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By Jason Kasumovic, on April 21st, 2012
I recently had the pleasure of visiting Kevin Kossowan’s page and enjoying his lineup of short videos that he calls Kevin-TV. In them, he provides insight into and demonstrates many of the options available to those propelling the local food movement. Local farmers, harvesting of wild food, growing your own, and turning it all into culinary treasure are all on deck – great stuff. Some of his most recent additions to the video library are a series he’s called ‘Backyard Hens’ that involve him visiting people living in Edmonton that (against city bylaws) are keeping hens in their backyards.
Before I get into how ridiculous such bylaws are let me first mention the benefits of having a couple of hens at home. As world reknown sustainable farmer and author Joel Salatin points out, people feel they’re green when they box/bag up all of their kitchen scraps and have those scraps hauled over to some composting facility by a massive diesel guzzling truck where further machinery, energy, and man power are required to begin that composting process. Or … they send those scraps off to the garbage where, again, massive amounts of energy are employed to transport those scraps to a landfill.
All of this as opposed to opening the back door and tossing these scraps to our backyard hens who will happily recycle them into fresh and ultra-nutritious eggs. In doing so our diets improve immediately, energy and dollars are saved, and our children may actually have the opportunity to learn something about where their food comes from and share in the responsibility of producing it.
Sounds like a slam dunk to me. So why do municipalities opt to ban these easy to care for and productive birds? Historically, there are two reasons cited – smell and noise.
Let’s first talk about smell. When you set foot on a large commercial chicken operation, their is indeed a rather unpleasant odour involved in general. By the same token, if you walk into the yard of someone who owns a couple of large dogs that hasn’t cleaned up their deposits for a bit, you’ll encounter a similar odour. But for those of you who’ve never had the opportunity to discover this for yourself, let me share something with you. If you amble up to a chicken coop/run setup that isn’t over crowded and is using high carbon materials like straw or wood shavings for bedding that are replaced or added too regularly, there is no smell (unless you decide to actually immerse your nose into the bedding in which case I would label you an idiot). People with backyard hens who do half as much maintenace to their coops as someone with a cat might do to its litterbox have no odour issues. Just as excessive dog/cat poop can get awfully stinky after awhile, chicken manure can too. So what’s the difference? Well, apparently, since we can have cats and dogs, their must be a difference. It must be the noise.
Roosters make noise. In fact they make a lot of noise. Unless your neighbours detest having a good night’s sleep, you absolutely should not have a rooster in an urban environment. Hens, on the other hand, make very little noise and, when they do, you’ll find it no more disturbing than the noise coming from the sparrow sitting on the fence. A peaceful, quiet kind of cooing is about as bad as it gets (assuming a hungry doberman hasn’t gotten into the run). In any case, it’s hardly a factor at all.
Now there does have to be limits of course because there will be a few who’ll decide to stock the backyard with 50 birds and that’s just not going to fly. No roosters, for sure, and, perhaps a cap of 4 or 5 birds for a typical city home. If you can’t find the time to change the bedding once in awhile you shouldn’t have them either (just as you shouldn’t be allowed any pet that you don’t properly care for).
Sadly though, in an era of suburban politics where a neighbour is liable to call city authorities because there’s a dandelion on your lawn or frown upon you for daring to have a tomato plant in the front yard, the more subtle issues may be more complex. In the year 2012, chickens are absolutely alien to the vast majority of city dwellers and are thus shunned and feared by the suburban elite. Having a couple of hens would certainly earn many something of a hick/weirdo label. Undoubtedly, many believe that chickens in the neighbourhood would surely lower property values. And of course it’s just not the norm so most just would be more comfortable if their neighbours didn’t do it.
Only when enough people dare to do a good thing will their be hope of acceptance. Having bylaws against doing this good thing sure isn’t helping and such laws are being challenged all across the continent. Closer to home, I’m eagerly awaiting an upcoming court decision (May) on the issue in Calgary, Alberta that you can read about here.
To those of you who have challenged the status quo and are enjoying the benefits of your backyard hens in the city, I salute you. I hope your example inspires others to learn about all the positive impacts these birds can have.
By Jason Kasumovic, on April 10th, 2012
With (hopefully) the last major snowstorm of the winter season now nearly a week behind us, its beginning to feel alot like spring up this way. The snow is all but gone near the urban concrete jungles of central Alberta and in the rural areas, it’s white, powdery line recedes more with each passing day, revealing small tufts of grass that dares to green up long before the average last frost date passes. Soon the first buds will appear on the perennial growth and birdsong will continue to intensify from sporadic whispers to an all out orchestra.
I must admit though, whereas last year (after an absolutely BRUTAL winter) when spring rolled in I felt much like I’d been languishing in an underground bunker for decades and was being let out into a green paradise, this year, it’s arrival is very pleasant but not euphoric. The last few months have only provided hints of the savage cold and heavy snow that bombarded the Canadian prairies last year. I’m not the only one that appreciated it either. The chickens chose to stay in their coop perhaps a handful of days since November. The dogs, who sank up to their snoots when venturing off non-cleared parts of the property last year, enjoyed a full run of it since last autumn without interruption.
The emergence of spring also means that a long list of tasks awaits in preparation of the growing season. I’ve spent the last week diligently creating soil cubes with a very solid soil cube maker from http://soilcube.com/ and seeding various interesting varieties of tomatos, peppers, onions, cabbage, cauliflower, and herbs. The dormant fluorescent grow lights had their cobwebs brushed off and are now feeding the first pepper shoots with light. And while I’ve already started hundreds of plants, there are plenty more to come in the next few weeks (pictures incoming soon).
That’s the easy part.
Three big jobs need to be accomplished before the first seeds and transplants hit the soil this year. Over the winter the chickens and rabbits were relentless in adding their own fertilizing goodness to various deep beds of straw and hay. One of the first things that I need to do is gather it all up and turn it into a mega compost heap. Given the enormous amount of (nitrogen rich) fertilizing goodness that awaits, I’m going to need an equally enormous amount of (carbon rich) straw to ensure it all composts quickly and properly without any nasty smells. With that in mind I’m presently scouting kijiji for some local straw bales as I’m down to only 2.
When thats over with and the heavy clay in the former horse pasture that is the back of this property reaches that sweet spot or being not too soaked and not too dry, I’ll continue with labour intensive task of converting it to a more horticulture friendly state which means an initial till, plenty of amendments, and, perhaps, some cover crops to get things started. If I can finish up a half acre of it, I’ll be satisfied. A full acre and I’ll be elated. We’ll have to just wait and see what kinds of pitches mother natures throws at us this spring.
And some way, some how, in the next three weeks, I need to get the greenhouse up. The 8X16 greenhouse that has been taking up far too much space boxed up in my garage since I bought it on sale last May. Yes, last May. Between getting the chicken coop and rabbit shed all up and running last spring and hopping around to keep up with the garden through the summer, by the time I had the opportunity to put it up there was snow in the forecast. I’ve been greatly looking foward to having it up and, assuming I can hustle/blackmail/bribe some friends to help, all I need is for the ground to finish thawing quickly and a reasonably warm Saturday or Sunday to present itself. Getting it done in one day might be challenging but the alluring promise of a pizza and beer feast can get guys working quickly.
It’s going to be a lot of work.
And its going to be great.
I salute thee, Spring!
By Jason Kasumovic, on October 26th, 2011
We had some serious carrots happening this year. There were red carrots, white carrots, purple carrots, and, indeed, orange ones. It’s all good – the whole family (and especially my 3 year old daughter) loved nothing more than yanking a fresh nantes carrot out of the garden, knocking the soil off with the hose, and then biting into its tantalizing crispy sweetness. Even better, the carrot top is a prized treat for my ever hungry collection of meat rabbits.
First, a couple of thoughts on the varieties I grew (all heirloom).
Scarlet Nantes
What can one say about these other than they’re awesome. These guys grew great for me and gain a spectacular sweetness from mid season on. Even near the end of the season when they start getting huge they manage to maintain their flavour (you might find that various varieties start to lose flavour as they put on bulk).
Imperator
This is a long and relatively slender variety. While they don’t compare to nantes they have some sweetness to them. The big plus to growing these is that they’re known for storing very well (which I’ll get into a little further in the post). They also managed to grow into some midly compressed subsoil without splitting.
Lunar White
The plusses: huge root and vigorous growth. Some of these were downright scary big and could be used as a club in a pinch. The minuses: despite the fact that the description I got of them claimed sweetness, they weren’t terribly sweet. In fact I think even imperators were a little more sweet than these whites. Now I’m up in zone 3 with a clay based cool soil which can potentially affect taste. If you’re in Florida these things might taste like chocolate cake so your mileage may vary. In any case, we’ll see how they store but I likely won’t grow them again next year unless my stored ones are still fresh and crispy when its time to seed new ones.
Atomic Red
Let’s just admit it – bright red carrots (like purples) are kind of neat to grow if for nothing more than the cool factor. They grew fine up here but the taste was a little … strange? Almost like they didn’t know quite what they wanted to taste like. A teensy bit of sweetness mixed with a teensy bit of spicyness mixed with a teensy bit of bland. I know that doesn’t make much sense but thats where they were at. This variety is supposed to contain more nutrients than your typical carrot including lycopene.
Purple Haze
Unlike the reds, the purple haze carrots we got were VERY sweet. If scarlet nantes are a 95/100 on the sweet scale, purple haze are about a 92/100. Combine that with their neat looks (deep purple on the outside, orange core), solid growth, and lack of splitting and this is a variety I’ll be growing again next year.
All of them actually grew pretty well. I seeded them in the areas where I had the deepest and loosest fertile soil – this is very important for carrots. I’ve heard a lot of people claim they just can’t grow carrots.. they end up split/stunted/pathetic/yadda yadda. In my opinion, 90% of the time your problem is that your soil isn’t fluffy enough (this assumes of course you do fertilize your soil once in awhile (the more organic the better)). Stick your arm in there – if you feel hardpan type stuff a few inches below the surface, get your spade fork out and loosen it up and try again.
While its all well and good to grow carrots and enjoy them throughout the summer, growing too many is going to be a waste of space if you can’t keep enjoying them when old man winter rolls around. My wife and I found a recipe in one of our canning books a few weeks back for pickled honey carrots. So we dug up about a dozen pints worth and gave it a try.
 Honey, vinegar, and carrots - interesting combo. We popped open a jar a few days back and gave them a try. Not bad. They definately have the vinegary (is that a word?) ‘pickle taste’ but you can also taste the honey. They stayed reasonably crispy through the canning process too. I’m not quite sure how you’d incorporate these into a meal in any gourmet acceptable manner but we’ll figure out a way.
So after our evening of canning, a big question remained. What are we going to do with the other ten thousand pounds of carrots we have?
 carrots carrots carrots carrots carrots and carrots You can can carrots without pickling them as well with the help of a pressure canner and use them anywhere you’d normally serve cooked carrots. Freezing is another option. But if you’re like me, you enjoy your carrots fresh tasting, crispy, and sweet.
All you need is… *drumroll*
… a root cellar.
The key to preserving fresh carrots – like most root vegetables – is to keep them in a dark, semi-humid, and cool environment. 5 degrees celcius is about optimal but 3 to 10 are all workable. A well constructed root cellar would be optimum.
And I don’t have one.
We don’t have a ton of refridgerator space either (a worthy backup plan). So my Plan B is the garage. While garages in Canadian winters generally make great places to freeze popsicles in under a minute, mine happens to sport a natural gas heater. While it’ll require potentially daily attention, I -think- I’ll be able to keep the temperature in there in that optimal range.
We bagged our carrots in plastics bags (do NOT clean/wash/wet – that will be the kiss of death), poked some holes in the bags to allow just a bit of air movement, and stored them in totes to ensure darkness.
Only time will tell how it all works out – I’ll keep you appraised.
By Jason Kasumovic, on October 12th, 2011
While many people dread those first few frosts of fall after a summer thats always much too short, one group of people tend to get downright giddy. For hunters, those frosts signify that if the season hasn’t already opened, it’s sure to be soon. Some use a rifle. Some love the extra challenge of using a bow. I use and enjoy both. For me, hunting represents an opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors with friends and family and to put some meat in the freezer that can be enjoyed well into the next year.
Those who’ve tasted some fresh deer/moose/elk tenderloin seasoned with some Montreal Steak Spice and fried on a cast iron skillet will agree that a successful hunt can indeed mean some spectacular table fare. Even better, its hard to argue with the quality of ‘big game’ meat from a health perspective. Deer meat has about a third of the fat of typical (non grass fed) beef and, assuming it didn’t grow up chomping on big-ag style chem crops, would be as organic as you can get.
From time to time I’ve heard complaints about the dreaded ‘wild taste’ . To that I say this: if the meat tastes like crap, 99% of the time its because the hunters didn’t know how to properly handle the animal after making the kill. Damage to the stomach/entrails before the animal is dressed, field dressing improperly or too late, or failure to cool the meat in warm conditions quick enough are all reasons that your wild game might taste … well … gamey. Outside of that, the meat should be every bit as delectable as your standard fair of grass fed beef.
As a homesteader I can also definately appreciate the fact that wild game represents meat that didn’t require me to feed, water, house, and otherwise care for livestock for a long while before reaping its particular rewards. Not that I mind doing those things but there’s something to be said for letting nature handle the ‘chores’ in sustainable fashion for some of that livestock – sounds pretty permaculturish to me.
Up here in Alberta, some seasons open as early as the start of September. As such, my family has already enjoyed some fresh venison this season. My wife and daughter both gobble it up eagerly so its a win win win scenario. We go through it so fast that I generally try to fill two or three deer tags (your regulations in that regard may vary) to keep us well supplied until the season rolls around yet again. If you manage to bag an elk or moose though, one can often be enough – those critters can get pretty large. Whatever you do, make sure you follow the regs – they’re there to ensure that hunting remains a safe, sustainable, and conservation oriented practice. It’s in all of our best interests to ensure that wildlife populations remain healthy and abundant and that future generations have the chance to take part in this great fall tradition.
If you’ve never hunted but have thought about giving it a try, I would encourage you to tag along on a trip with a friend or family member and partake in some observation and learning. If you don’t know anyone who already hunts, local fish and game associations or local internet communties often organize events that might allow a newcomer to get started – its worth a look.
If you’re already a hunter, good luck out there this year. If you’re like myself, I know you”ll greatly enjoy the experience whether you bring some meat home or not.
By Jason Kasumovic, on September 14th, 2011
As the gardening season nears its wrap-up in northern climates, my wife and I have been busy of late both harvesting and preserving our crops. Last night after viewing a forecast in which there are more days ahead that sport frost risks than there are that don’t, I decided it was time to bring in the tomatoes for indoor ripening.
For the tomatoes it was difficult year – though I’d be lieing if I said the good years outnumbered the tough ones up here in zone 3. After a kill frost on May 28 that destroyed my covered plantings followed by a half inch of snow on June 3rd, I was wondering if there would be any tomatoes happening this summer. To make matters ever worse a very wet June and July caused such a high degree of humidity (80-100% everyday all-day) that as my backup plants finally got to fruit bearing age they suffered from a huge degree of blossom drop. They really didn’t set any fruit of note until and the final week of July and beginning of August. Did I mention that late blight showed up out of nowhere two weeks ago?
That’s the bad news. The good news is that despite mother nature’s beating up on the warmth-loving plants early on, August and early September were very warm and mostly dry allowing these plants to make a comeback. We’ve been pulling ripening fruit for the last two weeks and managed to harvest a whole bundle of green and partially blushing fruit last night.
 One of 8 trays of green and partially ripe tomatoes we pulled last night. With the help of some newspaper and dark seclusion, I’m hoping we’ll be able to turn at least three quarters of this yield into canned tomato sauce that we’ll be enjoying all winter. One of the biggest tricks to ripening tomatoes enmasse indoors is to check on them at least every other day. One rotting fruit can quickly spread it’s rotting agent to others so one needs to be diligent in removing them quickly.
 Some ripe pickings of various colours, shapes, and sizes. Having had about 30 ripes tomatoes in the above size range a few days back, I decided to try a recipe from a canning book that looked like it had some potential. The result mixed in with some bowtie pasta was excellent. Finally a tomato sauce with some real flavor (something decidedly difficult to find at the grocery store). When the greens go red, we’ll definately be canning some of the sauce with some of our own tweaks – I’ll be sure to publish the final recipe when we do.
This year I started about 30 different species of heirloom tomatoes with the purpose of of determining which plants would grow best in this climate and sport a solid flavor. Honestly I’ve grown very tired of the standard fair of Early this and Arctic that which grace the shelves of greenhouses and seed stands up here. While they pretty much produce under even grisly conditions their taste is generally somewhat lack lustre. I’ve found a few varieties that did average to excellent this summer in this climate and did indeed beat out the ‘regulars’ by a large degree – some sweet, some tangy. The most impressive for me is a variety called Sakharnyi Pudovichok.
 A fully ripe Sakharnyi Pudovichok tomato.
Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. To my knowledge there is only one source for seed on this continent and I’m not even sure that it can be attained there anymore. I was lucky enough to get a handful of seed from Tania of Tatiana’s Tomatobase (where you can read her own full description of the species and story behind it). In short, Tania received some seed of this variety from Russia in 2006. After having a horrible germination rate, she finally got a plant started only to have it succumb to root rot early on. She was, however, able to save a part of the plant by taking a cutting and, as fate would have it, the cutting flourished and provided her with a great crop of large, pleasantly tasting fruit. Quite an adventure and one that payed off.
I started five seeds that I received from her this spring and four germinated and grew into healthy seedlings. Sadly, three of them were victims of our May 28 kill frost. My final seedling that I kept as a backup (and, at the time, the least healthy looking one) went into the garden on June 6th. Cool and rainy weather was with us for most of the month and all of the my seedlings struggled. But the Sakharnyi Pudovichok (SP) plant seemed to be staying ahead of the pack and growing quite nicely given the conditions. The weather warmed in July but there was still rarely a day without evening showers and overnight rain. The humidity was way out of control (which is usually unheard of in Alberta). My plants were blossoming but dropping about 90% of the flowers without setting fruit. Except for the SP that is – this hardy plant was setting 50-60% of its blossoms. By the time August rolled around, not only was my single SP covered in fruit (while the other plants were finally starting to set fruit and catch up) but they were growing huge. By mid-August this plant was covered in fruit pushing a pound in size and steadily progressing to blushing stage. Not many varieties (save, perhaps, the Big Beef hybrid) can pull off huge crops of large tomatoes up here. And the taste? Very good. Moderately sweet, fruity and pleasant – not super strong as some people prefer but a definate real homegrown tomato that outguns anything you’ll find in the store.
While the weather got better in August higher than normal humidity still hung around (the ground was heavily saturated which takes a long while to dissipate in treed, rural locales) – morning dew could’ve more accurately been called morning lakes. Various other tomato plants were hit with varying degrees of septoria leaf spot and early blight. I stayed on top of it and removed the damaged leaves and stems as they showed and didn’t lose any plants to it. I was steadfast in checking the SP everyday – wanting to nip any problem in the bud so as to at least ensure the fruits ripened and I would be able to save some seed.
Around that time, I read a post from Tania on a tomato forum that I visit from time to time. Very early in the season, Tania’s tomato patch was stricken with late blight and she lost more than 90% of her plants in a matter of days. For those of you unfamiliar with late blight, it’s a brutal fungal disease that can absolutely devastate a tomato patch in the blink of an eye under the right conditions (cool and wet). While the disease is typically very rare in the sunny and dry Canadian west, a couple of years of wet summers has left these nasty spores sticking around in much greater quantity than the past.
Tania lost many of her seed crops and I was glad to see that many on the forum had volunteered to send her seeds to get her restarted on the varieties that she’d lost. If she needed a new SP seed stock, I was definately going to try and provide it being that there’s a chance that I had the only living SP plant on the continent. I started getting absolutely paranoid about it (yelling at the dogs when they got within 10 feet of the plant was just one symptom).
And guess what? After a particularly busy weekend in late August, I got out one Monday morning to find the tell tale stem lesions and tomato rotting of late blight had begun its attack on the north side of my tomato patch. Guess where the SP is located? I growled. I swore. I kicked. A text that read “WE HAVE $#%@$! LATE BLIGHT” went out to my wife that morning. While its nearly impossible to stop on any given plant once its started, you can sometimes slow its spread if mother nature cooperates. I wasn’t going to throw in the towel.
The first thing I did was pulled and bagged every plant of the first quarter of the bed on the north side EXCEPT the SP. I even yanked a few plants that looked perfectly healthy but were brushing up on affected plants. Step two was to give everything remaining a shot of copper spray. While copper doesn’t kill fungal disease it slows the progression of most. Though it is a naturally occuring element that is generally considered organically allowable, I was still hoping to avoid using any spray. This was an emergency though – so I did the deed. I also removed and destroyed any tomatoes on the SP plant that began to show blight rot. Furthermore, I picked 3 of the largest fruit that looked healthy and were starting to blush to allow them to finish inside. One of them began blight rotting indoors 2 days later – into the garbage it went. The other two finishing ripening into healthy fruit which I quickly and carefully harvested all the seed from (they’re fermenting as we speak and should be ready for a test run in a couple of days).
Fortunately for the tomato patch, the last week in August and first 10 days of September were hot and sunny. Combined with my plant cleaning efforts and copper spray, the blight did not spread to the rest of my garden. The SP plant was infected and I was having to cull another fruit or two every couple of days but as of last night still harvested a dozen very large and healthy looking fruit from it. Phew!
As long as my seed saving technique is sound, I should have plenty of seeds to grow this rare and impressive variety in larger numbers next year. In the meantime, I’ll soon be enjoying its offerings of fruit in my favorite pasta dishes this winter.
That’s all for now – let me know how your harvesting efforts are going if you get a chance.
Cheers!
By Jason Kasumovic, on August 4th, 2011
Busy busy busy! That is precisely what happens when you juggle a summer-crazy job, 3.5 acre homestead, and a family all at the same time. Recently my days have been a blur except for the memory of a couple of great recent meals.
In the last week, we’ve had extended family over twice for complete home grown/raised/made meals. In putting together these meals I’ve had the pleasure of harvesting fresh produce from our gardens which have recovered from June 3rd’s evil frost and provided us with much goodness recently.
 All kind of goodies for the organic homegrown mega-supper.  Barbecued rabbit - even yummier than it looks. That was the basis of last Monday’s feast. Today was yet another and I was out picking again.
 More good stuff picked this afternoon - some beans and zucchinis were added to the mix this time. Did I mention a few of our chickens started laying about 3 to 4 weeks before expected?
Fun times! Now back at it for me…..
By Jason Kasumovic, on June 17th, 2011
Today’s podcast features an interview with a special guest from her homestead in Northern B.C., Canada. Uta, from the Carpe Diem Acreage blog joins us for the show. Tune in as we talk about her families experiences with livestock and gardening and the adaptions they’ve made since embracing the rural life.
Uta’s blog can be found here: Carpe Diem Acreage
By Jason Kasumovic, on June 14th, 2011
Having seen plenty of positive reviews of Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture, I made my order from Amazon about 6 weeks ago. Today, I’m about a quarter way through my second reading because its just that good.
Gaia’s Garden: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture introduces the reader to permaculture and then takes them through a plethora of valuable theory and example. It’s written in a way that almost anyone can grasp and provides for fascinating reading.
The book does a great job of providing practical advice for growing various beneficial species of plants, shrubs, and trees on almost any scale in a manner that works with nature rather than against it. Whether you’re working with a tiny townhouse backyard or a substantial acreage, this book will set you on the path toward sustainable, human and planet friendly growing methods that will maximize productivity with a minimum amount of maintenance while managing to add beauty to the landscape.
Photos are few (but interesting) but the diagrams and charts provided in the book are of great value as a reference for your own projects. Toby went out of his way to provide a solid balance of semi-technical explanation of the permaculture concepts he explores along with descriptions of real world examples and his own exploits. When you’ve read any given chapter you’ll come out with a good understanding of the concepts he was trying to convey, some tangible ideas for implementing them, and the motivation required to get started.
This one has now become my favorite permaculture book and I’d highly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest on the subject.
By Jason Kasumovic, on June 13th, 2011
What a spring it’s been (and I don’t necessarily mean that in a positive way)! As mid-May rolled around I was aching to get started on everything horticulture. It was a long, brutal winter but things were finally looking up. The forecast looked reasonable and I swear I could hear the land whispering sweet garden nothings into my ears everytime I stepped outside. The chicken coop was about 90% done and chicken ready so it was time to bury my hands in the dirt.
 The mostly finished chicken coop/run edged with elegant wildflowers (er dandelions). My coveralls and garden gloves were primed and ready to go when I was struck with what I can only call a ‘superflu’. It was alot like a regular flu except it would be far easier to list the symptoms I didn’t have than the ones I did. And it lasted forever. Actually probably a bit longer than that.
Rotting in my bed for days and days I watched my tomato and pepper seedlings slowly outgrow their accomodations and start to struggle a bit. I had to get them out in the garden. A quick check of the forecast in the later days of May showed little chance of frost. Still half ill, I lurched about the existing garden on the property plopping seedlings into the welcoming soil. Unfortuneately, as fate would have it, the meteorologists were wrong (I know its hard to believe).
Saturday, May 28 brought a killing frost. At 4:00 pm on the day of, a frost warning went into effect and the forecast low went way below what was stated only hours earlier. Later that evening my wife and I scurried out into the garden to try and save the plants. We didn’t have the infrastructure nor the materials to properly cover the approximately 250 square feet of garden that needed covering. We tried to make do with some somewhat thick plastic but the next morning I stepped outside early to find every tomato and pepper plant dead.
Ouch! After practising my grasp of some of the more profane components of the english language, I settled down and resigned myself to make do with my backup plan. Fortunately, I had only planted about 65% of the seedlings I started (I’m now quite thankful I went overboard with the quantity of plants I started). I had some backups and they – along with a few additional starts from a local greenhouse – went in the ground on Monday.
The potatoes and peas that I’d seeded in mid-May flipped the proverbial bird to the weather and leveraged their sturdiness to survive the cold. The peas looked entirely fine and the potatoes had only slight frost damage (and have since recovered to relative lushness).
 The sturdy peas could be heard on the night of the frost yelling "that's all you got?!"  Potatoes as of today about 4 weeks after planting - looking alright considering the zone 3 weather and brand new clay bed. I spent the remainder of that week desparately trying to play catchup. Working dawn until dusk seeding garden space, turning hard, compressed clay and lawn into beds, and giving various food producing perennials a permanent home in the ground.
 Rasberries, gooseberries, honeyberries, strawberries and more. On Friday, June 3rd, the forecast was for showers and cool weather … until the dreaded 4:00pm update when the forecast became showers mixed with flurries. That’s right – snow. Mother nature decided that 5 feet of snow that dumped on us this winter wasn’t quite enough .. she was holding just a little more for June (thanks!). This time we were a bit better prepared and had a sturdy way of covering the plants with heavy tarps. A half inch of snow settled on the ground overnight and on Saturday morning the warm weather plants were still alive. Granted they looked like they weren’t terribly happy about being there but they survived. And now, ten days later, they’re beginning to rebound from the blanket of white and putting out new green growth. In a couple of weeks, they might even look happy again assuming no more surprises.
The peas and potatoes again fared well through the snow showing no damage. It did, however, have an impact on the beans that I’d seeded a week earlier. They picked a wonderful day to germinate and begin breaching the topsoil … that’s right – the day it snowed. Beans have zero frost tolerance but fortunately the temperatue hovered near freezing but never fell below. The snow, however, managed to do various degrees of damage to the seed leaves on the beans. About a fifth won’t make it but many of the others might still pull through as they have enough undamaged seed leaf to get the true leaves going. I could reseed – there’s probably still enough time to start bush beans even in zone 3 but I’ve elected to cross my fingers and wait. I’ll provide an update in another week as it’ll become clear by then how many of these little seedlings are going to reach the beanstalk stage.
 The existing 30X30 foot garden on the property. I sectioned it off into 5 4X30 foot slightly raised beds. I’ve also gotten some of last year’s self watering (or sub-irrigated) containers going. I know these things aren’t terribly permaculturesque but they ARE very water efficient, they all about eliminate the need for weeding, and their perpensity to warm up alot faster than the soil in the ground make them a lovely way of growing certain crops.
 Due to the additional soil warmth, the corn planted here germinated MUCH faster than the corn in my ground garden.  These heat loving peppers will undoubtedly find the warmer container soil (assisted with black fabric mulch) much more accomodating than the cool ground soil. Lately, my activities have been varied. Two of the clay beds I tilled up this year (the ground was harder than many highways) were planted with clay busting crops. On one, I broadcast buckwheat and the other daikon radishes – both of which are beginning to germinate. The buckwheat puts out an extensive root system that can penetrate hard clay while adding organic matter to the soil. The daikons produce huge root vegetables which also have a talent for breaking into clay. I began these beds by tilling 6 inches of the clay and amending with compost and topsoil – hopefully these two crops will finish the job by making the subsoil a little more breathable next season.
I’ve also spent alot of time keeping beds with germinating seeds moist, weeding where the weeds have gone bananas (if there’s a market for chickweed, I’m going to be rich), tending compost piles, and looking after the chickens and rabbits. It’s been fun but incredibly laborious yet I know if I make some effort now, it’ll all get easier down the road as beds and perennial forests mature.
As it’s going to rain for the next few days, my efforts will be pointed toward this blog as well as catching up on some photo work (my ‘other’ job) as well as keeping a close eye on those dreaded 4:00pm weather updates.
Cheers!
By Jason Kasumovic, on April 11th, 2011
On this episode of The Northern Homestead Podcast I have the pleasure of talking to long time permaculturist Tripp Tibbetts. Tripp hails from Georgia, USA where he and his family live a low energy/high production lifestyle using permaculture concepts to drive their homesteading activities. In addition to tending to his land and livestock, Tripp runs a fantastic blog known as Small Batch Garden. There you’ll find a treasure trove of insightful postings from Tripp about his experiences with permaculture and his thoughts on the concept of energy decent in the modern world.
This is part two of my interview with Tripp. The first part focuses on Tripp’s introduction to permaculture and some of his first projects in the realm. This part contains some practical advice for those interested in starting to incorporate permaculturesque homesteading activities into their lifestyle along with some discussion of its impact on family. Enjoy!
View Tripp’s blog: Small Batch Garden
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