I am always amazed at just how pretty and neat my garden starts out being but that by July, August and often on into September, its a jungle out there!  

I am pleased beyond measure about the bounty that I am getting, I am up to 75 pounds of green beans freshly picked, cucumbers, peppers, peas, potatoes and so much more, but it is a bit less than asthetically pleasing now.  It is however producing in abundance...come a long for a quick visit and tour.

Though you cannot tell in the picture, this is actually 2 long rows of bush beans.  I use Early Contender Heirloom bush beans and LOVE the abundance they always produce.  As I mentioned I have pulled 75 lbs of green beans from these two 40 foot long rows and that filled 5 of my 5 gallon buckets, snapping and canning have been my mainstays for the last 2 weeks.  We are nearing the end though, I will pull these rows up next week, toss whats left for the pigs and replant the exact same beans to harvest again in late September.  It is then that I will let some of the lastling beans dry on the plants to save for planting again next year.

I have to confess that this is my first year with onions.  I have always been offered an abundance from my neighbor who grows more than he can ever use, but I was curious and I wanted them to grow REALLY big, my neighbor picks them small.  I am not sure why they are starting to push up out of the ground yet but at this time they are still only golf ball sized (I know this thanks to an avid gardening 2 year old who likes to "help")

My banana peppers and jalapeno peppers always produce so much more than I ever expect, and I always overplant them because they are the easiest to grow from seed, and they produce in abundance.  I will be doing some hot pepper pickling for hubby very soon!

Every year I grow a few unique varieties of tomatoes for no other reason than just because.  I have my staples, Amish paste being the one I use yearly for my spaghetti sauce and Roma for salsa, but honestly I love the variety and colors that I can get in heirloom and some hybrid seeds (though I prefer to grow heirloom so I can seed save).  The above left is my Tigerella tomatoes, they are yellow and green striped and the one on the bottom is almost ripe though not yet tender enough to pick.  Above right are the largest Amish paste I think I have ever grown, there must be some extra good worm castings in my soil this year!

These are new to me this year, blueberry and black cherry tomatoes, I love the little star on top from when the stem is pulled away.  They have the deepest rich purple hue mixed in with the red, these are REALLY cool.  They are a bit tangier than most sweet cherry tomato varieties, but very tasty!

If you missed my post on how to grow purple potatoes, take a peek here...I was checking to see if they are done, nope not yet.  They typically get to be the size of a tennis ball so a little longer...

Check out my simple trellis design from repurposed metal rods we found in our old barn (the one we tore down)

I prefer to grow all of my cucumbers trellised like this and really any 3 long poles or sticks will do, I have even used just dead wood sticks in a pinch.  This seems to help with air circulation so as to avoid powdery mildew problems and also makes finding and picking those cucumbers much easier.

This is my zucchini that I plant successively throughout the season.  I do this because I have a never-ending battle with squash vine boarers.  My neighbor grows big beautiful zucchini EVERY year, when I asked him his secret...he said Sevin dust.  Nope not for me, so instead I deal with the organic method of handpicking aphid eggs and covering with a floating row cover when I remember to.

There it is, the garden in July, thanks for visiting with me this morning, I will update again next month, it is sure to be even more home like for Tarzan himself then.

Want to know what to do with all those beans?  Read my post here.

It began by my daily walkabout in the garden, just checking things out but not planning on doing any heavy duty work, best laid plans.  I bent down to check on what I thought was a beautiful and large green bean, I was right, and next to that another, and another, and another.  This is usually glorious news, except that I was hosting 8 out of town guests that included 6 children in addition to my own 5 children and the guests were here for an extended stay, who has time for canning with all that going on?

I do know enough about gardening to know that I would waste  a lot of food if I didn't do something though, so I began picking, and picking, and picking.  When it was all said and done I had filled 2 of these 5 gallon buckets of fresh picked and beautiful green beans, that was almost 30 lbs worth when I weighed it all out.

What's a girl to do?  I put the kids to work snapping and snapping. (child labor at its finest!)

Once the beans were all snapped I certainly did not have room in the fridge for them, I mean like I said, 8 out of town guests added to our brood of 7 is 15 people and cooking for that many leaves little to no refrigerator space!  I decided that the fastest and easiest way to proceed was to blanch the beans (kills any bacteria) and freeze them in quart bags (pints are just too small for us!).

So how does one do this feat?  It is literally so simple.  I prefer my canned beans, but when in a pinch I don't want to loose fresh produce so freezing will work and will usually last without incident in a deep freeze (not your regular freezer) for 6-9 months without a problem.

When snapping beans you simply snap off the end where the bean grew to the plant, you can snap the tail off too but it is not necessary.  Then snap the bean into bite sized pieces, usually 3-4 per bean.

Once all of your beans are snapped you need to blanch them.  This is a process that kills bacteria and stops the food enzymes from further deteriorating food.  Blanching is a simple process where you boil the beans for 3 minutes an then plunge them into a sink full of ice water to stop the cooking process.  The beans will turn the most brilliant shade of jade green you have ever seen and they are VERY tasty at this point.  You now have beans ready to be safely and tastily stored in your deep freeze.

Be sure to use freezer bags, yes they are more expensive but they are thicker and well worth using to avoid freezer burn on your well preserved harvest!  

Aren't they beautiful?  That's 18 quarts of green beans to have this winter, yum!

Related posts... How to order Chicks, Cost of Raising Meat Chickens

This is our 3rd round of raising our own meat chickens and butchering them.  We have learned a lot along the way about what works, what doesn't, and the easiest way to do this.  Read on...learn from my mistakes, and if you are so inclined, watch a video of the most recent batch of chickens we butchered.

We started out on May 1, 2016 with 25 Cornish Rock Cross Chickens.  This is the breed we choose to raise for meat because they reach butcher weight in just 9 weeks...its incredible really.  After 9 weeks it is time to butcher, and believe me, as much as I like chickens (I love watching my laying hens and do have a harder time when one of them dies) I don't mind when the 9 weeks is up with the Cornish Rock Cross birds.  

They are not cute.

They do not have personality.

They remind me of a severely obese Jabba the Hut with Prader Willi Syndrome.

They are kinda gross.

When it is time to butcher, I am more than ready!

We have done this the hard way and the easy way.  The hard way takes a LOOONG time.  We have butchered with no fancy equipment using just baling twine to hang the chicken upside down, slit the throat, and a pot of scalding water (150-160 degrees) to dunk the chicken in.  When we pluck by hand it takes 10-15 minutes per bird and that is before you even begin the process of evisceration (gutting).  Usually by the time we get 3/4 of the way through the 25 birds we end up skinning the birds as the plucking takes so very long.  But, with nothing but a pot for scalding water and a sharp knife, it can be done.

However, we hit the jackpot this year.  We have some friends who we ordered our chickens with which meant that all of our birds (their 200 and our 25) were ready for butcher at the same time.  They have a fantastic setup complete with stations for all of the steps and when all the stations were manned we had it down to 3 minutes per bird from start to finish.  

Our old school, redneck, by hand method is more like 25 minutes per bird but let's face it, not everyone has the luxury of a whiz bang chicken plucker!

I just have to say that our homesteading friends helped us tremendously this year, our 25 birds were done in less than 1 hour.  Hubby got lucky he had to work that day so 2 of my children and I headed to the neighboring homestead to butcher our chickens and to help with some of theirs as they were so kind to let us butcher on their equipment.  

I had the process slowed down with explanation so I could share with my readers, thank you so much to My Shire Farm for the help making this video and for the use of equipment!

Every year that we have raised our own chickens for meat I have said I was going to keep diligent records so that I would have an exact cost breakdown, but every year something gets in the way.  

This year is an exception.  This is our third year of raising our own meat chickens and I was DILIGENT to keep track of EVERYTHING so that you can benefit from knowing the exact cost breakdown of raising your own meat chickens too.  Whether you are living off the grid or just beginning into the realm of homesteading this is invaluable information to have.

Lets start with some quick starting points first.  

We are a family of 7 people who really like to eat chicken.  We eat chicken at least twice a week so when we have run the numbers we have figured that to produce enough chicken for our family to enjoy and to make the amount of work involved worthwhile, we buy 25 meat chickens at a time.  

Less than that and it is too time consuming, more than that and we are taxing our freezer space as well as our resources.  25 meat chickens for a family eating chicken 2 times a week equals roughly 12 weeks of chicken dinners or 3 months worth.  That means we should actually be raising chickens 4 times a year but we typically do it 2-3 times over the summer months as it is easier that way.

We choose to raise Cornish Rock Cross chickens as these reach butcher weight faster than any other chicken around.  It only takes 9 weeks to raise a bird from chick to a 5-7 lb monster of deliciousness.

We order our chicks from a Hatchery called Mt. Healthy out of Cincinnati, Ohio.  They ship nationwide and have been great to work with.  Our chicks cost us $1.68 a piece this year so the package of peeps set me back $42.00.

Without a brooder in place (we have one since we do this regularly) you need a place for your chickens.  We did have to purchase new heat lamps this year and at our local feed store those ran us $5.50 a piece.

Suggestions for brooders:

A large metal or rubber feed or wash tub
A makeshift pallet construction
A chicken tractor with access to electricity for heat

It need not be fancy and don't be intimidated by the heat instructions for your birds.  I use the redneck way of measuring temperature satisfaction in chicks...no thermometer required.  IF THE CHICKS ARE ALL HUDDLED UNDER THE LAMP THEY ARE TOO COLD, IF THE CHICKS ARE AT THE FAR CORNERS OF THE BROODER AND AWAY FROM THE HEAT SOURCE THEY ARE TOO HOT.  Very scientific right?

NOTE: As soon as the outdoor temps are warm consistently during the day and not dipping below 70 at night we try to transition 4-5 week old chicks outside to the chicken tractor.  This helps with the copious amounts of poo as well as providing fresh air, fresh forage and insects for the chickens to eat.

The only thing left now is feed.  I purchase our feed from a local feed store for $12.99 per 50lb bag.  I spend a little more because I order all natural medication free feed.  (why it costs more to get your chicken feed without medication I will never understand!)

350# of feed set me back a total of $77.94 for 6 bags (50# per bag)

We butcher our own chickens so I also added the cost of vacuum pack bags for our food saver. ($20.00)

If you are keeping track here is the cost thus far...

But what did I end up with for that $145.93?  After all the birds were butchered and weighed I wound up with exactly 145 pounds of fresh, free range, antibiotic free chicken.  That is $1.06 a lb!!!

The cheapest I have EVER seen chicken that is free range (raised on forage and insects as well as feed such as in a moveable chicken tractor) and antibiotic free is $5.99 lb.  I'd say for all of the effort we did VERY well!

Don't get me wrong, it is A LOT of work but to know what my family is eating and to have a freezer stocked with delicious meat is worth it!

Related Posts:
How to order chicks
How to care for new chicks
​
Want to learn to butcher your own chicken?
 Read my post here complete with a video!

It was a good idea in theory, I have read about many successful homesteaders keeping ducks and chickens together in the coop with no problems.  I was prepared for the pooping, I mean ducks poop ALOT.  What I was not prepared for was the water fights.  How three small ducks manage to decimate 5 gallons of water from a poultry waterer in just hours flat is still beyond me!

I thought I had done my homework.  I picked the smallest breed of duck that I thought would be a good fit, I mean look at these little guys, so cute!

The first problem was when the chickens (albeit much smaller birds as they are all just under 2 months old) started trying to pick the ducks apart, feather by feather.  That began the separation.  I had to, for a time, put the ducks in a completely different location in the witness protection program for their own good.

After a little R & R in the program, I reintroduced the ducks, I mean they were now almost 3 times the size of the chickens.  Surely they can protect themselves.

The answer was yes, there does not seem to be any further feather picking, but that was only the start of my problems.

It is the incessant water wars.

​I have never seen anything like it.  The ducks must make water bombs that they lob from one side of the coop to the next  when I'm not looking.  I am not even exaggerating here, they are going to rot the floor right out of the coop with these antics!  I fear that whatever water party they are throwing will eventually drown the chickens in a wave of surf (okay, not really but it is pretty ridiculous looking out there!)

I called a friend, a wonderful neighbor with all kinds of fowl, I may have even begged.  She is a dear and said that we can relocate the ducks to her place, she has a large pond and not so many bird dogs as we do so the ducks stand a much better chance of free-range happiness over there.

So much for the duck eggs I was planning on baking with.  

So much for the  cute little ducks that would wander around our place as adorable lawn ornaments.

So much for the advice of all the other homesteaders who have successfully had ducks in the coop.

My assessment, it just doesn't work.  Nope, no ducks in the coop here.  They gotta go.

If you are anything like me, you strive to limit the amount of digital influence your children have in their lives.  I also try, and sometimes in vain, to find digital influences that are at least educational in nature so that when I do allow screen time, I can at least feel better about it. Whether you are heading out on a long car trip for vacation or running your homeschool through the summer, you will find great information here. This roundup is super helpful, and let's face it, as much as I don't want to admit it, the school year will be sneaking up on us soon!

This blog post contains affiliate links that cost you nothing but may help me with the cost of running this blog.  Thanks so much for your support!