Lauren December 2, 2017 Leave a Comment

10 Lessons Learned from Last Year’s Garden 2017

2017 was my second year gardening a rented plot at my local community garden. This year I had 600 sqft of freshly tilled soil to learn to grow, and make my fair share of gardening mistakes. My 2016 garden was a great success and I shared my lessons learned: 10 Lessons Learned from Last Year's Garden 2016.

This year was a repeat success in some areas and an utter failure in other areas. You can find my final garden yields here: Final 2017 Community Garden Yields. This is what I learned from this year's garden.

Lessons Learned from Last Year's Garden 2017

#1 Plant more green beans!

I planted approximately 20sqft of green beans and yielded 15 lbs. Most these got canned or frozen so we could enjoy them all year long. I loved the Provider Green Beans from High Mowing Seeds, they continually produced throughout the season. However, my family also loved my green beans and requested more. I expect to plant more green beans next year, as fresh green beans from the garden at AMAZING.

#2 Peas need support

In 2016 I planted peas along a short fence as an experiment but didn't really expect much. They were pretty tasty so I planted more. I also noticed that in the large Victory Garden run by volunteers to feed the Food Pantry, the peas didn't have support. Well this year I planted the peas without support and turns out, I was wrong! My peas did OK, without support but largely fell over and the under ones rotted as the upper ones crushed them. Next year peas will be planted with a fence for them to grow up.

#3 Try potatoes

I recognize that my 400 sqft community lot will not provide all I need for my family, even my family of 2. I view my garden as an experimental place to learn to grow crops that I will want to grow abundantly in the future. I have shied away from potatoes as I hear they are a pain to dig up. BUT I need to learn to grow potatoes. So next year, in 2018 I will be growing potatoes!

#4 Tomatillos ripen slowly.

This was my first year growing tomatillos, first time ever seeing a tomatillo plant in real life. (Kinda sad, but that's city life for you). I expected my tomatillos to need support like tomatoes but I found this not the case. Towards the end of the season they started to droop, but they didn't need the tomato cages I expect. Also tomatillos ripen very slowly, I would find a few ready here and there each day. It was not like my tomatoes when 10lbs would ripen in a day and then a week later another batch. This made it so I had to save the tomatillos, holding them until I had enough to can or make salsa. I think the 5 plants will supply us the right amount for the amount of green salsa we like to eat.

#5 Long Island Cheese Pumpkins grow great

Long Island Cheese Pumpkins are an heirloom species, that grow smaller white pumpkins. I found they grew amazingly well, producing +20 feet vines and many pumpkins. So far the pumpkins have sat on my shelf and preserved well. I like the taste of them for Pumpkin Butter and hope to grow more of them soon. In comparison my Jack Straw pumpkin rotted before it ripened, which was sad.

Long Island Cheese Pumpkin

#6 Most squash rotted before ripening.

I had lots of trouble this year keeping my squash from rotting. I tried putting wood chips under them so the water would drain away. I watched them closely for signs of rot. Perhaps it was just wetter than last year, but my butternuts, acorns, jack straw pumpkins and Boston Marrow squash all struggled to ripen. The gentleman in the garden plot next to mine put bricks under his pumpkins, so maybe I will try that next year.

#7 It was not a great year for peppers.

Last year I got amazing peppers from the handful of plants I grew. This year, I think I transplanted them too soon in the ground. However this was not my only problem, I then bought store bought peppers (Starting Seeds or Buying Transplants: Which is Better for Your Garden?) and these also didn't fare well. While they didn't die, they also had stunted growth and didn't produce. I did use fertilizer and they had mulch to prevent them from drying out. All in all, this one has me stumped. If I was in a survival mode, I would be bartering for peppers this year.

#8 Otricoli Orange Berries (from Baker Creek Seeds) taste gross.

I was super excited this season about trying these orange berries I found in the Baker Creek Seed catalog. I had trouble germinating them, but after sticking the seeds in the fridge for a week the seeds popped right up. They are in the nightshade family like tomatoes, potatoes and the wild poison nightshades. However they were rumored to have the consistency of a tomato but taste like citrus! That sounded amazing to me, citrus berries grown in cold Massachusetts. Well, I thought they tasted like bitter tomatoes not citrus. They were quite prolific in their nasty tasting berries.

Upside Down Orange Berry Plant

#9 Zucchini is not fail proof.

Everyone always seem to be over run with zucchini as their plants tend to be quite prolific. Last year my zucchini were amazing, growing huge squashes. This year, I may have transplanted them too soon or something. They died pretty quick and those that didn't die didn't have enough energy to fight off the squash bugs. I did have some yellow squash in the late summer from a second attempt but not the overflowing bounty most gardeners complain about.

# 10 Be careful with your seed pots

I had 2 problems with year when I started seeds in pots.

First, I didn't have enough pots for every seedling to have it's own pot. This was a mistake, I ended up having to separate seedlings to plant then and mangled their root systems. This had mixed results but mostly poor.

Second, I bought some plants from a nursery that came in bio-degradable pots. When I was ripping out plants at the end of the year, I found the pots! The non-bio-degradable pots were binding up the roots and may have contributed to stunted growth.

So plant 1 plant per pot and don't use the bio-degrable pots as they don't break down fast enough.

Conclusion

If you haven't checked out the yield of my garden, you can find them here: Final 2017 Community Garden Yields. I feel my 2017 garden was a great success, I learned and expanded my capabilities to be self-reliant. Next year will bring more opportunities to grow plants and grow my experience.

Read more:

How did you garden do this year? What do you plan to change for next year?

Join the Modern Self-Reliance Community

What you'll get:

Homesteading how-to's like canning and cooking
Disaster planning and preparedness advice
Honest reviews of hands-on learning classes

Lauren November 18, 2017 Leave a Comment

10 Things I Learned on my First Deer Hunt

A Beginner's View into Learning to Hunt Deer

My hope with this article is to provide some insight into learning to hunt deer from someone who didn't grow up hunting. I am an outsider to the sport and very much tried to ask (and answer) the dumb questions so you don't have to. Learning a new sport or hobby can be intimidating, especially when people use jargon you don't understand and don't always explain what they are talking about, because everyone else already knows.

This article is about my first impressions and what I learned on my first hunting trip.

First Steps to learning to hunt:

Take a hunter education course. (Tim and I took ours from Mass Wildlife)
Optional: Take a firearm safety class to get a license to carry a firearm. (Tim and I took Boston Firearm Training Center)
Find a friend or hire a hunting guide. (We found a friend, but lacking friends who hunt, you can hire a guide.)

Join the Modern Self-Reliance Community

What you'll get:

Homesteading how-to's like canning and cooking
Disaster planning and preparedness advice
Honest reviews of hands-on learning classes

#1 How To Draw a Crossbow

When drawing a crossbow, the bow must be set in the "fire" position (the safety-off). As you draw the bow up, it will lock the string into place and set it into "safe" mode. If the bow is in "safe" mode when you draw the crossbow, you will hear the string lock into place however it will be locked lower than required and will not fire. You will load the arrow, put the crossbow in "fire" mode and be unable to pull the trigger. To fix this, remove the arrow. Set the bow to "fire" mode, draw the string back higher, where it will lock into position in it's proper position.

Like everything else, how did we learn this? We drew the crossbow, set the arrow, I lined up my shot and squeezed the trigger. I first thought it was not like a gun trigger and required a bit more force, I squeezed harder, thinking I was a weakling. Nope, the crossbow was locked. Luckily we learned this while practicing with the crossbow in the backyard, and not while staring at a live deer.

We were hunting with the Barnett Whitetail Hunter Crossbow.

Tim learning to draw the crossbow

10 Things I Learned on My First Hunting Trip

Lauren learning to fire the crossbow

#2 Camo is for Show

Camouflage is mostly just for show. In fact, deer are color blind which is why the hunter orange works great at preventing other hunters from accidentally shooting each other. The deer can't see orange from green or brown. The camo however is good for the pattern, and blending in rather than being a solid mono-tone color. However if you are in a tree-stand it doesn't really matter what you are wearing.

I will admit when seeing hunters, I was intimated by their large guns and head-to-toe camo. So it's good to know, you don't need military style camo to hunt.

#4 Counting #-point Buck

The number of points of a buck (8-point buck) is the physical count of the points on it's antlers. This may seem super obvious to those who live close to life-long hunters, but ask any city folk what 8-point buck means and they may attribute it to something like a 25k carat diamond, means it is a big deer but don't have a sense of what it exactly means. The number of points is related to genetics, how much food the deer found and how big it is, not a direct count of how old the deer is.

#5 Hunting Can Get Cold

Hunting, by that I mean sitting in one spot waiting for a long while, can get mighty cold! Wear layers, bring gloves, scarves, hand warmers, etc. Don't forget warm boots and your hunter orange vest over top.

Cold and waiting for deer

#6 Deer at Creatures of Habit

Whitetail deer are creatures of habit, they will walk the same trail even if they got shot at yesterday. We saw a 6-point buck but missed the shot. Afterwards we talked to our guide's father who said he also took a shot at the same deer a few days ago. Near-death experiences don't seem to change a deer's habits.

#7 Deer Sleep in Dense Brush

Deer will sometimes bed down in leaves or bushes during the day. Walking around the woods can spook from from their spot, where you might have a chance to hunt them. While deer typically are most active at dawn and dusk, you can sometimes spot them grazing during the day.

#8 Bucks Follow A Doe and her Fawn

Very often if you see a doe and her fawn there will a buck on her trail, looking for a mate. Since she already has a kid, she puts off pheromones that tell the buck she is more apt to mating. So if you see the doe/dawn pair, wait for the buck.

#9 Coo at the Deer

If you want the deer to look at you, to line up a shot better make cooing or clucking noises at it. Just like you would cluck at a horse or coo at a baby to get their attention, it works the same with the deer. They may take a step out from behind a tree, so you can line up your shot.

#10 Deer Hunting Can be Relaxing

Sitting in the woods quietly, listening to the birds and squirrels while watching for any movement is quite relaxing. Until a deer walks by, then the adrenaline starts pumping.

Tim overcoming his fear of heights in a tree stand

Conclusion

Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to take down a deer on this hunt, but I am thankful for the opportunity to start to learn to hunt whitetail deer. Many thanks to our friend Doyle for taking us out on his land, letting us use his equipment, and for teaching us a thing or ten about hunting.

Other Experiences:

Share you first hunting trip story in the comments below.

Join the Modern Self-Reliance Community

What you'll get:

Homesteading how-to's like canning and cooking
Disaster planning and preparedness advice
Honest reviews of hands-on learning classes

10 Things I Learned on My First Deer Hunt | Beginner's View on Learning to Hunt

Lauren May 20, 2017 Leave a Comment

10 Lessons Learned from Last Year’s Garden 2016

This summer 2017 I will be continuing to learn to garden through the use of a 800 sqft community garden plot. I will post throughout the summer my progress, yields, and setbacks.

Last summer (2016), my first year, was a great success but I learned many lessons. I feel it is always important to review last year's garden before planning this year's.

10 Lessons Learned from Last Year's Garden (2016):

Corn is really difficult to grow in this spot and no one in the history of this community garden has been successful.
Broccoli takes up a lot of space (proportionally more space than we enjoy eating broccoli)
Squash bugs are devil spawn and planting squash early helps to make the plants healthy before the killer rise from hell.
Marigolds work great at keeping aphids away from tomatoes. Learn other solutions for pest management here ----- Common Indoor Gardening Pests -----.
Deep watering tomatoes and zucchini works great! I planted plastic containers in the ground next to the plant and filled those to water the roots directly.
Mulch really cuts down on water use and weeds.

Sweet Peas are nature's candy and I should plant so much more of them. They also work well with support.
Don't plan garden beds to be deeper than you can reach in to weed (or harvest) without entering. For me the 4" wide rows were good if I could access them from both sides.
Lavender and sunflowers should not be directly sown on the soil. I am pretty sure the birds ate all my seeds, even the planted sunflowers. Either way, not a single sprout.
Don't plan to take vacation during mid-late August when your garden is ready to harvest. It was also really hot and didn't get as much water as it needed despite me asking friends to stop by and water.

Conclusion

There you have it folks, 10 lessons I learned from last year's garden in 2016. I plan to think on these while I plan this year's garden. The layout is already in the works and seedling have been started.

What didn't work in your garden last year? What did you try that worked better than expected? Thanks for stopping by!

Follow along my journey and watch for more community garden posts, like this one:

My Community Garden Layout for Summer Success

10 Lessons Learned from Last Year's Garden 2017

Join the Modern Self-Reliance Community

What you'll get:

Homesteading how-to's like canning and cooking
Disaster planning and preparedness advice
Honest reviews of hands-on learning classes