A Day At The Farm

Another weekend At Our Tiny Farm 

We came in from the city last night so that we could start work early morning work. So after being woken up by the dogs early morning at 5am to a beautiful morning with low hanging clouds I made a beeline to the garden. The morning started off with low lying clouds floating by but the afternoon would be a different story.

 I got down to sowing some seeds. Spent about an hour getting the French beans, spinach and radish seeds into the soil. Harvested some tomatoes, French beans, and tomatoes 🍅. All grown organically.

Steeped some organically grown peppermint and stevia in green tea to kick start my morning. It’s over the weekends that we tend to the farm. 

Today, along with my husband and teen daughter, managed to get the next set of we managed to get the support for my trellises up for the beans seeds sowed. Beautiful day as the rains came in bits and spurts. What started as a pleasant morning was quickly turned into a stormy afternoon, with rain and winds howling away. 

 

The contrasts of the same landscape between mornings are evening was amazing. On Sunday I managed to get some time to spray an infusion of neem oil, asafoetida, baking soda, and a tiny amount of soap over my plants to keep aphids and other bugs off my crops. Asafoetida has proven to be very effective against termites and ants. Being a completely organic farm I keep looking for organic options to get rid of pests. If anyone you have more suggestions of how I could keep caterpillars and Crickets out please do mention in the comments. Some of my produce harvested over the weekend. 

Rose Lassie Recipe -refreshing and healthy

Recipe for Summer Drink: Beaten curd with organic rose petals 

Ingredients 

8-10 edible roses

2liters of thick curds

Sugar or Stevia as per taste 

Time 

10 minutes

Method

In a blender add curds, rose petals, sugar, or Stevia as per taste. You can a little water if you like the consistency to be thinner. Not blend it all together. It can be had directly or chilled before drinking.

  

Homemade Grape Wine Recipe- From Farm Fresh Grapes

Homemade Grape Wine Recipe - Red/Blue Grapes 

What could be better than to be locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic just when the blue grapes or red grapes, as I call them, filled the markets.

Generally, the best quality of grapes is exported or land up in some swanky grocery store but this time I managed to get some for me. And while I debated between grape wine or grape jam or every simpler grapes juice, I landed up making grape wine with the entire lot of them. Sharing my recipe of homemade grapes wine, which is easy to make, and refreshing. Even someone who hasn't ever made homemade wine can try it out.

Ok, for starts I like my grape wine sweet and flavoured. You can avoid some of the ingredients I am sharing below if you would like simple wine. Although the flavours can be refreshing, but then everyone has a different pallet. And second I like my wine a bit thick and fruity.

Recipe 

1kg blue/red grapes
1kg sugar
1/4 tp dry yeast 
2 litres of water ( you can take 1 1/2 of water if you want your wine thicker)
2pods of cardamom (Avoid if you don't want any flavour )
1inch stick of cinnamon (Avoid if you don't want added flavour )

Tools
Jar to hold the wine 
Muslin cloth for straining 

Time
Prep time: 1/2 hour
Fermentation: Min 21 days


Method

Fermentaion Stage one
Un-bunch all the grapes. Basically, remove them from their pedicle. Wash them well to remove traces of chemicals. Now boil water in a big vessel and sock the grapes in it for a few minutes. Gently rub the grapes to remove traces of any chemical residue. You don't want disinfectants to contaminate your wine.

Drain the water from the grapes. Boil 2 litres of water and allow to cool. Crush the grapes with your hands or if you have a crusher. Don't put it in a mixy or blender. That will ruin the taste of the wine as the seeds will also get crushed.

Once the water has cooled down add the grapes, sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, yeast and the cooled down water into the jar. Mix once and shut the lid.

Now let your jar sit in a cool dark place for it to ferment in peace. You will need to, over the next few days continue to release the CO2 gas that gets formed as the fermentation process proceeds. So open the jar every day and give it one stir.

This is my DIY winemaking bottle that allows access gas to escape while having an airlock. Will share on how to make this in another blog.

Fermentation Stage 2 

After about 14 days we need to strain the liquid. Take a muslin cloth and pour the fermented liquid through it. Squeeze the grapes so that all the juice gets strained. Do ensure no yeast passes into the strained liquid.

Pour the liquid into an airtight jar or bottle and let it stand undisturbed for at least another 10 days. This would allow the secondary fermentation to happen and any particles would settle to the bottom.



Tips: More sugar would mean more alcohol. Yeast breaks down sugar and gives out alcohol but don't overdo it :)
If at the end of the first fermentation stage you find the wine very dry, which means hardly any sweetness you can add 1/2 cup of sugar before the second stage of fermentation starts.
You can taste the wine as it proceeds so you would be able to taste the flavours as the liquid changes from fruity to acidic and alcoholic

Baked Stuffed Chicken Summer Squash - Farm Fresh Recipes

Baked Stuffed Chicken Summer Squash

If fun when you can get some fresh organic stuff from the farm and turn it into something amazing. Here one of my favorites from our Tiny Farm Large Life 

Ingredients
1 Round squash,
1/4 Red bell pepper 
2 tbs corn kernels
1/4 Cup boiled shredded chicken
1/2 Tomato 
1/2 Cup cooked rice 
1/4 Cup cheddar cheese
I tbs Butter 
1/2 tsp Powdered garlic 
2-3 Crushed fresh basil leaves
Olive oil

Feeds: 1 Squash per person

Method

Outer Shell
Cut the top of the squash in such a way that it forms a cap for the squash. Scoop out the seeds from inside leaving the fleshy sides. Now brush the inside and outside of the summer squash with olive oil and sprinkle some salt on it. Set this aside to bake at 250 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Stuffing
Mix all the remaining ingredients, which include cooked rice, finely chopped bell pepper, chicken, corn kernels, tomato, and cheese. Add the garlic powder, fresh basil leaves, and salt to taste and mix well.
Stuff all into the other shell cover with the cap and continue to bake for another 30 minutes at 250 degrees.

Yum baked stuffed summer squash is ready

FarmLand Tales - The Next Big Step

Planting The Saplings - Tiny farm Large Life

Plans !!!! why do I ever make them? I had planted a lot of seeds as I had PLANNED on finishing my #nodigbeds and bought some seedlings from the nearby farmer's nursery too. AND then what happens ?? #CORONAVIRUS. No thankful I am still and so is my family but the world around is falling apart.

And everything is on a #lockdown. No movement, #stayhome and stay #quarantined.

We had thankfully managed to plant the chrysanthemum seedlings, a whole row of egg-plant seedlings, a few peppers, and squash seedlings before things froze. As we stay in the city, due to our regular jobs we weren't able to go back to the farm as we do every weekend.

Three weeks ago we got 2000 saplings of chrysanthemums and about 600 cuttings of roses. Along with that 100 seedlings each of peppers, tomatoes and eggplants.

We prepared the beds for chrysanthemums with #neemcakes and #bonemeal. Then got out the drip irrigation pipes laid before covering them with plastic mulching sheets. I bought the mulching sheets online via amazon.in .  The ones I picked up were 4 feet wide and about 25 micron. Next time I do want to try out a more eco-friendly option and would like to try using straw instead. While plastic mulching is quick and easy I am a bit uncomfortable with all that plastic. But as I want to conserve water and reduce the growth of weeds, mulching is a must.

It took us a whole day and three sets of hands to complete the transplanting of chrysanthemums. By the end of a long hot, and tiring day we got the job finished. So YAY!! For both my husband and me all this is new :)

But we were happy.

The next weekend we started on to get the #roses and food plants into the ground. Made this small video covering the events.

Farmland tales-No dig Beds

To Dig Or Not To Dig - Tiny Farm Large Life

March -2020

It's been a while since I posted my updates. A lot has been on, on the farm but progress has been slow.
We were also trying to get our container house up, which went through its own cycle of ups and downs. I'll cover that in another post

I have been reading and learning a lot about #notill beds and #nodig beds and so I wanted to try it out. Our land hasn't been tilled for years and while it's fertile it has a rocky touch to it. So as a first timer we had to dig the major part of the land. I still retained a part of it since inquisitive me wanted to try out raised beds to grow some of the vegetables.

I got some good organic compost and started on with two beds two begin with. The progress can be seen through the images shared below.

My red lady papaya plants seem to have grown a bit and are happy with the sunshine.

To start with I dug a tiny bit into the hard ground which I think was of no use finally, then laid out a layer of cardboard. Wetted the cardboard a bit before laying out a layer of compost. This was followed by a layer of dry leaves and then a layer of soil.

I still haven't been able to get the edges of the raised bed done as I have hardly been able to come to the farm in the last couple of months.

I just managed to get it done for one small bed in which I planted some spinach seedlings.

For the rest of the farm, we did a regular tractor tilling, leveling and smoothing before we laid out the pipes for drip irrigation.

To help improve the soil quality we got in a cartload of chicken poop manure, along with neem cakes and bone meal. With the first phase of nourishing the land done, we will not get on to making the beds before laying out the mulching sheets.

More coming up in my next post.

Farmland tales - The Passion Fruit House

Nov -week 3 :Tiny Farm Large Life gets a passion fruit house 

Or I should say almost. This weekend I visited the farm after a gasp of two whole weeks. The rain and my work travel had made it really difficult to make it to the farm.

A couple of weeks back I had planted passion fruit plants. At that time I had only given those tiny plants temporary support. But passion fruit plants can grow 5-8 feet and a good support. So instead of regular trellis I decided on making a cozy Passion fruit shed.

We bought some wood from the wood seller close to the farm and got my husband to start working on the structure. This is what we ended up making

Someday hopefully once the Passion fruit creepers have gown and cover the entire structure it would be a prettier site. Until then .... it’s a big dream on our tiny farm. 

So while my husband was digging and tying the wooden pieces to get the structure into place I went about my rock collection. Unfortunately we have a lot of rocks on our tiny farm but I am trying to make full use of them. So started of making my little pathway. 

It’s not anywhere even close to done ... infact just started off now. But hopefully as we go along,  my pathways will get some more structure. This weekend our guava plant also surprised us with beautiful white blossoms. Though I know it’s too early for the plant to bloom.... I just couldn’t help feeling happy. Maybe next week when I come back here I’ll pluck the flowers and let the plant spend its energy on growing rather than blossoming so early. But for today it stays.

Another surprise was this weed I found growing . I don’t know it’s name but it was beautiful 

If anyone knows it’s name please do let me know . 

Farmland Tales- It’s not a bed of roses always

Germination Blues- Tiny Farm Large Life

It’s not a happy picture always and sure it’s not one around my germination kits. This time across all my seedlings .... I have had only one germination per plant type !!!!! How does one explain that ....hmmm!!!!

And all from different seeds . And I have always had almost 70% germination success.

You can see in the image up there is only one Lemon Balm guy peeking its head out, one Lavender, one marigold, one Calendula !!! The only 1 I am happy with ... so far ... is the one creeper rose 🥀 that’s sprouted. I have never germinated a rose plant from a seed ever before and didn’t think I would see any joy. So this time just to try it out I sowed two creeper rose seeds and one germinated. It took a good 3 weeks to finally burst open. But it’s still a wait and watch to see if that guy has the strength to continue growth.

So for me I need to restart the process of sowing my seeds again. Maybe this time I won’t directly sow them in loose cocopeat but will try the compact cocopeat coins which swell up when you add water to them. I order some from Biobloom online on Amazon.

Farmland Tales - Planning My Garden

Planning My Garden - At Tiny Farm Large Life 

At our tiny farm with dreams its now planning time. It takes a lot of planning when you are starting on your farm from ground zero. Planning your farm or planning your garden may sound easy but when you have an absolute open field, thoughts can run all over the place. It has been raining almost every day for the past two weeks and work at the farm is almost at standstill. Although the fruit trees I  have planted so far are quite happy with the rain the rest of the work will have to wait. I needed to get some raised beds done and my structure for the passion fruit plants I planted last week but I guess will need to wait for now.

So I decided to spend my time planning my garden and researching how I would like the layout to pan out. I had ordered some seeds last week which got delivered to be today.

Although I initially wanted to get some local seeds, I finally reconciled to ordering them online. It will be a wait and watch the game to see how good the germination is.

Earlier I had ordered some cherry tomato and Jalapeno seeds from Kraft via Amazon and got almost 100% germination. This time I have ordered some from All That Grows.

Since 50% of the cultivation is going to be flowers, I wanted to get started with the seedlings.
I am planning on a small vegetable garden which would be mainly for our consumption or maybe barter.

Seeds From All That Grows 

I got some grow bags and some more compost to start the germinations. So this week I sowed the seeds for Lemon balm, Marygold, and Calendula. 

This week also happened to be the Diwali week. And I had to light a little lamp at our tiny farm with big dreams. It truly is a tiny farm with big dreams.  

Add caption

Farmland Tales - Planting Fruit Trees

Farmland Tales - Planting Fruit Trees - Oct Week 4

Passion Fruit, Mango And Citrus Plantation 

So what's happening this week at our tiny farm with big dreams? 

Today is planting day again if I had a wand I would have converted our piece of the farm into a food forest in a woosh. I really want to get the garden up and green but well things are going to be slow. So we made one more trip to the nursery and got our selves some sweet lemon plants, Kafir lime, Mango, orange, two more passion fruit plants, and Betel nut leaf creeper. And of course, we have Bogey, our Shih Tzu, out here again with us.

Purple Passion Fruit 
In India, Passion Fruit is grown in many states. The two main variants of passion fruit in India are the purple passion fruit and the yellow passion fruit. Kerela has been lately leading in the cultivation of passion fruits in India.

I will come back in a couple of weeks to get my structure ready for the Passion fruit plants. One needs to have a spacing of at least a foot between two plants while planting these beauties, as they can grow up to about 8 feet. Since the plants can last up to 4 years - if not more - they need a good structure or trellis for them to grow. The first fruit-bearing generally happens in 6-8 months and the first year is generally not so great in terms of numbers of fruits but from the second year on each plant should be bearing about 200 or more fruits per vine.

For the lemon, mango, lemon and orange plants we dug holes about two feet into the soil at a gap of about 15 feet, added in some organic compost and placed the plants and filled the holes with dirt.

We spent a few hours planting and painting the walls and finally exhausted camped out for some beer.

Planting Kaffir Lime 

The sun can get really hot and exhausting by around 11 am so we try to plan our work early in the morning before its gets too hot. Ofcourse then its picnic and camping time before packup.
And you can guess who had worked the most ....!!!

Hydroponics - My first Attempt

Hydroponics - My first Attempt At Kratky System

Before I set up my hydroponics system at the farm I wanted to try my hand at it. To understand it better and make all the mistakes I needed to make while my investments were small. And so started my small experiment in what I call my green-home-lab.

I started from scratch, which meant, starting all the way from sowing and germinating seeds organically, to setting up my system. You can read all about the method I followed for seed germination in my blog by following the link above. For my experiment, I used Jalapaneo and tomato seedlings which I grew from seed.

Kratky system is one of the simplest hydroponic methods of growing food. This involves growing plants in still clean water by adding organic nutrients in intervals and aerating the water at regular intervals. Here is a step-by-step process of setting up your first Kratky system

Step 1
Get online or hop to your nearest gardening equipment store and get your self some net cups, cocopeat, hydroponics nutrients, and small clay balls - these would be needed to support the plant as it grows.

Step 2
Preparing the container to grow your plants. You could use a mason jar or old pet bottles. Select the jar in such a way that your net cup fits well at its mouth. The net cup shouldn't slip into the jar nor should it stand out above the jar. The rim of the net cup should sit firmly on the rim of your mason jar's mouth. Incase you are using pet bottles, carefully cut the top of the bottle so that the net cup sits on its rim well. See the image below to help you get an idea.
Now cover the outer surface of your container with silver foil so that no sunlight can reach the roots once you have planted your sapling. This is important because if sunlight starts getting to the water it can promote the growth of harmful bacteria and algae which would lead to root-rot and eventually decaying of your plant.

Once this is done your container is ready to be used

Container Preparation For Kratky System - Hydroponics 

Step 3 
Once your seedling has grown two to three true leaves it is ready to be transplanted. Add a few clay balls to the base of the net cup then add in your seedling and pack the sides with a bit of coco peat and clay balls. Now you fill your Kratky container prepared earlier with RO water and add in the nutrients as per the instructions on the nutrient box's cover. The nutrients ware mainly NPK mix and Epsom salt. Next, gently place the net cup with the plant on to the month of your jar.

And that its. Place the jar either under LED lights or at a place where you don't have strong sunlight. Ensure you aerate the water using a simple aquarium air pump every day for at least 20 - 30 minutes (if not more)

A few things to be cautious about ....ensure water stays clean. If you see the water clouding or the roots turning a dirt brown it means there is some bacterial activity on. Change the water immediately.
And if needed clip the brown roots.
The root system should be healthy and white

That’s how I set up my Kratky system and now I have healthy Jalapeños and tomato plants