Backyard Farming the Natural Way

Here is a further demonstration and discussion of the new easy roll worm bin composting system. I started developing and testing this over three years ago and have been very happy with the performance. I will be posting a links to the plans download here soon, but I am currently making a video complement to make the plans even easier to build.

Our family loves avocados and we use them mostly on our salads.  Therefore, with ever increasing prices of store bought avocados, the prospect of having producing trees in my yard was too much to resist.  Most information on the web about growing avocados, deals with the fun of growing them from seed etc. However, if you are serious about having productive trees in your yard within any acceptable time span, and you desire specific characteristics, you really need to purchase a grafted tree from a reputable nursery. The particular tree I have pictured here is a ‘Brogdon’ variety which is very cold hardy for this northern Florida climate. Read the rest of this entry »

I just wanted to post an update picture of the muscadines growing along my newly erected trellis. You can see that in a little over a month (since my first post on the trellis), that these cordons have grown a few more feet and are now within just a couple of feet from reaching the trellis posts. When they reach these posts which are 20′ apart, I will pinch off the ends to restrict the muscadines to this expanse and encourage more lateral growth along the cordons.

Out of the six grape vines I now have, a couple had a few problems resulting in a loss of some growth. On one, I had put a little too much fertilizer which killed some of the newer growth. Be very careful to not place the fertilizer too close to the base of these plants, as they are very sensitive.  At the rate these are going, I am expecting a partial crop this coming summer. Not bad for 8 months since starting as bare root whips!

I ordered six muscadines of different varieties this past winter from Ison’s online nursery, and you can see that they have already grown to the top of the 5′ support and are spreading out along the wire!  I ordered them dry root, and when they arrived during the end of winter, they were roughly 8″ not including the root.

Out of these, a couple did not survive, and I had to buy two replacements at the local nursery this spring. The varieties which I now have are Ison, Noble, Tara, and Southland. You can see that the basic idea is to trim down to one shoot, and then let this reach the top.  Following this, you let one branch (cordon)  go in each direction where it will have 20′ of wire (10′ in each direction) before encountering the next post. Any grapes which tried to form this year, I removed so that the energy of the plant would allow maximum growth. Supposedly, it takes about three years to have a good harvest, but at the rate these are growing (and being in Florida),  I am betting on a decent first harvest next summer. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a picture of our garden area taken about 2-1/2 weeks ago.  You can see the growth of this garden since my April posting Square foot raised beds: spring-summer garden. But even since this recent picture, the staked tomatoes have now reached the top of the poles which are about 8 feet! I was able to support them by a method I developed of staking indeterminate and vining tomato plants.

I am having to visit the  garden about 3 times daily just to keep up with the produce that is ripening. This includes pounds of tomatoes daily, okra, summer squash,  zucchini,  cucumber, corn, beans, peppers, broccoli, and even several watermelon (not planted in the raised bed, but on the far side). Read the rest of this entry »

I have a small section in my three sixteen foot raised beds where I planted six summer squash. You can see them here in the front of the beds in this picture taken awhile back (on the right of the zucchini)  Raised vegetable bed.  Now, pictured on the left on this page, is the amount of harvest I am getting on these six squash plants almost every couple of days! The largest one pictured is over 12″ in length, and I pick these at different sizes depending on how often I am able to get out there. I normally like to pick them at about 8-10″ length because the flavor seems better at this size.  The crazy thing is that I never liked squash bought from the store, but I have quickly acquired a taste for these grown in my own garden. Read the rest of this entry »

After struggling with various techniques over the years in an attempt to tame those large indeterminate tomato vines, I have come up with a technique which works the best for me.  If you enlarge the image on the left, you see that I have inexpensive clothes hangers  attached to a nail.  In this case, I have used 10′ electrical conduit and have drilled small holes in which I have inserted finishing nails.  I put a little tape on the nails to keep them from falling through. I have successfully been able to manage plants up to 7′ tall in raised beds using this method. You might need to have the center supports for the hangers about every 2 1/2′ up the stake. Once a few branches of tomato become unmanageably long, I add a hanger and just start gently placing the hanger over the ends of the growth and pulling several branches through. Read the rest of this entry »