Category Archives: Natural

Kill Weeds Naturally Using alternative to Roundup

I recently read this concept on another website.  I thought it was good information worthy of posting.  I was unable to “press this,” so here is the website and my version of the article:  The link to the article is at the bottom.

How to kill weeds and avoid Roundup:

1. Newspaper: A carpet of newspaper, which blocks sunlight and oxygen from reaching the soil, will smother weeds already sprouted and prevent new ones from growing. Throw down newspaper in 10-sheet layers, wet to hold it down, and cover with an inch or two of mulch. If weeds begin to grow in the mulch, add more layers, making a mulch-newspaper lasagna, which eventually will decompose and nourish the soil.

2. Old shower curtains and carpet samples: Spreading these useless items in garden paths or between rows will keeps weeds from ever showing their unwanted heads. Cover with mulch.

3. Corn gluten meal: This corn by-product stops seeds from growing into weeds. Since the meal will prevent germination, spread it around established plants, and after seedlings and transplants have taken hold in the soil. After harvest, spread the meal to prevent late-season weeds.

4. Vinegar: The acetic acid in 5% vinegar is a desiccant that sucks the life out of plant leaves. It’s most destructive to young plants with immature roots, though it just rolls off weeds with waxy leaves, like pennywort or thistle.

Make sure you cover desirables before spraying, because vinegar is an equal opportunity killer. Keep your spray on-target by removing the bottom from a 2-liter plastic soda bottle, and placing it over the weed. Spray vinegar into the mouth of the bottle, which will keep it from splattering on your vegetables.

5. Vodka: Don’t know if vodka makes weeds fall down dead or drunk, but 1 ounce mixed with 2 cups of water and a couple of drops of dish soap will dry out weeds that live in the sun. Doesn’t work that well on shade-loving weeds. Protect desirables, because vodka will dry them out, too.

6. Soap: The oil in soap can break down waxy or hairy weed surfaces, making them vulnerable to desiccants. So add a few drops of liquid dish detergent to vinegar or vodka sprays to keep the solution on leaves. The soap also makes leaves shiny, which will help you keep track of what you’ve sprayed.

7. Boiling water: After you’ve made yourself a cup of tea, take the kettle outside and pour the boiling water on weeds, which will burn up. This is a particularly good way to whack driveway and walkway weeds, because the boiling water can run off impervious surfaces and cool before it reaches border plants.

 

Another new link compliments of John Murray on Facebook: http://myhoneysplace.com/how-to-make-your-own-weed-killer/

Read more: http://www.houselogic.com/home-advice/landscaping-gardening/how-to-get-rid-of-weeds-naturally/#ixzz1xjRTrGjR

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Seeing Signs of Spring

SEEING THE SIGNS OF SPRING

Much to our delight, it appears the spring if finally upon us.  We have been slowly seeing the signs of Spring for the past few weeks, but things have really turned in the last few days.  We have noted the following signs of Spring:

    • 70 degree temperatures
    • Moderate winds
    • Thunderstorms
    • The fields are beginning to turn bright green as they spring forth with life

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    • Farmers are in their fields plowing and disking.  I have even had some tell me that they have all of their oats in already.
    • The daffodils exhibit 4 to 6 inches of leave growth with the appearance of their yellow blossoms in the warmer spots.

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  • We planted peas!
  • We tilled the garden.
  • People are wearing these strange clothes:  SHORTS!
  • Groundhogs have been sighted along our country roads
  • The birds are singing and building their nests.
  • The garlic that we planted in the fall

It is a great feeling to move from season to season.  With these season changes, there are many things to do on the farm.  We will likely cover these in an additional post.   For the moment, we are glad that the signs of spring are all around us.

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Natural approach to Allergies

Do you want a natural approach to allergies?

While I am no Ear, Nose and Throat doctor, nor a human physician; I am a 25 year allergy sufferer.  I have been on various antihistamines and hyposensitization injections.  Some of the antihistamines I have tried are Benadryl, Chlortimetron, Claritin, Allegra, Sudafed and Zyrtec.
So about five years ago, I was at the allergist and his nurse told me about trying a sinus rinse.  Some people utilize a system called a Netipot.  I use a sinus rinse bottle called NeilMed Sinus Rinse.  It is one of the best things that I have found for my allergies and it is relatively natural (If shooting water into your sinuses can be considered natural) .  The concept is that using physiologic saline, you rinse the offending allergens out of your sinuses.  Seems to work for me.

NeilMed Sinus Rinse & NeilMed NasaFlo Neti Pot

NeilMed Sinus Rinse & NeilMed NasaFlo Neti Pot (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A couple of tips that I have learned along the way:

It is important to warm the water, but not too hot.  Believe it or not, the cold water burns as it passes through your sinuses.

It is better to add a bit too much salt than not enough.  The lack of salt will also burn.  It burns more than adding double the salt (which is actually a hypertonic saline solution that is recommended for certain conditions).

 

Some people add a few drops of betadine.  Others choose to add in baking soda.

 

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Wood Burning Stove

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A wood burning stove offers a good source of heat at a relatively low-cost.  Many wood stoves can be used to cook on and to heat water.  This evening, we used our supplemental wood burning stove to not only heat the basement and first floor, but also to heat water for our evening tea.

Above is actually a picture of our wood pile for next year.  We got an early start, as it is important to allow the wood to dry and season.  Unseasoned wood can cause a lot of creosote build up in the chimney, creating a potential risk of chimney fires.

I will share some tips that we have learned along the way.

First of all, it is important to try to get an efficient wood burning stove, so as to not waste wood and heat.  We purchased a used woodburner to begin with.  After burning through a lot of wood, we decided that the used wood burning stove had a poor design.  This wood burning stove lacked the ability to regulate airflow.  In fact, it has only a screen on the front.  This created a huge updraft, which resulted in a very rapid burning of the wood.

It is also vital to have some basic equipment.  This list includes a chainsaw, a sledgehammer, an ax, several splitting wedges, and a log splitter (this helps).  As part of our planning for emergency situations, a group of us split the cost and maintenance of a log splitter 6 ways in order to keep the costs down a bit.  We also stocked up on matches and newspaper (something that is becoming harder and harder to find in these days of digital media).

We also learned that it is a good idea to create a quick “flash” or “burst” of heat when first starting the wood stove up.  This helps to establish a quick updraft.  A downdraft will push smoke into the house, making the smoke detectors go haywire.  The extra smoke is also not good for those of us that have allergies.  This may be obvious, but wood smoke contains many potential allergens and irritants.

Prior to starting each new fire, I split several smaller pieces of wood using my axe.  I chop the piece down into thin pieces, often making 6 to 10 pieces of “kindling” out of each piece of wood.  This helps to start the fire in the quickest fashion.  Once the smaller pieces start burning, I add pieces of increasing size.

I recommend a wood burning stove that has both a baffle in the chimney/ piping and a slide out air flow regulator on the bottom.  This allows me to control the fire from both above and below.  Of course, I am still learning as we go, but so far so good.

I am still working on getting a nice passive airflow system down.  At the current time, we rely on fans to move the heat around.  The chimney was in the house when we purchased it, but it is not in an ideal location.  Fortunately for us, this wood burner is not the primary source of heat.  We are still buying propane, but hoping to offset the cost a little by burning and using the wood. I feel that this has been a good purchase overall.  We also will receive the slight benefit of a 30% tax credit.  This credit did not tip the scale on the decision to purchase a woodburning stove, but every little bit helps.

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GMO Products

GMO Products

GMO = Genetically Modified Organism

GMO is a term that is commonly applied to “Round-up” Ready crops such as soybeans and corn.  So what does genetically modifying crops do to the crops ………. then the animals.  Continuing on the theme of “You are what you eat,” I will try to evaluate this further and pass the information along.

There are some claims on the internet about new organisms that have been identified within genetically modified soybean meal.  These claims are from an expert in the field of Horticulture.  So what are the claims”  The claim is that this organism is capable of causing severe disease in Cattle, Hogs, and Horses to name a few.  In addition to causing diseases, the professor claims that veterinarians have found this organism and it is linked to infertility and abortions.  Dr. Don Huber is the scientist who is making these claims.  An aside is that his claims are very interesting and very concerning, however they appear in the Youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nHCw36wIhs)  and are very vague at best.  Dr. Huber fails to name the organism nor does he even identify what classification the organism belongs to.  What does that mean?  Well he does not name it as a bacteria, a fungus, an algae, or a prion (responsible for mad cow disease and Kuru).  This definitely leaves the claims open to interpretation.

A larger question is what are the effects of Round – Up on the soil and plants?  The increase in GMO crops facilitates the increased utilization of Round Up. Again Dr. Huber claims that Glyphosate destroys various organisms within the soil.  These oraganism, he claims, are responsible for the production of the trace mineral Manganese.  Again from Wikipedia : “Manganese is an essential trace nutrient in all forms of life…….Manganese is also important in photosynthetic oxygen evolution in chloroplasts in plants. The oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) is a part of photosystem II contained in the thylakoid membranes of chloroplasts; it is responsible for the terminal photooxidation of water during the light reactions of photosynthesis, and has a metalloenzyme core containing four atoms of manganese.[41] For this reason, most broad-spectrum plant fertilizers contain manganese.”

The active ingredient of Glyphosate.  According to Wikipedia: “Glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses known to compete with crops grown widely across the Midwest of the United States.”  Other portions of the Wikipedia write up state: “While glyphosate has been associated with deformities in a host of laboratory animals, its impact on humans remains unclear.[6]

Glyphosate’s mode of action is to inhibit an enzyme involved in the synthesis of the aromatic amino acids: tyrosine, tryptophan and phenylalanine. It is absorbed through foliage and translocated to growing points. Because of this mode of action, it is only effective on actively growing plants; it is not effective as a pre-emergence herbicide.”

While there is a lot of information that is yet to be gleaned and revealed,  Glyphosate has allowed for the rapid production of GMO crops.  This is another reason to consider homesteading.  Homesteading centers around the conservation of of soil, plants, and animals.  This is what we focus on here at Heritage Breed Farms.  Check out the previous posting about building soil.  Hopefully more to follow.

 

 

http://viewfromabuzz.com/2012/12/22/poisoning-ourselves-daily-part-2-gmos/

 

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Organic or Natural?

Organic or Natural

 

While we are not necessarily “organic,” we do believe in organic practices.  To us, organic is synonymous with “natural.”  There is much more to organic  or natural farming than just leaving things alone and allowing things to do what God designed them to do.  We believe that being a natural farmer actually requires more work.  The practices of the traditional farmer tend to be based from a standpoint of ease, not necessarily out of the best management practices.  While we respect and cherish all farmers and food producers, it is oftentimes easier to reach for the chemical fertilizer or the chemical spray than to build the soil and correct a potential problem.

English: Organic cultivation of mixed vegetabl...

English: Organic cultivation of mixed vegetables on an organic farm in Capay, California. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have also observed a local farmer who considered himself “organic,” yet to us gave organic farming a bad name.  All that we could tell was that to him the term organic simply meant doing nothing.  No sprays.  No chemicals. No Antibiotics.  While these are some of the premises of organic farming, there is much more to it.  We tend to think of natural or organic farming from the perspective of the great founding father Benjamin Franklin.  He stated that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  This plays out in our food that we eat.  For a moment, forget about the chemicals.  Thinks along these terms:  If I prevent an animal from getting sick or stressed in the first place, don’t I ultimately produce a better product in the long run.  Periods of stress tend to reduce the nutrients in our foods.  Stressed cattle produce poorer quality meat.  Stressed vegetables produce lower quality end products.  So it is with that in mind that we feel that limiting stress and disease is the best practice, but that takes time and effort.

 

Now as far as reasons to eat “organic,”  the following are some points taken from various sources on the internet:

English: Organic vegetables at a farmers' mark...

English: Organic vegetables at a farmers’ market in Argentina. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

1)  The average non organic fruit contains more than 20 pesticides.

 

2)  Organic food is more rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber

 

3)  Organic food retains the levels of nutrients for much longer

 

4)  Your body will  have higher levels of the essential nutrients it needs to fight off infection and disease

 

5)  You will have more energy through consuming lower levels of toxins and chemicals that slow your body down because organic or natural practices utilize little to no chemicals.

 

6)  If you are eating dairy or farm produce then you are also eating the chemicals, drugs and growth hormones given to the animals.  In organic or natural farming, these products are avoided.

 

7)  True organic food producers must meet stringent standards

 

8)  Organic farms respect our water resources and do not leach nitrogens and other pollutants from their soil

 

9)  Organic food just tastes so much better!

 

 

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Heirloom and Open-Pollinated Crops: Profitablility

Heirloom and Open-Pollinated Crops:  Profitablility

As a small farmer, I am looking at ways to maximize profits.  When running and managing a business, there are several ways to increase the profitability of your business.  One way is to sell more.  Another way is to increase the price that you sell your product for.  Another way is to decrease your input costs.  I am certain that there are more ways to increase your return, but those are the few I can think of for the moment.

Let’s look at how to decrease input costs.  On a farm, there are ways to do this.  The first way is to maximize the space that you are given.

Another method is to maximize what is provided to you.  An example that we use is to feed leftover human food to our chickens.  This can also be down with pigs (i.e. “slop the hogs”).

So I am wondering about the practicality of using heirloom and open pollinated crops versus the F1 hybrid varieties.  The F1 hybrids tend to produce more yield per acre, but I wonder to what extent.  The cost for this seed is a recurring cost every year on a farm, as the seed companies have a patent on the seed itself.  Unfortunately, the seed from hybrid plants will not produce another hybrid plant like the parent plant.  The seed with do one of three things:

1)  Be non-productive and never germinate

2)  Revert to parent plant type 1

3)  Revert to parent plant type 2

 

These hybrid seeds are produced by large companies, who take the pollen from one variety of plant and place it onto another variant of the same type of plant.  This results in a genetic seed containing genomes from each parent variety.  When planted, this first generation (F1) hybrid will produce a hybrid plant that can be predicted.  What can not be predicted is the genetic makeup of that hybrid plant seed in the subsequent year.

 

So the advantage of F1 hybrids is an increase in some sort of desired trait (usually productivity).  The disadvantage is the reliance upon the seed company each and every year.  The advantage of using an heirloom or open pollinated plant is that you can save your own seed, cutting out the reliance upon the seed company.  It is also possible that the open-pollinated crop will actually modify from year to year to acclimate to its environment.

This year, we were able to grow a variety of field corn called Blue Hopi corn.  The kids found some old seed and placed it into some clay soil.  They maybe watered the plants 5 times and yet, we got two large ears on every stalk that grew.  I am wondering if there is now a drought tolerance built up in this particular corn, as it grew so well in such a dry year.

It is an interesting thought (at least to me) on whether or not growing your own open pollinated crops and saving the seed from year to year is a worthwhile proposition.  It seems to me that it definitely has some potential to be profitable by at least saving input costs.  I do know that utilizing crops that are open-pollinated or heirloom varieties will make you more self-sufficient at the least.

 

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Basic Equipment for Chickens

Basic Equipment for Chickens

So you are thinking about getting those first few chickens.  What do you need to get started?  The basic needs of all animals are food, water, and shelter.  In addition, chickens require fencing, lighting, and heat (in northern climates).  Additional indoor equipment for chickens includes nest boxes and lighting  (unless seasonality is not an issue and forced molting is not required).

Food

Chickens are good at foraging.  They will eat grass, roots, and bugs.  Most owners supplement their chickens in one of two ways: complete feed (such as all mash) and scratch grains.  We purchase GMO free, certified organic All Mash for our girls.  We also purchase various organic grains.  We currently use whole organic wheat berries.  We sprinkle them on top of the manure pack/ straw every day.  This encourages the chickens to scratch, which adds oxygen to what is basically a compost pile.

Feed is typically fed through a feeder.  These typically have open tops to allow easy refilling.  Many people will get enough feeders to allow them to fill the feeders every three or four days.  Feeders will generally be round, to allow access from all sides.  These typically hang from above.

Water
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Generally anything can be used for a chicken waterer.  We utilize a three gallon, heated waterer.  The most important thing is to keep fresh waterer.  The waterer must be set up in such a way to minimize the amount of contamination.  We use a heated waterer all year round, but do not plug it in during the warmer months.  The 3 gallon resevior allows us to fill the waterer about every 3rd day.  At that time, we clean the waterer whenever we refill the water resevior.

Shelter

Most people keep their flock contained within a chicken coop.   Designs of chicken coops are as unique as the people that own chickens.  Some prefer a chicken tractor (a mobile chicken coop), a hoophouse, or a more permanent building.  We keep our birds in an old outbuilding that we fixed up just for them.  In general the floor space should be adequate for the number of birds that you plan to have (2 to 3 sq feet per hen is the ideal minimum).  We converter an old outdoor shed into a two compartment chicken house.  We then made a smaller third compartment that allows us to raise the peeps separate from the old chickens to prevent cannibalism and pecking.

A chicken coop in a Seattle backyard.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nest Boxes

We built our own nest boxes when we first purchased our original 6 hens.  We recently purchase materials and built two more chicken nest boxes.  The previous next box was located inside the coop, but the newer ones are now mounted on the outside.  The birds can get into the nest boxes from inside the coop, but there is access for egg collection from the exterior of the building.

Lighting

Chickens need to have some supplemental lighting, especially during days with fewer hours of natural daylight.  Chickens will stop laying eggs if the daylight continues to decrease.  The hens typically lay eggs when the day length is in excess of 14 hours.  Therefore, supplemental lightening is needed.  You may also need to include a brooder, or heat lamp.  Young chicks require heat in order to stay healthy.  The are not born with feathers, so they lack the ability to maintain their own body heat.

Miscellaneous Supplies

Roosts:  You will want to add some perches/ roosts to the coop.  Locate these where the fecal dropping will land in a convenient area.  The hens will typically sleep on the roosts, the higher ones preferred most of all.

Bedding:  Chickens adapt well.  This allows for various types of bedding to be used.  These include straw, sawdust, and materials such as cedar chips.

Leg Bands:  These are used for identification purposes.  Not all homesteading setups will use these leg bands, but they do come in handy to keep track of the ages of your flock.

Chickens

Chickens (Photo credit: Allie’s.Dad)

Hopefully this helps as you continue to consider and research your chicken project.  There is a lot of equipment for chickens available from a variety of sources.

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Homesteading

Homestead

Homestead (Photo credit: chefranden)

As I think more and more about this blog, I feel that the topic is going to trend more toward homesteading and self-sufficiency.  I keep stumbling upon ideas about what to share.  Time and time again, I come back to self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and homesteading.

As a result of monitoring recent world events, I have become increasingly concerned with the stability of our current structure.  We get everything from centralized locations.  Now, I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist or somebody that is subscribing to the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar; but common sense and observation tell me that our current system is rather fragile.  I have it better than others as far as this goes due to my location in a rural area.  Should something disrupt our food supply (like an oil shortage, massive union strikes crippling transportation, some huge natural disaster or something else) I live near many people and farms that produce their own food.  I would have to look just over yonder hill to get milk.  (making the slogan “Got Milk” come to mind).

Mass food production02

Mass food production02 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Think about it for a minute, where does your food come from?  The answer is likely to be the store, right?  Perhaps it is because I have an interest in gardening and food production, but I feel that it is important for as many people to produce as much of their own food as possible.  This is vital to preservation of plant and food production.  This is perhaps one of the core values of homesteading.

It is also important to know what is in your food.  We encourage and believe in natural and non-chemical production as much as possible.  We recycle as much as we can into compost, the best all natural fertilizer available.  We also recycle our animal manures and the organic material (straw and sawdust) back onto the garden and into the the soil.  This is a basic system of building soil.

One reason that we have named our farm Heritage Breeds Farm is that we feature heritage breeds of animals.  These breeds are sometimes referred to as old breeds.  These breeds are noted for thriving in homesteading situations, making them perfect for this discussion.  Many people on homesteads will focus on dual purpose animals due to a smaller farm plot.  An example is cattle that produce both milk and meat or chickens that are noted for both egg and meat production.

Please check out our homesteading series for more information about homesteading.

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Post 200: Our Farming Principles

600 and 200:  What do those Numbers mean?  Well 600 is the number of views on the website and 200 is the number of posts.  This post represents the 200th overall post here at heritagebreedsfarm.com.  We are excited to have hit this milestone.  An interesting point to note is that today is the 264th day of the year.  This means that we have generated about 5 posts per week.

English: Three chicken eggs of contrasting col...

Well, with this milestone, I felt it appropriate to summarize what we represent and what we strive to achieve.  Our theories and principles are as follows:

  1. A return to the family farm.  We feel that nothing can be better than the farm life.  Though it can be hard and trying at times, there are many advantages to farming.  We believe that the farm life is centered around the family first.  We can teach our children to be helpful and responsible by raising animals.  If the animals are dependent upon them, it gives them a much greater sense of responsibility than simply whether or not they clean their rooms or take their dishes to the sink. We want to teach our children that their actions have an effect on life and lack of responsibility has consequences.
  2. A respect for the Creator‘s creation.  Not that I did not say respect for the environment.  I state it this way because God calls us to work the land and to be CARETAKERS.  Why the bold?  Well, unfortunately it seems as though Christians are opposed to environmentalism.  I believe that this is due to the fact that environmentalism is basically a religion that serves to worship the creation (environment) rather than the creator.  Yet, as Christians, we are called to protect the creation.  We practice organic practices for this reason.  God created this planet and I feel that we do not need toxic, synthetic chemicals to try to preserve it.  We simply need to not be destructive and truly care for the land, while using it at the same time.
  3. Organic Principles:  We promote organic principles, not only for the good of the land, but ultimately for the good of the consumer (us).  It is our belief that raising organic meat, eggs and vegetables is better for the end consumer due to fewer antibiotic residues and fewer chemical components potentially getting into the end product, such as the meat or eggs.
  4. Free ranging/ natural approaches.  We believe that not only is this better and more humane for the animal, but this produces a better end product as well.  An example of this practice is free range chicken eggs.  Click here to see why free range chicken eggs are superior to eggs produced by factory farming.
  5. Using Heritage Breeds.  We use heritage breeds as they are well-suited to produce in a smaller setting.  These breeds have fallen out of favor because they do not thrive in a factory farming environment.  Factory farming is set up based on intensive practices.  Animals are often fed a TMR (Total mixed ration) instead of a more natural roughage-based diet.  They are also fed grain-based diets in order to push them to higher production levels.
  6. Grass Fed Principles:  This may follow on the heels of the above principle, but it is important to what we believe.  Click HERE for a link to a posting regarding grass fed beef in particular.  Click HERE for the article about free range chicken eggs.
We would love for you to become a follower of our website.  Hopefully you find our principles and articles helpful.
Until Next Time!
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