Our seeds have finally arrived!

It may seem like a ton of seeds for only 2300 square feet of garden, but with our new biodynamic farming practices, all of these seed varieties will be fully utilized:

asparagus
beans
yard long
green
Linda Sisco's bird egg
fava
Kentucky wonder snap
beets
Detroit red
Burpee's golden
blackberries
broccoli
cabbage
premium late flat Dutch
Napa
carrots
Amarillo yellow
Chaterney
Hercules
lunar white
oxheart
purple haze
St. Valery
cauliflower, giant of Naples
celery, tango
corn, country gentleman
cover crop, crimson clover
cucumber,
Japanese climbing
Thai golden round
egg plant
Thai yellow
udmalbet
herbs
anise
basil
black cumin
broad leaf sage
caraway
chamomile
chocolate mint
chrysanthemum
dill
dotted mint
Greek oregano
lavender
lavender thyme
mint
Oxaca cilantro
purple basil
rosemary
rue
Russian taragon
shiso
St. John's wort
sweet marjoram
thyme
titan parsley
wormwood
grape, Concord
greens
America Spinach
Amish deer tongue
arugula
Asian mix
bibb lettuce
Black seeded Simpson lettuce
de morges braun lettuce
escarole
extra dwarf pak choy
glory endive
Limestone lettuce
Mustard
old mix
Olympia spinach
pan-Pacific stirfry mix
red orach
ridicchio
Romaine lettuce
Shanghai green choy
spectrum mix
winter greens
fennel, Florence
kohlrabi, purple
melon
Banana
Green Machine
Evan's sweet
Misc. (non-edible)
dishcloth luffa
nipple fruit
Plum Granny or Queen Anne's Pocket
onion
bleu de solaise leek
cipollini-bianca di maggio
ishikura bunching
purple bunching
Tokyo long white bunching
tropeana lunga
yellow of parma
parsley root, hamburg rooted
pea
Oregon sugar
sugar ann
peppers
ancho
alma paprika
candlelight
cayenne
sweet yellow mini stuffing
shishito (mild)
yellow bell
potato, carola
pumkin, Galeux d'Eysines
shallots, Dutch red
squash
cucuzza
Kamo Kamo
lemon
Mongogo Du Guetemala
romanesco zucchini squash
Taturne
white scallop
strawberries
tomatoes
carbon (purple)
cream sausage
Illinois beauty
Jo Thienemann's Australian heart
orange fleshed purple smudge
roma
sausage roma
thessaloniki red
white tomesol
yellow
Misc. cherry
watermelon
black watermelon
Wilson's sweet

This list includes new seeds we purchased, and older seeds we saved ourselves from vegetables we grew in the past. Fortunately if we save our seeds properly, we won't have to buy seeds for subsequent years.

Oh, we're so trendy...

NPR's All Things Considered ran a little piece this evening about the growing popularity of people raising backyard chickens in urban settings. We can only hope that the movement will gain even more momentum in the near future, causing municipalities nationwide to loosen up on their livestock regulations. You can listen to NPR's story by clicking here.

Incubator, MacGyver style

Justin finished making our first incubator earlier this week. With sustainability in mind, he fashioned the incubator out of an old kitchen cabinet, a used water heater thermostat, two used lighting fixtures, and our old weather thermometer. We found an automatic egg-turner off eBay, and stuck some Styrofoam in there for added insulation. Unfortunately, the water heater thermostat doesn't seem to be as sensitive as we need, and the temperature inside keeps dipping too low or climbing too high. We've since ordered a more sensitive thermostat which should arrive in the mail shortly. In the meantime we're keeping our fingers crossed and testing out the incubator's efficacy on five Cinnamon Queen eggs we got from our homesteading friends who sold us the breeding rabbits.

Animal news: Rabbits

Meet the newest additions to our homestead!


We picked up a trio of breeding rabbits today - two sisters (below) and an unrelated buck (the silver guy up above). They're about 10 weeks old and should be ready to start breeding in the Spring. We're still thinking up some suitable names... any suggestions?

A History of Gastronomy

New Year, New Beginnings

The two of us at YellowTree Farm are really excited about 2009, and we have some big plans in store for the coming year.

First, I finally quit my day job selling cars right before the holidays so that I can concentrate all my time and energy on gardening and caring for animals. Fortunately, while much of the nation's economy is struggling, Danielle managed to land herself a better job and starts next week. Her new salary will afford the both of us some peace of mind as we dive deeper into the waters of homesteading.

In animal news: We're in the final stages of selecting the various animal breeds we plan on raising this year. We're getting some rabbits in the next few weeks (for food and worms), and we have two Nigerian Dwarf Dairy goats scheduled to be born on the 11th. Unfortunately, hatching eggs of the breeds of geese and chicken we desire won't be available until February, so those will have to wait a little longer. In an effort to maintain peace with our neighbors and keep the noise down, we've decided not to have any roosters. We will focus breeding rabbits, quail, duck, and geese.

Other sustainable excitement: I just got done rehabbing the neighbor's old, abandoned chicken coop. It was a mess at the beginning, but I've spent time cleaning it out and recently finished installing new nesting boxes. It still needs a few more roosts before the girls can move into the coop in the Spring.

We also ran into trouble finding a local source for oil lamps, but luckily we found some people selling them on the internet. Our lamps should be here within the week. We can't wait to see how many ways we can cut down on our energy usage this year.

We're still anticipating our biggest expense to be the compost and soil building components. We need this before we can begin the back breaking process of the double digging method of biointensive gardening. Danielle's working on submitting a proposal to Lowe's sponsorship program to see if the corporation will be willing to donate some of the materials we need. We hope to hear a response from Lowe's before the end of winter.

Keep checking back to see updates on all our happy animals and planting progress.

Happy New Year, and happy homesteading

Justin