Categories
Farm & Garden Farm Management

Recordkeeping Is A Useful Tool On The Hobby Farm

farm recordkeeping journal
Daniel Johnson

Sometimes, the most useful tool a farmer can have isn’t a powerful machine or a tried-and-true hand tool. It’s meticulous recordkeeping.

Whether you keep a journal, scrawl key details in a notebook, scribble must-remember data on scraps of paper, or punch notes into your computer or phone, keeping detailed farming records can be helpful on so many fronts.

Exactly what your recordkeeping might entail will depend on the type of farm you operate. But to give you an idea of the possibilities, let me share a few real-world examples of how meticulous recordkeeping helps me with my annual farm, garden and orchard harvests.

Planting Memory

I have a lot of garden beds, and though I have a good memory for details, I can’t trust myself to remember with 100 percent accuracy which beds contain which seeds and seedlings. One year, I planted two varieties of pumpkins and forgot which was which.

Fortunately, the resulting pumpkins were different enough to tell the plants apart once they fruited. But that might not always be the case. Ever since, I’ve taken more care to note the location of every planting.

Seed Planting Dates

When I plant garden beds each spring, I write down the date the seeds went in the ground and then take note when they sprout. I also keep track of the estimated days until maturity listed on the seed packets.

Later, when the plants are mature and harvest time is approaching, I check my notes to determine when I should harvest—not too early, and not too late.

Note Blossom Dates

Every year, I write down the dates when my fruit trees blossom in the spring, and then mark down when the fruits ripen in late summer and fall. These dates can vary a bit from year to year, but keeping notes across multiple years gives me a good ballpark of when to expect ripe fruit.

Recordkeeping Is Just Handy

Some folks might get along just fine without all this farm recordkeeping. After all, the ripeness of an apple can be gauged by appearance and tasting, assuming you know what to expect from any given variety. And I know my beloved sweet corn is ready when the silks have dried to brown and popping a sample kernel reveals milky liquid rather than clear.

Even still, there are benefits to recordkeeping. If you’re a hobby farmer trying to grow a little of everything, maybe there are only a dozen pieces of corn on your handful of corn plants. Knowing when you planted them (and when they sprouted) can help you nail down exactly when they’re ready pick. From experience, I know that peak taste and quality can fall in a very narrow window of time.

Here’s another example: I’ve purchased many fruit trees from a nursery about an hour south of where I live, and the ripening dates they list for each variety tend to be earlier than the dates I experience on my farm farther north. Yearly shopping trips have revealed that the trees at the nursery blossom a little earlier in the spring than the trees on my farm, so the nursery apples are ready earlier.

If I were to harvest fruit from my trees according to the dates provided by the nursery, I would be harvesting before they’re ripe. Instead, thanks to my recordkeeping, I know my trees consistently ripen a bit later and I can plan my harvests accordingly.

These are fairly simple examples, but you can take your recordkeeping to higher levels if you like. You could record the number of hours you spend on a given farming project, so you can divide the income generated by the hours worked to calculate your “hourly wage” and determine if the project is worth repeating. Or you could track the number of eggs laid by your chickens each year to figure out which breeds are most productive in your specific situation.

The takeaway? Recordkeeping makes farm life so much easier. Take good notes, and you’ll take good care of your farm.

Categories
Animals Breeds Farm & Garden Large Animals

The Mangalitsa Pig May Be The Perfect Porker

Mangalitsa pig breed pigs
images courtesy of Royal Mangalitsa

The Mangalitsa is a heritage pig breed, identifiable by its woolly coat. It seems to be the pig for small farmers who want to raise robust hogs for healthier and more succulent meat with a decent amount of fat. For Michigan homesteader and Mangalitsa pig farmer Mark Baker, the Mangalitsa stands out as one of his favorite animals to raise. Since 2008, he has been naturally raising Mangalitsa pigs and has come to love the curly haired pigs for their hardiness, foraging abilities, resistance to extreme temperatures and tasty pork. 

Mark was also at the forefront of the Mangalitsa’s growing popularity on U.S. farms and is one of the few people in the country who has a thorough and rounded knowledge in naturally raising Mangalitsa pigs for meat and profit. He believes that, as a homestead product, this pig is highly beneficial and easy to raise.

Pig Pointers

Mangalitsa pigs are a hardy breed, best shown off during harsh winters. “My pigs … prefer to burrow into straw or a hay bale,” Mark says. “Even on the coldest of nights, they don’t have any shelter. It’s even snowed on them a few times.” He has a video explaining how he raises pigs in the winter on his YouTube channel.

Mark does provide huts on the pasture, as you can see in the video linked above. Barbara Meyer zu Altenschildesche, breed advisor for Mangalitsa Breed Organization and Registry, recommends that farmers provide a simple shelter or pig hut where their livestock can stay dry. 

“Even when they sometimes will prefer to sleep outside when it’s cold but dry, they should have the possibility to go into their warm nest/hut when it is cold and raining,” she says. 

Mangalitsa pig breed pigs

The opening should be turned away from whatever direction the wind mostly comes and placed on a spot that will stay dry when a lot of rain falls. Provide straw in the colder months. “Pigs always leave the hut to do their toilet. Even 2-day-old piglets go out of their nest,” she says, “so cleaning the hut from dung won’t be needed.”

Mangalitsa pigs are already furry, and their fur increases in the winter, so they’re perfectly suited for extreme weather. Mark has more than once seen his pigs endure single-digit weather, with some sows even giving healthy births during Michigan snowstorms. A testament to the breed’s hardiness in cold climates, it’s not uncommon for sows to bundle their litters together and watch over the piglets as a team. This increases the piglets’ chances of survival, especially during winter months.

Barbara recommends that each sow be provided a hut in which to give birth. “[An A-frame] hut works well or a hut with a sidebar, which gives the piglets the ability to get away from mum when she rolls over to feed them,” she says. 

Mangalitsa piglets don’t need heat laps or such, but they can’t keep their body temperature up when it’s cold and raining. 

“You could lose the whole litter in cold, wet weather without a hut, something nobody wants to experience,” Barbara says. “Use straw in your huts when it’s cold. Don’t use hay, as the newborn wet piglets can get stuck in it.”

On top of their hardiness, Man­galitsas have the capacity to grow to 400 pounds. The big attraction to the pig as a meat animal is that their body weight is made up of 60 to 70 percent fat, a significant difference compared to the average pig’s 50 percent fat. This extra fat makes the meat exceptionally tender to the melt-in-your-mouth point, setting the Mangalitsa apart against the standard pig and even other naturally raised heritage pig breeds. “The big difference is the difference between standard pork and Mangalitsa pork,” Mark says. 

Though Mangalitsas usually take about 18 months to reach their full weight, they’re worth it because they have intermuscular fat, which means the meat is a deeper red and the fat is snow-white when cooked. The dark-red color indicates higher nutrition and signals a better taste. The marbling increases with age, same as the color.

Mangalitsa pig breed pigs

Mark even says that Mangalitsa meat has such an intense flavor that some cuts are comparable to the flavor of beef. “There’s still a stark difference between pork and beef,” he says, “but sometimes, when you have Mangalitsa, it has such a deep flavor you would think it was beef.”

Movable Enclosures

Farmers raising Mangalitsas can build movable enclosures and employ a pasture rotation system. This method cuts down on feed costs and gives pigs the most natural and healthy environment in which to grow. Mangalitsas are decently sized pigs, so their enclosure will need to be decently strong. Mark uses a 100-by-100-foot enclosure built with woven wire and sturdy posts. 

“We build enclosures with fence posts and stretch an [electric] wire really tight,” he says. The electric wire is placed 1 foot within the fence line, raised 1 foot off the ground and charged with a solar-powered energy source. Building these enclosures in close succession to each other makes it easy and efficient to rotate pigs into the next enclosure. Mark has a helpful video on fencing on his YouTube channel. 

If you’re on a budget, don’t worry. These enclosures are relatively inexpensive to start. Including wire and fenceposts, Mark’s enclosures can be built for around $500. “What’s nice about that is you can add on if you’re able to develop a market for [your pigs],” Mark says.

Pasturing a Pig

Once the enclosures are built, it’s time to consider how you’ll pasture your Mangalitsas. Most pigs aren’t well-known for thriving almost entirely on pasture rotation. However, Mark has developed a feeding system called “the grow system.” It creates a more natural environment for Mangalitsas to feed and grow in and lets him finish out a pig for only $200.

Average Mangalitsa farmers, not using Mark’s grow system, will spend around $500 to $600 from birth to finish. “These pigs might look like sheep, but they won’t grow by eating grass and hay alone,” Barbara says. “They need a balanced healthy diet that suits a pig’s needs with enough protein [16 percent], carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins. The piglets you will buy need a daily basic ration of hog feed to grow.”

Mark enriches his rotation system’s foliage by planting fast-growing vegetables in each enclosure, vegetables his pigs will forage for or dig up over time. Over the course of the summer, he can plant and feed his pigs multiple times with a variety of crops, such as corn, pumpkins and radishes. 

Once the crops are planted and grown, he’ll move the pigs into the enclosure. When the pigs have finished eating that pasture, he’ll move the pigs to the next enclosure, which will be ripe with new vegetables. 

Mangalitsa pig breed pigs

“Say the pigs are on field two,” Mark says. “I could be growing on field three. Then I can move the pigs to field three and groom field one.”

With a “grow system,” farmers don’t have to worry about pesticides because the food isn’t for human consumption. The pigs go through each section and eat the vegetation. Mangalitsas will devour everything—the cob, the stalk, the roots. “It keeps them busy, and their bodies are able to process that forage,” he says. This system leaves behind a well-furrowed and fertilized plot that is ready to be replanted for the next time the pigs are rotated.

A 100-by-100-foot pasture also makes it easy to raise a hefty group of pigs at one time. “We run the group of pigs as a sounder, which is about up to 10 sows and one boar,” Mark says. “I have them on about 1⁄2 an acre, and if you’re familiar with 1⁄2 an acre, it’s pretty big. But it’s plenty of room for 10 mother pigs, each with eight babies.” 

Pasturing Mangalitsas in their natural herding state also gives the pigs beneficial social interactions. Mark has observed that when he keeps his pigs in a sounder, younger sows will learn from the older sows when raising their litters. “It would seem quite congested, but it actually isn’t,” he says. “And 10 sows are a really good facet on your homestead.”

Processing & Selling 

Mangalitsas can be made profitable in many ways. If you want to go the route of selling live pigs, the average piglet sells for about $150, and a feeder (gilt or castrated male) or breeder pig can sell for up to $500 each. “A person can get started for a reasonable amount of money, and if you’re selling 10 feeders a year, that’s pretty good money for a homestead,” Mark says. However, prices also depend a lot on location and the current market. 

The end product can be profitable for homesteaders who want good meat and fat for their own use. For Mangalitsa breeders and people that want to raise them to keep a bit for themselves and their family and be able to sell the meat to the public, they’ll need to build the market. That takes an average of 5 years, according to Barbara. 

“The secret sauce is if you can butcher it yourself,” Mark says. Homesteaders should learn to butcher their own meat because butchering costs have risen and because homesteaders can get more meat out of butchering their own pigs. When it comes to pigs, many commercial butchers will often discard usable meat such as organs or head meat. This happens because pig butchering standards are set according to the health of factory-raised pigs, which are often raised in indoor environments that taint the meat. 

For instance, the lungs of indoor-raised pigs are discarded because they have inhaled air pollutants from long-standing manure. Because the pollutants have settled into the lung meat, the meat is no longer edible for humans. However, Mark can use pig lungs as a soup meat because his pigs are raised outdoors and constantly rotated between different pastures to keep them in prime health. Because he naturally raises his pigs and does his own butchering, Mark also gets the most meat and profit out of his pigs, using the heart, liver, kidneys and caul fat. “There’s not very much of the animal we don’t use,” Mark says. “This is why homesteaders really need to look at being their own processors. It gives them a huge advantage.”

Check state regulations regarding home slaughter, as each state is different and regulations depend on what you’re doing with the meat (consuming it yourself, giving it away, selling it, etc.) 

In Indiana, for example, all meat from livestock and poultry intended for human food must be slaughtered and processed in an establishment inspected by the state board of animal health or the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. However, there is a home-raised exception.

“A person may slaughter and process his/her own livestock or poultry that he/she has raised. The owner of the animal must use the meat products exclusively in his/her household. The owner may use them for his/her nonpaying guests and employees but may not transfer (i.e., sell, donate, give) any product to another person.”

Fortunately, with the advent of the internet, it isn’t difficult for someone with any butchering experience to figure out how to butcher a full-sized hog and make their Mangalitsas more profitable. 

To help homesteaders wanting to become their own processors, Mark has started Home­stead Hog Harvest, his own hog-butchering classes. His course starts students out with a live hog and finishes off with a beautiful meat product that can be used to supplement a family’s food stores or sold. (Learn more here.) Another great butchering video is this one, from Bon Appetit. 

“Foster a can-do attitude,” Mark says. “It’s not brain surgery. It’s an art. But it’s good to be the best you can. You may not do so well, but you’ll still have a product at the end.”

The Mangalitsa can be a significantly profitable animal to have on the farm. “They’re unique and quite docile,” Mark says. “They’re not a threat to my children or other children that come to my farm. I’m not saying it’s a silver bullet, but it’s a pretty good bullet to have on your farm.” 

More Information

Pigflation

Barbara Meyer zu Altenschildesche, breed advisor for Mangalitsa Breed Organization and Registry, offers some financial advice for new Mangalitsa farmers. She says that basic costs—such as water/feeding system, fencing, housing and such—aren’t very different from those of raising other heritage pig breeds. However, this breed is slower growing, taking almost double the time to get to slaughter weight when you want the mature meat, which means more labor and more feed. 

“Also, costs depend on the amount of land someone has, the location, soil, climate, how far they would need to drive to buy feed, the local feed costs and how much time someone wants to put into caring for them,” she says. “It all adds up, and to be honest it’s mostly more than people calculate or think it would be.”

Getting Started

The Mangalitsa Breed Organization and Registry recommends to start small and grow slowly. Purchase two to three feeders, raise them out and write down your costs. Slaughter them and see if this is what you expected and if your locale has the market to sell this niche product. 

If you succeed, look into buying good breeding stock. “This is a beautiful pig breed with lots of amazing qualities, beautiful meat and healthy fat. But it must fit in your market when you want to make a little profit,” says Barbara Meyer zu Altenschildesche, the organization’s breed advisor. 

Make sure you know the breed characteristics. Not every pig with curly hair is a pure Mangalitsa. Even pure-looking ones can be crosses. 

“They’re still beautiful pigs and good to eat but not pure of breed,” she says. When you gather breeding stock, ask the history of the pigs to avoid inbreeding. “There was only a limited number of imports of this breed since they came into the country in 2007,” Barbara says. “Distance does not mean unrelated, as these pigs travel often from one farm to many different states.” 

Another very important thing for new Mangalitsa farmers to know is what body condition a pig should have. It’s not easy in the beginning with this breed, as it has so much fur that you need to examine each pig by feeling its condition with your hands. “We see way too heavy sows and boars, which can lead to infertility,” Barbara says. “Or we see way too skinny Mangalitsas and poor growing animals, as people just do not feed them enough.” 

Mangalitsa pigs should score 3 to 4 in a body conditioning test. When you want more fat with slaughter, feed more and a 5 score would be what you are looking for. To learn more about body conditioning, check out this video from UConn Extension. 

Online Resources

For more information about Mangalitsas, try these resources: 

Toxic Plants

Mangalitsa pigs have a long snout and root way more than pigs with a shorter snout. And while they’ll eat most anything, some weeds are highly toxic to pigs, including the following, which should be eliminated from your property. 

  • aburnum
  • bracken
  • cocklebur
  • deadly nightshade
  • elder
  • foxglove
  • hemlock
  • henbane
  •  ivy
  • jimsonweed
  • ragwort
  • rhododendron

This article originally appeared in the July/August issue of Hobby Farms magazine.

Categories
Animals Farm & Garden Homesteading Large Animals

Cattle Feeding Basics: Evaluate Your Energy

cattle feed energy
pamela_d_mcadams/Adobe Stock

Whether you’re feeding a couple of calves in a small trough or driving down a feeding lane with a dedicated feed truck, heathy, productive cattle all require a proper feed ration in order to meet the desired goals set before them. 

In my previous two articles, we’ve taken a closer look at two of the basic components of a feed ration: roughage and protein. Today, we’re covering energy in the ration. We’ll look not only at some of the sources for it, but also how our farm produces some of our own sources of energy. 

Energy in 3 Categories

My father-in-law, Todd Krispense, has been working with and feeding cattle for decades. Energy, as he points out, is measured in megacalories and has three basics categories:

  • Net Energy Maintenance: The amount of energy required for cattle to maintain their weight 
  • Energy Gain: The amount of energy needed from the “feed stuff” for cattle to gain weight
  • Net Energy Lactation: Relating to dairy cows, the amount of energy required in the feed to produce lactation and a certain amount of milk 

Examples of sources for energy can be found in distiller grains and corn silage and, as Todd points out, even grain itself. While he shared that distillers can be a good source of both protein and energy, if you’re looking for strictly a higher-level of energy, there are other sources that can offer a greater amount. 

Goals Determine Your Energy Needs

How much energy your cattle will need depends on what your goals are for them. A finishing ration for fat cattle would consist of a higher level of energy and a lower level of protein, Krispense shares. But a growing ration would have a higher level of protein and a lower level of energy. 

As Krispense notes, it’s best to consult a nutritionist that can help you plan out a balanced diet, which can help to avoid over-feeding certain components as well as wasting resources and money.   

While we don’t produce our own distiller grains on the farm, we do raise our own field corn to be later chopped and put up for ensilage or corn silage. Krispense notes that, although silage is technically considered roughage, corn silage possesses a higher level of energy in it due to the corn grain itself that is chopped along with the plant. 

Growing Corn for Energy

As for the production of the corn, we need to back up to mid/late April. When it comes time to plant, certain hybrids of field corn are chosen with the expectation they will grow taller than their counterparts and produce more tonnage of feed once chopped. How tall they reach depends mostly on the growing conditions, but with plenty of moisture and fertilizer, some varieties can reach 12 to 14 feet tall!

As the summer draws on and the plants grow, they will eventually reach the point that they need to be chopped. In good growing conditions, you’ll need to watch the grain on the plant as it can ripen before the plant dries up. However, with the dry conditions we’ve had recently, the stalks have begun to dry up quicker than normal, making farmers rush to chop the corn before plants have completely dried out.

When the corn is deemed ready to sample, it’s time to take the equipment to the field. A forage harvester (or silage chopper) is used to cut the stalks off near the ground. It drives through the field as large drums with blades spin around on the header, cutting the stalks off. They’re then processed inside the machine by a large rotating drum with knives that chop the corn up into very small pieces (10-11 mm long). The machine throws them into a large, high-velocity blower, which then spits them out the spout and into the waiting silage truck. The spout can be controlled and turned from inside the cab, as it is pointed toward the truck that drives alongside the chopper.

We also run a kernel processor on the chopper to help break up the kernels. This makes the feed more palatable for cattle.

Corn Storage

Once the truck is full of ensilage (chopped corn), it drives to the destination (in our case, a large trench silo) and dumps the ensilage on the ground near the pit. Packing tractors wait nearby to push the load of chopped feed into the pile and pack it in firmly. An inoculant can be applied to the ensilage as it is being chopped to help stabilize the quality of the feed when it is packed into the pit. 

After the fields of silage corn have been chopped and packed well into a pile, a tarp can be spread across the top of it to help keep the rain off of it and air from getting to the top of the pile, reducing spoilage. After the silage goes through the fermentation/ensiling process, it is ready to be mixed into feed rations and fed. 

There’s so much that we can learn when it comes to cattle feed rations that it can be helpful to do your research and find a good nutritionist to guide you toward the right ingredients and ratios to meet the goals you have for your cattle.

Happy feeding! 

Categories
Beginning Farmers Crops & Gardening Farm & Garden Permaculture

Putting Your Garden To Sleep For The Winter

winter garden cover cropping mulch
ysbrandcosijn/Adobe Stock

You can find many reasons to put your garden to sleep for the winter. Remember that a natural ecosystem will necessarily have preparation in order to go into the long cold winters that we experience throughout most of North America.

There are many important ways that we can maximize ecosystem services when putting our garden to rest. These can be broken down into various strategies and can also paired with other typical market garden and landscape management techniques.

Let’s explore some of the top choices for preparing your garden for winter.

Cover Cropping

Cover cropping is your ally going into the winter because it protects the soil surface not only in the fall when you may have heavy rains, but also throughout the winter. Cover crops can keep soil life buffered from the extreme temperatures of the cold winter months.

It also protects the soil in the spring, when there is not only a lot of runoff from snow melt but also heavy rains, which will erode unprotected soil, causing you to lose not only the grains of your soil but also the nutrients.

Cover cropping has additional benefits, too, scavenging nutrients in the fall.  This means these crops take up various soluble nutrients, such as nitrogen available in the soil after your crop is finished, and holds them in an insoluble form in the form of organic matter that is living and growing.

Cover crops can also provide weed suppression benefits by preventing the germination of weeds by covering them over with a canopy—especially perennial weeds that may germinate in the fall and annual weeds that may germinate in the spring. This last benefit is best achieved by using an overwintered cover crop such as winter rye, which has the added effect of actually suppressing weed seed germination by an allele pathic chemical reaction in the soil.

The addition of cover crops in the spring through flail mowing and incorporation will serve as a green manure, only further adding to their overall ecosystem services for your garden. Cover cropping is one of the top choices for putting your garden to rest in the winter.

Cover cropping is easy to do, too. You can simply remove your crop debris and broadcast or re-prepare by lightly tilling the beds and seeding. Or you can undersow with cover crops like clover and allow them to germinate in the canopy of the crop, such as squash, just prior to harvest.

However you slice it, cover crops are a multi-faceted way of keeping your garden in good shape in the fall winter and spring.

Crop Cover Cropping

Another type of cover cropping that is often overlooked is crop cover cropping. This is the process of leaving crop debris in your garden fields or beds in order to benefit from their protective services over the fall and winter. In the spring this would mean allowing late crops of lettuce to bolt and go in flower, thus providing a lot of debris going into the colder months. This will protect the soil life from cold winter extremes.

The benefit of crop cover cropping include maximizing the yields of your crop by allowing the seed to yield both a harvestable product (ex: the leaf lettuce that was bagged and sold at market or eaten in your homestead) as well as the cover crop that’s protecting the soil surface over the winter.

On top of that, crop cover cropping can minimize soil disturbance going into the colder months. This will protect all that soil life from any sort of tillage activity, as you simply leave all that debris. However, crop cover crops can impact your crop rotation, as you need to be aware of any pests living within the crop, which could perpetuate over the winter months in undisturbed crop debris.

So consider whether or not any pests are at issue and whether or not you will need to have disturbances as part of your integrated pest management routine.

If you have a crop that doesn’t suffer from any major pest problems, and it’s a crop where the harvested part of the crop is not the whole plant, then it is likely a crop that has potential to be a crop cover crop—for instance, chard or arugula.

On the other hand, crops like head lettuce and cabbage have most of the debris removed through the final harvest. Often a combination of crop cover cropping and adding additional over seeding of cover crop seed is a good way to go.

Physical Barrier

The third method is to actually use a physical barrier over top of the soil to help protect it. This can take the form of mulch or tarps or weed barrier mulch, like straw or leaves. You could even use a thick, fresh compost applied to the soil surface to act as a protective barrier over the winter. This insulates the soil organisms against the harsh extremes of the cold and provides a buffer against erosion.

A mulch like straw or leaves will be much more resistant to erosion than using a compost type mulch, however, so this is preferable in areas with heavy rains and heavy snow melt.

These physical barriers can serve some of the same benefits of providing food sources and nutrition into the soil. Compost, leafy debris and stray mulch all release macro and micro nutrients when they start to decompose. However, it’s important to note that, unlike a cover crop, these materials provide much less nitrogen upon decomposition, so you’ll need to balance things with nitrogen amendments (such as fish fertilizer and other soluble, readily available nitrogen sources) in the spring to balance the heavy carbon of straw or leaf mulch debris.

On the other hand, a rich composted material will have more nitrogen in it. But, once again, such material is vulnerable to erosion unless it’s used alongside some kind of mulch.

The other type of mulching that can be used is either a plastic tarp or a weed barrier. This has the benefit of being very quick to apply. So if you’re growing a crop late into the year, it’s easy to pull a tarp or weed barrier over the garden before going into winter. A tarp also provides the benefit of protecting the soil over winter against erosion and extreme cold.

A tarp, however, doesn’t have any nutrient addition benefits at all.

Combining a synthetic mulch with a cover crop or a crop cover crop is another way to go, which sort of gets the best of both worlds. It will allow you to gain green manure benefits, really good insulation, and good erosion control. Your garden will also benefit from the synthetic mulch’s high heat, which destroys small germinating weed seeds in the early months of spring for a very clean bed.

Another benefit? All that heat speeds up the melt, allowing you to access your garden earlier. And we all know the early bird gets the worm when it comes to getting seeds in the ground!  you can get some crops (peas, arugulas, lettuces and radishes) planted a week or two before the usual planting dates to enjoy early season crops.

In conclusion, there are many ways to put your garden to sleep for the winter. But the goals always remain the same:

  • protecting the soil against erosion
  • feeding soil life with organic matter
  • protecting soil life by buffering against extreme temperatures
  • scavenging nutrients
  • adding nutrients to the soil (if possible)
  • going into spring earlier and weed-free for a productive growing year

Often, combining techniques and understanding where they fit into your crop rotation will be the best solution. So it’s always best to have some different tricks up your sleeves to make you an awesome garden magician when it’s time to perform.

Grow on,

Zach Loeks

Categories
Beginning Farmers Crops & Gardening Farm & Garden

Cooksey Farms Is About Gardening With Gratitude

Cooksey Farms Instagram
Cooksey Farms

Alison Cooksey of the Cooksey Farms social media account proudly calls her Bay Area-based hobby farm a “trial and error” project. In practice, this means taking bold decisions in the garden and paying attention to how the natural results unfold.

“I always knew I wanted to garden because I grew up watching my dad garden. I always thought it was neat how he essentially created a mini-farm in our backyard,” recalls Cooksey of her initial interest in growing produce. “I was inspired by seeing how proud he was, coming inside with things he grew to cook for dinner. Once I finally got my own home, I couldn’t wait to start my own garden.”

We spoke to Cooksey about the gratifying nature of gardening and planting peppers in December. We also got the scoop on a little something called potato cucumbers.

Embracing Experimentation

When it comes to embracing experimentation in the garden, Cooksey points to planting pepper seeds in December as a risk that paid off.

“I felt that it was too early to start them, as last year I didn’t start the seeds until March,” explains Cooksey, “but my peppers barely produced by the time it got too cold. Someone I talked to who lives in a warmer climate than I do said they start their pepper seeds in December. So I decided I’d try it and see what happened.”

Reaping the benefits of planting boldly, Cooksey says the peppers “have done exceptionally well this year. They produced early and have been very prolific!”

Playing with Seed Starting

Building on the experimental streak, Cooksey says that playing around with seed starting has also proven fruitful.

“I’ve found that I have had the best success starting seeds hydroponically. The seedlings get the right amount of water and light, and it takes a lot of the babysitting of seedlings away. All of my hydroponic starts were some of the strongest and healthiest plants I’ve ever had!”

Peppers, Tomatoes & Cucumbers

Looking over this year’s bounty from the garden, Cooksey says peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers emerged as leading success stories. “It’s been nice to be able to have enough to eat and also share with friends and family for once,” says Cooksey.

“As far as incorporating my produce into cooking,” she continues, “I’ve been adding peppers and tomatoes to almost every dish. Sometimes it feels like I’m on the cooking show Chopped. I look at what I have in the garden and in the pantry, and I see what I can make!”

Get to Know Potato Cucumbers

If you take a moment to enjoy the Cooksey Farms Instagram account, you’ll notice the presence of some eye-catching potato cucumbers. “The potato cucumbers are definitely unique,” says Cooksey. “They are a smaller, bushier variety, but sadly they haven’t been very prolific for me. But that could be due to a few factors. I put my plant in a grow bag, so next year I’ll try it in a larger container or in a raised bed and see if that helps.”

Despite not being the most prolific feature of the garden, Cooksey says the potato cucumbers taste “fantastic” and resemble “Persian cucumbers with a thinner skin and a nice almost lemon-like tint.”

A Grateful Ecosystem

“I think it’s just so gratifying to see a tiny seed that was planted turn into a large plant that can feed me,” says Cooksey, reflecting on the holistic joy of the garden. “Or if it’s something like flowers, being able to grow things that can help bees and other beneficial insects—which in turn helps them pollinate my other plants! It’s just so fascinating to be able to create a little ecosystem in my own backyard.”

Follow Cooksey Farms on Instagram.

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Crops & Gardening Farm & Garden

Warped & Weird Flowers? Could Be Aster Yellows Disease

Aster yellows disease
Susan Brackney

Between more extreme weather than usual and an onslaught of head-clipping weevils, my butterfly garden took a beating this season. Usually I don’t have to do much to keep my milkweed, black-eyed Susans and other native perennials looking their best. But within a particularly dense planting of purple coneflowers, things went off the rails when aster yellows disease moved in.

The large, purple flower heads I expected to see were replaced with blooms right out of a Dr. Seuss book. Green, leafy “petals” ringed bright green cones. Weirder still, in some spots the leaf-like petals were replaced with additional flower stalks—also sickly green and badly deformed.

At first I thought it was just some genetic anomaly. Looking into it further, I realized the news was much worse—a classic case of aster yellows disease.

Aster What?

Caused by a phytoplasma—a special type of bacterial plant pathogen—aster yellows disease is transmitted by leafhoppers. According to John Bonkowski, a plant disease diagnostician at Purdue University’s Plant and Pest Diagnostic Laboratory, “What typically occurs is the phytoplasma will be within the gut of the leafhopper. So, while feeding, a leafhopper pokes its piercing, sucking mouthpart into the leaf and sucks out some of the [the leaf’s] contents. They sometimes also push out saliva, and the phytoplasma comes out when they do that. It goes into the plant.”

A kind of parasite, phytoplasmas are bacteria that lack cell walls. As such, they cannot live outside on their own. “They need to be inside the host,” Bonkowski says. “That’s why they’re being moved around by the insects.”

Echinacea plants are among the most commonly affected by aster yellows disease. However, marigolds, zinnias, daisies and chrysanthemums are some other susceptible targets.

Disease Symptoms

Once an infected leafhopper transmits the disease-causing phytoplasma to a plant, the entire plant is systemically affected. “It’s going to be throughout the plant,” Bonkowski says. “The phytoplasma can affect the hormone balance in the plant, which is why you end up seeing these very particular symptoms in coneflower and zinnias and these other aster plants.”

“Flower parts will start developing leaves,” he adds. “So, in the case of echinacea, you have the cone itself—the spiky part—and it actually will start developing bunches of leaves.”

In general, plant growth may be very stunted and small. “There might be more stems compared to what a normal plant would produce,” Bonkowski says. “You’ll have these offshoots that are very green and maybe smaller than you might expect on a typical flower. The big thing is that the hormone balance is disrupted, and you have these odd plant growths because of it.”

The Fix

When it comes to eradicating aster yellows in affected plants, there’s really no good treatment. What’s more, simply pruning them down to the ground isn’t enough. “The aster yellows phytoplasma will not survive in the debris of infected plants. But it can survive in the crown and roots of infected perennial plants,” Bonkowski says.

If the bacteria that caused aster yellows is allowed to remain in perennial plant roots, subsequent new plant growth could be affected. Your best bet? Get out the shovel and start digging. “It’s best to remove any kind of [infected plant] material, because [the bacteria] could be present throughout,” he says.

“It can get pretty bad if there’s a high infestation of the leafhopper and they’re moving [the disease] around,” Bonkowski says.

Still, trying to control the spread of aster yellows by killing off the leafhoppers simply isn’t practical. “Even in trying to manage the insects themselves, they’re everywhere,” he notes. “So, it’s not usually feasible in a home garden, because they can come in from another location nearby. Even if you do apply a protective kind of insecticide, you might kill some of them, but more might have the opportunity, after you apply something, to come in and, once again, feed on plants.”

Insecticides are also problematic since they kill indiscriminately. That means you could end up harming valuable insect pollinators—not to mention some of the beneficial insects that naturally feed on leafhoppers.

Last Steps

Once infected plants have been dug up, they need to be disposed of carefully. To be on the safe side, you can bag up the diseased plant material and throw it away. (Just be sure to check local laws first, since it’s illegal to toss out residential plant matter in some areas.) Alternatively, you can dig a deep hole in the ground and bury the plant refuse.

Last but not least, periodically check any remaining plants for signs of new infection. Pull and dispose of additional, infected plants as needed.

Categories
Beginning Farmers Crops & Gardening Farm & Garden

Establishing Your Sales Channels As A Flower Farmer

flower farm farming farmer sale channels marketing truck
vermontalm/Adobe Stock

The flower farming movement has been generating more and more momentum. And with that momentum, more farmers, market gardeners and entrepreneurs are opening up their flower farms for business. With so many new flower farmers entering the market, it can feel tough to establish yourself among the competition.

Flower farms are setting themselves apart with branding and marketing. But perhaps the most critical distinction a flower farmer can make is their choice in sales channels. Not all flower farmers target the same markets for their business, and here are just a few of the most popular and successful sales niches in the flower farming industry.

Cut Flower U-Pick

Flower farms across the country are opening their doors to guests. Agritourism is nothing new, but cut-flower u picks are becoming an increasingly popular choice. Some farms choose to focus on single varieties, such as mass plantings of tulips or sunflowers. Other farms are taking a more comprehensive approach and planting large varieties of flowers, allowing guests to pick and design their own flower bouquets.

Many of these farms also charge photographers for photo sessions and will often host special events and workshops  on the farm. These flower farm u-picks can greatly increase profits while also decreasing labor costs, as the end customer is also cutting the  flowers themselves.

Farmers Market

This is the traditional small-farmers sales outlet, but farmers markets can be excellent places to build a customer base for your flowers. Consider growing more spring crops and entering the farmers market earlier in the season, when there is less competition from other cut flower farmers.

A combination of mixed bouquets, a few arrangements and some single stem (buy by the stem) options would make a nice display and offer your customers variety.

Flower CSA

Flowers CSAs, Community Supported Agriculture, are increasing in popularity with customers enjoying the “earthy” and “wildflower” aesthetic touch that fresh cut flowers bring to their homes. CSAs are basically selling a subscription service from the farm.

Supporters buy in at the beginning of the season with a lump sum payment. Then they receive a weekly, biweekly or sometimes monthly bouquet of flowers. These can be wonderful sales channels for flower farms as they provide investment capital at the beginning of the season.

CSAs do have some drawbacks and can lock you into fulfilling large volumes of bouquets weekly all season. While that may sound great, being paid for all of these bouquets upfront can cause some cashflow issues throughout the season.

Florist Sales

Florist sales can be an excellent sales channel for a flower farmer. Florists can take large volumes of flowers all at once, and they do not require designing time or bouquet creation. You simply harvest, process, and send the flowers to the florist. Retail florists often will take regular weekly orders, and event florists may have standing orders as well as large volume special request orders.

Florist sales may seem most intimidating to begin with but can offer some very stable cash flow for beginning flower farmers. Florists often enjoy the quality and seasonality of local flowers, and typically they are enthusiastic to find a stable local supplier. With that said, wholesale orders require larger volumes of production and therefore can be a challenge for beginner growers.

Overall, there are countless innovative and unique sales channels that can turn your cutting garden into a flower farm business. Sometimes focusing on one primary sales channel or multiple complimentary sales channels can be beneficial to flower farming. But whatever you choose, be sure to consider your competitors and current market demand.

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Animals Chickens 101 Farm & Garden Flock Talk Poultry

The Honest Truth About 4 More Chicken Breeds (Pt. 2)

cochin chicken breeds popular
Julia Mashkova/Adobe Stock

Poultry keepers learn a major truth during their years as chicken owners: Some chicken breeds are veritable dreams, while others are absolute nightmares. Before buying any of the chicken breeds my husband, Jae, and I raised on our farm, I did major research. I read books, I talked to poultry-science professors, I visited national breed-club web sites … and despite all this, some birds simply refused to fall in line with their breed descriptions. Talk about frustrating. I can still see Jae turning to me, a puzzled expression on his face, asking questions like “Aren’t these supposed to be nice birds?” and “Aren’t these supposed to lay lots of eggs?”  

The following quartet of cluckers comprises part two (here’s part one) in my honest attempt to share my personal experience with these chicken breeds. It’s my hope that these descriptions of my time spent with each of these chicken breeds will help guide your choices when it comes to backyard flock shopping.  

Araucana  

araucana chicken breeds popular
OceanProd/Adobe Stock

To make our farm somewhat profitable, we decided to raise heritage chicken breeds that laid a variety of egg colors. When it came to blue eggs, we decided to go with the “original” blue-egg breed, the Araucana.

Many conflicting stories describe the Araucana’s origin. Suffice it to say it developed from one or more fowl found in or brought to South America that shared the Araucana’s tufted, rumpless features. More conflict existed in the description of the Araucana’s disposition. Some of my sources stated the bird was flighty and timid, while others described the breed as friendly and cheerful. Yet others noted the Araucana was active and aggressive.  

Our Black Araucana flock agreed with all of those definitions. As chicks, they were extremely active, dashing around their brooder and hopping on and off their perches. They were also very easy to frighten. Just reaching in to swap out their waterer or feeder would cause a cacaphony of cheeps as the peeps dashed frantically away to hide from The Hand.

Oddly enough—and this occurred with every generation we raised—it was as if a switch was flipped at about 5 or 6 weeks of age. Now, instead of fleeing from my hand, the juveniles were more likely to hop onto my hand and just sit there contentedly. My sons took to watching TV with an Araucana pullet or cockerel seated on a rag on their laps. As adults, the girls’ attention shifted to the roosters, whom they followed devotedly around the run.

The hens were not afraid of us, however. I got the distinct feeling they tolerated us. The boys, however, still trotted over for belly rubs and mealworm treats, regardless of their age.  

Both the male and female Araucanas were excellent foragers. However, due to their exhorbitant value—we paid $50 each for our initial five chicks and for our four “let’s add a fresh bloodline” additions—we never let them range outside of their run.

The males were quite attentive to their ladies and always kept an active watch for predators. The girls laid an average of two to three beautiful blue eggs per week. Sadly, the fatal Araucana tufted gene did indeed kill about 65 percent of our chicks, in and out of the shell. In addition, most our broody hens would suddenly snap out of their broodiness, abandoning their clutches and forcing me to run to rescue the cooling eggs.

I adored our Araucanas, but I simply couldn’t deal with the heartache trying to breed them caused.  

Cochin  

We originally added Cochins (pictured above) to our poultry farm because they were listed on the Livestock Conservancy’s Priority List of threatened and endangered heritage birds. I drove more than an hour to purchase four chicks from a breeder listed on our state’s grassroots poultry group. She brought me to her brooder room and told me to pick my chicks.

Let’s just say I didn’t leave with just four.  

I’m happy to report that almost everything I read about Cochins is true. They are gentle, friendly and affectionate birds who’d happily spend the day seated on my lap. If I left the kitchen door open, one (or more) of them would invariably wander into the house and contentedly watch me cook or clean.

They got along fabulously with other chicken breeds. In fact, the Cochins would always adopt the last few members of a flock we were discontinuing. Both the males and females made fabulous parents. Our White Cochins (we also raised Blue, Black and Splash varieties) were particularly awesome parents, caring for their own babies as well as the young of other chicken breeds that the broodies had hatched.

Our Cochin ladies averaged between three and four eggs per week. They were the only hens, out of all the breeds we raised, that would lay well into winter without artificial lighting.  

There were also some descriptives that failed to hit the mark with our flock. For instance, in multiple sources I’d read that Cochin hens frequently crush the eggs they set due to their enormous bulk. That was the furthest from the truth. Every single one of our Cochins were carefully methodical in the way they turned and shifted their clutch (something we observed since we numbered the eggs). We never lost a single egg or chick due to the size of the hens.  

Another “nope” was the recommendation to lower the coop’s perch because these big beauties were simply too heavy to get any sort of lift. Not only could our Cochins easily clear the height of their perch, they’d also hop onto our tractor and our lawn mower. They’d hop up the deck stairs and even occasionally roost at the top of their run’s fencing.  

The third not-quite-right “fact” was that Cochins were terrible foragers because of their feathered feet. On the contrary, our Cochins were amongst our best foragers. Every fall, they’d eagerly clean up our vegetable garden, digging at the ground with those supposedly useless feet. These assistant gardeners saved us a lot of work in the autumn. Unfortunately, until we set up a fence yo keep them in the back, they’d also dig up and turn our front yard’s landscaping mulch.  

I don’t really remember why we discontinued our Cochins. I vaguely recall Jae telling me we needed to cut down on the number of flocks we were raising. Should we decide to expand again, Cochins are absolutely the first on the list. Together with Silkies and Orpingtons, they make my Top 3 chicken breeds list.  

Easter Egger 

easter egger chicken breeds popular
NPF Photography/Adobe Stock

Chicken math can sometimes derail the best-laid plans. I am far from immune.

Perhaps one or two weeks after we founded our poultry farm, I headed to our local farm-supply store for more chick starter. Of course it was Chick Days. Of course I had to take a peek at all the babies. Of course I went home with one dozen chipmunk-striped baby Easter Egger chicks.  

These had been labeled as Ameraucana pullets, but even back then I knew that purebred Ameraucanas were hard to come by and would not sell for $1.79 per chick. I knew full well that I was bringing Easter Eggers—hybrid crosses between a brown-egg layer and an Araucana, Ameraucana or other Easter Egger—to a heritage poultry farm. I was read the riot act by Jae when I arrived home.

We had no separate housing for these little girls. I decided they’d join our Orpington flock, which were about the same age. It was a wise move, as the two groups got along fabulously.  

As adults, this pairing also made it easy to see who had laid which egg. Orpington eggs were invariably peachy tan, while our Easter Egger girls laid aqua and green eggs. Despite the Easter Eggers being small standard birds compared to the Orpingtons’ robust girth, the two types of birds formed fast friendships. It always made me smile to see the slimmer Easter Egger girls hanging out with their Orpington pals.  

Naturally, Arnold Orpington also enjoyed the company of our Easter Egger girls. This led to Easter Egger hatching eggs and chicks being our second biggest seller after Silkie eggs and chicks. We increased the size of our flock and eventually built them their own coop, headed by Blaziken, one of the best roosters we have ever had.  

Our Easter Eggers were friendly, got along with everybody, and loved getting attention, cuddles and treats from us. They were very active and curious, investigating every nook of our yard (much to Blaziken’s annoyance).

They were definitely the fastest of all our breeds. They easily outran the other flocks every time I stepped outside with kitchen scraps. The Easter Eggers were also our best layers, averaging five to six eggs per week. Every now and then, one of the girls went broody. I remember my amusement at finding Keynoter setting her secret nest beside our compost heap. The warmth of the compost heap kept her egg stash at proper incubating temperature when she grumpily went into the coop at night.

Eleven of her clutch of 15 hatched out. I’m guessing the elements affected the other four.  

I still regret discontinuing our Easter Egger flock. In the end, our poultry farm focused on purebred birds, not chicken cross breeds. Blaziken and his girls found a new home with a young family about an hour away from us. If you have no hang-ups about heritage vs. hybrid, Easter Eggers are definitely the way to go.  

Welsummer 

welcummer chicken breeds popular
lonnyinco/Adobe Stock

And then there are the Welsummers. Part of the draw of breeding Welsummers was the stunning beauty of the Welsummer rooster, with its full, black tail and red-orange body. Cornelius, the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes rooster, is a Welsummer, so there was some Michigan loyalty in our decision.

The main factor, however, was the gorgeous terra-cotta eggs laid by Welsummer hens. We wanted to offer our customers a rainbow of eggs, and that rich, red-brown egg fit in nicely with our plan. Those beautiful eggs also won me several blue ribbons in local community and county fairs, for which I’m quite grateful to the Welsummer girls.  

The Welsummer hens, however, aren’t the great layers I’d read about. They supposedly produce around 180 eggs per year—that’s an egg almost every other day. I guess the breed has no calendar instinct, because the Welsummers were always the last of our chicken breeds to start laying each year, producing their first eggs in May when everyone else started laying in March or early April.

They were also the first to molt, in September, cutting their laying season to a whopping five months, during which they laid an average of two eggs per week. Twenty weeks times two does not total 180! Fortunately, the hens showed absolutely no interest in brooding. Fortunately, they accepted the juveniles we hatched and raised without any issue. 

One thing was certain: Welsummers loved to roam. I lost count of how many times I had to fetch the flock out of our neighbor’s yard, acres away from us, or catch them as they started down the trail leading into the state woodlands behind us. For all their ranging, though, they were terrible foragers, always voracious upon returning to their run.  

Eventually, the number of hens we needed to keep up with egg demand, coupled with the Welsummers’ standoffish attitude towards us, led me to call it quits. The entire flock was purchased by a very nice farmer several hours north of us.  

Categories
Beginning Farmers Crops & Gardening Farm & Garden Homesteading

5 Purposes For Dried Sunflowers In The Autumn Season

spent sunflowers sunflower autumn fall
ramanauz/Adobe Stock

Sunflowers are still vibrant and healthy through August and September, into the early days of autumn. As they start to fade, prepare for ways to use the spent flower heads.

Sunflowers are not just beautiful, but they are beneficial, too. Once the beauty of your sunflowers fades, they can be used as future seeds, food and autumn decorations. Here’s how to harvest sunflower seeds, followed by five ways to prepare sunflowers once they have started to die back.

Harvesting the Seeds

If you plan to use the seeds for replanting or preparing for food, you will need to harvest and remove the seeds by cutting them back from the stalk once they have started to dry out. You’ll know it is time when the back of the flowerhead is turning yellow, most petals have dried up and fallen, and the seeds appear loose. If you want to speed the process up, you can cut bunches and hang them to dry.

De-seeding the sunflower is very simple if the flower is dried enough. Most seeds will be loose and ready to easily come away from the stalk. Firmly rub the seed head over a bucket to catch the falling seeds. Small blooms and other debris will also collect in the bucket.

Once you have completed this process with all your sunflowers, collect a colander or strainer to begin separating the debris. 

spent sunflowers sunflower seeds autumn fall
graja/Adobe Stock

Depending on the amount of debris, you will decide if shaking the seeds in the strainer is effective or if you will need to run water over them. If you choose to run water, you will need to make sure they spend adequate time in the drying process so no moisture creates mold and the integrity of the seed is not compromised. 

After separation, line a cardboard box or crate with newspaper or paper towels, and spread the seeds evenly in a single layer. They will need to dry a few hours or even overnight depending on how much moisture they have. 

Use Your Sunflower Seeds

Now that the seeds have been harvested, cleaned and dried, you can use them for the following purposes.

Replanting

Place the seeds you plan to replant next year in an airtight container. Label the container and store them in a cool, dark place. 

Roasting

Many people love to flavor and roast sunflower seeds. The large mammoth varieties are best for eating. Once the seeds are cleaned and dried you will want to: 

  1. Boil the seeds in salted water to add flavoring. If you do not like salt, you can move straight to the final step. The ratio should be 1 cup seeds to 1 qt. water to 2 tbsp. salt.
  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.
  3. Drain the water from the seeds.
  4. Place the drained seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet.
  5. Cook in the oven at 400 degrees for 10 to 20 minutes.
Raw Snacks

Sunflowers aren’t at risk for rapid spoilage. If they are kept in a cool, dark place, they can last two to three months without needing refrigeration. Once they are cleaned of debris, they are ready for raw snacking.

Suet Cakes

Bird suets are valuable food for birds and chickens in the winter months. It is a mixture of fatty foods and proteins, and sustains birds and chickens when a lot of food they  forage in warmer months has died. It’s also best for winter months because the cooler temps allow the ingredients to stay solidified and not melt.

spent sunflowers sunflower seeds suetautumn fall
Jill/Adobe Stock

Here’s how to make suet cakes:

  1. Gather ingredients: 16 oz. lard, 16 oz. crunchy peanut butter, 1 cup cornmeal, 1 cup flour, 2 cups sunflower seeds 
  2. Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and incorporate well. 
  3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and transfer the dough
  4. Create a flat, rectangle shape.
  5. Place the baking sheet in a freezer for four hours.
  6. Once the suet cake is frozen thoroughly, cut the rectangle into appropriate sizes for whatever feeder you will use. 
  7. You can freeze the remaining suet cakes for up to six months.
Decorating

Preserving sunflowers creates beautiful autumn decor both for your home and as gifts for others. You can create mementos for special events or just display your garden longer for special and unique pieces of art. Preserved sunflowers look beautiful with fall decorations, including wreaths or vase arrangements. 

To preserve sunflowers, you will need to harvest earlier than you would for collecting seeds. To dry sunflowers for display, select flowers with heads that are mostly open. The back of the flowerhead will still be a vibrant green, and also look for flowers with petals mostly intact.

To speed up the drying process, you will want to remove the pollen heads and petals from the sunflower. Next, bundle a few flowers with rubber bands and hang upside down somewhere in the shade outside and allow them to dry completely. This should take two to four weeks to remove all moisture. 

You can use a clear hairspray before using sunflowers as decor inside. Display dried sunflowers in vases, on wreaths, in shadow boxes or tied to your autumn gifts. 

Categories
Crops & Gardening Equipment

Simplify Planting Heavy Trees With A Wooden Ramp

large heavy trees wooden ramp
Daniel Johnson

Potted trees can be purchased in many sizes. Tiny trees might come in a pot as small as 1 gallon in size. I commonly plant fruit trees from 7- and 10-gallon pots. Much larger sizes are also available, and the larger the tree, the closer you are to having a magnificent specimen in your yard or orchard.

But here’s the problem: While large pots support older and larger trees, they’re also heavy and can be difficult to move around. As pots increase in size, the volume of soil they hold follows suit, and soil can be very, very heavy. Planting trees from large pots can be difficult … but it need not be an insurmountable challenge. In fact, it can be surprisingly simple. And you don’t necessarily need much machinery to help.

Dealing with Large Fruit Trees

This spring, I was shopping at my favorite nursery when a couple of impressive apple trees caught my attention. They were every bit of 12 feet tall, and one was loaded with just-forming apples. They were gorgeous specimens at very reasonable prices given their size, and I decided they had to come home with me.

The problem was, the trees were growing in 25-gallon pots. The soil in a 25-gallon pot probably weighs close to 300 pounds, and when combined with the weight of a tree (with lush leaves and apples) … I knew moving and planting those potted trees wouldn’t be easy.

Shipping the trees home was the easy part. I paid for delivery, and the nursery kindly brought the trees to my front yard, where a strong deliveryman used a dolly to roll the heavy trees down a ramp and drop them off. The tricky part would be getting the trees from the yard to my orchard, about 800 feet away.

I thought about using the hydraulics on a tractor—either by crafting a means for a three-point hitch to lift the pots; by lifting the pots in the bucket of a front-end loader; or by wrestling the trees on to a pallet that could be lifted by a fork lift attachment. I also thought about enlisting the help of several strong people to simply lift the pots into a tractor-pulled trailer.

But in the end, none of these approaches were necessary. Instead, I kept things simple with a garden tractor, a small utility trailer, a few blocks of wood, and a long wooden plank.

Wooden Ramp to the Rescue

It couldn’t have gone better. I used the garden tractor to back up the utility trailer to within about 12 feet of the first 25-gallon pot. Then I took a sturdy 12-foot wooden plank and laid it down so one end was in the utility trailer and the other end was right up at the base of the heavy pot, turning the plank into a ramp for the trees. Underneath the plank, I stacked a few blocks of wood to provide support.

Then I called in a couple of people to help me slide the pot up the plank. With very little effort, all 300 pounds of soil and however many pounds of tree glided up into the trailer. After driving the trailer to my orchard, I parked 12 feet from the pre-dug planting hole, set the plank and blocks of wood back up, slid the tree easily down the plank, and gently rolled it into the hole.

There you have it. With minimal equipment and a couple of helpers, I managed to move a potted tree weighing hundreds of pounds without ever lifting the pot. It was fast, it was easy, and it was gentle on the tree.

So what are you waiting for? Even if you don’t have fancy equipment like a tractor with a front-end loader, you can still plant large, beautiful trees. And, as I did, you can even get a head start on enjoying homegrown apples!