My Little Urban Farmstead: Raising Chickens and Gardening in the City

I would like to show you around my little backyard homestead.

Growing up in Ohio I was always used to putting in the garden around early April and almost ignoring it while still getting a good crop of vegetables. I've struggled with having a productive garden here in Texas for the last couple of years and I think it's mainly because I start my garden too late in the season. The plants don't have a good start before the heat sets in. This is the earliest I've ever planted a garden. It's in the spot where my original chicken coop used to be for the last few years so it's quite fertile. I'm feeling hopeful that this year I'll be able to harvest plenty to feed my son and me, and maybe even a little extra to share.

I planted tomatoes, romanesco (if you don't know what this is, Google it. It is beautiful), lettuce, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, dill, basil, spinach, thyme, and beets. I always plant marigolds to repel pests. The dill usually gets sacrificed to caterpillars. Five days from now I should have little sprouts coming up from the seeds I planted. I never cease feeling excitement and wonder at the little sprouts pushing up towards the sky. Life renewed.

My old coop was a disaster and I worried nightly about predators getting in. One night a young opossum did get in and cornered one of my hens. Luckily I woke up to hear the screams my poor frightened girl was making. If you ever hear a chicken scream in fright you will never forget it. I ran out barefoot, scooped her up, and herded everyone into the kitchen where they spent the night. Everyone has kept chickens in their kitchen, right?

The new coop is much nicer, but it was quite the challenge...

I was excited to be the first in line when this coop came up as a freebie on a chicken group I'm in. The catch was I had to move it. The original person who was supposed to move it for me had a nice trailer and all of the equipment to properly move a building this size but he backed out last minute. I posted on Craigslist and found someone else who promised he could move the coop on the back of his truck. Moving day came and he was late meeting me at the site to pick it up. When he finally showed up he's driving an older pickup with a small bed. I had a bad feeling.

I wish I'd saved the photo of the coop loaded onto his truck. It looked like Beverly Hillbillies moving into town. It was a disaster waiting to happen, but he and his partner insisted that they didn't need to take it apart to move it. It didn't sit properly on the bed of the truck and it towered over the road. We didn't even get a half mile down the road when the wind caught the door and whipped it off, sending it flying directly at me and my son who were following in my Jeep. By sheer luck, it didn't hit us or anyone else and instead shattered all over the road. They had failed to properly tie down the door. I was a nervous mess the rest of the way home. 

Somehow we made it the 30-minute drive to my house. We passed a police officer and it was with great relief he didn't pull them over for having an improper load. I explain to them where I want it to go. They unloaded it at the side of the house but insisted they couldn't get it to the back yard because of a low hanging tree. By this time I was done with them, so I told them to just go and I'd figure out something on my own. I might have muttered a few curse words under my breath as they left. 

The coop sat there with the roof off and no door, totally useless to me, for four months. I had to stare at its behemoth teal form every time I stood at the kitchen sink. It was with the gracious help of a friend that it was moved in to place and the door another friend gifted me installed. If it wasn't for his help I'd probably still be staring at the darn thing out my window. Now that it is all set up where it is supposed to be and my chickens are all settled in, this hippy girl is happy. I have four hens contently roosting in the coop and now that the days are longer all four are gifting me daily eggs. 

As I told my friend, I'm quite content being the neighborhood crazy chicken lady.

Simple Small Batch Homemade Tomato Sauce for the Freezer

Growing up in the farm belt of rural Ohio, I came to believe that canning and freezing had to be done in mass quantities. It was referred to as "putting food by" for winter and it was done out of tradition, family, and love. I remember waiting with delight for the jars that had just come out of the boiling water bath and were now lined up on the counter to cool to pop as their lids sealed due to the pressure change. I remember being horrified of the pressure cooker, afraid it was going to explode like a bomb and kill us all. 

As an adult, freezing is by far my favorite method of "putting food by". Especially here in south Texas where turning on your stove in the hot summer and standing over a steaming water bath is about as pleasant as finding a scorpion in your shoe. Since my garden is small, as is my family, preserving the bounty in small batches just makes more sense for us. I don't need 20 quarts of tomato sauce for me and the boys and I don't have enough tomatoes ripe enough at one time to make a lot anyway, nor the storage space. So I was delighted when I was able to make two quarts out of the first batch of ripe tomatoes.

I did some searching on the internet and combined a couple recipes to come up with what I was looking for, easy, full of flavor, and didn't require large quantities of tomatoes. Oh, and I could simply store the sauce in my freezer. If you are looking for easy and small, this one's for you.

Simple Freezer Tomato Sauce

• 3 quarts plum tomatoes, chopped
• 6 cloves minced garlic
• 2 sprigs fresh basil, finely chopped
• salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste
• small handful chopped fresh parsley (optional)
• 1 tsp sugar

Stew chopped tomatoes with garlic over medium low heat in covered pan until desired consistency. Add fresh basil, salt, pepper, and sugar. Remove from heat and allow to cool. For a smoother sauce, run through a food processor on puree setting. Fill jars, leaving about a half inch at the top. Label and freeze.

Preserving Your Bounty of Fresh Basil

I am just a little behind on blogging here at the Hippy Homemaker because I took some time off to focus on spending time with the boys before the oldest headed off for his summer visit with dad in good ole' Kentucky. It sure would be a lot simpler if we lived closer, but for now we live about 20 hours away. Because of this, my son has more flier miles than I will ever have. I am always putting him on a plane. I can't remember the last time I flew, but although Kentucky is beautiful country, I must confess I'd rather fly somewhere with mountains and/or ocean beaches.

Mr. Frequent Flier. Meanwhile, I am a little behind on my garden too. I have an abundance of fresh basil I don't feel like I am using fast enough, especially now that it is just me and the little one. I decided I needed to preserve some of this summer goodness for the bleak winter, which in San Antonio consists of one long dreary month where we complain about the cold and feel guilty doing so when we hear about the weather from our neighbors in the north.

I have always just tied bundles of basil together and hung them upside down to dry in the late summer heat. This year I am freezing it two ways; as a puree in oil and slightly changed up for pesto. For the strait basil and oil puree, wash and dry a big bunch of leaves. Fill up your food processor bowl and pulse until leaves are finely chopped. Add 1-2 teaspoons olive oil and continue pulsing until oil is evenly distributed. To freeze, either put in plastic freezer bags and lay flat in freezer or freeze by the tablespoon in ice cube trays and transfer to freezer containers.

 

Freezer Pesto

1/3 cup pine nuts

2 cups firmly packed basil leaves

1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Place nuts in a food processor and pulse 2 or 3 times. Add basil and pulse a few more times. Repeat step with lemon juice. While running the food processor, add olive oil a little at a time. Scrape down sides and process until pureed. Place mixture into a quart sized freezer bag and seal bag, pressing out excess air. Freeze lying flat. 

*note -  I didn't have any freezer bags and I am in the process of switching from plastic to glass, so I froze mine in a small glass jar. 

When ready to use add:

2 Tbsp chopped fresh garlic

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

If desired, 1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Puree into thawed basil mixture. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

Milk, A Garden Miracle Against Powdery Mildew

I get excited about little things, mainly because they turn out to be big things, like this organic gardening tip I discovered on a New Zealand web site after doing a search to find out what the white spots were on my cucumber and squash plants. Turns out it is powdery mildew and it seems New Zealand grape growers are particularly menaced by this common plant disease. Evidently powdery mildew is lactose intolerant! They found that mixing one part milk to nine parts water to spray on the leaves of the plant effectively got rid of the disease. I didn't have milk on hand because I have been trying to cut back on dairy products in a restructuring of more healthy eating habits (let me tell you, that is a tough one for this dairy girl), but I had my little pint of organic half and half. Since it is a little bit heavier than straight milk, I diluted my mixture ten to one and immediately went out to treat my plants.

A bit of a cautionary tale here. Don't do this in front of your pets! I gave the cucumber a good coating and then turned my back to go spray down the squash plants, which are in a different garden bed. I glance back toward the cucumber, probably catching the motion of our dog, Duke, moving past. He is standing in the garden. This is something Duke and I fight over all the time, so it took me a moment to realize he is licking the milk off the cucumber leaves and not in the process of digging a hole to lay in. Silly dog.

 Here are the results of my using the milk spray just after two days. The leaves even look healthier. Take a look for yourself:

Before:

 After two applications:

There are still some spots of mildew, but the difference in just two days is amazing! I will probably keep applying the milk mixture for another 3-4 days to make sure the downy mildew is all gone. One down side I noticed was that it seems to attract flies, but my mixture could still be a little strong since I used half and half instead of milk.