For the past several years I have considered joining Monarch Watch and becoming an official Monarch Waystation. This was the year I finally did it. My certificate making it official arrived in the mail today. Our official waystation number is 03746.
I have spent the past six years buying nectar and host plants. I spend more time planting than I do weeding. I hope someday to have so many plants the weeds are choked out….and someday, that is what will happen. I see it slowly beginning now.
I have watched the Monarch Butterfly during it’s different stages of life – in the air and on host plants. I realize butterflies are pollinators too. In fact, butterflies are only surpassed by bees. This fact alone should tell you how important helping these winged beauties is.
The push to go ahead and make the decision to certify this year came about because the Monarch’s are in serious trouble. The area their habitat is in was hit with severe storms. If each and every person doesn’t step up to the plate and help by planting a few milkweed plants in their yard, this beautiful butterfly may one day be extinct.
Milkweeds are beautiful plants. Mix them in the flower border and no one will know they are wild. There are cultivated varieties available at many nurseries and this is where you should get them. Do not dig plants from the wild.
For more information on how to become an official monarch waystation, visit http://www.MonarchWatch.org
Filed under Miscellanous by on May 12th, 2010. 1 Comment. 
Many of you do not know we are a certified backyard wildlife habitat. We are certified through the National Wildlife Federation. Several years ago I made the choice to go ahead and register the property.
One of the reasons I made the decision was because we are so close to town that I wanted wild animals to have a safe place to find food, water and shelter. I wanted to be able to grow plants that were beneficial to them. Weeds and brush piles are also important. I did not want to be told that I could not provide the much needed shelter for these wild animals.
In the never ending desire to have the neatest, nicest house on the block, people often forget about the needs of their wild friends. While grass cut short and hedges perfectly trimmed may look nice, these domesticated areas leave much to be desired for wild animals and birds.
Predators, even in the form of simple house cats, can easily spot a bird or bunny in a perfectly manicured area. There is no place for them to hide and soon they become lunch or worse, a play toy for the cat until the cat’s owner catches and scolds the cat. By then, it may be too late for the wild animal the cat caught.
I want to strongly encourage each and every one of you to allow one spot in your yard to go wild, even if this means planting an area of native plants that you do not worry about grooming. Choose bushes that do not need constant pruning or that have thorns that will deter cats. The birds can get through the thorns and remain safe.
Our wildlife habitat number is 77285. You can find out more about the getting your backyard certified as a wildlife habitat at http://www.nwf.org/gardenforwildlife/certify.cfm
Filed under Miscellanous by on May 12th, 2010. 2 Comments.
I was sitting here tonight thinking about what a visitor might see or do here at Exotic Gardening Farms and Wildlife Habitat. Since we live here, we know there is something new to see everyday, year-round.
When someone calls me and wants to see the farm, the question often comes up pertaining to what there is to do. I draw a blank often, not because there is a lack of things to do, but rather because I wonder what they may want to do.
Here are some things that a visitor to the farm may see, sorted by season.
The spring season is upon us now. This is a grand time to visit the farm not only because you may have the opportunity to see baby animals, or better yet, see them hatch or be born, but also because the weather is cooler and the flowers are often at their peak.
There is a wide range of native wildflowers on our farm. During the spring, visitors may see our native Jack-in-the-Pulpit, mayapples, wild ginger, Virginia bluebells as well as a wide range of culitvated plants including hellebores, tulips, daffodils, creeping phlox, daphne and many more.
In the vegetable garden one can expect early spring vegetables such as kale, lettuce, chard, radish and peas. Herbs are awakening and waiting to be tried. Most of the fruit in the orchard is flowering. The spring season really is one of the most exciting times on the farm!
In the kitchen I am busy dehydrating spring flowers, herbs and whatever else I can find that I may want to preserve for later use.
As summer creeps in, more vegetables are producing, some fruit will be ready to eat while other types of fruit is still ripening. There is nothing like eating cherry tomatoes right out of the garden! Since we are an organic farm, eating things right out of the garden is perfectly fine.
The herbs are at their best, some are even flowering. Flowers abound – butterfly bushes, milkweeds, hollyhocks, roses, clematis, phlox and many more! Everyday it seems some plant has come into bloom that was not in bloom the day before.
The baby animals that were born earlier in the year are generally frolicking around in the pasture by now and growing quickly.
The kitchen is a diaster this time of year. There is dehydrating going on 24/7. Most days – and nights – we are canning. I pour over recipe books looking for new ideas. Jerry tries to figure out new places to store food and ways for me to dry even more fresh herbs, flowers or vegetables. Some days it is a miracle if we can even walk in the kitchen due to all the baskets of fresh produce sitting around waiting to be dealt with.
Autumn is a pretty time of the year with the leaves turning colors, mums and asters blooming and everyone getting their winter coats. It is a sad time of year as well because we know summer is fading and the long, hard, cold winter lies ahead.
Their is an urgency to get the last minute chores done, get the garden ready for winter, seal the greenhouse. The short autumn days come to an end too soon every year.
In the kitchen things are still going at a pretty steady pace. Some produce and fruit is just now ready to be processed. Inventory must be taken so I know what we have and what we still need to get though yet another year.
Soon the snow begins to fly, the holidays are upon us and winter has set in. Some years there are flowers blooming throughout most of the winter. The thrill of finding fresh produce such as spinach, lettuce or radish in the tunnel house makes it worth the trip out to the vegetable garden even on the coldest days.
The long winter days are spent planning next years garden, eating the food we preserved during the summer and anxiously awaiting the first signs of spring and new visitors to the farm.
Filed under Miscellanous by on Apr 21st, 2010. Comment.
It has been a busy spring here at Exotic Gardening Farms and Wildlife Habitat. New gardens were tilled to make more room for planting vegetables. The need for Plant-A-Row for the Hungry gardens is great this year and we want to contribute as much food as possible to our local food bank. The goal is still 1,600 pounds from our farm. So far we have been able to donate close to 800 pounds. Hopefully this year we will come closer to the goal.
Cutting gardens were installed this year to help boost the farm income. The Zinnia are just beginning to flower. The Sunflowers are not far behind. In addition to these two mainstays we will offer roses, delphinium, aster, old fashion sweet william and an array of other specialty cut flowers.
The tomatoes I planted in hoop houses the beginning of April are blooming and beginning to set fruit. It will be nice to have early tomatoes this year. Now that we know this method will work we will get busy sooner next year and plan to plant more under hoops.
The roses are doing great this year. I cannot believe how beautiful and fragrant they are. In fact the entire garden looks really great compared to previous years. Currently in bloom is the zinnias, oak leaf hydrangea, pussy toes, buddelia (butterfly bush), poppies, catnip, flax, allium, dame’s rocket, marigold, gaillardia, hosta, roses, geraniums, sweet william, dianthus, lilies, daylilies, clematis, red hot poker, delphinium, daisies, cornflower, salvia, veronica, honeysuckle, coreopsis, verbena, yarrow, petunia, malva, meconopsis, larkspur, hydrangea, milkweed, astrantia, penstemon, heuchera, begonia, St. John’s Wort, alyssum, lobelia, campanula, lamb’s ear, hedyotis, astilbe, foxglove, liatris, Russian sage, grasses, snapdragon, silene, bee balm, cupflower, twinspur, evening primrose (pink and yellow), thailicum, bleeding heart, codonopsis, comfrey, laminum and amorphophallus.
The animals are being born now. Ginger and Gizmo had two baby bunnies in April. I have a black male and a white albino female. The female looks just like Gizmo and they both look like they took the fiber gene. Time will tell.
This morning Jerry went to the chicken coop and found five baby chicks sitting with a momma hen. I had to go out and check. They are doing fine. I moved them to a better nest box and added fresh water and chicken starter. The momma hen had the babies sitting in the feed dish and they were eating. The other eleven baby chicks that I hatched are doing fine. I have one Polish crested, an auraucana, and some unknowns. The two white breasted turkeys are also doing fine so far.
The goats teats are rapidly growing. We should have goat kids any day now. I can’t wait. We have the video up and running so we can see and hear everything that happens.
We put the hummingbird houses up this past weekend and are waiting on new arrivals. I have only seen two Monarch butterflies so far this year. I hope to see more. I did see a Baltimore Oriole at a hummingbird feeder earlier in the year. There seems to be a flurry of bee activity here which is great. I have also seen some grey squirrels with white tails and a few toads.
Life on the farm is one adventure after another – from unexpected wildlife to new arrivals. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, even though it is a lot of hard work! Knowing the produce you grow keeps you supplied in food most of the year is very satisfying. Knowing you can grow enough to share with others who may be less fortunate makes it all worthwhile.
Filed under Homestead Happenings, Miscellanous by on Dec 12th, 2009. Comment.
Life is never slow here on the homestead. There is always an animal needing their hoofs trimmed, needing brushed, sheared or just wanting some attention. This year it seems like there were always new babies being born – goats, chickens or rabbits.
Mornings consist of watering everyone, giving grain to the poulty, does (female goats) and Beauty, while everyone else gets hay. The process begins again every evening, rain, shine, sleet or snow. Even on the days when the barn door freezes shut, we have to get in to take care of the animals.
Right now we are heating our house with wood. We have a wood stove in my office and another one in the greenhouse. Due to Jerry’s chainsaw breaking late in the summer, he is using an axe to chop up the wood then using a sledge hammer to break it into pieces small enough to fit in the wood burner. The average temperature in our house is 60 degrees F, which is much colder than what I like. With wood floors, getting up at night with bare feet can be downright bone chilling.
Many things have changed here over the last few months. For one, I found out I had a granddaughter, Trinity. She came to stay with us for a few days.
Her parents came here for Thanksgiving which was nice, as well as my longtime friend Alice.
We ate in the dining room under the kerosene chandelier.
We had turkey filled with creole butter, two kinds of stuffing – bread and cornbread, turkey gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, biscuits, brussles sprouts, salad, pumpkin pie and cherry pie. It was a feast fit for a king and the best Thanksgiving I have had in several years.
Little Trinity enjoyed stuffing herself until she couldn’t eat another bite. Then it was off to take a bath, get dressed in one of the fleece sleepers Grandma bought her and off to bed where I am sure she spent the night dreaming of her first Thanksgiving and the adventures she had.
We have not put up the Christmas tree yet. Things are changing here again. With Trinity gone life has gone back to normal – no diaper changes, no late night bottle feedings, no baby clothes or blankets to wash. I can come and go as I please now, but something is missing. She is missing. It is funny how a baby can change your life in a short amount of time.
In a way, baby animals change your life too. You watch them be born, you watch them grow, then you watch them go off to their new home. Odd. When we were trimming the baby goat hooves for the last time, I thought I heard them say “mom, mom, mom” as they tried to get back to their mothers. The two mama goats jumped up, looked over the wall at their babies and gave a gentle “nay” as if to say “it is time you went on to your new home, but remember I love you.”
Filed under About Us, Homestead Happenings, Miscellanous by on Dec 8th, 2009. 2 Comments.
It has been a busy summer here at Exotic Gardening Farms and Wildlife Habitat. The flower garden is not looking good due to lack of rain and my lack of time for weeding. I do see lots of rose hips forming however and am anxious to pick them to make jelly as well as other items once the first frost hits them. I also noticed hops on my vine and am waiting on those to be ready to pick.
Today I will finish dehydrating some grapes for raisins. I still have oranges, grapefruit, apples, tomatoes and pears to can. I will make more applesauce and juice from the apples. The tomaotes will yield more tomato sauce and tomato juice. I have plenty of plain pears so may make some more cinnamon ones or look for a new recipe. The citrus I will juice and use the peel to make zest and candy. I just found out the white part of the citrus has medicinal value and so I will save some of it to dehydrate. Jon said to just add it to any food to gain the medicinal value.
I have some oregano oil that I used a sun distillation method on that looks like it is ready to preserve for winter usage. I am thinking of using it in some of the lye soap I made.
Today the soap will be ready to come out of the first mold, be cut and begin curing. Later, when the canning season settles down, I will hand mill the soap and add herbs, color and fragrance. Once my molds are free again I will make a second batch of lye soap. It should be a nice soap when it is done. At this stage it has lard, olive oil and cocoa butter in it.
Soon it will be time to get Leonardo sheared. I am really looking forward to my first kid mohair. It should spin up into a nice batch of yarn that I can use to make something or the other with. With winter just around the corner I am looking forward to some time off from yard work so I can begin spinning and weaving again. They say for everything there is a season and that is beginning to make sense the longer I live here.
So far here is a list of what is canned and stored for winter. While I would like to see more vegetables such as green beans and corn on the list I don’t think this is a bad start at all. I have 280 packages of food so far. My goal was 1500 packages. The weather has not been real cooperative and the corn and green beans did not do well. I had planned to can 100 pints of corn, 100 pints of green beans and freeze 100 packages of brussell sprouts (which have not come in yet) and 100 packages of sugar snap peas. If I fall short this year, there is always next year.
2 Pints Strawberry Juice
1 Half Pint Strawberry Juice
6 Half Pints Rose Jelly
2 Half Pints Rose Honey
2 packages of 2 pound mix of Honey Wheat Bread
2 packages of 1 1/2 pounds mix Honey Wheat Bread
1 package of Orange Sugar Cookies
4 packages of Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Cookies
5 packages of Dinner Rolls
1 package of Honey Spice Cookies
One and a Half Pints 1 Chicken BrothQuarts 3 Chicken BrothPints 14 StrawberriesHalf Pints 1 StrawberriesPints 1 SpinachHalf pound 5 Sugar Snap PeasOne and a Half Pints 3 Grape JuicePints 8 Grape JuicePints 1 CarrotsPints 1 Grape Jelly4 Ounce Jars 14 Grape JellyPints 13 Tomato JuiceOne and a Half Pints 4 Tomato Juice4 Ounce Jars 7 Lemon Balm and Lemon Verbena Jelly6 Ounce Jars 1 Lemon Balm and Lemon Verbena JellyHalf Pints 3 Mixed Herb Vinegar4 Ounce Jars 9 Mixed Herb VinegarPints 1 Black Stem PeppermintPints 2 SageQuarts 1 Lavender Flowers
Quarts 1 Chocolate Mint
Pints 1 Lime BalmQuarts 1 RosemaryQuarts 2 TarragonPints 1 TarragonQuarts 1 RaisinsPints 1 OreganoQuarts 2 CherriesHalf Pints 1 CherriesQuarts 1 Dill WeedQuarts 3 Passion Fruit MojitoHalf Gallons 3 Dehydrated Potatoes12 ounce 2 Roasted Garlic Italian VinaigretteHalf Pints 4 Raspberry Syrup30 ounce 1 Strawberry JamPints 1 Honey Cinnamon Pecan PeachesOne and a Half Pints 2 Honey Cinnamon Pecan PeachesQuarts 1 Honey Cinnamon Pecan Peach Sauce
Orange Marmalade
Berry Preserve
8.5 ounce 1 Pineapple, Banana and Passion Fruit Jam8.5 ounce 1 Pineapple, Banana and Orange JamHalf Pints 2 Cherry JuiceQuarts 7 Green BeansPints 5 Green BeansOne and a Half Pints 1 Tomato Sauce4 ounces 1 Tomato SaucePints 4 Seasoned Tomato SauceQuarts 1 Seasoned Tomato SauceQuarts 38 PotatoesQuarts 1 Apple JuicePints 2 Cinnamon Red Hot ApplesPints 4 Cinnamon Apple SaucePints 11 Apple Pie FillingPints 1 Lemon BalmPints 1 Caraway
Bell PeppersPints 1 Banana PeppersQuarts 2 Raspberry LeavesQuarts 2 SpearmintQuarts 1 Black CuminQuarts 1 Dill SeedQuarts 1 Orange PeelPints 1 Passion Fruit PeelQuarts 1 Ancho Chili PodsQuarts 1 CamomileHalf Pints 6 Raspberry Vinegar4 ounces 1 Raspberry VinegarCup 1 Raspberry and Mulberry VinegarHalf Pints 1 Raspberry and Mulberry VinegarPints 14 PearsPints 9 Cinnamon PearsPints 8 Pear JuiceQuarts 1 Pear JuicePints 8 Cucumber Mix (Dill Pickles)Pints 4 Jon’s Armenian Cucumbers
Liters 6 Pomegranite Juice
Sheri
Filed under Homestead Happenings, Miscellanous by on Oct 31st, 2009. Comment.
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