Garlic Giveaway
It’s that time of year to start thinking about planting garlic. Mine is going to be planted where the sweet potatoes were this summer. I plan on planting a lot of garlic, loads and loads of it. I never seem to have enough and I like giving it away as well. We eat a lot ourselves and I feed it to the chickens and the dogs every now and again.
Last year I did a giveaway thanks to Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply (also known as GrowOrganic.com), a company that my parents have been purchasing from since I was a kid. I’m more than happy to get a great prize for one of you while helping spread the word about this great company! Peaceful Valley also has a in depth weekly newsletter with loads of how-to videos and lots of useful information. They’re also on facebook if you want to keep up with their sales.
The garlic giveaway special will feature: a Garlic Combo collection, a quart of liquid kelp and plant labels. The garlic combo pack contains: 1 head of Elephant (conventional), 3 heads of California Early White (organic softneck), 3 heads of Music (organic hardneck), 3 heads of Russian Red (organic hardneck), 3 sets of French Red Shallots (organic).
So why the liquid kelp? Garlic bulbs do better when soaked in liquid kelp before planting. It gives them the boost they need to get a strong root system going before winter arrives in earnest. The plant labels were included because I have a very bad habit of never labeling my garden plants, particularly the garlic. As a result I have different kinds of homegrown garlic in my pantry but I don’t know which is which. The labels should help you keep things organized!
If you’ve never grown garlic before, don’t worry. I’ll have a garlic growing guide up on the blog next week. Deadline to enter is Wednesday, October 23 at midnight. Winner has been chosen via random.org – #72 – Matt who said, “I’ve loved garlic all my life.. Now I’m starting my own Back to Eden style garden and of course plan garlic to be part of it.”
How do you enter this giveaway? Tell me what’s your favorite way to use garlic in the kitchen?
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More Babies
It’s really interesting how things happen around here. Earlier this summer, our broody guinea and mama duck hatched out their nests on the same day. Last month, both the guinea and the duck starting sitting on nests once again. Yesterday, they both had their first hatchlings. That means we’ll be overrun with babies once again.
When I checked on broody guinea’s nest yesterday I saw an empty egg shell, but no keet. This little thing was off with the adult guineas pretty far away from the nest. Guineas are notoriously bad mothers, but I plan on letting her brood this batch. I will try to keep an eye out to make sure nothing goes terribly wrong, but I want to see how guineas raise their young. The ones that do make it will be strong little guys and should make great additions to our flock. It will certainly be difficult not to step in though!
When I noticed mama duck off her nest yesterday I decided to check for babies, since last time her eggs hatched at the same time as the guineas. Sure enough, there were three tiny ducklings and five eggs pipping (there are 15 eggs total in her nest). If you notice, her nest is in a plastic pet kennel. These are great to use because they’re easy to clean, have great ventilation, are lockable and they’re easily movable just in case you ever need to move the nest.
We still haven’t gotten rid of any of the first hatchlings from these two. There are 9 ducks (6 male, 3 female) from her first hatch and there are 10 guinea keets that have survived (initially there were 15). We plan on slaughtering most of the male ducks and a few of the guineas. The rest will be kept for breeding and insect patrol. Looks like fowl is the name of the game here at Chiot’s Run! I’m thinking the future I’m going to have mama duck hatch out some chicks for me.
Would it be hard for you to not intervene to keep the keets safe in the case of our guinea hen and here keets?
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Light at the End of the Tunnel
We’re so close to getting the garage/barn painted, so very close. Most likely I’ll spend most of today putting an extra coat of paint on much of the trim, the upstairs window and doing a few touch ups. We have invested hours and hours of time painting this beast of a building.
Most people gave us a crazy look when we said we were going to paint it black, but we were inspired by black barns we have seen in our travels.
Unfortunatly the projest isn’t 100% complete and won’t be until next year. On the back of the barn there’s a lean to that has a clear plastic roof (well, it’s so old it’s no longer clear). It needs replaced, but we don’t have time to do it now. We also can’t reach the upper middle portion of the main wall with the roof in place. We painted much of the back of the barn, but some of that painting will have to wait until next spring when we have the time to replace the roof.
But we got 80% of it finished. Luckily all the parts we can see from the house are done. Originally I thought about painting the door to the side room a different color, but I didn’t feel like buying more paint. I may do it next spring though. I was thinking bright yellow, robin’s egg blue or maybe a limey green for the door.
If you had to choose a color to compliment a black/white building what would you choose?
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She’s a Keeper
Miss Tara is really settling in. I figured you’d all be clamoring for an update. We finally got her new tag with our address and phone number, I’m sure you can guess that we found a handmade version. This one is from The Copper Poppy, a small shop in New Hampshire.
She is really getting the perimeter training and has been doing very well at it. We purchased a roll of surveyors tape in yellow to mark the area we want her to stay in. Yellow and blue are both colors that are easily seen by dogs, we wanted to give her visual clues, particularly in winter when the leaves are off the trees. Right now it’s the edge of the woods that make up the perimeter, but when the snow starts piling up they won’t be as prominent.
Mr Chiots has been taking her around the perimeter several time a day, at first she was leashed, but now she gets to run free. She rarely needs correction to stay inside the perimeter. A few days ago, we let her off her chain and she raced around the perimeter as fast as she could. It made us nervous as first to see her take off, but she ran right around the area we’ve been training her to. Training a new dog reminds us how much work we put in with Lucy, she’s great, not because she’s just a great dog, but because we put in many hours of training. Investing time now with Tara will pay off in the future.
I now even let her outside without being chained or leashed, of course I keep an eye on her. She seems quite happy and has done very well with the chickens and the ducks. She still doesn’t have our trust fully, someday she’ll earn her stripes and be allowed out without supervision, that will take a while though. We’re happy she’s progressing so well.
If you have a dog do you let them run free or do they need to be chained or behind a fence?
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Friday Favorite: Apples
This edition of Friday Favorites is for Mr Chiots. I’m actually not a huge fan of apples, in any way shape or form. Mr Chiots, on the other hand, LOVES apples any way he can get them.
We have a few different apple trees in the garden, lovely old apple trees. A few are over 100 yrs old and have many different kinds of apples grafted onto them. As the apple season is progressing, we’re tasting them and trying to figure out which varieties they are.
Just recently we picked a big bag of these beauties, I’m thinking they might be a Macintosh. We used them to bake a cheddar apple pie and I mixed the apples with pears, figs and cranberries for a winter fruit crumble (recipe in Rustic Fruit Desserts). The pie was so-so, the winter fruit crumble was AMAZING, and I don’t like cooked apples. They’re also great to eat out of hand. Mr Chiots is certainly in seventh heaven with so many apples to eat. Now all we need to do is get a cider press so we can make some cider!
Do you like apples? Do you like them cooked?
