The Kitchen Garden Company

For some time we’ve been keeping pigs. They are “free range”, pastured porkers who contentedly while away their days in woodland glades rooting about for subterranean treats to compliment their diet of whey, organic greens, vegetables, bread and grains.

For sometime, I have been playing Gunga Din to them, hauling water from a nearby stream throughout the early spring. Now that summer is upon us however, I have come up with a solution which not only frees up my time, saves my back, and makes sure our 6 bacon factories have as much clean, fresh water as they need–The Pig Fountain.

The Pig Fountain is gravity fed from a water butt up the hill from the wooded pasture area the pigs occupy. It is made up largely of common plumbing parts and three universal hog nipples I purchased from a livestock supply company. The idea came to me at an Agricultural Youth Fair I attended several weeks ago where I saw some unique, home built, watering tubes in the corner of some of the Hog Barn stalls. That set me thinking, but it was a trip to the Building Supply store which finalized the form my Fountain took.

Once installed in the pen I was surprised how quickly the piglings took to it. I was sure I would have to coat the nipples in molasses or show them that water came out, but they found out quickly for themselves what it was all about. I haven’t had to worry since. Neither have I had to worry about them mucking about with it either. The pigs seem content to leave it alone except to drink out of it. Hopefully they won’t turn to anger should it ever run dry. So far 6 of them have drunk 50 gallons in 5 days which is about on track and will leave me filling the tank once every week.

The other great factor is that it is completely portable so as I move the pigs through the wood the fountain comes with. My little buddies also don’t seem as motivated to break out of the fence as often either. . . .But I do think they may miss the watering tub they had previously been able to splash around in. Perhaps before the stream dries up in midsummer I’ll make them a mud wallow.

Technorati Tags: pigs, livestock, chores, farming, watering, pig fountain

It has been a very busy summer. Between the usual dinners, parties and functions I managed to squeeze in an appearance at the County Fair doing an cooking demonstration using local foods, all while keeping The Gastrocast going.

Now, the harvest is almost over. We didn’t get as much as we’d hoped from the Kitchen Garden as it was so dry, but the Polytunnel surprised us with a bounty of Tomatoes and Chillies which are still coming. Hopefully we should be harvesting lettuces and herbs until Christmas, weather permitting, from the tunnel. All this has lead to an abundance of material for a second cookbook, if I can ever find some time for it. . . .
Meanwhile I should be spraying the Chicken coops down with EM and getting the Gardens and Livestock ready for Winter before the cold, rainy weather really hits us with a vengeance.

In addition, this week, I am working on a few mid-season events, getting ready for a television appearance and beginning to take bookings for the holiday season. Of course Rowan is right there taking it all in. I’m not sure if she’ll appear on TV with me just yet. I suppose it depends a bit on the weather. Even if she doesn’t I wager she’ll be underfoot “helping” get ready for it all anyway. At 13 weeks old she’s really keeping us on our toes. More on the TV thing later.

A short movie on our new chicks and the momma hens. The chicks are bigger now–they grow up so fast! But this gives you a small window into their early years.

Technorati Tags: video, chickens, chicks, hens, hatching, farm life, livestock, podchef, nature, birds, poultry

A Short Video to explain how simple it is to make some bokashi:

To learn more about this product and the process, you may want to read this and this.

Technorati Tags: bokashi, bokashi buckets, sustainability, composting, farming, gardening, podchef, video, kitchen garden company, how to, diy, anaerobic composting, effective microbes

The Japanese have been using Bokashi Balls for a number of years to clean up contaminated waterways. Consisting of Bokashi–an microbially innoculated wheat bran–Effective Microbes, Molasses and a special ceramic powder which helps reflect infared radiation, Bokashi Balls are reported to help clear sludge and slime up and reduce toxin levels.

Our own Kitchen Garden Company Experimental–and unfinished–pond has become clouded by an algae bloom and constantly looks muddy. Because there is a significant amount of wildlife in the pond we do not want to drain it or treat it with anything which is not organic and natural.

Hence we are going to experiment with Bokashi Balls to see if they can make any difference. We will also be using these home-made clay balls to reduce the sludge and odor problems in our septic system.

To read about the how we made the Bokashi Balls and to track our progress, please visit here.

Technorati Tags: bokashi, bokashi balls, ponds, environmental cleanup, pond cleanup, septic sludge, em, effective microbes

Technorati Tags: polytunnel, polyculture, tomatoes, youtube, podchef, video, gardening, farming, vegetables

Here’s a little video I shot yesterday to introduce to some of the animals here on the farm.

Technorati Tags: youtube, farming, farms, kitchen garden, podchef, animals, chickens, sheep, steer calf, video

When I was 13 or so, about the age my oldest daughter is now, I took a job on a local farm. Where I grew up we were surrounded by farms and orchards, but our 2 acres wasn’t adjacent to any farms itself. For one reason or another the farm I was employed at for the season was a 30 minute bike ride away.

Myself and three others worked for a family who raised all sorts of vegetables. We arrived before 7 and worked until the heat of the day stopped us–around 12:30 or one and if it cooled off, sometimes later.

I don’t remember how large the farm was, and really didn’t have much to do with planting, just harvesting. It seems to me there were corn fields not close to the farm that we had to drive to. At some point it must have been a dairy farm because there was a milking shed, but I don’t remember livestock, just a portion of the barn turned into a market for customers to drive up to and buy freshly picked produce. Sometimes we pickers were there to help with sales. I remember the farmer, his wife and little children–probably 5 and 7–treated us like we were family. We could eat whatever we picked–if we wanted to–and when it was raining hard, or if we arrived early and the farmer wasn’t ready we could wait in the sparse utility room in the farmhouse.

There was a pond somewhere on the farm, or adjacent to it because often while picking we would mitch off and go for a swim. I remember a huge bees nest we couldn’t help aggitating each time we passed. We could do this because we weren’t paid by the hour, but by the bushel and by mid morning we knew how much of what we needed to pick and what was needed first. Each day we would pick a variety of crops. Berries, Tomatoes, Eggplants, and 6 or seven kinds of peppers–sweet, hot, bell.

Somewhere between the beestings, the prickly spines on the eggplants or tricking a new picker by placing one sweet pepper on a bushel of hot ones, picking it, biting in to it and telling the boy to have one they were good. . . . I was infected. Infected with the sweet smell of soil, the herby vegatative smell of the garden in the heat of summer, the taste of produce unlike any I had had before: ripe, crunchy, heady with flavor. And the hot summer exhaustion of hard work, stolen moments in a dusty barn, and the livestock and wildlife around a small farm.

I had tried my hand at gardening on my own before. Although both my parents were children from large farming families we did not live on a farm and they grew flowers, not food. I sated my love for fresh vegetables and the bliss of well laid out garden beds by stealing vegetables from the garden the next door neighbor carved out of the woods on their back acre. At dusk in the summer I would creep from the green canopy and make my raid and wander the paths in the gloaming light, selecting whatever looked good to eat fresh and raw. Then came my summer of bushel after bushel of all sorts of vegetable. Who needed to pack a lunch, there was so much to graze on.

I only worked one summer for the farmer. Don’t remember what I did after that. I can remember almost every detail of the farm, what was grown, how to get there and what we did each day, but I can’t remember the times after that. Somehow all this has lain dormant until today, a cold spring day with wierd weather. I’ve been outside wishing for the same heat in the garden beds as in the Polytunnel. Wishing more were ready to harvest. Wishing I had enough land, produce, customers to have a team of kids shuttling around the place with old wooden bushel baskets, mitching off to go for a swim in the bay, and learning how sweet life can be when your connected to the land and the source of what we eat.

Technorati Tags: memories, childhood, farming, farms, produce, vegetabes, farmlife

Spring appears to have given away to summer and we are left scrambling to plant everything to take advantage of the hot weather. All the tomatoes, eggplants, chillies and basil have been planted in the polytunnel and the average temperature in there is 85 degrees F.

Outside it has hit 70 degrees F. here today and I have been getting a nice sunburn tilling the final bed of the garden. It’s so hot, I’m afraid it may have done something to the little Mantis Tiller we use to keep the beds nice and fluffy. Too bad because I was almost done with the last bed when it quit.

The lettuce in the polytunnel has held up well and is getting giant. We have hardly had a chance to use a fraction of it, which is okay because if it lasts it will tie in nicely with the greens coming up outside which are sorely behind. A good dose of this hot sun should boost growth everywhere.

The rhubarb is ready for harvest–at least some of it. I am hoping the rest will hang on till the strawberries are ripe, as the bushes are overloaded with blossoms. All of this is reminding me I should head out and pick some radishes. . . .

Technorati Tags: gardening, polytunnel, kitchen garden, growing

We will be welcoming Torino to The Kitchen Garden later this summer. At 7 weeks old he is looking to be a handsome boy. He is a Jersey-Kerry cross and we look forward to him joining us as an honored guest at dinner in about 28 months.

Technorati Tags: calf, beef, grassfed