We picked more blackberries yesterday afternoon, walking about a mile and getting only a few scratches. This time it was just Rachel and I, and we hunted through the edges of our neighbor’s cow pasture as curious calves watched us pick.
As spring has unfurled, it’s been wonderful to see different species appear and surprise us. We’ve come across honeysuckle and wild roses, persimmon saplings, pitcher plants, blueberries of various species, sumac, mimosa, creeping cucumber and lots of lovely asters.
We also have chickens now, and my one-year-old daughter loves them. I take her out almost every day to the henhouse to bring the chickens treats. She loves to watch them run around and fight over kitchen scraps. I’m no longer composting in a pile; instead, I’m letting the chickens eat our kitchen waste and turn it into the sandy ground. Later I’ll go back and sift the soil and put it on my garden beds in lieu of “normal” compost.
In the gardens we have a lot of beauty coming in, though the cabbage moths are a serious problem. I think the ecosystem here is short on delicious food for insects so all the bugs are happy I planted a big garden for them. Fortunately, nothing has really attacked our potatoes so we’re hauling in those now. Yesterday we more than filled a five-gallon bucket from one row, giving us 37lbs of mostly red potatoes, along with a few Yukon Golds I dug to see how they were developing. If my estimates are correct, we should get over 300lbs total when we harvest the rest of the spuds in a month or so.
Later today I’ll post a new garden tour video so you can see how things look. I should also go wandering through the woods and share some of the amazing nature we’re finding. Stay tuned.
1 comment
I love foraging! It’s always been a big part of our lives, whether we were living in Alaska (my parents homesteaded there when I was a baby. Most of our meat came from hunting and fishing; Mom had a big garden that she had to chase the moose out of; and we used some wild greens and lots of cranberries and blueberries. Once in a while we found some raspberries or little wild strawberries.), or on the Oregon Coast (lots of blackberries there!).
Is there some way to ask you a few questions about Alabama? Land-hunting types of questions, like how deep the wells are likely to be, and if it’s legal to build a little off-grid cabin on your own land? I’m a couple of states north of you right now, own a couple of acres (paid for) with a small house and a couple of barns — and you are probably wondering why I’m considering moving, LOL! There are several reasons. One is that I would really like to be able to grow some things we can’t grow here, or can’t grow easily (I’m looking at Baldwin County, so a couple of growing zones south of our current 6b). One is that as I get older, I really would like to reduce the amount of winter we have. And one is that next year when I turn 65, given our income, we’d be able to file for a property tax exemption and would have no property taxes anymore. They aren’t really high here, but zero would be even better for our budget. I’d like to find a contact down there who knows a bit about the area — we’ll probably plan a trip down in the fall, after the garden here is mostly done. I’ve been doing research on-line for several weeks, then yesterday as I was watching some more of your videos (I have several of your books) I realized that you had moved to Alabama, and were living in a little cabin, and I thought, aha! Maybe David can at least put me in touch with someone who can give me some answers!