Chicken radio

Just a quick note today before the UConn game starts. Yesterday's Colin McEnroe radio show on WNPR was all about backyard chickens! You can listen to the podcast at http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheColinMcenroeShow-Podcast .

Maybe this will encourage some of you to join me in the wonderful world of raising chickens? Enjoy!

The forgotten 'R'...

You know the 3 'R's... Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!  I think most of us though tend to focus on the first and last 'R', and kind of ignore 'Reuse'.  Oh sure, maybe we save a plastic bag that we had some pretzels in and use it again the next day, or we use a stainless steel water bottle instead of buying bottled water, but how many of us really give a good effort to repurpose our "stuff" before we bury it in the recycle bin.

For example, on my way outside to do my chicken chores yesterday my wife asked me to throw out an old purse she had lying around.  Rather than just send it to its final resting place in the trash, I took an opportunity to scavenge it for reusable parts.  As a result, I managed to remove two nice split-ring stainless steel hoops that were holding the shoulder strap as well as the leather strap itself, which has a pretty nice stainless steel buckle on it.  Undoubtedly, these will find a nice new home holding something together in the chicken coop or somewhere around the yard.  (My wife also pointed out that we repurpose our fruit and veggie scraps all the time for chicken treats!)

I thought this might be a good opportunity for another Sustainable Family challenge for my countless readers around the globe!  (Ha ha)  During the month of March (when I assume a lot of spring cleaning will be underway), before you throw out your old junk, see if you can repurpose some or all of it to reduce what goes into the waste stream.  I will do the same and when I happen upon anything particularly inventive, I'll pass it along.  I'd love to hear about your successes as well, so let me know!

A very fruitful harvest...

Nothing in your garden can even come close to the sustainable return on investment that a fruit tree offers. Did you know that a single semi-dwarf apple tree can produce several hundred apples in a single season, with a productive life of up to 20 years?

There are different sizes of trees available for whatever space you have available, and even in the colder zones in New England, there are any number of different fruit types and varieties to choose from. Fruit trees generally come in three sizes, dwarf, semi-dwarf, and standard. Dwarf trees are the smallest of the three varieties. They tend to have a smaller yield due to their smaller size, but they also take up less space (an 8’ circle of space is all you need) and are easier to prune and harvest than larger trees. At the other extreme are standard size fruit trees. These are the trees you plant if you want to recreate the stately old apple trees you used to climb in your grandpa’s back yard. These trees require the most space, reaching 20-30 feet if left untended, and are a bit more difficult to prune and harvest. Semi-dwarf trees (as the name implies) are somewhere in the middle. The great thing about these trees is that they produce just about as much fruit as a standard tree, but don’t grow quite as large, and so are easier than standard trees to prune and harvest.

When looking at what size trees to buy for your available space, also consider that some fruit types require cross-pollination with another variety to produce fruit. Even trees considered “self-pollinating” will be more productive if cross-pollinated with another variety. For the record, this year the Sustainable Family ordered three standard apple trees (three different cross-pollinating varieties) and a standard self-pollinating peach tree from The Arbor Day Foundation. These will get shipped as dormant bare-root trees in time for spring planting. There are several other online sources for fruit trees and most local nurseries sell fruit trees as well. The other benefit of a local nursery is that they tend to only stock varieties that will do well in your area, and have a lot of knowledge that they are more than willing to share.

One cautionary note, if you think you are going to save money by planting an apple seed and growing your own tree, don’t bother. Those big juicy apples you envision picking right in your backyard can only grow from grafted trees.

The key to firewood... what to cut?

For several years now, our Sustainable Family has been using wood as our primary heating fuel during the winter.  Since we started, I've been raving about it to everyone who will listen and have even managed to convince a few of my friends to make the switch.

In general, we use about 3 cords of wood per winter to heat our approximately 1700 sq. ft. house.  If you are thinking about burning wood during the winter months and are trying to guess how many cords of wood you might use, I will tell you that it is dependent on a lot of factors that are individual to each home and stove set-up, so it might take you a few years to figure it out.  You can use our experience as a rough guide, but my recommendation is for the first couple of years guess higher than you think.  Stacking an extra cord of wood is not much more work, and if you don't use it for winter heat you can always use it for campfire wood during the summer, or even use it the next year if you can keep it relatively dry and off the ground.

If you currently heat your home with wood, you know there are a couple of ways to get your fuel, either ordering it seasoned, split, and delivered for about $200-$250 per cord, or if you have the land available, drop it, cut it, and split it yourself for free* (*plus cost of chainsaw, chains, gas, bar/chain oil, hydraulic splitter, etc.).  The rule of thumb is for every acre of hardwoods you have available, you should be able to get that many cords of wood each year for eternity by cutting only the largest trees.  So the next logical question is how can you tell how much cord wood you'll get from a tree before you drop, cut, split, and stack it? 

The key to calculating cord wood from standing hardwoods is the diameter of the trunk at about 4 ½ feet from the ground.  If you have a flexible measuring tape (like a 100 ft. roll tape measure) the process is even easier, but if you don’t, you can use an ample size piece of rope and a regular metal tape.  Here’s how it’s done:

1. Figure out where on your body is about 4 ½ feet from the ground.  I had my son measure on me and it ended up about mid-chest, so I’m guessing for a 6-foot tall man it is right about armpit height.
2. Wrap your flexible tape measure around the trunk of the tree at this height and note the circumference in inches.  Or if you’re using a rope, mark the rope at the overlap point and measure the length of the rope.
3. Divide the circumference in inches by 3.14 to get the diameter of the trunk.
4. Use the chart below to determine how many cords of wood you can get from the tree.

Source:  University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. 
 
This method has worked pretty well for me in the past so I hope your experience with it will be the same.  Now the trick is knowing when we’re going to have an abnormally mild or cold winter so you can really maximize your conservation!  Let me know when you get that one figured out.

Winter Window Garden - Update #2

Two weeks into our experimental winter window garden of kale and lettuce and we are definitely having some success.  I was starting to get a little worried that the whole thing wouldn't be necessary since the temperatures have been around 50 F.  It was so warm last Sunday that I turned my garden over to get a first dose of leaf mulch and chicken manure mixed in.  This is not one of my usual early-February chores here in New England.  Luckily (or not, depending on your perspective), the temperatures are going to turn colder this week so it looks like the window garden will be necessary after all.  Whew!  You can see the curly leaves of the kale starting to sprout and some of the red lettuce leaves are starting to become apparent.

Of course, short-term success like this only emboldens the Sustainable Family to try something that is potentially even more exciting... do we dare to try to get actual garden tomatoes in the winter?  You bet we do!  I put together a few round pots of last year's compost, into which my wife happily planted two different tomato varieties.  One is a cherry variety and one is a plum-type.

Less than a week later, here they come!

For all your apocalyptic... drinking needs.

Did you know there are people out there referred to as "preppers"?  I had never heard that term until a couple of months ago.  These are people who are convinced that some kind of worldwide economic meltdown, or some similar apocalyptic event, is coming and it will end with complete anarchy.  Remember the people who built bomb shelters and hoarded food before Y2K... this is them.

Anyway, due to forces outside of my control (e.g. spouse and neighbor) the Sustainable Family movement in our house at times seems to be taking on some subtle tones of "prepping"... much to my dismay.  The latest is the question of how will we get water when this inevitable apocalypse starts affecting infrastructure and there is no longer any electricity.  Lucky for us, when we first bought the house we bought a generator and had a switch box wired to power, among other things, our well pump.  Problem solved?  Not quite.  The great thing about preppers is they think on the one-in-a-million level whereas your average human might only think on the "things that actually might happen" level.  As such, the natural next question was what are we going to do if there is no gas available to run the generator.  Yes, that's right, no gas available.  [roll eyes here]

So anyway, there are a few ways that I've found to get water out through a well head.  These include the old fashioned "little house on the prairie"-style hand pump, an Amish-style well bucket, or a submersible pump that can run off of a solar cell.  Initially, I thought the pump and solar cell would be super cool to have, but the cost of something like this is way too much for me, especially since it is very likely that it will never get used.  I moved on to the old-style hand pump.  These can be a little expensive too, especially if you are trying to get water from 100 feet down.  Again, the likelihood of it not ever being used makes this option less than desirable in my mind...  especially when the 3rd option, the Amish-style bucket, seems like it would be so simple to build myself.  This is the trade-off I guess, these seemingly crazy ideas allow me to do some DIY experimenting!

Basically, an Amish-style well bucket is a big tube with a check valve on one end.  As the tube gets lowered into the water down the well shaft, the one-way check valve allows water to flow into the "bucket" and as it is retrieved, the check valve closes and the water is drawn up.  I'm planning on tackling this project over the weekend, so I'll post an update soon.

A chance to grow some knowledge...

A few weeks ago, I came across a great learning opportunity for those of us in Connecticut and surrounding areas and I wanted to pass it along.  On Saturday, March 3rd, the Connecticut chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (CT NOFA) will be holding its 30th annual Winter Conference at Manchester Community College.

The keynote address will be delivered by Jeffrey M. Smith, author of Seeds of Deception who will speak about GMOs.  But, even if a talk about the evils of "big agriculture" isn't your kind of thing, there is plenty more for everyone to enjoy, from the beginning gardener to the full-time farmer.  Other workshop topics include pasture raising laying hens, growing garlic, nuts, and mushrooms, managing honey bees, composting, animal welfare, and just about everything else you can imagine.  Check out a copy of the full program here.

Early bird registration ends February 18th, and the cost is $45 for NOFA members, $55 for non-members, and only $30 for seniors and students.  After 2/18/12, the registration fee only goes up $5.  Better yet, if you volunteer 2 hours of your time at the meeting you'll save $10 off the registration!

Hope to see you there!

Winter Window Garden - Update

I posted recently about attempting to grow some fresh greens in the window this winter at the behest of my son.  That was a couple of weeks ago and this weekend I finally got my act together to get my winter window garden going, so I thought I would give an update on the progress.

I bought a couple of black plastic small dishwashing tubs for a buck apiece at the local discount store.  I drilled a few small holes in the bottom of each tub so the plants won't get overwatered.  I bought a couple of cheap aluminum cookie sheets to put under the tubs to catch any extra water.  I also picked up a packet of mesculin mix lettuce seeds and a packet of kale seeds from the local Agway.  I took a short trip out behind the stone wall and filled the two plastic tubs to within about an inch of the rim with some great compost from last year's pile that I turned out this fall.

Now, to find a prime sunny window spot for the tubs.  Luckily, we just happened to have the perfect height table hanging around that we salvaged from our neighbors at a tag sale!  I set the compost-filled tubs on the table in the window, spread and covered the seeds, gave them a little water, and covered them with plastic wrap.

That was Sunday morning, and so I fully expected to wait the usual week or so for the seeds to germinate.  But, when I came home after work on Tuesday (yes, 2 days later) this is what I saw.

Kind of hard to tell from the picture, but all those little green dots are plants!  Needless to say, the Sustainable Family is very excited about the prospect of enjoying some fresh greens in the coming weeks, long before we could enjoy them from the outside garden.  Of course, the temperature was in the 60's here today (that's right, February 1st in New England), so maybe I should have just planted the seeds outside?!