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Friday Farm Day 4
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Friday Farm Day 4 Friday Farm Day Friday Farm Day 2 Friday Farm Day 3 Happy Friday Farm Day all! First, disclaimers as per my usual: I do not live on a farm, I just like the alliteration of the title. I grow everything from seed with the exception of some berries, banana, and orange tree. I'm growing organic, without the use of pesticides or fertilizer beyond compost. This is my first year growing food, or anything really, successfully. I am in growing/hardiness zone 9B If you look up hardiness zones in your area on a search engine, it will be easy to find yours. You're going to need this information if you want to grow anything outside in your area. The United States, Canada, and the U.K. provide easy to read hardiness/growing zone maps. These indicate where a plant is capable of growing by providing the lowest minimum temperature a plant can withstand. First up, I wanted to show you the bane of my existence, the ducks. This is just a few, some days my yard is full  Next is our Spanish Thyme/Cuban Oregano/Indian Borage/French Thyme scientific name: Coleus amboibicus. It is a semi succulent with a pungent oregano like flavor and odor. (In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions.) To be honest with you all, I don't enjoy the taste, but I do like the way it looks, especially those purple flowers.   Here you'll see Beni Houshi Mizuna, a newly developed Japanese heirloom with mild, tender leaves atop succulent stems. These stems have the same protective phytonutrients found in blueberries. I've had them in salads, but they are most likely to be found in my morning smoothie.  New Zealand Spinach is a flowering plant in the fig-marigold family. It is a widespread species, native to eastern Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. And, grows pretty well in our backyard. It tastes kinda like spinach, but milder. She's a new seedling, give her time to grow.   That's all the pics of plants I have for you today. However, I did want to talk with you all a little about my practice of composting in place. While I do have a compost pile, in a garbage can drilled with holes, I only use that for when I have spent whole plants and leaves that need time to break down that I don't feel like cutting down myself. What I typically do is set aside all of my off cuts, peels, and produce that's gone bad in a container that I keep on my counter. Gathering those up, I divvy them up and bury them under where I'm going to plant by digging a hole in the ground, throwing in the off cuts, throwing some soil on top, and planting in that area. Or, if I'm planting I a planter, I put some leaves and other plant matter in the bottom and a few shreds of paper (I usually just use spent toilet paper rolls), soil on top of that and plant. Additionally, when leaves are spent/brown on a plant, I typically just pull them off and drop them right there. Mother Nature does her thing and breaks it down, feeding the plants around it. I did the whole compost pile, turning and watering every few days when I first started. That grew old fast in the middle of a Florida summer. So, this method was born out of research and a little trial and error. There is another method of making homemade compost tea which smells to high heaven, but is greatly enjoyed by my plants. And, that is that I pull up all my weeds, stick them in a container, cover it all in water, and make sure to put a lid on it. Let that sit for a few days and use my watering can to dip into the tea, and water my plants with it. Oh okay, one more picture just because I'm excited by how many flowers are showing up in my orange tree. It's going to be a stellar year for oranges in this household!  I hope you've enjoyed this slightly educational tour of my garden and gardening practices. We'll see you next week! This week's HNW: Pink/Hearts (Or Chocolate) is available on the other side. |
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Happy Friday Farm Day all! First, disclaimers as per my usual: I do not live on a farm, I just like the alliteration of the title. I grow everything from seed with the exception of some berries, banana, and orange tree. I'm growing organic, without the use of pesticides or fertilizer beyond compost. This is my first year growing food, or anything really, successfully. I am in growing/hardiness zone 9B If you look up hardiness zones in your area on a search engine, it will be easy to find yours. You're going to need this information if you want to grow anything outside in your area. The United States, Canada, and the U.K. provide easy to read hardiness/growing zone maps. These indicate where a plant is capable of growing by providing the lowest minimum temperature a plant can withstand. First up, I wanted to show you the bane of my existence, the ducks. This is just a few, some days my yard is full Next is our Spanish Thyme/Cuban Oregano/Indian Borage/French Thyme scientific name: Coleus amboibicus. It is a semi succulent with a pungent oregano like flavor and odor. (In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions.) To be honest with you all, I don't enjoy the taste, but I do like the way it looks, especially those purple flowers. Here you'll see Beni Houshi Mizuna, a newly developed Japanese heirloom with mild, tender leaves atop succulent stems. These stems have the same protective phytonutrients found in blueberries. I've had them in salads, but they are most likely to be found in my morning smoothie. New Zealand Spinach is a flowering plant in the fig-marigold family. It is a widespread species, native to eastern Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. And, grows pretty well in our backyard. It tastes kinda like spinach, but milder. She's a new seedling, give her time to grow. That's all the pics of plants I have for you today. However, I did want to talk with you all a little about my practice of composting in place. While I do have a compost pile, in a garbage can drilled with holes, I only use that for when I have spent whole plants and leaves that need time to break down that I don't feel like cutting down myself. What I typically do is set aside all of my off cuts, peels, and produce that's gone bad in a container that I keep on my counter. Gathering those up, I divvy them up and bury them under where I'm going to plant by digging a hole in the ground, throwing in the off cuts, throwing some soil on top, and planting in that area. Or, if I'm planting I a planter, I put some leaves and other plant matter in the bottom and a few shreds of paper (I usually just use spent toilet paper rolls), soil on top of that and plant. Additionally, when leaves are spent/brown on a plant, I typically just pull them off and drop them right there. Mother Nature does her thing and breaks it down, feeding the plants around it. I did the whole compost pile, turning and watering every few days when I first started. That grew old fast in the middle of a Florida summer. So, this method was born out of research and a little trial and error. There is another method of making homemade compost tea which smells to high heaven, but is greatly enjoyed by my plants. And, that is that I pull up all my weeds, stick them in a container, cover it all in water, and make sure to put a lid on it. Let that sit for a few days and use my watering can to dip into the tea, and water my plants with it. Oh okay, one more picture just because I'm excited by how many flowers are showing up in my orange tree. It's going to be a stellar year for oranges in this household! I hope you've enjoyed this slightly educational tour of my garden and gardening practices. We'll see you next week! This week's HNW: Pink/Hearts (Or Chocolate) is available on the other side.
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1/7/2022 6:20 am |
A lot of those herbs would taste great in a serving of Duck.....just sayin' 
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I too have a compost container kept in the kitchen for coffee grounds, vegetable and fruit trimmings, etc. It gets emptied into my composting barrel once a week or so. That black plastic barrel heats up pretty well in the Kansas sun even in winter and does a good job of reducing the contents. I add in yard clippings from another container periodically to maintain a good "brown to green" contents ratio. In the spring, the barrel gets emptied on to the garden and turned in to the soil. The End of the Crackberry NYE Booze, on HNW Spelling, Commas, Hyphenated Words, and Grammar [post 3312759] My Private Post - Tell Me ALL Your Secrets – Anything you write here is just between us
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Hardiness? 🤔 Hang on a sec... Nope, it's flaccid. 😶❗❗ ... is there another way to look at it Going Too Fucking Far NEW Blog Features RevealeD O O A Foolproof Method Posted Over on that NEW site O O
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Those look great! I think you should dress the ducks up like little farmers. Oh! Little straw hats! Have a great day! 💋 Staci
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You learn something new every day and I just did on your farm tour my friend..Love the photos and found the Japanese heirloom plant interesting. You had me at spinach though as it is one of my favourites.Thanks for the tour Farmer Enig.lol. xoxo
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I enjoy your gardening tours. Do the ducks behave in your garden?
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Lovely , thanks for the tour , XOXO
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all your plants look really good love watching things grow I planted some orange seeds from an orange couple years ago they are now about 3 feet tall cant belive that they took off like that maybe get some oranges some day
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I am jealous of you, must be a lot of work, but I am certain the rewards are priceless Happy Friday 2 you 2  I love pussies and adore nice dicks
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very cool!! I share your enthusiasm for organic greens! My backyard is covered in arugula and miner's lettuce. I grow strawberries and the property has orange, plum, and apricot trees. I don't have ducks though.
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Looks sooooo good Enig. Is that ur cat food that the ducks are drawn to ? Do they chomp away at your plants? Will the cats shoo em away? im thinking....something ...something must help. Do they go into others yard like that ?? I love the purple flower thingy too...it all looks great. U green thumber you !!
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At this rate I can see you getting your own gardening TV show Keep up the great work. 
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Where on earth are all those Muscovoy ducks coming from? I love ducks, but not so much when it comes to Muscovoy ones... though they are very tasty. The meat goes well with greens, like the mizuna. Speaking of which, I also grow mizuna, but not the purple one. I should get seeds. It's great in salads, mixed in with stir fries, etc. LOVE it! It's also ornamental, though it bolts easily in warm weather. New Zealand spinach: Each plant spreads out quite a bit, and it can have a slightly gritty texture. I'll take chard, spinach, mizuna, or many other greens over that, though the NZ spinach can handle more heat. Compost: my compost area is a semi-caged heap, not a fancy bin. Veggie/fruit trimmings, eggshells, egg cartons/cardboard drink carriers, etc. go in there, as do various piles of leaves. Barrels and barrels of oak leaves get used for mulch on camellias or in flower/veggie beds. Only the overflow of the oak leaves makes it into the compost pile. Spare coffee grounds from Starbucks get used in pots of fruit trees, roses, camellias, azaleas, etc. or in flower/veggie beds. Blueberries love coffee grounds and oak leaf mulch -- acidity and loamy compost make them happy. This last couple weeks we got anti-heat-- several nights of dreaded frost. That's fine and dandy for stone fruits, but the plumerias, tomatoes, and papayas, and a few tender succulents, are very unhappy. Hope I don't lose the young, potted papaya plants. I cringe when I read posts by other bloggers digging out of inches or feet of snow, though I know you're probably used to it, and you adapt your gardening accordingly. Bet you can grow a killer crop of cherries and high-chill fruits! I'm in Mediterranean/subtropical (and getting hotter and drier by the year) So. California. Ever watch the Rose Parade? it ends less than 5 miles from my house. Every New Year's morning about 8:05am I walk out onto my driveway, next to the passionfruits, dragonfruits, etc., look up into the sky, and wave to the pilot of the B2 Stealth bomber as it flies directly overhead. Tomorrow is the first of several fruit tree scion exchanges held by various chapters of the California Rare Fruit Growers, so I need to get up early in the morning, cut and label scions, and head out to the Inland Empire to swap small sticks with other crazy folks who graft stuff onto their fruit trees. EnigmaInitiative -- I keep meaning to send you pix of the passionfruits. A few green fruits are still hanging on the vines.
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They must be Florida redneck ducks!  Love your tour of the garden.   Funny women are incredibly sexy!
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The mizuna purple plants are so pretty! I dump my debris here there and where ever. It gets covered eventually.
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Good, if something bad is happening in Europe, I try to escape to Orlando. For sure, you need someone for eating all these plants with you, I will take care of the ducks  Giacomo  Only sage is growing like crazy in my garden, I am cooking quite often Saltimbocca a la Giacomo ... Chevalier de Seingalt Mehr * More: in meinem - in my Blog and my group Casanovas Separee -Privat Chat PRIVATE POSTBOX* Giacomo Casanova in a Nutshell* Giacomo Casanova auf die Schnelle
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Looks like that black thumb is turning green.  xxooEgg shells, coffe grounds and other natural food byproducts we don't eat ( banana peels, corn cobs) also make great compost material. Also, on top of compost, anytime you boil things don't dump the water out...let it cool off and use it to water the garden. I keep a gallon water bottle by the stove to put hot water in and let it cool. Boiling eggs...save that water and use it to water the garden...all plants like calcium but apples, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cherries, citrus, conifers, cotton, curcurbits, melons, grapes, legumes, lettuce, peaches, peanuts, pears, peppers, potatoes, tobacco, and tomatoes are supposed to be especially responsive. Boiling corn on the cob...it has potassium, calcium and vitamins B2, C and K, among others so would be particularly good for veggies needing those particular minerals...as long as you don't salt the water 1st.
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EnigmaInitiative replies on 1/7/2022 5:39 pm: I've looked into those tumblers, a wee bit outside my price range for now. The compost in place seems to work out well. ***** Mine was a gift from my son, so I don't know what is cost exactly but suspect it was TOO huge. It's a tumbler kind, maybe 40 to 50 gallon capacity (?). I ALWAYS Miss Out on this Stuff The End of the Crackberry NYE Booze, on HNW [post 3312759] My Private Post - Tell Me ALL Your Secrets – Anything you write here is just between us
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The ducks may be a pain, but I expect they are quite fun too!
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