Reading The Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wulf, I come across this quote by Benjamin Franklin:  “I do not know a single article….that the colonies couldn’t either do without or make themselves”.   This quote was to British Parliament in regards to the  Stamp Act,  and a proposed boycott by the colonies of all British goods.

I don’t know if America will ever gain her independence again.  She is dependent on foreign powers for oil, food, clothing, shoes, Christmas decorations, and general “stuff”.    Could we if need be, produce all that we need or do without?  seems unlikely.

And yet, there is a revival of small farms and farmers’ markets, artisan foods of all kinds, manufacturing of clothing and other consumer goods.  Americans are seeking to buy local or  made in America.   This movement toward independence is also a movement toward sustainability and security, and that is indeed revolutionary.

Plant near the shortest day of the year in December (or after a hard frost in November) and plan to harvest near the longest day of the year in June.  Garlic is a 6-7 months long crop.

Weeding is important, as garlic does not like competition. Watering and not watering, harvesting on time and curing properly are all important for producing bulbs with good keeping qualities.  (Notes from Boundary Garlic Farm)

Plant each clove 2″ deep,  cloves 6″ apart, and  8″ between rows.  Fertilize in spring.  Withhold watering the last few weeks before harvest.

Harvest:  When the lower leaves of stalk die and begin to brown.  Gently move soil around bulbs and lift up the bulbs.  Do not pull from the green stalk.  Dry in a cool, airy place for two weeks.  Then braid the garlic or cut the dried stalks and store in a string bag or mesh bag with air to circulate.

Most softneck garlics will store 6-9 months.

Harvest some green garlic in spring for a fresh mild taste.  The bulb will not have formed cloves but can be sliced like a scallion including the green stalk in your salads and cooking.

Note about watering garlic:  From Boundary Garlic Farm

Garlic requires fairly even soil moisture during the growing season with no additional moisture during the last few weeks. Mulch is one way of maintaining an even moisture regime. Not enough moisture means that garlic does not develop a full sized bulb. Over watering results in garlic with poor keeping qualities – poor wrappers, burst skins and mold. Also, it is harder to cure garlic that has been over watered.

Tip – Do Not Over Water
If you want to keep your garlic through the winter, it is safer to stop watering too soon than to try to get the last bit of size to the bulbs since over watering shortens the life of bulbs.

Growing Garlic from Mother Earth News

Industrial Agriculture.  Mechanization, factories and war time chemicals needed a new outlet after the war.   Big Ag supplied it.  Larger farms using machines planted mono cultures of wheat, corn, and soybean which do not provide nectar.  These monoculture fields replaced food crops grown alongside of flowering hedgerows, and cover crops like clover and alfalfa that once fed the honeybees and native bees.

Industrial Lawns supporting the lawn maintenance industry.  Some of us remember the clover lawns of our childhood. Those lawns of grasses and clover, and weeds did not require chemicals or fertilizer because clover is a nitrogen fixing plant.   Today’s lawns of  green carpets are food deserts to pollinators, and such lawns require huge amounts of time, energy, and dollars to maintain them.

The strange thing about our agricultural practices that are meant to feed the world….these monoculture crops are leading us to a precipice, “a place where danger, trouble, or difficulty begins”.   In the USA, we eat from a First World plate that includes many crops that must be pollinated by honeybees or native bees.  Sustenance diets, known by many people around the world are the grain and grass crops that do not require insect pollinators but are wind pollinated or self pollinated crops.  Our (USA) current model of large farms of monoculture crops may lead to the extinction of  pollinators and then we and the rest of the world will be back  to eating a sustenance diet.  Diversity creates stability.   Monocultures eventually collapse.  Eventually is looming closer each year.  So say the honeybees.

Chick Needs:  Warmth, Water, Food,  Safe Shelter.

Avoid stressing chicks from overcrowded conditions, wet litter, hunger, thirst, curious pets, people who handle them too often in the first week of life.   Respectful considered care goes a long way in raising chicks.

The safe shelter can be a simple cardboard box for the first week or two of life, a galvanized tub (we use a round #3 size for up to 15 chicks for the first 7 days), or for longer periods of time a large and deep water trough purchased from a farm/feed store.

Heat Lamp  from farm/feed/or hardware store.  I keep a spare bulb on hand just in case at 11pm the bulb in use “burns out”.   Be safe.  Be sensible with how the lamp is set up in regards to the surroundings.  Give the chicks enough space to move away from the edges of the heat source.  If they are huddled directly beneath it, they are cold.  If they are flattened to the outer edges of the brood box or shelter then they are too hot.  Moving across and around the space being heated is “just right”.  I have seen farm stores using a deep watering trough or stock tank  with a broom stick handle secure across the top and the heat lamp secured to the handle by a chain and carabiner and lowered and raised appropriately into the trough.

Bedding:  First few days paper towels alone or over dried pine shavings and straw will do nicely.  Once they recognize their feed,  the paper towels  are not necessary.   For various reasons, usually resulting in deformed leg growth or death, do not use: slick newspapers,  sawdust, cedar shavings.

Feed:  chick starter (we use non medicated) and greens from the pastures and meadows.  None of which have been sprayed with herbicides or pesticides.  Dutch clover, henbit, chickweed, plantain, violets, grasses that are seeding out,  and we try to pull some of it up by the roots with some dirt and grit clinging to it.  Read more about changing feed needs in the link at end of post.

Water:  in a container they cannot walk about in.  Clean water.  Some people add apple cider vinegar and other natural products to the water.  See link below.

Consider your outside temperatures and weather conditions for the time of year. Moving chicks outside will depend on these factors.  and of course, safe shelter still applies.

Happy Homesteading with chicks.

For a very good tutorial from a very experienced poultry keeper see the modern homestead

Some folks enjoy keeping a  diversity of chicken breeds for the color of the eggs, and the beautiful palette of feather colors walking the grounds!  We began this way, too:  to learn more about different types of breeds and to share this wondrous diversity with farm visitors.

Then we came across the writing of  Yellow House Farm in New Hampshire.  Transforming our view of Hedgerow Farm and our role as stewards.   Moving from pleasure grounds and hobby farm to a farm with both a view and a purpose.  The transformation has been two years or more in the making because rare breeds like the Dorking are in fact, rare.

A sample of the Yellow House Farm writing below:

Choose one breed and do it well.  Buying a hodgepodge of this, that, and the other thing, might be fun, but it does nothing for the good of the breeds selected.  It’s always disheartening to hear someone announce that they raise heritage fowl only to find that they have one of this, three of that, four of the other, and a Silkie rooster because he’s so cute.  Such flocks might amuse the owner, but that is the end of the benefit derived therefrom.

so moving from amusement to stewardship has been difficult, demanding, with setbacks, and no instant gratification to be found. Also, engaging, and rewarding.  Thank you Yellow House Farm for thinking deeply about this subject of heritage poultry and stewardship.

Native milkweeds, the host plant for monarch caterpillars are disappearing with every acre planted in corn and soybeans.  Along with monarch habitat, we are losing the habitat for other pollinators including our native bees.  The web of life is indeed complex and perhaps the fate of a butterfly is tied to the fate of humankind.   A healthy earth supports health for all creatures.

So plant native milkweeds in the garden, backyard, farm.  Reduce or eliminate insecticides from gardening practices.  People from Canada, USA, and Mexico are working together to create migration corridors for the monarchs.  Hopeful work.  To quote Wendell Berry, they are indeed “practicing resurrection”.

Chris and Emily are creative friends.  Painting, writing, gardening, preserving, and cooking.  Once common abilities of the “common”  people.  The ability to sing and make music also ran in families.  Average folks wrote ballads and told stories.  Children were raised to have whole life skills in the days before we became a “soccer society”.   Parents now manage the elementary school sports careers of their offspring.  And we  teach by example how to order food from a fast food speaker box in the drive thru.

Wendell Berry, farmer, author of poetry, essays, fiction, wrote a book in the 1970’s titled, The Unsettling of America.  He speaks to specialization as one of the causes of the breakdown of society.  In an essay, he describes a profoundly unhappy man who is no longer responsible for growing his own food, or cooking it, or teaching his children, or caring for his health.  He can consult experts (specialists) for all of these areas.  Quote:  “This supposedly fortunate citizen is therefore left with only two concerns: making money and entertaining himself…..and not surprisingly, since he can do so little else for himself, he is even unable to entertain himself, for there exists an enormous industry of exorbitantly expensive specialists whose purpose is to entertain him….for all his leisure and recreation, he feels bad, he looks bad, he is overweight, his health is poor….it is rarely considered that this average citizen is anxious because he ought to be….because he is helpless…dependent upon so many specialists, the beneficiary of so many experts, can only  mean that he is a captive, a potential victim”.

This “man” was described in the 1970’s.  We have become increasingly more specialized in the last 40 years and within those same 40 years obesity,  systemic diseases,  autoimmune diseases, cancer, anxiety and depression are also increasing– not just among adults but are now found strangely on the rise in our children, our youth.  And we should think that it is very strange indeed to have the immune systems of our children failing.  and to wonder why so many of our young people are immensely unhappy.

Berry is not a pessimist.  Nor a nostalgic dreamer of the “good old days”.  He is an observer of the created world and the society around him.  More and more people are beginning to suspect that our specialized, mobile, fragmented society is cause for fragmented individuals and families and communities.   Leisure is less leisurely and recreational pursuits  may not be re-creating us after all.  Talk to some of the “sport or travel sport parents” and they will not seem particularly rested or re-created, ditto the sports child himself and his siblings under duress.  There is another choice, another way of life, of living:  people are seeking community connections, local living which includes locally grown food–grown even by their own hand and hoe.  Industrial agriculture may be intending to “feed the world” but individuals are starting to get interested in feeding themselves and their families.

Perhaps our “crisis of character” Berry’s explanation for the ecological crisis and societal crisis,  has finally hit bottom and we are now working to redeem our land, our society, our families, and ourselves.  May it be so.

Our southern crossroads community may be at another crossroads, and we are hopeful that the good citizens of our community may come together to revitalize our town with a  local economy made up of small business owners living nearby in the old but well made homes of the early to mid 20th century.  Increasing the numbers of local farmers providing food to the neighbors.  Reviving the town dinners with our council members and mayor.  Seeds of ideas to plant into good minds and good hearts, nurtured through the seasons of interest and apathy.  Hard work for sure, but work that seems to be the right sort of work for our town.  Lest we disappear as the old barns,  railway, and chestnut trees have done.

Genetically Modified and Patented Seeds:  Why should we resist this “radical departure” from our centuries old understanding of the natural world?

From Fedco Seeds:

“By tradition, our biological heritage was held in common. Sharing, not secrecy, was the dominant paradigm. The industry’s attempt to impose a proprietary model upon a product bountifully given by nature is a radical departure from our agricultural tradition.”