Planting Seeds Now August for Winter Harvest Garden

Okay, see y'all in 5 minutes. It's cutting it tight. It's cutting it just tight this side. I'm gonna have to think very smart this morning. Oh, it feels so good.

It's nice and cool.

I've got way too much to do and way too little time. That's one. Okay, she's got this gnarly cut on her leg I need to bandage or it's gonna get infected, I'm afraid. Let's see. Broth going. We have so many bones and so little freezer room, we need to be on it. We need to be harvesting our beef broth all at once, continually getting it going. One of the boys got up. Happy day 27 of Grow 30, where we've tried to— well, we've quit the grocery store and we've looked at how much can we consume, grow ourselves, or within 100 miles. One thing I've gotten out of it, I kept saying we want to discover the abundance all around us. The bone broth I'm making is something you can make. Scrapple from those little scrap meats that come off the bones. My friend Tara from Slow Down Farmstead, who's coming— I should say friend and mentor. She's someone we've been following when we started doing this, and we really look up to her for her methods of raising the animals and her health convictions. For example, I think she's the only one else we know that is crazy enough to not throw it all out the window when you travel. Someone asked her, do you bring your food when you come to America? She's from Canada. She said you can't bring this kind of food into America. She eats really whole and real and nose to tail, and so it's different. They don't allow it. But as soon as she gets—

they—

before they go at 5 AM, they fast until they get across the border. They go through Pennsylvania, they come down to Pennsylvania and they go to an organic grocery store and stock up there. Now I don't feel so crazy for having 6 Yetis in a trailer and bottling up our own water for the travel. 30 days, I really have learned to see what we have right in front of us, be more diligent about the harvest, be more, uh, cognizant of what is available, like the meat on the bones. I've never done that. I've never done that. I've had this intuition that I should do something with that, but I never really looked into it. I'm excited about what we're learning about ourselves. After doing this for so long, I'm realizing I get caught up in this. Stuff. The process— this is what I really like. This is the fun stuff to me, putting the sheep to mowing our lawn, milking the cow, even gardening. Temptation is to leave them. There's plenty of forage there, right? But they don't like that. When a plant goes to seed like that, it's lost all its protein. I'm thinking let's get them mowing our, uh, let's get them mowing our bank beside our garden. All right, keep it simple this morning. We have to move the sheep. They move every day. Deal with the milk. Oh shoot, I just remember I need to really do the chicken chores. Deal with the milk. Figure out this scrapple. Had it on low all night. I don't think it ever simmered. I need to simmer it for a couple of hours to where I can get the meat off of it and then put the bones back. So that's what we're trying to do today. Got to take care of Winnie. Her Beautiful One's request. All this by 9:45 when our supplemental food gets here from Azure. It's in the 50s in here this morning. I feel like I live in the mountains again. But anyway, we need to do all this by the time Azure gets here, and then Rebecca and I have appointments— acupuncture and PT. How am I doing? How am I doing? Not as good as I thought I would be doing after 6 weeks. No, not 6. We're not at 6 weeks yet. 5 weeks at least. This— the pain is what's stopping me, not stiffness, so to say. So hopefully I'll be able to get my range of motion back. We really need to get our garden covered. But I don't know if we're gonna have time. What do you do? What do you do? They're all important things. I got my tent set up. Hey, I ain't gonna let this go. Uh, I said tent. I've got my fence set up, but I hear clanging around here. I wonder if the boys are back. For the failed milking time. I'm not joking. Okay, I got a long way to go on that shoulder. Okay, good. Why are you in there? I'll help you. Oh good, it's not— it's not the boys. Yeah, go in there with tools, not yourself.

But you're standard grain flour, right?

What?

Flour?

Yeah, all-purpose gluten-free flour. What are you gonna make?

I'm gonna make pancake today, but it doesn't come till like 9.

All right, let's just limit ourselves to it maybe, uh, every couple of weeks. Is that enough frequency? Every 2 weeks? Okay, they're hanging out on that because it's warm. It's warm this morning. You like the mountains this morning, pollos? Somebody's in heat. Somebody's in heat. Gonna get out of frame here. Let me come walking up to the camera here. Uh, sheep aren't going to do a good job mowing if you want it to look nice, okay? This is their job, okay? That doesn't look good. It's spotty. They liked this area and not all the rest. This they did a little bit better at. It's still quite spotty. Don't get caught up in some false romance that sheep are going to mow your lawn. Now, they did mow my lawn and they did help, and they need something to eat, so I might as well have them mow my lawn. Don't get sheep or an animal to do a job. It's not worth it. A machine is by and far more economical. But if you're gonna raise sheep, you might as well put them on a job because they need something to eat. So they have mowed this down, and it's going to be less intense on our mower. Jonah even said yesterday, oh, this is going to be nice to mow, uh, tomorrow. And it's gonna, you know, it's just— they ate it. So partner— I found it better to partner with the team, unless you don't mind a spotty yard, then mow your lawn with them sheep. Of all those things I've got to do today, chidlers is an unspoken number 2. The number 1 is the bride. The garden of peace, guys. We gotta tend that garden of peace. It comes first. Why are you out here screaming? You get kicked out? You want to go with me? Can I get there? Watch this. Can I get the Ergo and take you?

I want to push to meet my shield.

What's he saying, Austin?

I want to push to meet my shield. What are you saying, Austin?

You tell me what he said. Okay, that'll be funny. Oh, and by the way, keep that behind the scenes back there where I was Sitting at the camera and getting out of frame. Austin, he said sword. You want a sword? Yeah. Okay, when the boys get back, can you come with me? Can you come with me? When they get back from milking, they're gonna make you a sword. Come with me, I'm gonna get the Ergo. He said he needs shoes, so maybe he'll go with me. Well, these shoes— Keens. There's one. He wants his boots. One. There's the other one where we like to keep it. Okay, maybe I ought to write the kids in— mom and the kids in on the to-do list, because then I would feel good about getting something accomplished if I didn't get those other things accomplished. Where are you going? Come up this way. Your shoes are up here. You want me to get the ergo?

Hey, yeah, where are the seeds at? They were on the—

in the root cellar. Hey, if you don't have any there, people gave us those seeds from the hurricane up in the shed. It's in a box. We're planting the winter harvest garden. Hold, come here. Do I need to tell you how many to plant? We didn't talk. I was gonna do the square foot method for spacing. Actually, we should probably just look at my book for the spacing. 4 lettuce in a square foot. There's 4 of those in a row, so that's 4, 8, 32 times 8. That many lettuce in one bed? Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, I want a whole bed. Okay, are you ready? There's maintaining a farm and then there's progressing the farm. We gotta plant now, we're running out of time if we want a fall/winter harvest garden. You got to get the plant— the cold-hardy plants up to maturity by Thanksgiving because nothing's going to grow after Thanksgiving, there's not enough light. And thing, the longer we wait, the longer the seedling takes to grow out too. So in the fall, if the seed packet says This takes 45 days to grow to maturity. I think the rule of thumb is half of that plus itself. So let's say it's 40 days to maturity for easy math. In the fall, it's 60 days to maturity. So we still got some time. It's end of August. Can I greet the ergo, or are you gonna walk? All right, Tara, he's not been a big fan of the Ergo. Somebody asked me at the workshop yesterday, how are you so patient? I say, well, I turn off the camera and become impatient. There's some truth in that, but, uh, I have noticed I've gotten more patient over the years, and patience only comes Like strength training, you got to practice, you got to do it. What? And I'm getting practice this morning. I said that when they come down, I'm gonna give them to you. They're gonna come through here. Okay, we're going to— hey, let's move the sheep! Let's do this, let's move the sheep and then I'll take you to the boys. All right, we're gonna, uh— hey Henry, let's move these sheep real quick. Here, man, you can't just wait until you've magically received patience and then take your children. You gotta take your children. They gotta drive you nuts, okay? And that's okay. It's okay to get driven nuts. It's okay to lose your patience sometimes. What's more important is that you're able to apologize and show them you're human, you make mistakes, you're not God. And that develops trust, strengthens the relationship. Come over here. What? Jonah, do you see? Please, please don't involve me in the drama. It's stacking, buddy. Now Jonah and Josiah have a drama. All right, come on, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep! Right in the middle of my sheep movie. Jonah, come here! You hope Lily gets some breakfast here real quick. You go to a plant. There's a plant right there. Okay, you don't go right on it, you go beside it and lift up out of the ground. Okay, we can see that we've unearthed some. I think there are more right there. See that?

See that?

Hey, I really need your help, okay? It's really important. I'm not gonna have time. I'm gonna finish this up. And I gotta process the milk. Can you go do feed, water, shelter, and security for the chickens? That means take hay in there, feed in there, check their waters, clean out their nest boxes because they sometimes they poop in them overnight. Clean those out so our eggs are clean today. Could you do that important job? Great, both posses. All right, maybe he's in a mood today. Good job, Gideon. Now it's running on 2. That ought to hit hard. Happy mowing.

Good morning. It is a cold morning today. I am going to get the fall garden stuff planned— planted. That's planned. I'd have to plant it. I'm gonna go get my seeds. Okay, so the science experiment that is our root cellar. I'm just gonna grab all this. Oh, this is freaky in here. I'm going back into the house with all my seeds.

Survival Garden Seeds sent us seed vaults. Heirloom seeds, baby. I know, grown in America.

I like it.

They sent them about a year ago at Hurricane Helene. Hey, sorry, we're, we're just getting back on our feet. Okay. Oh wow, there's a lot in there. There's a ton.

Whoa, I had no idea we had this.

We could do bok choy.

I needed pepper seeds last year.

Who knew? You want to do some bok choy? Mom? Yeah, we don't really like greens. They're trying to kill us. We do, we do make an exception for lettuce. Since you eat greens, you're going to eat more in the winter because we'll have them. Okay, kiss the cabbage if you find it. Oh, I will.

I found the cabbage!

Oh, are you okay with this can though?

Oh no, I'll just do this can.

Trying to help me process the milk, please. So we have everything we need, we don't got to buy any more seeds. Are we going to try cauliflower this winter?

I was maybe thinking—

it's so hard. Brassicas are hard, but we could— we'll put it under a bug net, everything. That and the, um, cabbage. Brassicas are hard in the fall. You got to even put bug net over it and then high temp— or greenhouse, Rebecca. Jonah, good news. What? This freezer is at -1. Put all of He-Man in that freezer. It'll be a dedicated freezer. He-Man is spread out between all the freezers. We're gonna have a go at sour cream. Hey, what is it about this 30 days that has made us really just utilize what we got?

Well, we used to make sour cream. Yeah, and I don't know what happened.

We're gonna make sour cream.

I think what happens— no, I think I know what happens is that we have a ton of milk right now, but then we don't have milk, so then we have to supplement with the store. And then when we get milk again, we just have forgotten.

I'm more diligent about it. Do you want to pour some of this out? Because you're going to have to mix it, you know what I mean? We're going to have to immersion blend it.

No.

No? All right, how much, how much yogurt?

You put a couple of tablespoons, so I'm just gonna eyeball it.

Here's a quarter cream, and then you mix it in.

But I can't remember, I feel like I used to put 3 tablespoons in.

Does it matter?

Um, well, I feel like I was putting like a half a cup in when we were making it before. I also, I'm gonna buy a set, I'm gonna try We're gonna try this out and see how we like it, but then I'm also gonna, I'm gonna try some other things. I'm not just gonna be like, oh, this is all we're gonna do. You know what I mean?

But, um, you just put some yogurt in there to be a starter.

Yeah, that's what we used to do.

And then how long we gonna put this in the dehydrator? Um, 24 hours.

So that's what we used to do for cultured cream.

Let's do that.

Let's, let's do cultured cream again, and then we'll just go from there. Oh, because when we're going on gaps, cultured cream is further than sour cream. It's kind of sour cream. Okay, isn't it?

No, I don't think— I don't know.

Well then, let's taste it. Let's come look at it tonight.

Do we ever use this dehydrator for dehydrating? Why? Surely they have something that could— is this the most efficient thing to keep something at 100 degrees? Um, Well, we have it. We have a dehydrator. We never dehydrate.

I used to make the dehydrated tomato leathers.

And why would you do that when you could freeze dry it?

So good, that's why.

All right, once you open up, look at He-Man.

All right. Oh, these are not frozen yet.

Yeah, yeah, is that normal? I think so, because it's, it's, it's gone all night, you know.

Okay, it's getting there.

Let's see what goes. Keep that shut.

It says 40.

Yeah, that's because it's been open. I'm getting the master involved. We just want it, uh, I guess cooked enough to where we can get the meat off. Well, it's not really— Okay, well then just keep it going then.

Yeah.

All right, let's keep it going at this speed too, right? Yeah, we decided we're going to keep one dedicated burner to the broth unless Tara, our mentor— she's going to be most important to us, isn't she? We got so many questions.

I know, I have so many questions.

And does she use gas? Does that mean she has gas going all the time?

And she has an AGA.

And what about the InstaPot? Is that okay? We have two of those.

I know we have a lot questions of like—

and we really trust her because she grows things regeneratively, but also she is a health nut.

She's doing it for the health because she has Lyme disease.

And she's above us, I believe, in her health journey.

Yeah, yeah, she started when we were— when she's been on this— she's been on this journey. Her journey and our journey are very similar. And so I think that's why we look up to her so much. And also she's further along in her journey than we are, and so she has— she's also got like a lot of wisdom because she's older, her children, she's like a grandma.

She'll be here like tomorrow, the next day, for the next couple of days. Yeah, all the questions. Plus a podcast for all y'all. All right, hang on, it's gonna be a wild ride. We're gonna be in for a health awareness— for a health awakening. So more time on the meat scraps. Lily, you nailed these potatoes. That's a good thing about cooking the same thing over and over again, you get really good at it. These are a go-to: eggs and sausage, little potatoes, lots of butter. T-minus 20 minutes. Hey, did he finally build you a sword? I love it. Embrace it now when they want swords, not dirt bikes and soccer teams. Beautiful one's got a tender heart. I think Winnie's got the power to heal herself, but we're just gonna make sure. This is funny, I want to treat her like a sheep. She's not a sheep, okay? She don't herd.

No.

Okay, she's got a gash. I don't know if we'll ever see it.

Yeah. Yeah, it is healing.

It is healing. It's worse than it— or it's better than it was. Okay, this is the peroxide. This guy didn't need no direction. He knew exactly what to do. Wow, he's good. Lily, you gonna hold Winnie for a second? Thanks. Dan, you just can't get enough of us, can you? Yes, sir. Here yesterday for the butchering, now you're back for the Azure Co-op. Hey, why not do a service for the community and let people order with us. Well, you have to have a minimum order anyway, so it helps, helps us get the minimum order. There we go, we got her bandage. Okay, see what she does. She'll probably just bite it right off. She's afraid of it. Come on, Winnie. Look, I can't help it if you bite it right off, okay?

All right, we've got our basket and I'm headed to the high tunnel to hopefully find some produce. It'll be interesting to see how hot it is in the high tunnel because it's pretty cool out. It's actually feeling really nice. So there's 2 cucumbers right here. Then we got beans. These are green beans. Oh, look at these beautiful flowers. These are paprika peppers. Supposed to be good for paprika. So the beans, they look like they might be struggling slightly. Squash here, it's doing good. My tomatoes are still gangbustering up. I think I'm just going to stop growing okra. I don't know, I just am not enjoying growing it. I'm not hitting it right or something, or it gets too big too fast. I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing. Oh boy, there's some big zucchinis. All right, giant Sukings Giant. We'll see, we'll see what I can do with those. I've got a little yellow squash, so I've got my numbers on what I need to plant for that. I'm going to try to plant some cauliflower, see how that goes. Wow, it's a disaster in here. This is good to go. I'm just going to add some water to it. We never planted anything in this. I made this and then never planted anything. It's funny, we were watching, uh, old vlogs today. So it was 2018 from when we were watching. They were just jonesing to help. I don't know where any of my kids are. I couldn't keep my kids away from this. My older ones are like, no, we're good, we've done this. You know, we always act like we're not going to do a fall garden. Well, and then we do.

That's what the 30 days did to us.

I know, I don't feel like I got enough salad this year. I feel like I'm gonna be really excited.

We're really gonna quit the grocery store and you don't— and you want a salad? Well, then we're gonna have to have—

I know, I know, I'm excited about it. Cabbage and then beets. This is the other one.

Yep, just two beets and the silly, silly cedar.

Oh, and will you do me a silly cedar? Will you do me one of these? Look, one of these so I can do peas.

Got sour cream made, got our supplemental groceries here, got our scrap meat going, our bone broth going. We've had a good day. Tara's coming this evening. Hopefully you guys will see her in the vlog tomorrow. In the next day, I think Rebecca and her are going to be doing some canning together. Anyway, we gotta get this vlog to Austin. Happy day. Thanks for joining us.