Ladies and gentlemen, the planting season has officially begun at my place.
Today I got 300 feet of onions in, and 200 feet of turnips.
Will be separating garlic cloves for planting during the rain that’s coming. As soon as it dries up again, I’ll be planting garlic, cabbages, broccoli, and othe rbrassicas, greens lettuce, carrots, beets and a bunch more…oh my! Here we go folks!
If you aren’t excited yet, don’t worry; I’m excited enough for the both of us lol!
I’d like to introduce y’all to my amazing pea sheller. It’s not mechanical, it’s not electrical but she sure is magical!
Meet Julie, my fantastic purple hull pea sheller!
First harvests of summer squash and zucchini coming in now!
Working on weeding, fertilizing and mulching sweet corn today! Before and after pics coming soon. Before pics posted first & after posted last
My milk shed is up. Modified to include see through panels for sunlight instead of electricity. Will be installing several vents yet to promote air flow.
Fence posts getting concreted and installed.
The outhouse is almost completed.
Did some surveying at the property today. Carved out a nice 6 acre chunk of the land that will be devoted to the animals for the homestead.
1st section- A barn area on the high ground near the soon-to-be driveway location, which will be roughly 1/2 acre. There will be high and dry ground big enough for a large horse/cow and hay barn one day. Plenty of space for a smaller goat/sheep barn and STILL plenty of space for a nice big chicken/goose/duck/guinea/turkey coop! The animals will NEVER have to stand in swampy ground!
2nd section- The pond, surrounded by woods for wind breaks and the little gulley to serve as natural drainage of the pasture land. This is roughly 2 acres. This section will be permanently connected to the barn to allow for year round access to shelter, birthing areas, feeding areas, water, and rambling through the woods. With a little bit of work, this pond could be easily deepened and doubled in size so as to accommodate live fish. Do y’all remember my hand trained fish in the KY pond that came to the surface when I snapped my fingers for easy netting? Talk about convenient and fresh fish dinners! Lol
Lastly, there will be 3 separate pasture areas that will be rotated according to the grazing conditions during each year. Each pasture will be roughly 1.25 acres in size.
Got one surveyed property line marked from point to point.
The first animal section that will be fenced off is the wooded pond area. A small, temporary shelter will be placed inside that penned area so I can move my animals out there asap. I was able to get 3 of the 4 sides marked out for that yesterday too.
The whole 15 acres will be divided up almost in half by the driveway which will run down the center on its highest peak. The west side will be the animal area because it includes a natural pond with it. The east side, which gently slopes down to a natural gulley for drainage will be for fruit orchard, field crops and garden space.
I’m estimating to have 4 acres of field crop space, 2 acres of orchard space and 2 acres of garden space. Due to my diligent research, efforts and planning- NONE OF MY GROWING SPACES WILL EVER FLOOD!!! Praise God!!
I’ll be leaving about 2 acres of standing woods behind the pond up, which I’ll use as a natural privacy source. I will build my home in the middle of it. Having a sensible plan for my new place feels great! Knowing that I’ll be moving to a place where my ground will never be crop dusted with poisonous chemicals is such a relief. This new homestead place WILL BE a success because it’s location was meticulously chosen by me. So I know it’s going to work!
Nothing beats that fresh flavor of organic, non-irradiated culinary herbs. Some cuttings of oregano, basil, sage and rosemary.
$2 bundles- serves 4-6
$5 bundles= choose any 3 standard bundle varieties. Saves you $1
available only for a limited time.
Herbs are grown organically in rich, aged compost, that’s been allowed to break down from the barnyard. There are never any herbicides or pesticides applied to them.
I gather the cuttings early in the morning at their peak of freshness using very sharp scissors. The tender herbs are handled delicately so as not to bruise the leaves.
I clean them by hand, sort into bundles and keep refrigerated for optimum freshness, scent, flavor and health giving properties.
Big news about the pup training!! Yesterday one of my hens got into the yard where the pups have been raised. Normally that chicken would be dead within minutes if I didn’t get to it quick enough. I’ve been working hard training them against attacking chickens. It’s finally paying off!! Not one single pup showed any interest in her. She happily gave herself a dust bath and the pups couldn’t be bothered. I calmly went right inside and put her out without incident. So proud of my babies!!!
We will be having a Homestead BBQ tomorrow at 3pm. If you would like to come visit the homestead, see the animals and crops, meet the workers that make Oasis Homestead run and try some home made fresh off the ‘stead eats…. Come on out!
Bring a passing dish and your family with you. Try some fresh raw goats milk and our pastured, organic eggs. Have you ever ate a piece of cake that was made using fresh ground, NON-GMO, organic wheat flour? You can here!
Call or text me to confirm your attendance and discuss what dish to bring. See you soon!
870-275-1520
Potatoes, green beans & yellow summer squash coming up!
The lower field was flooded like a lake for the first time since we put in drainage ditches. The water came across the street from the fields and the ditches. Swollen drain ditches, flooded river bank and massive rains are good enough cause for all this standing water. Just since 6am the water has receded back across the street which is good news for traveling our road.
My little crew of hard working farm hands have dug nice deep drainage ditches alongside every planted row of vegetable seed. The seed beds are not flooded and hopefully the seeds stayed in place to sprout.
The first planting of potatoes are sprouting good and steady now. These will be an estimated earliest harvest date of: FIRST WEEK OF MAY
I will keep you all posted with more developments on these organic Red Pontiac early potatoes.
Recently planted seeds:
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Spinach
Kale
Cabbage
Daikon
Radish
Brussels sprouts
Mustard
Mixed greens
Lettuce
Greenhouse starts:
Parsley
Cantaloupe
Honeydew
Our sweet little Valentines Day present is doing well. She seems to be putting on some weight, although she is remarkably smaller compared to my Saanan nanny goat babies.
I tend to be overly alarmed with every detail when it comes to babies but she is still doing well.
We are building a new “play pen” for nannies with babies. Hopefully it will be ready for them to venture into soon. I can’t wait for the typical baby goat playful acrobatics! I hope I can catch her in the act on video for you all!
I’ve enticed 2 of my more adventurous male kittens into the main pen with the dogs, on 2 separate occasions. I wiggle a string on the end of a stick just cleverly enough the kittens can’t help themselves. They come pouncing through the open gate, enchanted by the squiggly prey.
On day 1 I stood 2 feet from the open gate, playing with the kittens and watching the pups reaction closely. Each time any pup became too curious to ignore the playful kittens I gave them a firm and sharp “NO”. Occasionally, I stomp my boot closely by them for added effect. Most times the verbal is all any of the pups required for direction.
The older pups of course learned quite quickly. Each of the boys needed only 1 verbal. The girl preferred to watch the others and learn from their scolding. The younger pups took several repeats before they would lose interest in the kittens and return to puppy play instead.
On day 2 I stood about 8′ away from the gate open 2′ wide and with the same playful kitten temptation. The older pups did not approach the kittens, but instead noticed them for a brief moment, then quickly returned to safe puppy play with other puppies. The younger pups required much more follow up from me. This was to be expected. None of them were interested in the open gate.
I always train my pups to only play with each other or other dogs, but not any other sort of animal. It’s too dangerous for the other animals, to allow these large breeds to play with your domestic or farm animals. I also train them NOT to jump on humans.
Briefly open gates should not be a worrisome issue with properly trained LGD’s. With the gate open about 2′ wide, I watched carefully for any curious pups and gave a good verbal direction for that too. They were much more interested in the kittens then the open gate, I will say.
This would be due to the fact that I’ve been doing repeated gate training with them twice per day at each feeding time for weeks now.