September 2, 2008:

Aren't they wonderful!!!???!! We have been using Jade beans for several years and have never had such prolific, tasty beans. I've canned about 30 quarts so far, from one 15' row, and they are blooming again! Plus, we've been eating them nearly every day for dinner, and I've been giving them away like crazy to friends. Nice to see someone else who loves Jade beans!

Hard frost will probably be here way before November! Though lately, with the weather being as weird as it has been, it's anyone's guess when it will come. The pumpkin plants are starting to die back, ditto potatoes, and winter squash...Seems a little early, but soon we'll be watching for frost. John made me a 10x10 chicken tractor out of PVC pipes, and it dawned on me that replacing the blue tarp with a clear plastic one and putting it on one section of his garden would extend our growing season quite a bit on both ends. (I only need the tractor in the middle of the season for the meat birds!) So, with friends we hauled it up to his garden where it now sits just outside the electronetting (perfect for keeping critters out, attached to my electric perimeter fence. I use electronetting for all the animals, and so far, no predator attacks, though we do see evidence of critters visiting outside the fence, just not venturing through it! Anyway, it is keeping critters out of his veggie garden as well. We had the first canteloupe today, it was deliciously sweet, but not cloying. Not sure what the variety is but it is good. AND, I made an apple pie with our own apples, the first year we've actually had a good crop of same. I cooked it a little too long, I think; the apples aren't quite as firm as Granny Smith's, but are tart, and tasty and firm enough to use the peeler/corer which won't work on things like Macs. I spent the day rearranging animals, moving them to different pastures, which means putting up fencing and taking down fencing. Boy, am I tired! I'll sleep well tonight, for sure.

Betty, in Vermont,who now has a blog, thanks to help from Walter and Linda. See Betty's blog at http://sheepwoman.wordpress.com.

August 2009:
RE: Feed The Soil, Not The Plants

     I am a Master Gardener for the Univ. of R.I. You did a great job educating the public on the pros of Organic gardening. We have an acre & a half of organically grown annuals & perennials, with our insect warriors and rodent warriors well employed in our yard. The eco-system here is fully in balanced. I serve only organic foods to our guests, and spend a great deal of effort preaching the benefits of going organic. Thank you for a nice article.

Jackie McCarthy, Innkeeper
Wickford Junction Inn B & B
1266 Old Baptist Rd. North Kingstown, R.I. 02852

August 2009:

     Very cool site! I remember Reading The Organic Gardener that my grandmother subscribed to. She was way ahead of her times.
     Keep up the good work – we wish you much success.

Carol in Mexico

August 2009:

Hi, Ron,
I grew up in Farmingdale and Massapequa, and for several generations, are native Long Islanders, not people who moved out from the City...so, of course, I say Long Island, not Long Giland. I seldom go back there now. Most of my relatives there either are dead or moved away. We will be going out to visit old friends sometime in the next month or so. (don't have calendar handy). 

     I buy my seeds primarily from Seed Savers Exchange. Do you know them? Or Fedco seeds. Try not to buy from anyone who deals with the Monsanto crowd. I don't always buy organic seeds, however. Our veggies and fruit trees are raised organically, our basic supplement being the sheep manure compost. We tend not to use the chicken manure, though I do compost it in a separate pile. John doesn't like it much. Too strong. Too much nitrogen. This year, I tried a new squash, Potimarron. In general, we don't eat winter squash and never eat summer squash, but I planted some butternut for soup, and this new one. Harvested one last week, probably a little early, and made soup with a recipe I got on line. IT was incredibly good. So, I guess I'll grow more next year. I save some seeds myself, but not a lot. With two kinds of squash growing side by side, I'm not sure about cross polination... and we don't have enough sites far enough away from each other, nor the energy to walk all over the property for this crop or that, so mostly we buy seeds.
  
     We never till the soil, buying into the new thought that it isn't particularly healthy to do so. Each spring, I put a chicken tractor on my garden and move it each day once or twice, around the whole garden (with 10 chickens in it). The hens eat grubs and nasties from the soil and till it for me enough so that once they have made the circuit of the entire garden, there are no weeds left, the soil is "turned over" somewhat, and I remove them, and plant. Sometimes I have to rake it if they've made piles of dirt here and there, but mostly they leave it ready to plant. And since they are only on it for a short time there is not any appreciable acidic change in the soil. I'm lazy. And 64. Not having to turn over the soil each year is one thing I am happy about.

     We have the pigs behind the house, in the woods, sort of. They have an area about 150 x 150. There are four of them, two of which are ready to go to the butcher next week. Among them, they've eaten every piece of greenery on the forest floor, turned over all the soil, made a pile of rocks and a separate pile of wood they've dug out of the soil. When the big ones leave, I'll move the smaller ones to a new area, so they have greenery to eat, hopefully under an oak tree, so they also have acorns. John will rake up the area where they were, and a new crop of green stuff will come up for next year's pigs. Or maybe we'll let that area go for a year or two, and move the pigs to another area next year.

     I use portable electronetting for all the animals, so we can move them around to various areas, pasture and woods, as needed. When he clears a section of trees, and removes the firewood to our woodshed, the sheep go in and eat the greenery. The following year, the pigs go in and clean up the soil. Then, if we need that area to expand pasture, he seeds it. We have 42 acres up here, much of it very hilly and forested. We heat primarily with wood, which he harvests from the woods. In another two months, 7 turkeys and about 20 chickens will go into the freezer, along with the pigs, four lambs (two already in), and some beef we buy from a friend. Last year I bought three Dwarf Nigerian doelings, who will be bred this year, and (the plan is) milked come April, after kidding, to provide milk for next year's pigs. I'm still a little unsure about this plan. I'd feel better about it if I could get two neighbors to rotate milking chores with me in exchange for the milk. But it wouldn't really take that much longer to add milking three goats to my morning chores, so...we shall see. Most all the animals on the farm are on the ALBC list of endangered or rare breeds of domestic animals: jacob sheep, above goats, Tamworth pigs, American buff geese, Narragansett turkeys, assorted chickens from the list. The two big pigs are yorkshire/old spot crosses. The tamworths were recommended, so we will compare taste. I do like them more...they tend to root around more then the cross breds, who seemed content with eating pig food, before the tamworths arrived and showed them the joys of rooting.

     I also raise zucchini and summer squash for them, and they get daily doses of vegetables and kitchen wastes that are edible. So, we are not fully organic, but quite close.

Betty, in Vermont, who now has a blog, thanks to help from Walter and Linda. See Betty's blog at http://sheepwoman.wordpress.com