Garden Plans

Garden Plans

I've been busy preparing for both my Fall and Spring garden and thought I'd share my plans.  I don't consider myself a radical survivalist but to quote Jason Robertson, "Food from grocery stores scares me."  I don't think we have any idea what we are eating any more.  Between the pesticides, herbicides, hybridization and genetic modifications the food we buy to eat has changed dramatically over the last fifty years.  Most of these changes were designed to improve productivity and not necessarily nutritive value.  Some may be harmful over the long term.  Anyway, I am going the heirloom and organic seed route as much as possible.

I've got about an acre inside my fence that I am preparing for the garden (includes fruits and vegetables).  A diagram of what I am working toward is shown below.  Our soil is well suited for blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, persimmon trees, figs trees, peach trees, citrus trees and any type of melon.  It needs some improvement for apples, pears, plums and most vegetables.  At the beginning of fall, I planted a mixture of oats and Austrian winter peas in all of the garden areas.  When these crops mature (around January) I will cut them down and disk them into the soil.  This will add both Nitrogen and organic material to my sandy soil.  After allowing three weeks for the soil to absorb these new nutrients, I will plant all of the berries and the fruit trees and get started on the Spring garden.   

You can see that I have divided the vegetable area into three sections.  Each is fifty feet wide by one hundred feet long.  I will rotate using them for vegetables every three years.  The other two years they will be in a cover crop or in some other phase of improvement.  This avoids overuse of the soil, allows time for soil improvement and avoidance of plant diseases (common when the same soil is overused). 

 

I did plant a small Fall salad garden (20'x20') this year.  As the soil wasn't quite right, I had some topsoil delivered and spread it around.  I planted: radishes, carrots, mixed greens, butternut lettuce, broccoli and kale.  It's been raining so everything is coming up and looking good.  With the weather patterns in south central Texas, we can have a Fall garden continuously through the "Winter" and can generally start a Spring garden in February.

 

I saw an article on the Internet recently proclaiming that Texas was the future of America.  It supported this claim with a list of ten reasons including jobs, land and housing cost, cost of living, low taxes and finally the rise of new cowboys (people moving to Texas to find a better and more self-sufficient lifestyle).  I guess I fall into that category as I wasn't born in Texas but got here as fast as I could.

I Should Have Been a Cowboy

Longhorn Visitors

I returned to Tres Colinas after a brief trip to Caldwell and found these visitors in my front pasture.

I spent most of the morning trying to determine where they came from and who owned them.  I'd not seen any Longhorns while driving up and down our road.  They aren't that common as there are much better beef breeds available.  After numerous calls to neighbors and the Sheriff (they handle wandering cattle problems), I finally identified their owner was my neighbor on my south property line.  I've never seen any activity on that property but it seems he dropped them off on Saturday and just assumed the fence was good enough to hold them.  When cows are moved to a new pasture, they often try to return to their prior home.  While they couldn't get that far, they could cross to my land. 

So, I fired up my tractor and herded them back through a small hole in the fence.  This was a little tricky as the hole was only five feet wide.  I guess their cattle drive genes kicked in as all I had to do was keep the leader moving in the right direction and the rest followed.  I did give them my best Rowdy Yates (Clint Eastwood) stare a couple of times.  I repaired the gap and thought they would stay as they had plenty of grass to eat and access to a stock tank (water) on their property.   I was wrong as I guess they prefer my grass and water.

They were back the next evening, eating my grass, drinking from my stock tank and wreaking havoc on my deer feeder (like a bad brother-in-law).  I guess they could smell the corn in it and decided it was a candy machine for them.  They knocked it over and managed to get the top off, giving them access to 150 lbs of corn that I had recently loaded.  That kept them busy (and happy) for awhile.  The dogs are keeping them from getting too close to us and Pam did yell that we were Aggie's not Longhorns (that had little affect).  I don't like to think what those horns could do to our vehicles or the RV. 

Hopefully, their owner will round them up in a day or two, although they are pretty.  Fortunately, they can't get to my black angus or I might have some Longhorngus's next year.  Yippie-ki-yo-ki-yay.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Busy September

Tres Colinas on the road less graveled

I said I would try to blog more frequently but I've been pretty busy this month. 

Patiently waiting in line to buy Kolaches

 First, we had the Kolache Festival.  It was the same weekend as the Texas A&M-Alabama Football game so the attendance was less than the typical 12,000-15,000.  Still, there was a big crowd and lots of Kolaches to sample.  I may have said this before but Caldwell was originally a Czech settlement and this festival celebrates that heritage.  It began with the singing of the National Anthem, the Texas State Song (also known as the Texas National Anthem-I like the sound of that) and finally the Czechoslovakian National Anthem.  Then you lined up to buy Kolaches.

Kolaches bagged up for sale

Personally, I went for the raspberry, blackberry, poppy seed and key lime (like a summertime party in your mouth they claimed) versions of the Czech pastry.  I had to stand in line for an hour but it was worth it.  There were also lots of arts and crafts as is typical of festivals like this all over Texas (every town seems to have some type of festival during the summer).  All are centered around some type of food (sausage, fish, beef, etc.) and/or some form of arts and crafts.  It gives us something to do instead of drink beer all the time. 

 My next big event was attending an A&M football game.  I've attended college games in several different stadiums and they all have their traditions and unique spin on how to support their football team.  After visiting Kyle field, I don't think anyone beats the Aggies.  They have the Corp of Cadets that march in and sit together, they have a military style band that plays military march songs (kind of like watching Ben Hur, Patton and a couple of WWII movies at the same time) while executing precise military march movements across the field, they have cheers led by Yell Leaders (all male) who use hand signals to tell you what to cheer (this is why they have midnight yell practice the Friday before each game), the students stand the entire game (this indicates their readiness to respond if called on to play-hence the 12th man concept, they yell "Whoop" after each first down and high five each other around the stadium with each touchdown, you kiss your date after each score, they play their fight song a couple of times and everyone sings it while swaying arm-in-arm (some schools play their fight song ad nauseam) and finally (this really wasn't an all inclusive list) the Corp members chase, catch and throw the Yell Leaders in the campus fishpond after a victory.  Between these activities and getting to watch Johnny (Football) Manziel, it was one of the best college football games I've attended (Gig'm Aggies!).

 

 

Foundation

Either side of these events I started building a well house.  I needed it to get the sun off the water tank (we essentially had hot water all the time without a water heater) and to protect the pump wiring from the dogs (who decided it was chewable).  I'd never built a building before so it was trial and error.  I built it on pier blocks to make it easy to level and because I didn't need it to have a floor.  Then I added the walls, roof joists and the siding (I also anchored it to the ground with anchor rods and straps.  Sounds simple enough but there were several "learning opportunities" at every step.  I also hadn't worked with sheet metal and learned (the hard way) a few tricks on how to handle it.  I plan to add some white trim to the door and as the shed is 8'x12' will also build some tool storage inside.  With that experience behind me, I'm ready to start on the chicken coop in a couple of weeks (have to let those metal splinter cuts heal first).   

 

Walls up

 

 

Essentially finished well house

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While all of this was going on, we were finishing the tank (pond) digging process.  The digging was completed on a Thursday afternoon and at that point it had about 2' of water from the spring seepage.  It rained 2.5" the next day which recharged the spring resulting in about 5' of water in the tank within two days.  The spring ran for another day or two and then stopped but started again the next Thursday when it rained another 2".  The spring has continued to flow into the tank filling it to overflow.  I planted both ryegrass seed and Tifton 85 sprigs and both have begun to grow with the rains.  This all happened so fast I felt like I was watching the Genesis Project (old Star Trek movie) come to life. 



Finished Digging (you can see Mattie on the right bank waiting for water)

"Where's the water you promised me I could play in?"

 

Add water and instant tank!

Hauling the granddaughters around the Fair

We wrapped up September with the Burleson County Fair.  I'll have to admit being a bit disappointed in the animal showing portion of the fair.  I expected (or at least wanted) to see a variety of breeds of cows, goats, sheep and chickens but that isn't how they do it.  There were some different breeds of cows but everything else was the same breed and color.  I don't know if this makes the judging easier or is considered a level playing field for the competitive entrants.  It was interesting to see the auction held after the judging is finished.  The top five in each category (chickens, rabbits, steers, goats, pigs, lambs, etc.) are auctioned to the highest bidder with the proceeds going to the child (typically a 4-H member) who raised the animal.  It's not unusual to see these animals sell for tens of thousands of dollars.  The buyer views it as marketing expense and a tax right-off and the seller gets a leg up on college tuition.  In total, the fair raised over $1.5 million from ticket sales and this auction (pretty impressive for a rural county).  Of course they had all the rides and fair food (red velvet funnel cake was one of Pam's favorites). 

 

The heifers are doing well (eating grass and adding weight) but we lost one of the cats.  Miss Kitty (the white one with grey spots) disappeared one day and hasn't returned.  That leaves us with the odd couple of Lilly and Matt.  They seem happy with their surroundings and Lilly captured and killed a gopher last week.  Fall arrived on the heels of a norther Saturday evening so the morning temps are in the low 50's with daytime highs in the low-mid 80's.  We are seeing several deer around the tank but haven't seen any hogs since all the tank digging started.  I expect them back any day.

 

Finally, I will end with this picture of Shane.  I said in one of my first blogs that I planned to use the dogs as a deterrent against wild hog interventions in the garden.  It's obvious that Shane took his training very seriously as he literally is using his body to protect a pile of dirt in the garden.  With that kind of dedication, the garden should be safe.