Worm Wrangler

So what do you call a person who rounds-up worms?

An Invertebrate-Vaquero? Clitellum-Caballero?

I don't know ...

whatever it is ... my son is becoming one.



preparing to gather worms
its an over-night process

 He has done some research (with some help) and learned the kindest way to harvest wild worms without stressing them or harming them.

He is talking about starting his own blog on his worm farm ... but will have to see what happens ...

the original plan was to raise a small set for himself for fishing this summer, but from what he has been learning he may end up with way more worms than he expected ... he may end up going into the fish bait business!

then there is the side lines ... worm juice makes great liquid fertilizer they say ... and the 'castings' (worm scat) is supposed to be really good compost matter.  

but if he is going to do that then he needs to do a bit of research as to the legalities and what sorts of things he would have to do to package and distribute.

after just a couple of days in the new bin - a converted chicken carrier (the kind they use to put those store-bought rotisseri chickens in) because they have airvents built in to allow the steam to escape to the chicken doesn't get soggy - and he got almost a whole pie pan of "drippings" from them.

to me it was YUK, but to him it was totally cool and he wanted to add it to my salad table ... I said no, but allowed him to add it to the garden area ... where I will also be encouraging him to put his extra worms when they start to breed.

I did not know this - I thought that when worms got too big they simply split like blood cells - but they don't, they actually mate!

In the Light of Dawn

From Ginger's Farm Photos

After getting the kids off to school this morning I decided to go for a little walk in the morning dew and ran a crossed a FLOCK of robins along the hill above the first corn field.

I've never seen a robin in any sort of social situation before Nd always assumed that they were solitary creatures ... Okay maybe with their mate & babes ... But not in a flock like starlings & crows.

It totally blew my mind ... So I had to take a photo of one of them who would go near the field and then back up so it's feet wouldn't get wet ... Like child at the beach ...

Of course wouldn't you know it, it doesn't show up in this photo ... They were there, honest.

It was such a beautiful day that the green house got up to nearly 100•F

But the warm weather allowed my peppers & tomato tray to pop out!

From Ginger's Farm Photos

But apparently birds aren't the only thong alluding my camera today ...honest - there are plants growing in these pots

Green Green White

Well before we went up to put in the docks (yeah like Mother Nature was going to let that one happen) we found that there was a bit of greenery happening in the green house ... But only in the salad table so we gave everything with a seed in it a deep drink and headed out ...

And came back to find this: (now this was only 2 1/2days mind you)
The biggest difference was in the salad table

From Ginger's Farm Photos

We have two different salad mixes but they looked just what we like to eat

My kids have come to love greens ... Well cooked greens, jus so long as I don't mention that there might be cooked spinach in there, they will eat it all gone! The oldest says it's a desecration of bacon to crumble it in greens - so used just steam & butter and they love 'em.

From Ginger's Farm Photos

Last year I bought some Swiss chard seed but never got around to planting it, but the seed packet said the seeds were good for 3 years and it looks like they are growing well even in this cold weather ... But the bigger plants are Collards ... Oh how my kids love collards! I was going to do up some beets too ... One variety for the tops & bottoms, and another just for the tops (they really like beet greens, but turnips are their favorites)
The collards will make huge plants and I'm not sure how big the swiss chard will be, but they will be multi-colored, neon colored ... I had some chard at a dinner party, I think the kids will like it.

And carrots ... If I get a decent crop (and it looks like I might) I can freeze what we don't eat ... I've been thinking of putting a line of nantes carrots down the center, between the Two different varieties I have planted in each carrot pot.

From Ginger's Farm Photos

These will be my reds and my whites ... Can't wait to see if they taste differently

These are my purples and I don't remember what color the other becomes, I think its a red with orange center

From Ginger's Farm Photos

It's been so cold that as you can see I've only gotten one sprout so far

Now here is the one that was amazing ... Not sure if I should leave the lids on to keep the plants warm or take them off so they can have some growing space... SQUASH

Here are my Stick-O-Butter summer squash and my Queen Anne acorn squash ... Oh they are growing like a charm!

From Ginger's Farm Photos

They are coming very nicely the stems are nice and thick too

How wonderful these have come in ... Hubby planted before I could instruct in how to do it to make my charting easier ... He's been on a farm most of his life and somehow manages to just plop in the seeds and he remembers ... It didn't really get into gardening until I married him so I need quite a bit of organization ... Ok a lot ... To remember which is which

From Ginger's Farm Photos

All summer squash .. It has some yellow summer straights, and quite a bit of zucchini (my SIL likes to make bread, I love it in noodle salads), and a Patty Pan - I've never had one but the UFO look of it made it quite interesting!

My winter squash isn't fairings so well though ... I hope I get a bunch, I love me some pureed squash with butter, salt &pepper.

From Ginger's Farm Photos

That one popping up is one of my Early Hybrid Butternuts ... Thought there'd be more of them by now though ... The next tray is even worse ...

I really expected more from the pumpkins, but it's just TOO cold for the seeds to sprout ...

From Ginger's Farm Photos

Here you see the single Howden that has popped thru ...
I had hoped to be able to plant them on the bared hill next to the green house to keep down the weeds and still be close enough to the house for the dog to scare away the deer who always eat it in the fields, but enough out of her range so she doesn't trample them.

This is how much rain fell while we were putting in the dock ... But that is just what fell into the gauge ... Winds were supposed to be around 15MPH during the storm with gusts over 25MPH

From Ginger's Farm Photos

Did I mention that for May Day we had Rain mixed with SNOW? We even had some snow this morning too ... I hope we don't get any for Mothers Day!

WORMS!!!!

We had quite the downpour yesterday ....

for the entire month really ....

our local Weather Bug (my daughter's old elementary school) says that we have gotten nearly 3inches of rain this month ....

this of course means we have standing water in the corn fields and can't get out into it to till in the clover ...

but it also means great fun for the kids!

The proper effect of the rain was to thaw out the ground ... of course the bad thing is that it has become saturated - so much so, that the worms - who have now waken up - can not live in the soggy soil ...

so the driveway was littered with great gobs of jiggly, wiggly, writhy worms ...

just laying there waiting for some kid to come along with a container of dirt to grab them up for fishing ...

which, of course, my son obliged them ... not wanting them to feel their message was unheard ... and plopped them into an old yogurt container with some potting soil/seed starter and leaves in it (you have to give them something to eat, he explained) ... I'm wondering if I shouldn't throw in some egg shells too ... maybe some used coffee grounds - food which I know they like.

Well the fun has ended - and hopefully his worms survived the night in the green house (they are NOT going into my food fridge, thank you) - because the temperature last night dropped to 34*F ... since the greenhouse isn't completed yet (it still has a long way to go, and it will take longer at this point) it gets REALLY cold during the night - in fact, there isn't that much difference from the temp outside & in, even with the tarps lowered over the doors.

and today - we are supposed to have a mix of rain & snow ...

Showing the Green

We had some wonderful warm weather this spring already ... on my regular spring check of the fields I saw this:

it might be kind of tough to see ... but that is GREEN down there at the end of March!  Not being sure if it was grass or weed I went for a closer look ...

turned out to be neither - its CLOVER.
Now for most people, and in most cases, this would be considered a weed ... but to a farmer - its known as Green Manure!
It enriches the soil ... let it grow, plow/till it in, and ~BOOM~ you get a nutrient release into the soil that is a farmers dream ...
okay not as much as say Rye grass, but still its a great load of nitrogen for crops.

This inspired a trip to our local seed supplier --no big box store for us-- I had already gotten some of my seeds from Territorial Seed Company, the seeds that I just need like one packet of ... but for the larger quantities, those ones that tend to go into the fields or need multiple sowings (like corn or peas/beans or pumpkin) those we got to Jordan Seeds in a neighboring town.

This year I decided that my girls should go with their dad to get the seed - for three reasons:

1. I tend to buy things that aren't on the list ... like the 12 1/2bushel baskets last year
2. there was going to be some heavy lifting that I wanted the FarmGirl to do instead of her dad
3. I thought it would be a good lesson if they found out just how expensive those seeds are and why we are so determined to get a sellable crop from them (we've had poor showings these last 3 yrs)

but instead I found they learned that if we had a bigger farm or moved to the other city we could have these:

Its probably tough to see but the photo contains what my children called "Walking Skeins of Yarn" ... yeah, sheep.
They think it would be the bees-knees to have them ...
until I explained that if we had sheep -- it would be their jobs to muck out after them, and bath them, and learn to shear them ... that its much harder than taking care of a Newfoundland

Addy wearing a regular persons hat, not a child/youth size

You know - once you explain things in a form of how they compare to something they don't do now ... it starts to sink in ...

now they want chickens ....
I might go for that one, after a bit of research

Farm and Gardens

Oh I need to have a blog just for my farming/gardening stuff ...

I used to have on online, but when the site changed they did away with member-ran/owned blogs ... so here I am...

I thought I could use my other blog, Ginger Gargoyle Gems, but that has become the big "general" and political blog ... so time to branch off for the growing season and giving myself a good place to make posts about what has worked and what has not over the years.

Posts can range from serious news that I find and just want to place in one spot where I can find it ... to the passions and disappointments of what is happening in the garden ... or (like this morning) just fun or interesting stuff that has caught my attention.

Enjoy ...
but for now I am going to disable comments