ha! So it wasn’t me…it was Mother Nature who did in my salad fixin’ stuff.

Cooking and Herbal Bliss

My herbs, on the other hand, have absolutely thrived! My basil plants are HUGE and require near daily snipping to keep the flowers at bay. (Much to the pleasure of the bunnies who get all the clippings each morning.)

I’ve already harvested basil twice, plus some parsley and rosemary that I’ve already dried and put up. I’ve snipped fresh oregano for immediate use several times. It’s wonderful to have fresh herbs straight from the garden…nothing like leaving a pot simmering on the stove while I walk out to the garden to snip a little of this and a little of that. Yummy!

And In the Rest of the Garden…

My cucumbers are finally starting to vine, after likewise sitting near dormant for several weeks. Alternatively, the watermelon and corn seem to be doing just fine. And the limas I planted just a couple of weeks ago are (so far) doing beautifully. So, like I said, a few successes, a few failures, but I’ve learned a lot already this year. I’m looking forward to planning my Fall planting schedule. I hope that by next Spring I’ll have overcome a little more of my black thumb so that next year’s garden can be bigger and more successful.

What successes and failures are you having in your garden this year?

Bird Brains and To Do Lists

Wondering where I’ve been the last several weeks? Hmm…drowned in to-do lists for work and farm projects. Take a look at today’s to-do list and you’ll see what I mean:

And that’s just general to-do’s – it doesn’t include all the 4 million smaller tasks involved in each item on the list. In fact, most of it is farm or household-related. I already know I have “work” work to do, so I don’t necessarily need to list that stuff. Of course, I actually do have a running list of writing work, complete with deadlines and detailed task lists, but that’s another post for another blog.

While the blog may have been silent, life here on the farm certainly hasn’t been. In fact, this past weekend, my favorite partner in crime came out to the farm to help with a project that’s been on my list for nearly two weeks – building the chicken coop.

Mike and I picked out a simple design several weeks ago – long before I actually brought home the chicks. But when it came time to actually build it? Well, let’s just say Mike and 95-99 degree temps and high humidity just don’t make good companions. So instead, I called in reinforcements.

Actually, I only called in reinforcements to keep the beer iced down while I tackled a few things on my enormous to-do list for the farm. But…you simply cannot lay out lumber and map out a building project in front of a guy who does this stuff for a living and expect him to stay on the sidelines. It just doesn’t happen. He was already mentally preparing to take over before his truck tires ever touched my driveway, texting ahead to ask about my choice of fasteners, if I had all the materials I needed, etc.

Who am I to interfere with a professional, right? So, when he spotted nothing more than 6 reclaimed 2×4 studs, a 25′ roll of chicken wire, and a couple of boxes of galvenized screws and wire staples…the questions started, the mental gears began turning, and before you know it…

When I mentioned building a chicken coop this weekend, he envisioned a house on stilts…something with a roof and floors and lots of framing and siding. I think the limited materials laid out on my office porch threw him for a loop. When I showed him a picture of the A frame chicken tractor I had in mind, those gears in his head kicked into hyperdrive. Measuring tape in hand, he was off and running before I had a chance to say a thing.

We still have a few finishing touches to tackle – like a cap for the tin roofing on the enclosed end, a trap door at that end for access, access at the front to get to the water jug and feed tray, nesting boxes inside, wheels, a pull handle, etc. But the frame is there – the chickens can’t get out and preditors can’t get in. Since we were running out of daylight, he left those finishing touches for Mike and I to finish on another day. I think we can handle that.

So, the chicks are happy with their new home. They aren’t sure what to make of all the dogs barking, and those big monster dogs that keep coming over to the coop, stickin’ their noses against the wire, trying to figure out these little chirpin’ hoppin’ things with stick legs are (and if they’re edible.) Both Zeeva and Santa are facinated with the chickens and seem to be leaning toward wanting to chase the chickens around – they look like such fun to chase, after all.

I think I might have a couple of roosters in the mix. There are 3 Australorps (the black ones) and 3 Rhode Island Reds. I think I have one of each rooster. We’ll see as the weeks progress. But I’m almost positive that my solid black Australorp is a rooster – he’s already taking on the alpha status, pecking at the other chickens. And his legs are huge and grayish black, compared to the speckled hens with their pale, skinny legs. I think I might have a roo amongst the Reds too – his crest is turning red, he has no tail feathers yet like the other two, and he’s getting red lines along his jaw that the other two aren’t.

Only time will tell for sure…

Nothing’s Ever Easy on a Farm

Before I started this year’s garden, I read a lot about companion plantings, what time of year to plant what, etc. I also read about using bag gardens and raised beds when you aren’t sure about the soil you have. I thought I was prepared for this whole gardening adventure.

Boy, was I wrong. Nothing on the farm is ever THAT easy. There’s no “set it and forget it” when it comes to a farm. Silly me…this isn’t a crock pot lifestyle.

Sure, I knew where to plant the tomatoes, what NOT to plant with the cucumbers…but what about AFTER you plant stuff? My self-education, I have realized in the last couple of weeks, was seriously lacking in the keeping-plants-alive department.

I just assumed, like many novice gardeners, that you just made sure to use good soil, stick the plants in the ground, and then sit back and wait for them to grow. I knew you had to water the stuff, but I mean really…what else is there to do while everything grows?

Um…enter goofy-looking duh-huh grin. You’re suppose to FEED your plants while they’re growing.

I was kind of wondering why everything seemed to be taking so long to sprout and get all green and lush-looking. Hmm…could be, perhaps, because I wasn’t feeding anything? Amazing what’s happened since I added plant food to the watering routine. Tomatoes have grown a good few inches in the last week, the cucumbers are seriously starting to do more than just peak out of the ground, the radishes are exploding…and even my onions and lettuce have started getting impressive-looking.

I know…there are experienced gardeners out there, scratching their heads and thinking “Does this woman not even have a clue?!?”

The short answer? No. I don’t. That’s what this year’s garden is all about – learning all the things I don’t know. After all, there’s only so much you can learn from a book or a blog before you have to actually get out there and starty DOING something, right? Right. So that’s what I’m doing…figuring out all the things I haven’t learned yet…finding all the gaps in my know-how.

Feeding plants as they grow, as opposed to just watering them, just happens to be one of those…gaps, oops-didn’t-know-that things. Nevermind all the bazillion bottles, cans, jars, and packets of plant food lining the isles next to the seeds and watering wands…I thought those were just for avid gardeners looking to maximize their yields. I didn’t realize that no, that stuff’s there ’cause the plants NEED it.

So I had a slightly blonde moment in the garden. Sue me.

Now I just have to figure out weed control…or more aptly, grass in my garden control.

Jumping Ahead – Future Plans

As I was traveling up to New York this past weekend, I drove through some of the most beautiful farmland in Virginia and into West Virginia. There were breathtaking views of rolling green farmland, with herds of spotted cows, and little goats, and of course…horses.

I swear, as I looked out my window driving down Interstate 77, and especially up I81, I was simply amazed at the views. Miles and miles of what I like to call Fisher Price farms. Remember those little playsets Fisher Price had back in the 70s, with little red and white barns with silos, plastic split rail fences, and cute, chubby little farm animals? As I drove by hundreds of farms in Virginia, that’s what immediately came to mind – those perfect little Fisher Price farms.

In my mind, I started jumping ahead and thinking of what our place will look like by the time we’re done. I’ll have rolling green hills sprinkled with hardwood shade trees and spotted cows. I’ll have a cute little barn and split rail fencing in some places. I’ll have cute, cubby little farm animals grazing along the fence.

I can’t wait til I get there. I can’t wait to see that. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of work between here and there. It can be a little disheartening to realize just how far we are from my Fisher Price farm. Luckily, I remember that I’ll never get there if I get paralyzed thinking how much is still left to do. So long as every day I take at least one step towards the future, we’ll eventually get there.

Jumping ahead and daydreaming about my own Fisher Price farm is a good thing. It keeps me motivated on the end goal. However, moderation is key. Keep the brass ring in sight, but don’t forget to buy a ticket on the carousel, pick a horse, grab some cotton candy, and enjoy the ride first. Each little step gets you closer to where you want to be.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself. That’s what keeps pushing me forward towards having my dream.

Heritage Horse Breeds – Drafts for the Farm

I mentioned in a previous post, probably a few if truth be told, that we plan to use draft horses for as much of the heavy duty work here on the farm as possible. Much like deciding on a breed of chicken, we also have to decide on a breed of draft.

And again, just like with chickens, the info available online to help with the buying decision is nearly infinitesimal. So much to digest and learn…even for someone who knows a thing or two about horses. However, since my sister, Lesli Kathman, is far more experienced and knowledgeable, I enlisted her help last year to make a decision.

Before talking with Lesli, I knew I really wanted heritage breeds for just about everything. It’s a matter of preference for me. I like the idea of helping to preserve breeds with such rich histories and proven track records. I also have a thing for history – or at least, things that have a historic feel to them.

In the beginning, I had thought to get Creams. American Cream Draft horses are a true American original. They’re also a beautiful animal. According to the American Cream Draft Horse Association, there are now less than 400 Creams registered in the U.S. The breed is considered critical in terms of extinction. Given that they’re about the same height as Quarter Horses, I thought they would make a good draft for us, rather than the big Clydesdale or Percheron breeds.

Being novices (read as completely clueless,) I think I would feel more confident learning to manage a smaller team (in terms of physical size.) Not to mention, we’re not looking at logging or truly heavy duty work. We’re talking pulling a horse-drawn PTO cart with attachments for grading roads, harrowing fields, etc.

However, after talking to Lesli, I’m thinking we might start out with Halflingers. Haflingers are classified as draft ponies. They’re smaller than full sized drafts. Not to mention being so darn cute. The breed traces back to Oriental roots, with published mentions of the breed spanning 200 years.

As a pony, Halflingers are measured in inches, rather than hands. Max height for a registered Halflinger is 60 inches. They’re versatile for both draft work and riding, which makes them perfect for us.

I’m thinking we can start with a nice pair of Halflingers. We can learn to drive a team AND have nice riding horses. As we gain more experience with teams and work on the farm expands, we can add a team of Creams to the mix. That would give us two teams, one pair that can double as riding horses, AND “organic farm equipment” for bigger projects later down the road. I love the rich history of both breeds. I love the way both look, and the personality traits of both.

There are companies out there that make special equipment JUST FOR farmers who enjoy working with drafts rather than tractors and fossil fuel equipment. I can even by a horse cart to power modern PTO equipment (using about as much gas a large riding lawn mower, while getting all the benefit of PTO mowing decks, disc harrows, etc.)

Even buying two teams of horses, all their tack, the PTO cart, and PTO attachments totals an investment less than half what I would spend for the same set up with a new tractor. And like I’ve said before, a John Deere ain’t gonna poop a new John Deere when it wears out. A John Deere ain’t gonna poop out little mini John Deere replicas I can sell to other farms.

What are your thoughts? Would you use drafts and old fashioned implements if you had the choice? What are your favorite draft horses?

Dividing Plants to Save Money

You mean I don’t have to go to the greenhouse or garden area of my favorite home improvement store every time I want to plant more of something I already have?

Yeah, I’m sure to experienced gardeners my asking that question is beyond a duh-huh moment. Ya’ll are probably looking at me like I have six heads – all of them brain damaged, right?

But seriously…I knew you could divide plants. I’ve known lots of friends with greener thumbs than mine who are forever sharing clippings, shoots, bare root plants, etc. But, since I’m still struggling to keep houseplants alive, much less thriving, I’m not quite ready to divide anything.

However, I do have a houseplant I’d eventually like to divide. It’s one of those variegated ivy-type plants & it’s getting too big for its current pot. I haven’t tried to divide it yet because I figured I’d kill it if I did. That is, until I saw this video on YouTube. This guy’s sawing and cutting plants like I’d cut a watermelon in two. I would’ve thought that cutting a plant in half or thirds like that would kill it.

Maybe I just think plants are more delicate than they really are. Is it really this easy?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF787nUBQek[/youtube]

The Great Family Adventure

It’s rather fitting to start off April with the subject of adventures. I love the idea of a good adventure, almost as much as a good challenge. This month, the farm is bubbling with the prospect of challenges and adventures.

Zeeva says "Hello bloggers!"

First, a quick hello to all my fellow bloggers stopping by for the Ultimate Blog Challenge and the A – Z Challenge. I’m happy to have ya’ll cop a squat on my front porch blog.

For those who don’t know, Hexemaus Farms is participating in blogging challenges this month – one, the A – Z Challenge, is challenging bloggers to post 6 days a week, about a topic that begins with the letter for that day. The other, the Ultimate Blog Challenge, is challenging bloggers to post every day for an entire month, with each post consisting of at least 100 words.

For today’s topic, I’ve aptly decided on adventures…since today’s letter is “A.” April will bring a few, namely a trip via Amtrak to New York to see my oldest daughter and family. I’ve never been on a train before, so I’m looking forward to something new. While that adventure promises to be fun and enjoyable, it’s not the only adventure we’ll embark on here at the farm. (Although, I’m happy to say that my decision to ride the train means my carbon offset drops from 129 per 100 miles if I drove my truck to 35 per 100 miles riding the train.)

Zeeva, comfy on my bed...although it's getting hard to hop up on

By the time I get home, our day-old chicks should be here. (Cross your fingers that the boys can manage getting them settled while I’m gone.) Not to mention, unless she drops before I leave, we should also have a litter of puppies by the time I get back.

Zeeva, my lovable neurotic Border Collie and perpetual shadow, is expecting her first litter. Puppies, baby chicks, and grandbabies… sounds like an adventure to me! And of course, our adventures with cordwood dog kennels and new gardens will continue once I get home.

For those of you new to Hexemaus Farms, take a second to browse around and see what The Great Family Adventure is all about. We’ve only told part of the story, so far.

What you won’t read about is spending 9 weeks with no power a few summers ago, while we worked to get some of the main electrical systems up to par, or wading through 2+ feet of water in the basement when the sump pump failed and shorted out the hot water heater, or some of the other “interesting” days we’ve had here on the farm.

I haven’t told those stories here on the blog yet…but I will. For now, we’re just trying to keep up with chronicling the current adventures and challenges of learning how to farm – the hard way – in the thick of it. It’s hard work, but we’re loving every minute of it! (Even if we usually don’t know what the heck we’re doing until we figure out we did it wrong.)

With adventure always comes challenges (fitting then, to participate in blog challenges this month, too!) The Great Family Adventure has had challenges from Day One, but this month will present a few more challenges for both the guys and me.

First, the guys will have to run the farm while I’m gone. Should be an interesting challenge for them, but I know they can handle it – they’re just a few months away from college, so they better be able to handle that challenge. Given that these guys have helped build fences, run new house wiring, replace hot water heaters, install dishwashers, and a host of other home improvement projects, I think they might be in a better position to manage the farm than some first time homeowners are to manage their own homes.

Second, once I get home from my trip, I’ll have a week’s worth of catching up to do in terms of weeding the gardening, transplanting seedlings, and working on dog kennels. I think everything can survive for a week, while I’m gone. After all, Mother Nature’s been doing this stuff for a little while on her own before I came along. I think she can manage for a week without me.

So, what’s you’re list of challenges and adventures for the month of April? Are you planning to start a garden this year? Thinking about throwing some dirt in a pot to try your hand at a few tomatoes? Dustin’ off those power tools to tackle a little home improvement project this month?

Tell me about your adventure plans. I’d love to hear about them!

Living Fences: The Experiment Begins

As some of you may recall, some months back I talked about living fences – a practice that goes back to the pioneer days here in the States. It goes even further back in agricultural areas in Europe. I first read about the concept in a Mother Earth News article.

Since then, I’ve read up on various options for hedges and various trees. I ultimately decided to try out osage orange, also known as hedgeapple. You can read more about them (and see what the “fruit” looks like) here. Historically, they’re found in Oklahoma and northern Texas, but I’m hoping they’ll be able to survive here in Georgia. From what I’ve read, they take 4 years to reach horse height, 10 years to fully mature and produce fruit. They give off a orange, citrusy scent on a hot summer day. (I’m definitely looking forward to that!)

That’s a long time for an experiment!

The idea is to keep them pruned down, and as new shoots/small branches develope, you bend those and stick them back into the ground. The result is a beautiful lattice-style trunk at the bottom, with big thorns and a density that can even keep in chickens. The top, bushy part of the tree grows so dense and tall (provided they’re properly pruned and trained) that they can keep in cattle, hogs, and other livestock…as well as being a little too tall for a horse to jump over.

It’s hard to believe the kind of wormy-looking twigs that arrived via UPS yesterday will someday grow up to be, as the saying goes “horse high, bull strong, and hog tight.”

I spaced them out about 2 feet from the edge of the front garden fence and approximately 3-4 feet apart. From what I’ve read, they need spacing under 5 feet in order to grow dense enough to serve as fencing.

I realize this project is by no means a short-term thing. It could take YEARS to have even enough of them to just fence in the 8 acres around the house. That’s okay. We plan to erect wire fencing with metal posts in the meantime. We’ll gradually replace the wire fencing with living fencing as Mother Nature allows. Provided, of course, that these little twigs survive brutal Georgia summers. Otherwise, I’ll have to research another hedge or tree option.

If the experiment works and these things do thrive in our climate, I’ll probably invest in more bare root plants to help speed things along. First, I need to see if they can survive, and how hard it is to get that beautiful lattice-style trunk thing to work out. If all goes well and Mother Nature cooperates, planting these osage orange trees will be an ongoing, yearly thing.

Not only will it take us years to get all the fencelines established, but we’ll also be rotating the fencelines as they reach maturity. Once each new line reaches it’s 10 year maturity mark, I plan to plant another line beside it. Once the new line is horse height and established, we’ll cut down the old line to harvest the wood. I’ve read some articles that say (in addition to the wood being pest/rot resistent) that when dried for firewood, this stuff puts out more BTUs than most any other hardwood. Of course…that’s a good 15 years off and who knows what might happen between now and then.

I guess this homesteading thing is going to teach me patience, among many other things.

Hexemaus Farms

Adventures in Homesteading

Category Archives: Learning How to Farm