Today Donna talks about how she builds compost using nothing but yard waste and kitchen scraps. Julia shares a recipe for a quick meal and creates more kitchen scraps. The circle of life continues.
Tag: Gardening
Planting Garlic
Did that last post make your mouth water? Are you craving some creamy roasted garlic spread on tender slices of Italian style bread? Perhaps a side of simple pasta with a browned butter sauce topped with grated Mizithra cheese?
I can tell you from experience that roasting garlic grown a few yards from your kitchen adds an additional layer of satisfaction.
Garlic is planted in the fall and overwinters in the ground. Since the time to plant in Central Illinois is late September/early October, get your order for seed garlic in now. We order from Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, IA. This company is a non-profit charged with preserving seed that otherwise may be lost over time.
Bed Preparation
Prepare your garlic bed now. Choose a different location each year for garlic, using good crop rotation principles to reduce disease and improve soil health. Here at Five Feline Farm, garlic will be planted where spring lettuce was grown. The excess lettuce has been allowed to sit on the soil. About a week or so before planting, the bed will be turned with a broadfork. (More to come on this technique in a future post.) Garlic is a heavy feeder so adding in compost and Epsom salt will increase your harvest.
When it is time to plant, carefully remove the outer papery layers until the individual cloves can be separated. Don’t remove the papery layer from the individual cloves. Plant each clove about 3 inches deep and 6-8 inches apart with the pointed end upright.
When the weather turns cold, mulch heavily with clean straw. In the spring when the days have warmed to 60 degrees and the night temperatures stay above 40 degrees, you can pull back the straw and keep the bed evenly watered until ready to harvest. You may leave the straw to help keep down weeds but there is a risk that it will stay wet and develop mold. Like most things in gardening, there is a trade off: do more weeding or accept the risks of mold. Decide for yourself how you want to manage your garlic bed.
Our next post will contain ideas about how to use this delicious fruit of your labor. While you are waiting on that post to arrive, check out our Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter feed. Plus, if you haven’t already signed up for our email list, please do. Each post will automatically show up in your email plus an occasional bonus for subscribers only.
Our Manifesto-Natural, Simple and Reclaimed
Here at the Farm we are about three things: natural, simple, and reclaimed. These tenets are the overarching guide for all our Farm endeavors. Most of these manifest in food. Growing, preserving, buying, selling, cooking, and of course eating food. But it’s also a lifestyle.
First an explanation of the name. Five Feline Farm is not a cat rescue. The name is an homage to the five charter cats who moved with us to the five and a half acres we call home. It is also a glimpse of our sense of humor. Who names a market farm Five Feline Farm only to explain ourselves over and over? Wait until you find out what we name our products.
I digress.
Back to our focus on food.
Natural and Simple
So much of our food supply is heavily processed, loaded with ingredients that sound more like a chemistry lesson than a food label. I can only conjecture that the rise of these artificial ingredients is correlated to the rise of disease and lack of well-being in our society.
We strive to use whole ingredients wherever possible. Not only whole but a direct connection to the source. Our vegetables come from our farm or local (within 100 miles) sources. Sometimes this is difficult and exceptions must be made. We can’t grow coffee in Central Illinois but we certainly drink it.
In addition to the gardens, we are beekeepers. Our honeybee colonies provide enough honey for our own use, some to sell and wax for value added products. The more we learn about the benefits of honey, the bigger a proponent we become. Honey is an all natural, non-spoiling food that can also promote healing.
You may call it recycling or repurposing. Whatever the nomenclature, it is a way of life. Even the farm we live on is reclaimed land. The property had been left to it’s own devices. Covered in wild grape vines and multiflora rose. Smattered with old appliances, rusty fencing and dilapidated buildings. Think ancient outhouse, rodent infested outbuilding, termite and dry rot compromised barn.
In the midst of these horrors we found treasures.
Wild blackberry and raspberry brambles for food. A vacated basement transformed to a goldfish pond. Garden art from a rusty iron drill press. Barn wood graces the fireplace mantel in the house, logs form garden bed edging.
Acres of open land perfect for a house, gardens, orchard and apiary. 
Reclaiming happens in the kitchen too. No, we don’t forage in dumpsters, but we do make every effort not to waste. Leftovers are creatively combined into new dishes and branded “New Leavin’s”. If something can’t be used, into the compost piles it goes. Enriching the soil for next year’s crop.
As we reclaim the land, we reclaim ourselves.
There are outlets to try new things and expand our abilities. We often learn by trial and error. Like the hoop house dismantled by prairie winds rivaling a nor’easter.
Follow along as we share what we learn. You may decide to implement a few things for yourself.
Planning for the New Year
January 1, 2014. You wouldn’t think there is much to do on a hobby farm on January 1, but there is always some task underway here at Five Feline Farm.
This is the time of year we start planning the garden and any new plots that will be developed. Not only does this give us a jump start on the planting season, it chases away the doldrums of winter.
2014 will bring an expanded variety of flowers and vegetables in the main gardens. Tomatoes, peppers, onions, radishes, beans, kale, spinach and lettuce will be rounded out with amaranth, barley, oats, wheat, and buckwheat. Most of these seeds will be heirlooms and are already on order from Sustainable Seeds.
Some of the new plots under development will feature Native American corn varieties. Dent corns, Hopi Blue, black popcorn and a glass gem corn are among the possibilities.
Another new garden area will be planted as Three Sisters. For those of you unfamiliar with this native way of planting, let us explain. Corn anchors the planting providing a “pole” for climbing beans. Squash vines encircle the base blocking weeds and preserving soil moisture. This companion planting helps each of the crops thrive and adds to a healthy diet of the gardener.
Along with planning for the gardens comes planning for equipment.
This past summer we added a new and larger greenhouse to the Farm. Final tweaks are needed to make this a fully functioning space for tender plants. Even in the cold days of winter, we are getting to 80 plus degrees during the day but not holding any of this heat overnight. An insulating wrap around the base should help. In addition, we need to run an electrical line and outlet for the new heater. Between these two steps and tightening up some joints, the greenhouse will be up and running.
And who doesn’t want to just sit in a warm greenhouse enjoying the sunshine on a cold January day? As soon as we get a sunny day, we’ll pull out the lawn chairs and soak up some Vitamin D. Perk to having your own greenhouse.
The next major piece of equipment needed for the Farm is a towable tiller. As the planting beds expand throughout the property, a standard walk behind tiller will not be up to the task.
So the plans continue. Every step will be an improvement in this plot of land we call home.
What plans are you making for 2014? Drop us a line in the comments section and let us know what you will be doing this year.
In the upcoming weeks, watch for an opportunity to subscribe to our new email list and get a free gift.
