Make a Joyful Noise!

Today was 2 seconds longer than yesterday!  YES!  The next 6 months are my favorite times of the year...the days will be getting longer, and warmer!  Eventually warmer...so much to look forward to on the Rancho.

I probably should subtitle this post "Making Dirt."  I've been working steadily on the expansion, turning it over and adding to it in order to fluff it up.  I formed up 15 rows, still picking out rocks as I went.  Then, using a 2 x 6 board, I formed a smaller trench in each row, filled that with sand and then recovered.  The oaks have given up some of their rotting leaves, sticks, and bark...all that lovely compost that literally covers huge areas under the 100s of oaks on the Rancho.  All I have to do to get to it is move this year's fallen leaves which are really lightweight (no rain to make 'em heavy!)  Every other trench between the rows was filled with this good stuff (probably 3-4" deep and 4-6" wide).

Here's a picture of the rows:

Once I got all that done, I spent several days watering it down.  The weather has been wonderful, sunny skies, breezy and warmer than normal temps.  But, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, NO RAIN.  The counties in the area have posted burn bans (Kimble County not so much!) but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that burning would be a really stupid idea.  The prairie grasses rustle in the wind, it's all extremely brittle and a tenderbox.

The last couple of days I've spent going back through and turning all of these new additions over into the gumbo/manure mixture.  It's almost like having a giant compost pile!  I'm really happy with where it's at...very few clods, the manure is breaking down nicely, and it's definitely fluffier.  My spading fork was going all the way in so it's a good 8" deep...so far.  My thinking is that I need to do the same thing twice more before spring...more sand, more gifts from the trees!  By then all the goodies in the pallet compost piles will be ready to add as I begin the planting.

Here's the better news:  The forecast calls for the possibility of rain in the next couple of days.  Okay, okay, it's only 30% chance tomorrow, up to 60% Friday, but hey, it's a chance and better odds than we've had since TS Hermine came through back in September.  For real, that was the last rain of any consequence this part of the Hill Country has had.  And we got less than areas east of here got at the time (Austin had some flooding problems during Hermine...Austin is 90 miles east on the same latitude as the Rancho).  So fingers crossed.  If it does (notice I'm still in the "if" stage), I'll be able to see if a crust forms on the top layer of the augmented dirt.  I'd be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't form a crust.

So now we wait.  With the possibility of rain comes some really cold weather.  Christmas is this Saturday and it's not supposed to get out of the 40s...yuck.  I've got movies to watch (especially my most fav A Christmas Story!) and I'm babying some seeds that I'm trying to get to sprout.  I'm planning to pick some spinach tomorrow to have with the asparagus and turkey breast I'm planning for my Christmas dinner.  Yummy!

I referred in my first post to my friends' restaurant in Austin.  It's called Zandunga.  I heard back from Christina about their impression of my greens.  Here's what she said:

       "We tasted your greens today and they were amazing! We tasted them against the ones we buy now and it was night and day. We would love to buy our greens from you and possibly put your greens on our menu as local organic farm...Thank you so much and we look forward to enjoying more of your great greens!"

It's the freshness factor, not anything I did.  But it sure is nice to hear!

Hope everyone saw the total lunar eclipse the other night...we did!  I didn't watch the whole thing but when I turned out the lights to go to sleep, the full moon lit up the Rancho!  But when the alarm went off at 2;30 a.m. it was dark so I knew even before lookin' that something had happened to the big spotlight!  Sure nuff, directly overhead was an orange globe with dark spots and the Milky Way was thick.  There was an owl hootin' in the little oaks out front of the house and it was warm enough to look up for a little while.  But back to bed I went, and then sometime before dawn I rolled over and looked out my windows...the spotlight was back and was setting which cast such a shadow on the edge of the house, I thought I'd left the back porch light on...too cool.

Happy Holidays!  Make a joyful noise!

It's a New Day!

Welcome to our blog.  It's a new day in the Hill Country of Texas but we need rain!  I've started this blog to track our farming (or maybe a should say gardening since we're small).  The first year was a success, I fed neighbors, co-workers and friends besides myself and learned a little about freezing and canning.  It's such a joy that I want to do more.  So, I've recently started an expansion of the gardening area.

Last year, I built 4 raised beds and successfully harvested beans, peas, okra, onions, yellow squash, slicing cucumbers and lots and lots of tomatoes, especially heirloom red and yellow pear tomatoes.  Here it is in all it's glory:

And here's one day's harvest:

The expansion will not be raised so I've spent the last 6 weeks digging out the rocks (limestone and flintrock) down to a depth of 6 inches.  I started here:

There's a dry creek bed (an "arroyo") on the property that is surrounded by all kinds of oak trees and is therefore loaded with what I lovingly refer to as "compost in the making."  So far I've added 9 20-lb. bags of this compost to the new area as well as a pickup bed load of horse manure (can you see the difference?)

The locals refer to our dirt as gumbo...it's black clay which has to be augmented and supplemented in a big way in order to make it workable.  I've got 2 compost piles made from wooden pallets and these supplied more than enough compost for last year's beds.  I'm going to have to keep them working in a big way this year in order to have enough for both gardening areas.  So bear with me as I work to make the new area ready for spring. 

The raised beds have beets, mesclun mix, spinach, kale, and brussel sprouts for harvesting over the winter.  Just today I picked a gallon of mesclun, and a quart each of spinach and kale which I am taking to my friends in Austin who have a wonderful new restaurant on East 11th Street...I can't remember the name but it's a Mexican Bistro with a full service bar.  Hopefully they'll be able to incorporate my harvest into their menu...sharing the harvest is the best part of the work involved!