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thestudentfarmer · 3 months

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Good afternoon everyone~

It's cold, windy and it's been raining on and off all day but I finally got out to harvesting the sweet potatoes.

I started with the 'L' bed.

This is the bowl I'll be using to collect the spuds for this deep raised bed.

Those are full size scissors btw. This is the absolute biggest strainer I own and when I do harvesting I'm always glad to have it! Helps with carrying and washing off dirt outside so much easier!

It was pretty fun digging round for the spuds and to be honest the size and shape of some of them really suprised me!

For some size comparison, my hand is right on top of them.

All cleaned out!

Next was the little round bed in the corner. I wasn't really expecting much, but it filled the bin pretty good.

I've washed the spuds off and am letting them dry off but I'll be finding a spot inside soemwhere to let them sit and cure for a bit of time. (I probably will let them cure until end of febuary.)

Curing your sweet potatoes is what makes them sweet, you can eat them right away but their said to be bitter. (I will be trying 1 potato to see if this is true!) Curing them should be done for at least 2 week in a cool dry space (around 80*f). If you under 80*f space add 7 more days.

I thought this was neat and wanted to share it. since I've not seen a sweet potato grown or dug up before

I wasn't expecting so much differance in spud size from one single root.

And one last pic,

The ducks quite like the greens, while there's not much left of it I'm going to leave the vines a couple days so they can use it as enrichment/snack opportunity.

Weigh in on the spuds later!

🍠🌱Happy Homesteading and Harvesting!!

🌱🍠

1.11.2024

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letsgogardening · 5 months

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FRONT GARDEN UPDATE 11/29/2023

Full side view

Row 1= a pumpkin, variety of sunflowers and Valor beans

The pumpkin has two fruits on it at the moment! I'm gonna post a few pics of what it looks like currently a little further down.

For the sunflowers we just mixed a bunch of different ones together so there's some Mammoth, Boss (black oil sunflower) and some stuff we had left over from the last sunflowers we grew!

Row 2 = nasturtiums further away and cabbage

A little view of row 2

Row 3= Armenian cucumbers and egg plants

The Armenians aren't spreading out too much but that's more our fault than the plants, it's not in a super sunny spot and it tends to do better when it's slightly sunnier spot in the winter.

Row#4= more valor beans closer with some remnants of cabbage, carrots and radish.

Close up of the pumpkins!

One of the eggplants is starting to show signs of getting flowers/fruit.

A valor bean on the plant

While they aren't really branching out one of them does have a lot of little cucumbers starting!

And some bees on some of the blossomed sunflowers!

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motivationmommy · 1 year

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Hey Loves!

Soooo… I’m new here 😁 Usually I automatically upload my hair photos from IG but one of my clients has a gardening blog @thestudentfarmer I desperately need. Therefore I figured I’d make a new profile & hop on. What did I discover? Tumblr is pretty cool. Lots of nice upgrades 🥰.

I had this website that I tried blogging on and let’s just say… It’s intimidating AF! But I’d love a blog to coincide with my podcast, especially for the days I feel like writing instead of podcasting or vlogging. Anywho I guess I’ll make an introduction post sooner or later 😌. In the mean time this space feels good.

#parenting #motherhood #podcast

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thestudentfarmer · 7 months

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Kitchen post today~

With prices being what they are I like a good deal on groceries when I can find it. Sometimes that leads me to buying large quantities of things.

This week the local scratch n dent market had 5 pound bags of golden potatos on sale, 2 for $4. We like potatos so I snagged a few bags. Since i had 2 from last week's groceries I decided to pick through them all.

I tossed a few rotten ones and sorted out the good from the ones getting on the going side. The good ones I put up in a storage tote (a cooking pot for now) for later cooking.

These ones are the contenders for the weekly meal/freezer prep. They had some funny or funky spots, things that can be cut off and thrown away or in the compost. I clean them after washing them well.

As a heads up, it's not suggested to feed chickens raw potatoes. So leave anything with raw potato bits in the trash or the compost bin.

The bad bits.

If you feel need to you can wash them up again. I move to peeling after words.

I save the peels for breakfast potatoes, or to make soup.

A few peeled spuds.

Afterwords, depending on how many potatoes needed to be processed will decide what im making. This time I had enough potatoes to do cubed potatoes and hashbrown potatoes.

Cube potatoes, then blanch them till all Dante in a pot. (Not quite to mash potatoes softness, but not crunchy.)

Drain, cool quickly. (If your into water conservation, save the water for your plants once cooled) I cool till just under warm and lay them out to drain/dry a bit.

Then take a pan and lay out a clean kitchen towel on it. Pour dry potatoes on and place in freezer till frozen.

Store in container and use like regular frozen potatoes.

Moving to hashed potatoes

Similar to the cubed potatoes except I grated them.

I like to destarch my potatoes a little so I do a soak for about an hour, drain and then blanch.

I did about 5 minutes to blanch the hash, every couple minutes fish out a peice and test it to see if it's crunchy or just firm. Drain, cool asap.

Lay out to drain and dry a bit.

Lay towel on baking sheet. Place drained hashed potatoes on top. Place in freezer and freeze a few hours.

When frozen package up. Date and use as necessary :)

Other potato freezing/preserving resources

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-to-freeze-potatoes

https://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/dehydrate-potatoes-for-various-uses-zbcz1507/

🥔🌱Happy Homesteading!🌱🥔

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thestudentfarmer · 7 months

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Seed saving succes!

I posted awhile ago about carrots I let go to seed this last season. I finally got round to doing the full seed cleaning, a small germination test and wanted to share on that.

Below, the heads when I finally pulled them, I did clip the heads from the stems and placed them in an open storage bin.

To be quite honest I set it aside and forgot about it for awhile. Day to day and all that. Thankfully the corner I set them in was well undisturbed save for a few spiders when I got back to them.

Still a lil bit 'stick'y but it's as filtered as I can get currently. I'll be looking into some sort of seives to make harvesting seed easier in the future.

Interestingly enough, when separating some of the junk, the seeds got a sort of perfume-yness to them? It was very pleasant.

I took the corn out to handle later, but the cleaned out carrot flowerheads I tossed them in the chicken compost area so any missed seeds would get enjoyed by either the girls or the wild birds and the remaining stems and sticks'll get composted before long.

Did a germination test on the counter to see if the effort was worth it.

Way more germination than I expected! 🥳 very much worth it!

Here's the seed bag, I expect there is still a chunk of chuff/junk that didn't seperate well but it weighed 9 oz. (gallon size ziplock) I'd feel okay saying mayby 5-7 oz seed from seed saving this year. Even at low end of 5 oz that's still pretty good :)

I think I'll keep half and sort the other half among some friends and family as gifts, and donate to the local seed library nearest to me.

And if opportunity arises I'll do the same with the next carrot grow :) they were pretty easy (aside from toppling so much), the pollinators loved them, they were beautiful plants and we can use every part of them as well which is a win win all around 🏆

They were from hybrids of rainbow x nantes carrots. Some got long (but not many, I have shallow soil) they did get nice and fat though and we enjoyed quite a bit of salad, pesto and pretty flowers thanks to them this last grow season.

🥕🌱 Happy Homesteading 🌱🥕

9.21.2023

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thestudentfarmer · 6 months

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Hello and Good day~

Yesterday was a busy day! As I cant grow/process everything we eat (yet! Someday maybe the majority, but until then I'm good with growing as much as possible.) it was grocery shop day. Then Did meal prep for the week, I usually do a short bit of meal prep on grocery day but I tried to be a bit better with it this week to try and save time so I can get some pattern work and sewing done later. :)

The start of the meal prep, veggie portion. I like to wash my produce with water and baking soda. (I save the rinse water for the flower patch) ratio for me is a half sink of water, 2 tablespoons of baking soda. Mix to dissolve.

Pictured~

shredded cabbage, carrots (shredded, noodle sliced, coined), mushrooms (sliced and cubed), diced tomatoes, bell peppers (diced. Julienned, coined and a few snacks), jalapeno (coined and diced), onion (diced and frozen), honeydew, potato salad

Salsa (tomato, onion, pepper, jalapeno), dumpling mix (ground pork, minced cabbage, minced carrot, onion, ginger seasonings), bag of veggie soup start.

Fermented fridge pickles (pickle solution, cucumber, onion, jalapeno, pickle seasoning)

Start of apple cider vinegar. I'm going to try and make it again for personal use.

~~~~~~

Super small garden goodies~

Our first radishes of the season!

Plus this lovely web I spotted this morning

As well as an update on the sweet potato flowers

The blooms don't last long, ive noticed most fall off the next day.

I did a little online sleuthing and like regular potatoes, sweet potatoes can make seeds (though vines are the best way to propagate them) It's advised that the seeds might not really produce anything decent but I admit I'm curious more to see how it grows now and goes through seed development. If they produce seed I'll save them for a future grow experiment and experience.

I'll likely be pinching the flowers off from the other vines so they continue producing vines and greens. I've liked having a form of fresh greens available for soups, stirfrys and omlettes.

That's it for now, I'm off to do some critter care~

🍽🌱Happy Homesteading and Gardening 🌱🍽

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thestudentfarmer · 8 months

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A quick share on what's been going on here~

Unfortunatly not much, still hot and I haven't gotten my seeds started due to weather watching.

This is all from 2 sweet potato slips. I plan to harvest some for supper tonight :)

And from the side, the trellis is from an archway we had up some time ago for the front. I'm hoping to make a little shaded space for the ducks, or at the least extend potential harvest vines (the ducks enjoy the leaves right off the vine)

I've also had some time to be able to do some mending this week.

This quilt needs some patching. Since it was among the first quilts i made, I decided I want to do something a bit different than how I've patched others.

I'm taking it apart. Figure I'll keep what fabric is salvageable in pattern and replace what isn't on the front panel. pin it and stitch it back together. Probably replace the border entirely as I noticed the fabrics worn pretty thin there. The busted fabric I'm gonna put in with my small scrap pile to use as a filling for a foot cushion I'm making for personal use.

I've gotten round to finally processing the carrot seed heads from last grow. I'm currently doing a germination test to see if it was worth it.

Final pic of the day is a chicken pic :) they very much enjoy when I do a bit of weed whacking.

🌱🪴Happy Homesteading 🪴🌱

#homesteading #self sufficient living #thestudentfarmer #studentfarmer #self sufficiency #food #garden #gardening #low waste #chickens #smalls scale differences #urban homesteading #urban gardening #sustainability #reduce reuse recycle #repair #quiltpanel #quilt

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thestudentfarmer · 10 months

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Anyone else feel like this all the time?

#homesteading #self sufficient living #thestudentfarmer #studentfarmer #self sufficiency #food #garden #gardening #low waste #chickens

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thestudentfarmer · 6 months

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So I usually check all my equipment before projects or bringing critters home.

I checked everything but the heat lamp, got everything set up and sat down to do the hour check-wait and started smelling something funny.

Turns out the lamp bulb was breaking apart!! 😱

Glad I always have a spare heat lamp as well as bulbs!

If your doing homesteading and keeping of critters especially always have spares and a backup just for these kinds of situations :)

🥚🌱Happy Homesteading!🌱🥚

10 14 2023

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thestudentfarmer · 5 months

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A little while ago I made some fridge pickles

These guys.

Well they've sat a little longer than need to so tonight we popped them open to try~

They were a little salty, not super crisp. But firm. Taste wise will make again. Has been like by all, so will use the recipe and time wait again.

The jalapeno was similar texture. Good taste.

The onions honestly I feel shone through in texture and taste. I want to amend 2 jars of that for snacking, with jalapeños for hot dog and sandwhich topping, haha.

🌱🥒Happy homesteading and Happy pickling/fermenting! 🥒🌱

12 5 2023

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thestudentfarmer · 4 months

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Hello and Welcome to the garden!

Today I have a bit of a smallish and short post~

The pumpkin is developing pretty good, the one on the trellis is a little smaller than this one. I'm starting to see new flowers on the vine, but I think I'll be picking them to use for stir fry/fried rice varient, ommlettes, or salad.

The first planting of the velour beans is starting to get what I think might be the end of their cycle, a few more flowers arrived but the plants aren't really b taking off to much in growth or producing. If I recall right I got around 48 oz of beans. (Their being crowded out by the sunflowers now.)

I'm gonna leave them in and jsut see how long/well they do.

Starting at the far left, sunflowers+ velour beans and pumpkin

2nd in from left. Starting closest to us. The broccoli and nasturtium. I'm gonna pick some of the broccoli leaves this week for pan fried veggies. Broccoli leaf+rice (not sure if blanching, pan fry w/garlic+butter or a cheese/broc soup.)

3rd row from left starting closest. The eggplants, who have some flowers but I've not seen any eggplant yet. Cabbages (2), they've got little heads coming in. I have not yet sprayed down with the tea but I haven't seen much more pest issue. And last the cucumbers. One is pretty much done, the other has teeny lil cucumbers coming in, but I don't expect too much more growth from them. If they do I may just let it go to seed and see if it does better next year in a different spot.

Edit to add, I forgot the last row!

4th row from left, second planting of velour beans, with the surviving cabbages and carrots. I picked a few of the carrots this morning

Close up of the dying/dead and the hanging in there cucumbers.

Finally got down to the hardware store. We got wood, pipes for extending the garden fence, dirt and some time.

We got 2 boxes made up. So next step is to get the fence panels made up to extend the garden space and protect it from the stray/feral cats.

I got peppers, tomatoes seed started this week, though im hoping I didn't lose a tray of peppers due to a watering malfunction. (Always check your seedlings daily!) I also got some garlic in the ground and some ginger root too.

Thats it for my update for now :)

🌱🌻Happy Homesteading and gardening! 🌻🌱

12 18 2023

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thestudentfarmer · 6 months

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How fantastic! A little garden harvest today :)

These are from the velour beans I planted earlier and is the first harvest of them :)

Unfortunately not enough for my scales to accurately measure but they should be enough to add to either a stirfry, soup or omlettes and scrambled eggs.

🌱Happy Homesteading and harvesting! 🌱

11 5 2023

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thestudentfarmer · 7 months

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It's a little sooner than usual for an update, but I was up early in the garden and wanted to share what was done.

Today i did a bit of transplanting~

Nasturtium

I plan on using for pestos, salads and to give the chickens some goodies throughout the season. (Since I know we likely won't eat all of it)

Eggplants.

Now I know for sure if they all grow and produce I will have way too many eggplants. I intend to share with the neighbours or trade with a few nearby gardeners and coworkers.

I was going to transplant some more starts but I feel like I should wait a few more days for the broccoli and cabbage.

Not transplants, but some updates on growing stuff.

The radish and carrots. It's not super evident but there's some carrot sprouts here, not too many radish. I'll likely seed out another line of both radish and carrot seed before too long.

The armenian cucumbers have started sprouting, super excited on this as I wasn't certain the cucumber had ripened all the way when I harvested it. 🥳🌻🌱 tomorrow I'll likely go out to buy supplies to make a secondary trellis like we have for the pumpkin to save some space and start early trelissing for them.

Update for the beans, the Bush variety is called "velour". I did direct seed a few to fill in where the some transplants died for various reasons.

A lil screen shot with info about them.

No growth yet for the turmeric nor the ginger.

Transplanted 3 moringa tree transplants to some bigger pots. I'm a bit late in when I wanted them planted but with some luck they'll be sturdy enough come the winter.

That's it for now :)

🌱🌻Happy Homesteading 🌻🌱

10 1 2023

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thestudentfarmer · 11 months

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A super quick excitement moment to share~

The biggest sunflower yet this season. Has bloomed!

Edit to add, this one is over 6 ft tall! 🌱😍

#homesteading #self sufficient living #thestudentfarmer #studentfarmer #self sufficiency #food #garden #gardening #low waste #chickens #sunflowers #sunflower

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thestudentfarmer · 6 months

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Hello everyone,

Sorry it seen a few days, took a little break to enjoy some time with family before the buying holidays are upon us.

This year I'm going to attempt to make most of my gifts. Wether that is baking, a skill-craft or otherwise I'm not entirely certain.

Most people I can gift to I know will be happy with a home gift of bathbombs, lipgloss,soap or a homebaked goody/candy but I may try branching out this year with a homesewn jacket.

Anyways for now a Garden update :)

Carrots, no kore radish at the moment and surprisingly enough it seems a few cabbage have survived.

Cucumber, and the eggplant

Nasturtium and broccoli

The sunflowers, pumpkin and beans

Close up of some beans coming in :)

And the sweet potato, I think I'll be able to dig them up soon. So far no seed pods from the flowers either.

Also. Now that it's been a few days and they've gotten more comfortable, a small share~

We've got new peep-peeps. :)

🌱🌿Happy homesteading and gardening🌿🌱

Nov 3 2023

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thestudentfarmer · 26 days

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Good afternoon everyone! Today I decided I was gonna try something new.

🌟🌟 Before proceeding any further, if your unfamilair with a plants edability and want to eat it? RESEARCH IT! 🌟🌟

RESEARCH, RESEARCH,RESEARCH

🌟Do Not Eat Plants You are not confident are edible

🌟 check at least 2 sources ( ag or permaculture extension or a relatively knowledgeable individual, book or online source)

🌟 when researching always check out potential health risks as well as proper cooking/cleaning and point of picking.

🌟always do small tests of eating with allergy protocols.

🌟🌟Thank you for reading the warning before proceeding :) 🌟🌟

Nasturtium leaves!

Now I've eaten the flowers before in salads and as omlette toppings, but I haven't eaten anything else of the plant. So today I decided to give it a go.

This is todays harvest spot. Most the time when ive trimmed nasturtium before it's been to feed the chickens some extra greens and tonuse less purchased grains. (I'll actually still be harvesting a bit more today for them, I was just on a time budget)

My scale wouldn't weigh this, but after cleaning and separating

Flowers (buds) and seeds separated.

The seeds, according to most of the internet search I've found says they can be pickled like capers. Or dried, ground and used as seasonings. After chicken harvest I'll figure out if I'll be drying or pickling them.

The flowers, I'll likely wash and use to top breakfast omlettes or mix in a salad.

The stems, Ive got about 3/4 of a gallon ziplock bag of them. I want to make a sort of spicy sauce to toss w/them for trying them.

The leaves I took half of them and chopped them (the other half I haven't fully decided its fate)

Mixed with some eggs and flour before pan frying in a little butter.

To make this :) simple veggie fritter.

Flavor wise the leaves are pretty bland in this dish. It does remind me a bit of spinich, so I don't have issues eating it again. (Just season it up a bit more.)

The rest of the leaves I may just steam or blanch and mix with a little sea salt to flavor it.

At this time, I think I shall continue adding nasturtium to the garden, but probably for more than just the pretty appeal/ground cover and potential critter meals they provide. I may find another spot for a second patch in rotation though.

That's it for now

🌱🌻Happy Homesteading and Cooking 🌻🌱

3.28.2024

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