Garden Helpers
I’ve mentioned before that we got our pigs partly to do some garden work. They’re workhorses when it comes to moving soil and clearing sod. On Thursday I put them in the chicken run to break up the compost. Ever since we moved here I’ve been adding weeds and grass clippings to the chicken run. I also add any bedding from the chicken or duck house. The chickens have a blast scratching through it and eventually it all composts down into a beautiful soil amendment.
I was contemplating how to dig it all out earlier in the week, then I remember we had our piggies. Into the chicken run they went and they happily softened up all the wonderful compost for me. Now I just need to bring in my shovel and wheelbarrow. I’ll most likely compost this a little further since it will have a small amount of fresh chicken manure in it.
I was wondering how the pigs would do with the chickens, I’ve heard that some pigs eat chickens. Most of the chickens were allowed to roam free, then the pigs were let in. Our guineas and one chicken wouldn’t leave, so I watched closely to see what would happen. The pigs completely ignored them and went happily about rooting.
Next year I’m hoping to add a special chicken composting area. It will be a small coop connected to a big composting area. All the yard/garden waste will be added to the composting area and the resident composter chickens will turn the pile for me. I love using animals to my benefit, not only does it make them happy and healthy, it saves me having to do a lot of extra work! I’m also thinking in the future of training a dog to pull a garden cart for me, how convenient would that be?
Do you have any animals that work for you?
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Friday Favorite: Garden Peas
I’ve always been a big fan of garden peas, they’re just so sweet and tasty. I rarely every have enough for freezing, most of them are enjoyed within a few hours of being picked.
Since I never end up with enough peas for the freezer, this year I planted a ton. Two seventy foot long rows to be exact, along with a few six foot rows in the back potager for fresh eating. I grew ‘Green Arrow’ from High Mowing Seeds as my main crop peas. Other sowings included: ‘Little Marvel’, ‘Lincoln’, and ‘Dakota’.
My plan finally worked, on Wednesday evening we spent an hour shelling peas. After shelling our harvest weighed in at 8 pounds. They were blanched and packed into two cup glass containers for freezing.
Typically I’m not much of one for freezing or canning much from the garden, peas are the exception because winter soups and stews just aren’t the same without them!
We’ve also been enjoying our share fresh from the garden. Mostly, I’ve been steaming them then tossing them with butter and some homemade duck breast prosciutto. I always read about traditional recipes featuring peas and mint, but somehow I just can’t bring myself to put mint with peas. One of these days I will.
What’s your favorite way to enjoy garden peas? Do you like peas and mint together?
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While the Gardener is Away…
The plants will continue to grow quite nicely and the weeds grow twice as fast.
The chickies will grow into miniature chickens.
The peas are flush with pods, we harvested our first batch and enjoyed them for supper last night and the broccoli isn’t far behind.
It rained so much that the slugs made my cabbage look like swiss cheese. The pigs don’t mind the slugs and enjoyed it for supper last night.
I’ve certainly got my work cut out for me in the coming weeks ahead. No doubt I’ll be spending every spare moment out weeding, trying to get the garden back under control. Stay tuned tomorrow to see what the 5×5 Challenge Garden looks like.
Do you notice that things seem to change almost overnight in the garden this time of year?
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From the Beginning
When we got our Muscovy ducklings last fall, we knew they’d eventually become food for our table. Some people have a hard time understanding how we can possibly slaughter an animal that we raised, particularly when they’re so cute as babies.
Being meat eaters, we want to make sure that the meat we’re eating was raised with respect. Nowadays, it’s not difficult to find local farmers that raise their animals in the best conditions possible. Even with that, we’d rather do it ourselves if we can. By taking part in each step of the process I know exactly how that animal was treated and what it was fed.
When you first see sweet little ducklings, it can be hard to imagine that they’ll ever grace your table. But, as with most animals, the males start to grow up and nature takes over. They become aggressive towards each other and often towards you. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought to cull our male ducks, they were beating up on each other and occasionally trying to attack us.
We kept one gray male and the one remaining female (two of our females were lost to fox predation). The lady duck is currently sitting on a nest of eggs, we’re hoping she’ll hatch out a nice clutch of ducklings in early July.
For the same reason I like to grow my own vegetables, I am raising my own meat. There’s just something about being involved from the beginning with what appears on your plate. When these ducks were small they were fed potatoes grown in my garden with greens harvested from the lawn. They lived happy lives splashing in a kiddie pool outside my kitchen window. When the time came, they were slaughtered right here on the premises, no stressful travel to a processing facility. We wanted to take part in every part of the process to ensure it was done in a respectful way.
After slaughter, they were seared, braised and salted & cured. I must say, they were delicious. It’s certainly easier to let someone else handle the raising and slaughter of your animals, but I’m not one to go for ease and convenience.
Another reason to raise your own animals is because there are other benefits. These ducks mowed the lawn and controlled insects while they were foraging. They also produced quality fertilizer for my garden in the process. I also like knowing that 100% of the animal was used, their feathers were added to the compost pile, their bones were made into a nourishing stock for us and then converted to bone char to improve the soil in our garden. Raising my own animals allows me to tighten the circle of my garden and it allows me to be 100% certain that everything that goes into my food was produced in the best way possible.
With lady duck sitting on a nest of eggs, the process will hopefully start all over again soon. We’re definitely looking forward to braised duck this coming winter! Even though raising animals from the beginning is more work than picking them up at the grocery store or the farmers market, they truly are a blessing to have around. These duckies provided us with lots of laughs along the way. I’m certainly glad we decided to keep ducks and there will always be a place for a small flock in the gardens of Chiot’s Run!
Have you ever raised an animal that ended up on your table?
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Popeye Would Be Happy
Last week all the spinach that I planted many months ago started to bolt. So I harvested all of it, many, many pounds.
All of it was rinsed, cooked, and packed into small containers in the freezer for winter soups and sauces.
What didn’t make it into the freezer was fed to the pigs, they LOVED it.
What’s in your harvest basket this week?
