Wacky weather whiplash pattern continues.  Last week it was a scorching 95 degrees; then quicker than you can say  "summer's here?" a  few days later it's cold, overcast and raining (what a BLESSING!).

The poor plants are totally confused and so are we - sweater on, sweater off, on, off?

In the garden, the elephant garlic is just about ready to harvest and we've been digging up pounds and pounds of tasty potatoes!  Just today made a potato salad with home canned pickled carrots and homegrown celery - so yummy!  Can't beat the flavor and texture of homegrown potatoes!

The summer crops are slowly replacing the spring greens and brassicas. Justin informed me that they already spotted the hated (invasive) bagrada bug due to the heat. Bugger!

As head manager of the front porch farm stand, my duties include not only managing the operation, taking orders and such but also  filling them. Think that's my favorite part: to be out in the garden early in the morning harvesting the lovely bouquet of greens.   I do declare that one morning we all picked nearly 30 lbs of greens to fill the orders that morning!  Whew!

Bouquet of greens, indeed.  One of our customers exclaimed, "If I ever got married, this would be my bouquet."  Awwww.

APRIL HARVEST

276 lb produce

Eggs 141 (Duck) 73 (Chicken)

2011 YEAR TO DATE

939 lb produce

Eggs 486 (Duck)  190 (Chicken)

The portion of the post is "sponsored" by the fictitious product "Powdermilk Biscuits" "Made from whole wheat raised in the rich bottomlands of the Lake Wobegon river valley by Norwegian bachelor farmers” --Garrison Keillor

The other day, a regular customer to our Front Porch Farm Stand got to talking about raw milk – how expensive it is for a family with kids.   Of course, the conversation turned to how I grew up on raw goat's milk and how our dietary habits have changed over the years.

She wondered what we drank.  I said that we really don’t drink milk at all. Our family has never been big on drinking milk. But when we use milk, we found a way to stretch it.

Stretch Your Stores

I remember my grandmother mixing  powdered milk into regular whole milk as a way of making the milk go further.  She used the instant dry milk and, back then, that did help to make the price of milk more economical.

We rarely use whole milk, but use (Organic) Non-Instant Powdered Milk in our coffee and when baking.  I like to mix up a enough powered milk in a quart canning jar and store it in the fridge for a week's worth of use.

Powdered milk is a very good source of protein and we use the non instant (and, thus, more expensive) kind for more nutritional value.  We find that having fresh milk around when we don't drink or even use that much tends to be a waste as it will spoil.  Having powdered milk around solves the dilemma for us.

Here are some ideas for using Dry Milk:

1. Add to pancakes.
2. Mix in muffin batter.
3. Add to scrambled eggs before cooking.
4. Mix in biscuits.
5. Mix dry milk ahead and refrigerate for drinking.
6. Cook hot cereal in dry milk.
7. Prepare hot chocolate.
8. Make Rice Pudding.
9. Make easy vanilla pudding.
10. Make cold chocolate milk.
11. Make the night before to pour over breakfast cereal.
12. Whiz a milk shake.
13. Prepare macaroni and cheese.
14. Make cream of potato soup.
15. Mix in bread dough.
16. Mix in casseroles.
17. Mix in cornbread.
18. Use in cake batter.
19. Add extra dry milk powder for added protein and calcium.
20. Add two tablespoons to fortify liquid meals with more protein and calcium.
21. Add to mashed potatoes.
22. Make into buttermilk.
23. Add to hot drinks instead of creamer.
24. Use in cookie recipes.
25. Take on trips to use for breakfast cereal.
26. Take camping.
27. Take backpacking.
28. Add to master mix for baked products.
29. Make a cream sauce for pasta.
30. Reconstitute and add to regular milk to reduce cost.
31. Make potato soup.
32. Make evaporated milk: one cup dry milk mixed with 2/3 cup water is the equivalent of 1 can of evaporated skim milk.

List Courtesy of BePrepared2Day

:: Resources ::

Dry Milk No Longer A Frugal Alternative

Powder Milk Biscuits

Recipes Using Powdered Milk via Recipe Chic

and last but not least!

This recent article stresses the importance of how we all should start taking gardening seriously.    Growing your own food in the city: it’s a challenge but a good one - an a very important on too!

Garden As If Your Life Depended On It, Because It Will - Alternet

There are at least five reasons why more of us should take up spade, rake and hoe, make compost and raise good soil and garden beds with a vengeance, starting this spring and with an eye toward forever.

READ MORE

It's officially Spring and what a rocky start  weather wise.   We spiked into the 90’s for a few days and then dipped back under 60 with gray skies  and drizzle.  Crazy!

Busy, busy, busy - bees, biodiesel, soil blocks, picking, packing, watering, planting, building, etc. Where does the time go?  Not complaining; it’s good to have longer days to work on the farm here in the city.

Sis handed me a “to plant list” of things she needs for her home canning operation.    She makes a mean jalapeno jelly and wanted to make sure that I didn’t forget to plant them!

Squash, tomatoes, peppers and beans are all up and ready to transplant into the garden.   The new strawberry starts are filling in nicely. We are expecting to harvest berries in early June and the potatoes are just about ready to be dug up.  I know I’ve been looking forward to homegrown potatoes – they are way better tasting than the store.

The small invasion of aphids is now under control, sweet!  We spotted a couple ladybugs and have already noticed a huge difference on the chard and kales.    Thanks to the exceptionally warm weather last week, the greens seem to have grown a few feet (ok, inches) overnight.  We are now offering a slew of assorted greens at the front porch farm stand.  Sis is manager and CEO ("chief" for short) of the front porch farm stand and she’ll be posting more of what the stand has to offer.   It’s a wonderful feeling to feed the family and be able to offer the surplus produce to folks who are wanting to eat closer to home.

The hennery is cranking out eggs – yeah!

Last week, I helped a friend who manages a few urban bees divide a few hives for spring expansion.  Of course, we had to suit up on the HOTTEST day of the year (so far).   It was sweltering!  Hive work waits for no man, so we both suited up.  Long pants (I HATE long pants), long sleeve shirts and were sweating buckets just after a few minutes work.   I got some delicious honey comb in trade for a couple of hours work. What a treat and worth the (sweaty) effort!

The rescued hive is still here, bees going to and fro. It’s a wonderful site to see bees working the citrus.

March Harvest Tally

252 lbs Produce

Eggs      Chicken 91   Duck 160

2011 Tally to Date

663 lbs Produce

Eggs      Chicken 117   Duck 345

With only a few weeks left till spring, winter isn’t over with us just yet.

After pretty dry & rather warm start to 2011, February ended with a few cold snaps and storms blowing in.    The last storm dumped over 2 inches of rain and brought snow to some parts of LA!  We did get a bit of slushy, mushy "hail like" stuff for a minute.  The mountains that form the dramatic backdrop to the LA basin were covered in snow and that was a majestic sight to behold.

The last few nights have been cold (26 degrees at “Lettuce Level”)  but so far all the greens and vegetables under the row covers are doing just fine.    Since the stone fruits flowered so early we a bit worried that the recent rains and cold will have an affected on the crop this year.   Not only affecting the flowering but the pollination.

This years eats are at the mercy of the weather so we are hoping for a good year and bountiful harvest

February 2011 Harvest Totals

Produce: 118 lbs

Eggs:  38 Chicken    127 Duck

Year to Date Tally

Produce: 411 lbs

Eggs: 46 Chicken    185 Duck

- William Wordsworth rewritten for our times

In winter, when surplus greens are scarce, we supplement our backyard poultry's diet with wheatgrass. Justin sows a few dozen trays and each morning the feather menagerie get a flat of "grass" to nibble on.  Boy, do they go to town on the grass flat!

Not only does their health benefit when the chickens/ducks has the opportunity to graze on “grass” but the people's health also benefits from eating their eggs with increased egg nutrition  (high in Omega 3-s and vitamin D)

The old saying "You are what you eat"  comes to mind,  but also what your critters eat too.

Thank you for coming up and making our first (of hopefully many) "Homestand’s" a positive and successful event (estimated nearly 200 dropped in throughout the day).    Also a big thank you to those who came bearing homemade gifts and complimentary comments.   We appreciate your support!

Like to acknowledge all those who came as far as Redlands, Temecula, Palos Verdes and other surrounding cities!

Justin demos on how to make soil blocks

We know at times it got pretty hectic and swamped to where we couldn’t personally attend to everyone and your lists of questions.  We were so busy, we even didn’t around to doing some of the demo’s/skill share we had planned (canning, chickens, etc)!  Thank you for your understanding & patience as we know many of you wanted to hang around for longer.

Unfortunately, we were so busy (& frazzled at times, running to and fro) we didn't get a chance to snap photos of the even nor did we get around to bringing out the rose petal lemonade - ack!   Jordanne's Chocolate Cake made with ducks eggs sold by the slice was a big hit!   So was the bread, salad and preserves.

Should we do it again NEXT month?  What can we do better?   In fact, we are already working on a list of improvements!  I for one would like to see more foods - perhaps next time we could put a couple tables out with chair?   Ideas, ideas, ideas.

Remember our "Front Porch Farm Stand" is open daily Sun-Fri (10 am - 6 pm) so you can pick up that salad or bread you didn’t get a chance to buy at the stand yesterday.

Thank you for supporting local foods and farms.

:: Resources ::

Soil Block Maker

After an extremely wet December, January's been relatively dry and mild.  For the most part we've been able to have both doors wide open during the day and even venturing outside bare foot.

Seeing and talking with friends back East, seems there's still a LOT of snow and more to come.  Tis' one extreme to another I suppose.

On Sunday we did a major clean up of the urban homestead.   Still to be done is the animal compound - taking out a foot or two of compacted compost that will be this year's new garden soil.   Jordanne's been putting it off because of an old shoulder injury (she got hit while riding a bike by a SUV - the person driving was in the wrong) that flares up in winter.

Much of the back yard garden is under wraps, "floating row covers" that is.  So there's really no purty pictures to be had - though underneath these white clothes are lush carpets of assorted greens and things.  We've even had to cover the snow peas because there's these little birds that pick at the leaves.  Since pea shoots are  such a hot seller at the Front Porch Farm Stand we've had to protect the young pea shoot leaves from being decimated.

The new duckies are laying so there's egg to finally tally.   A few chickens are laying and the others are getting more "talkative" so I suspect they'll be laying any day now.

Here we are again, a new year and a new tally.   After last years record breaking harvest of over 3  1/2 tons ( 7,000 pounds ) of produce, will be interesting to see what this year will bring.  And as any farmer knows it all depends on the weather and keeping the plants healthy to ward off disease and bag bugs.

January Tally

Produce: 293 lbs

Eggs:  Duck 58 / Chicken 8

Like to know if you, readers, or fellow bloggers are Keep Track of your harvest this year?

We are eggstastic (sorry, just had to put that pun in!) that our chooks and ducks are back in the egg business (sorry no extras).  For some reason, this winter (could be because of old age or extreme weather conditions) we weren’t getting any eggs - nadda, zippo, zilch!   Jordanne had to curtail her baking (no chocolate brownies - sniff) and just to have “spare” eggs on hand we picked up a dozen from the South Pasadena farmers market.   Sorta felt weird buying eggs, but at least they were from a local source.

The older (four plus year old) ducks & chickens are passed their prime laying years and the new batch of ducks should be laying  -- any day now, ladies!  We’ll be bringing in a new batch of chicks come Spring so that we can maintain a decent egg production flow here on the urban homestead.

Jordanne’s collected a few local folks who’d like to get in our chick order.    Boy, I can still recall the time (a few years back) that sis and I raised over 150 baby chicks.  Whew, that was some operation!   Backyard chickens were hot, and folks were clamoring on the backyard chicken bandwagon and wanted a local source of naturally raised pullets.   Going to keep things much simpler and smaller this time around – for our sanity!

We still meet people who have said that Jordanne's chickens were the healthiest (and friendliest) they've ever had.  And now that she's put together her super amazing Natural Poultry Formula - you can get your Spring chicks off to a healthy start.

Received a positive phone testimony yesterday. Lady said that Jordanne's selected poultry supplements drastically improved her two sick chickens!!!

Check out Urban Homestead Supply Store for Jordanne's Animal Care Products

Can’t leave the critter compound without snapping a least a few dozen photos of their sometimes crazy antics.

Noon is nap time

zzzzzzz

Crazy Sairey Gamp

Chickens settle down for a nap too

Looking for bugs

Checking out the helicopter that buzzed over the homestead

Sure doesn't look like any bird we know of

If you've been following our harvest tally over the years here's a nifty little HARVEST GRAPH 2001-2009 to give you an idea how we've been at the fore front of urban agriculture food production.

These last few days, I too have been anxiously waiting the final harvest tally from Justin who's been going through the invoice books to tally the herbs and edible flower boxes that we harvested and sold (which came to 117 lbs for the year).

On a side note, we just couldn't figure out how to calculate the weight of 100 plus flats of wheat grass that we grew last year, so we just left them out of the final tally.  Oh well.

The extremely wet and cold December affected our harvest numbers, and of course there are still loads of oranges on the trees but it wouldn't be right to strip the trees clean just to bump up the tally.  We were tempted though!

So the numbers are in!

From our 1/10 acre growing grounds:  Jan 130 lbs, Feb 139 lbs, Mar 396 lbs, Apr 555 lbs, May 590 lbs, Jun 730 lbs, Jul 1110 lbs, Aug 1228 lbs, Sep 638 lbs, Oct 388 lbs, Nov 492 lbs plus 117# herb and flower sales

December 2010

517 lbs of produce

14 duck eggs

0 chicken eggs

2010 Year Total

Our previous harvest record of 6200  has been officially broken .....

Drum roll please!

7,030 lbs of produce (fruits, vegetables and herbs only)

131 lbs of honey

307 duck eggs

706 chicken eggs

Thanks to everyone who entered our contest!  Wow, you guys are good since there were certainly a lot of close guesses!  The prize winners of our "Guess the Harvest Contest"  are:

Anna @ 7010

Carrie @ 7015

Brian @ 7043

Congrats on winning a beautiful and inspirational Little Homestead in the City Calendar - mind, there are only a handful left so get them before they are all gone!

Oh, and you winners, please send us your mailing address.

We hope that you've been inspired to grow MORE of your own groceries.   May 2011 be a productive and a bountiful one for everyone!

With the front porch farm stand’s customers numbers growing on a daily basis, one thing I’ve learned that there’s still much to be done in educating the public about seasonal produce and eggs. Our modern, convenient eating habits are no longer defined by season and place.    Food routes and patterns are forgotten, thanks to the advent of supermarkets.

Local eggs are in such high demand these days thanks to the recent salmonella scare but raising such a small flock here in the city one, unfortunately,  can’t supply the demand.    And it’s dealing with the demand that really tests your commitment to stewardship and sustainability.    It's so easy to slip into "if only we had more land/acreage - more animals."   True, that would help the situation to have a bigger farm; however,  "how big" is too big is the question - one that leads to very lively (sometimes heated) discussions around the dinner table.

Egg production slows down in fall-winter due to molting and less day light hours.   We believe in the humane raising of animals.  Therefore, to supply the demand, would we install "lights" in the coop to "force" our girls to lay in winter?   Or just, like sis (head writer over at Barnyards and Backyards ) says, "Let nature be."  With our 24-7 food culture, there’s a point when some things just aren’t available and it's pointless to "force" even if the method is "harmless."   Our chickens and ducks are happy and our customers should appreciate that fact.

This month I’ve had to tell customers, "Sorry, no eggs, the chickens are moulting."    With a quizzical look they ask, "Moulting?"  "Yeah, that’s right" I answer back ""They are shedding their feathers which stresses them out and so no eggs."    I try to make them feel better and say that we are desperate for fresh eggs too!  The other day Jordanne wanted to bake something only to go to the poultry house and come back with one egg when she needed three.  So guess what?  She had to find another dessert recipe.

Food sustainability is, by far, a great and complicated balancing act and sometimes you just have to let our modern concept of food go.  By raising and growing your own food, you connect with season and place.   Nature is the best teacher, and you learn that you can’t have all food all the time.

:: Resources ::

During autumn, many household poultry keepers, particularly people keeping poultry for the first time, are puzzled because egg production markedly declines or ceases despite their laying birds appearing healthy. This seasonal decline in egg production occurs when birds go into a condition known as the 'moult'.

Moulting is the process of shedding and renewing feathers. During the moult, the reproductive physiology of the bird has a complete rest from laying and the bird builds up its body reserves of nutrients.

The provision of new feathers or a coat (a feature inherent in most animals) is a natural process, designed by nature to maintain a bird's ability to escape enemies by flight and better protect against cold winter conditions.  -- Moulting - how, when and why chickens moult

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