Categories
Farm & Garden

Sugar Maple Trees: 5 Farm Uses

Sugar maple trees offer a wide variety of benefits to hobby farmers. Some are obvious—maple syrup, anyone?—but you might not be aware of all the ways these trees can provide useful products and materials on your farm.

Sugar Maple Tree Facts

Sugar maple trees are widespread throughout the eastern U.S. and Canada. They’re long-lived deciduous hardwoods that can grow tall and straight in a forest setting or wide and spreading out in the open.

If you have a stand on your farm, congratulations, it’s a wonderful asset. Here are five beneficial items sugar maple trees can yield on your farm:

1. Lumber

Like its almost indistinguishable relative the black maple, sugar maple trees are considered “hard maples” due to the hard, heavy, and durable lumber they produce. This is opposed to “soft maples” like red maple and silver maple, which yield softer, lighter and less durable wood.

The wood of sugar maple trees is attractive, and it’s regularly used to make hardwood flooring, furniture, musical instruments and more. If your farm features a stand of forest-grown sugar maple trees with tall, straight trunks, you’re looking at a source of high-quality and valuable lumber, provided you’re willing to harvest them.

2. Firewood

Sugar maple trees also produce high-quality firewood. The dense wood burns longer and produces more heat than many other types of wood. It is also known for burning with a pleasant smell and relatively few sparks.

Given all their other benefits (awesome lumber, maple sap, etc.), turning a large number of living trees into firewood might not be the best use of your asset. But felling an occasional misshapen or old sugar maple tree to burn as firewood can be a sustainable practice if your sugar maple stand is large enough. You can also take large branches from specimens harvested for lumber and use those as firewood.

3. Maple Sap

Tapping maple trees for their sap is an age-old practice in late winter and early spring, yielding sugary sap that can be put to use in many ways. Boiling down the sap to make maple syrup is a common practice, but making maple sugar candy from the syrup is another delightful option.

Producing maple syrup requires a lot of trees since you need 40 gallons of sap to make a single gallon of syrup. But if your stand of sugar maple trees is large enough, and you’re willing to invest in time and equipment, harvesting maple sap can be an enjoyable and even profitable endeavor.

4. Leaf Mulch

Mature maple trees produce a lot of leaves each year—thousands upon thousands. When they fall to the ground in autumn, they provide an excellent source of leaf mulch. Before winter each year, I shred sugar maple leaves and pile them several inches deep around the base of a Contender peach tree in my orchard, which helps guard the peach tree’s roots from cold winter temperatures.

5. Leaf Compost

Shredded sugar maple leaves can also be incorporated into compost and used to improve soil quality in garden beds. They provide carbon, calcium, magnesium, and more while being quicker to break down than some other types of leaves.

Don’t let a valuable stand of sugar maple trees go unused. Whether you’re harvesting trees for lumber and firewood or enjoying the annual benefits of sap and leaves, there are many ways to use sugar maple trees on your farm.

This article was written for Hobby Farms online. Click here to subscribe to Hobby Farms print magazine.

Categories
Crops & Gardening Farm & Garden Homesteading Urban Farming

How to Get Rid of Virginia Creeper & Choking Vines

How to get rid of Virginia creeper (native) and invasive vines like euonymus (wintercreeper) and English ivy is important as these vines can be devastating when allowed to climb high onto trees. “If they get established and get big, as they often do, they can cover the whole tree and then rob the tree of nutrients and sunlight,” says Emily Mayo, executive assistant and member of the Nashville Tree Conservation Corps.

“The vines are competing for the things that the tree needs to survive. That’s, ultimately, what kills the tree.”

Fortunately, winter is a great time to rid your trees of choking vines. “Winter is my favorite time partly because there are no chiggers,” Mayo laughs. With the leaves off of the trees—and because many invasive vines remain leafy year-round—visibility is better now, too.


Read more: Poison ivy and other opportunists are on the rise.


The Right Stuff

In part, how you’ll tackle problem vines on your own trees depends on the vines’ ages and sizes. For how to get rid of Virginia creeper vines that are only about the diameter of a pencil or smaller, you can usually pull these away from a tree without damaging its bark. But for a much larger vine, Mayo cautions, “You don’t want to pull it off of the tree, because it can take the bark with it and then open the tree up to disease.”

If you have just a few young vines to snip off, a good set of pruning shears will do. But for bigger jobs, you’ll need some extra equipment, including:

  • a sharp knife
  • small pry bar
  • hammer or mallet (optional)
  • small handsaw

You might also want to wear a pair of gloves, long pants and long sleeves—especially if you’re removing poison ivy. “Some people have a reaction to English ivy as well,” Mayo notes.

Step by Step

Because large, thick vines likely will have had many years to integrate themselves with their host tree, removing them can take real patience. What follows are instructions for freeing a tree from the grip of some very well-established vines. (See numbered steps in image below for reference.)

vines trees
Susan Brackney
Step 1

If your vines have attached themselves to the tree’s bark via root hairs, use a sharp knife to gently cut through these on both the right and left sides of the vine.

Step 2

In the same area where you cut through the vine’s roots, carefully slide a pry bar behind the vine. You may need to use a hammer or mallet to tap the pry bar in place. Do this very gently, taking pains not to damage the tree’s bark in the process.

Slide the pry bar between the front of the tree and the back of the vine along both the left and right sides of the vine. (Ultimately, you want to isolate just enough vine segment so that you can saw through it without cutting into the tree itself.)

Step 3

Use a small handsaw to cut all the way through the vine. Be sure to stop cutting before you reach the front of the tree.

Step 4

Locate another spot along the vine that’s about 6 inches above or below the cut you just made. Repeat steps 1 through 3 in this area. Once you’ve finished cutting through the vine in this second spot, you should be able to remove a 6-inch section of vine from the tree. If you need to, you can use the pry bar to help pop out this piece of cut vine.

(Notice in the “Step 4” image that, although the tree’s bark looks discolored from long-term contact with the vine, the tree bark itself is still intact.)

“Cutting the vine basically cuts off its supply of water and nutrients from the soil and then the vine on the tree will just die and eventually fall off,” Mayo explains.

She continues, “Once you’ve got it cut off at the tree, then you can kind of pull back what’s growing from the ground.”

vines trees
Susan Brackney

How to Get Rid of Virginia Creeper Vines – Extra Help

Even after you’ve cut away the vines, you should periodically check the area for any growth trying to re-sprout. And for very serious infestations of poison ivy and euonymus in particular, you might want to paint a chemical herbicide onto the cut portion of the vine stem. This will kill these plants at the root.

Rather not vanquish the vines on your own? “If it seems like a daunting task, I would definitely recommend reaching out to certified arborist to come take [vines] off the tree,” Mayo says.

To find a board-certified arborist near you, try the International Society of Arboriculture‘s online search tool.

This article about how to get rid of Virginia creeper vines was written for Hobby Farms online. Click here to subscribe to Hobby Farms print magazine.

Categories
Crops & Gardening Farm & Garden

Planting Trees: Potted Vs. Bare-Root Trees

Planting trees is a pleasant way to start the growing season and lays the groundwork for harvests and blossoms for decades to come. You may wonder if it’s best to plant potted or bare-root specimens.  The truth is, that each approach offers different advantages.

Sometimes you can only purchase a particular specimen one way or the other. But if you have a choice, it’s worth pondering which advantages best suit your needs.

Let’s explore the pros and cons offered by potted and bare-root trees.


Read more: Planting trees? Check out these 10 tools for the job.


Planting Trees: Potted Trees

Pros

Simplicity of planting is the big upside offered by potted trees. Their roots are already growing in soil, so all you have to do is dig a hole two or three times as wide as the root ball. Then you loosen the soil at the bottom of the hole and plop the tree into the hole.

Loosen the outer roots from the root ball (even cutting some if they’re rootbound), and backfill the area around the root ball until the plant is snugly secured in place.

There are other advantages as well. You can plant potted trees during the summer if you desire, so long as you water them thoroughly. If you’re shopping at a nursery in the spring, potted trees are likely to be leafed out, giving you a good chance to select healthy and vigorous plants.

And potted trees can be purchased in larger sizes than bare-root specimens, which—in the case of fruit trees—can cut down on the amount of time you spend waiting for your first harvest.

Cons

Root balls can be heavy. I’ve bought trees planted in 15-gallon pots, and wrestling such trees into their holes can be a two-person job. If you want to handle even larger potted specimens, you may need the assistance of machinery.

Potted trees also require frequent watering. You need to water daily for at least the first few weeks, followed by a weekly regimen for a year or two.

If a convenient water source isn’t close to your planting location, this can be quite a commitment.


Read more: A 35-gallon leg tank can really simplify the chore of watering.


Planting Trees: Bare-Root Trees

Pros

Whereas potted trees require ample watering, bare-root trees aren’t as needy. They can get by with weekly watering for the first year after planting. This is a big benefit if you’re planting far from a handy water source or if you’re pressed for time.

Bare-root trees are also lightweight and easy to handle, since their roots are free of heavy soil. Even a fairly large bare-root tree can be handled with relative ease. And as a general rule, they’re less expensive than similar potted specimens.

Cons

Perhaps it’s just me, but I find planting bare-root trees to be a little trickier and slower than planting potted specimens. It can be harder to gauge the proper planting depth (there’s no potted soil line to judge by!). And spreading out the bare roots so they aren’t bent or curled over in awkward directions requires diligence, especially as you start backfilling the hole.

There’s also the issue of planting bare-root trees immediately, before their roots dry out. A potted tree will happily sit in your yard until you’re ready to plant, even if planting is delayed for weeks. There’s no such leeway with bare-root trees. While keeping the roots moist can buy you a little time, you’ll want to plant as soon as possible.

You also need to plant during the right season. Summer is not recommend, with early spring and late fall being the suitable times.

Ultimately, both potted trees and bare-root trees offer meaningful pros and cons. If you’re new to planting trees and have time for diligent watering, planting potted trees might be the perfect choice.

On the other hand, if you’re on the ball planting bare-root trees as soon as you acquire them, you can grow nice trees at a lower price point with less long-term watering needed.

No matter which route you choose, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. So you’d best get started!

This article about planting trees was written for Hobby Farms online. Click here to subscribe to Hobby Farms print magazine.

Categories
Farm & Garden Food Poultry Recipes

Recipe: Baked Corned Beef & Cabbage Hash With Eggs

Whether served for breakfast, lunch or dinner, this recipe makes a comforting spring meal. Baked eggs add a delicate flavor
to the savory beef and potatoes. Meanwhile, cabbage gives it some leafy gree
ns to keep a hefty serving from sitting too heavy on a busy morning.

Around St. Patrick’s Day, it provides a great way to use
leftover corned beef, and chopped pastrami from the deli makes an ideal year-round substitute. 

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 12  pounds red potatoes 
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 2 12  cups chopped or shredded cabbage
  • 1 small yellow onion, diced
  • 12  pound cooked corned beef or pastrami, chopped
  • 12  teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 14  teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 4 large eggs
  • chopped cilantro or parsley for garnish

Read more: Travel by taste with these international egg recipes!


Preparation

Pierce the potatoes in a few spots with a fork. Microwave for 3 to 5 minutes, until just barely tender. The goal of this step is to help the potatoes cook more quickly in the skillet. Once they’re cool enough to handle, chop the potatoes into about 12-inch pieces.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. 

In a large oven-safe skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes and cook for 5 minutes, until they begin to brown on the edges. Stir in the cabbage and onion, cook for 3 to 5 more minutes until the vegetables are softened. 

Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the corned beef or pastrami. Stir well for about 1 minute until it’s heated through. Season with the salt and pepper, adding more to taste if desired. 

Spread the contents of the skillet evenly along the bottom of the pan. Use a spoon to make four wells in the hash. Add one egg to each of the wells. 

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the eggs are set. Sprinkle with cilantro or parsley and serve warm. 

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2022 issue of Chickens magazine.

Categories
Crops & Gardening

Growing, Harvesting & Enjoying Mustard Greens

Mustard greens are an easy-to-grow spring plant that loves cool weather. Mustard greens are also delicious, lending their zippy flavor to salads when the greens are young and stir-fries when they’re mature. If you’ve never had the pleasure of tasting the spicy bite of mustard greens, you’re missing out on one of the garden’s greatest treasures.

How To Plant Mustard Greens

Mustard greens are cool-weather crops that should be planted either in the early spring or the late summer. During hot weather the plants will bolt or go to flower, altering their flavor and stopping the production of new leaves. Though I plant two crops of this green per year, I find fall harvests particularly flavorful.

Best grown by direct seeding, mustard greens are one of the easiest cool-season vegetables to grow. Simply plant seeds about 1/4 inch deep and 1 inch apart in rows or blocks. The seeds will germinate just a few days later.

Harvesting Mustard Greens

Most mustard greens are ready to harvest as baby greens 20 to 30 days after sowing. That said, I prefer to let mine reach maturity, when their large, velvety leaves have reached peak flavor. Baby greens can be harvested with a sharp pair of shears, snipping off the whole plant just above the crown. To harvest mature mustard greens, simply snap off the outermost leaves with your thumb and forefinger, leaving the growing point intact. Picking them in this manner enables the plant to produce subsequent flushes of harvestable leaves, extending the harvest for many weeks.

Mustard Greens & Heat

When summer’s heat arrives, mustard varieties will bolt or go to flower. When this happens, the leaves turn either very spicy or bitter. When the harvest ends, pull the plants out and toss them in the compost pile, or leave the flowers for pollinators. Eventually, seed pods will form and dry on the plants. These seeds can be allowed to drop to the ground where they’ll re-sprout in the fall when the weather cools again. The seeds can also be collected and saved for replanting the following spring. The resulting plants may or may not be the same variety as the parent plants, depending on whether the variety is open-pollinated or hybrid, but there’s a good chance they’ll be flavorful and well worth growing.

mustard-greens
Jaesung An/Pixabay

The Best Varieties Of Mustard Greens

These gorgeous and pungent greens are absolutely beautiful plants, too. Many varieties, such as Dragon Tongue, Red Giant and Garnet Giant, have deep purple leaves with green venation, making them real stand-outs in the garden. Other varieties are solid green. Frilly leaf types add even more interest with their deeply serrated, feathery foliage. Excellent frilly leaf mustard varieties include Red Splendor, Ruby Streaks, Golden Frills and Scarlet Frills, all of which pack a flavorful punch in their gorgeous good looks.

In addition to the classic varieties of mustard greens mentioned above, another variety is well worth growing. Though it isn’t a true mustard, Malachai is worth including in your fall and spring garden. This variety is a Komatsuna type that’s a mixture of mustard green and spinach. The leaves are deep green, thick and shiny. They taste like mustard greens but have the more succulent texture of spinach. And, unlike true mustards, Malachai doesn’t seem to be bothered by flea beetles.

The following five mustard greens are top-notch:

1. Red Giant

The standard for purple-leaved mustard varieties, Red Giant produces gigantic leaves that are deep purple with medium green veins. Ready to pick at the baby stage at just 25 days or the full-leaf size in 45. Their spice is unforgettable, and their good looks in the garden can’t be beat.

2. Ruby Streaks

Prized for its lacy, soft leaves, Ruby Streaks has purple-tinged leaves with green mid-ribs. It’s also a great mustard green variety for late-summer planting. Baby greens are ready to harvest in just 20 days from seed, the flavor is mild with a tangy bite.

3. Green Wave

The highly ruffled, bright green leaves of Green Wave look a bit like kale, but their flavor is far more spicy. Green Wave cooks beautifully and holds up in the pan. Highly productive and ready to harvest in 45 days as mature mustard greens. This is one of the most bolt-resistant mustard varieties on the market.

4. Dragon Tongue

Another wine-colored mustard variety, these large leaves are crunchy and crinkly with white mid-ribs. Drop-dead gorgeous and flavorful, this is a variety that’s a bit on the mild side compared to some others.

5. Tye Dye

Fast growing with highly serrated, feathery leaves, Tye Dye makes a stunning ornamental when mixed with flowers and foliage plants in containers and raised beds. Plant more seeds every few weeks for a continuous harvest.

How To Enjoy Mustard Greens

No matter which varieties you grow, enjoying their flavor is always the best part. Baby mustard greens, harvested early in their growth cycle, can be added raw to salads or sandwiches where their spicy flavor will wake up your taste buds. Baby, as well as mature mustard leaves, are also excellent when braised, steamed, sautéed or stir-fried. One of my favorite ways to enjoy mustard greens is sautéed in olive oil with minced garlic and then topped with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

Managing Flea Beetles On Mustard Greens

If flea beetles become problematic, know that most plants will outgrow this little pest, and though the insects leave pock-marked foliage behind, flea beetle feeding does not alter the flavor of mustard greens. I simply put up with the damage they cause and ignore the small holes they create in the leaves.

If you’re growing commercially and can’t tolerate marred foliage on your market stand, place yellow sticky cards down your rows of mustard greens to attract and trap the adult beetles. Other options include sprays of kaolin clay-based products (such as Surround) to protect the plants from feeding damage and spring soil applications of beneficial nematodes to attack and kill the ground-dwelling flea beetle larvae. As a last resort, pyrethrins will also suppress this pest, but use them with caution.

This article about mustard greens was written for Hobby Farms online. Click here to subscribe to Hobby Farms print magazine.

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Poultry Sponsored

Humidity in Incubation

If you’ve ever incubated before (or even if you haven’t), you probably know that there are a lot of variables you need to keep track of. There are four primary factors to consider: temperature, ventilation, turning and humidity. The Incubation Specialists at Brinsea are here to explain the possibly the most difficult factor to control and measure: humidity..

What Does Humidity Do?

Eggshells may look solid, but they’re actually porous. While eggs are incubating, they naturally lose weight. It’s important to have your humidity set to the right percentage so that your eggs are losing an ideal amount of weight so that developing chicks can use the available air space to breathe and move around.

If Humidity is Too Low

Low humidity will cause the eggs to lose too much weight, which means the air space will be larger than ideal. A large air space means the chick will be smaller and weaker and might not survive. However, low humidity is typically less of a problem than high humidity.

If Humidity is Too High

High humidity results in not enough weight loss. The air space will be smaller than ideal, and the chick will be larger. A small air space can lead to respiratory problems and make it difficult for the chick to move around and break out of the shell.

If a chick pips in a shell that hasn’t lost enough weight, they can die due to weakness from lack of air or because they can’t maneuver to break out the rest of the way.

Measuring Humidity

Humidity is calculated by measuring the water vapor in the air. One of the easiest ways to measure the water vapor is by figuring out the Relative Humidity percentage, also known as RH%. The other way is with a wet bulb.

Note, humidity isn’t a strict variable; it’s more of an average variable. High humidity at the beginning of incubation can be corrected later with lower humidity and vice versa.

Relative Humidity

When you see the RH% on our incubators, you’re seeing the measurement of water vapor in the air compared with the maximum that could be absorbed at that temperature. The RH% is based on the temperature of the air, so 50% humidity at 70 degrees Fahrenheit is different from 50% humidity at 90 degrees.

Maximum possible water vapor capacity increases as the temperature increases, so raising the temperature in an incubator without adding water will cause the RH% to drop. Therefore, it’s important to note the temperature when measuring humidity.

Wet Bulb Temperature

You can measure humidity with the wet bulb (WB) technique by checking the temperature of a thermometer with a moist cotton wick around its bulb. As the water from the wick evaporates, it cools the bulb.

The WB technique takes the difference between the WB and dry bulb (DB) temperatures to determine humidity. There are only two instances where the WB and the DB temperatures would be the same— when the air has absorbed all the water it can (100% RH), and when the wet wick has dried out. It should be noted that it is very difficult to measure the WB in a still air incubator.

Also WB temperature should not be confused with % RH – 90 degrees WB temperature is 45% RH not 90% RH.

How to Achieve Correct Humidity Levels

What can you do if you don’t have a  hygrometer, or you aren’t sure if your hygrometer is accurate? If you’re hatching in an incubator without a reliable hygrometer, we recommend periodically weighing your eggs to check on their progress.

Most bird species (except for the ostrich family) need to lose between 13% to 15% of their weight from the first day of incubation to the day they hatch. By weighing the eggs every few days, you can accurately adjust the humidity to compensate for too much or too little weight loss.

Altering the Humidity During Incubation

Water surface area and fresh air are the two controllable factors to consider when altering the humidity during incubation. The more water surface area there is inside the incubator, the higher the humidity will be.

All Brinsea incubators have two water pots or channels to give you flexibility in water surface area and evaporation rates. To increase the humidity, all you need to do is put water in both channels and reduce the ventilation. Never block off all the holes in the incubator as the chicks require oxygen to breathe.

Evaporating pads or blocks are available and can help raise the humidity if you’ve put water in both water channels and still can’t achieve the correct humidity level.

The Brinsea EX units come with a built-in hygrometer and humidity pump to automatically control humidity. Similar to temperature control, the humidity level can be adjusted on the incubator and the pump takes care of adding water as necessary.

Ambient Humidity

Ambient humidity will influence the humidity inside the incubator. Factors that can cause the humidity in the incubator to fluctuate include whether there is a humidifier or dehumidifier in the room, if you’re running the heater, turned the A/C off and opened the windows, and others.

Should I Spray My Eggs with Water?

Spraying eggs with water only raises the humidity for a short time before the small water droplets on the eggs evaporate and is therefore not an effective solution to low humidity. It’s also not recommended due to the fact that the water could be at much lower temperature than the eggs, which can cause issues as well.

Humidity During Hatching

For virtually all birds, humidity needs to be higher at hatching than during incubation. We recommend raising the humidity during “lockdown” or the last few days of incubation. If you have been weighing your eggs, the weight loss should be right around 13% to 15%, and raising the humidity at the end won’t significantly affect this.

High humidity is necessary because of the membrane that the chicks must break through to hatch. If the membrane is allowed to dry out (due to low humidity), then it becomes too tough for the chicks to tear. They’re then unable to hatch.

During hatching, the humidity should be at least 60% RH. To keep the humidity stable, always keep the lid on the incubator. If the lid is lifted after a chick has hatched, the humidity will immediately drop which could cause other chicks to become shrink wrapped.

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Uncategorized

Growing Good Podcast #73: Agriculture Teacher Kimberly Haire

TITLE SPONSOR: Sow Right Seeds

PREMIER SPONSOR: Home Fresh® Poultry Feeds (Kent Nutrition Group)

Agriculture teacher Kimberly Haire talks with Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good host Lisa Munniksma about what it’s like to teach Bullitt Lick Middle School students in Kentucky about growing food while she expands her own farming knowledge.

Hear about how Kimberly uses the foundations of agriculture, local and global food systems, and hands-on work to get sixth, seventh and eighth-grade students excited about coming to class. In one of the most tangible examples of demonstrating the impact of agriculture, the lettuce and radishes on the menu for Bullitt Central High School’s scholarship fundraising dinner came from these students’ work. This new program is in its startup stages, with a greenhouse and a new egg incubator, and Kimberly is looking for grants and funding for a larger greenhouse and other infrastructure to continue to grow and improve the program. Listen to how Kimberly, as an agriculture teacher. has tapped into community resources, like the county 4-H program and local farms and agritourism locations, to still provide experiences and opportunities for the students that their small budget can’t provide.

agriculture-teacher

Kimberly talks about her personal interest and experience in producing food, why this work is important to her, and what it was like to transition from her career as an English teacher into agriculture as part of the school system’s unified arts curriculum. Keep listening to get Kimberly’s advice for capturing middle-school students’ interest in food and farming, using their limited attention spans to your advantage.

At the end of the episode, Kimberly describes an incredible meal straight from her garden, and Lisa talks about her favorite farm meal, as well.

Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good podcast episode with Michelle Howell

This podcast about agriculture teacher, Kimberly Haire was made for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe to Hobby Farms print magazine.

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Recipes

Homemade Cough Syrup Recipe

Homemade cough syrup is important to know how to make and many of the herbs needed can be grown easily in a backyard garden. It’s good to plan your garden to have the ingredients needed on hand.

A Helpful Resource

Healing Herbs, written by Dede Cummings and Alyssa Holmes, is your one-stop resource for medicinal herbs. The authors have thoughtfully compiled all the information you need from start to finish, from growing to preserving herbs to teaching you how to easily use them.

From Astragalus to Yellow Dock, 30 herbs are highlighted in detail to give you the basis for creating your own medicine and remedies at home. Below, I have shared Cummings’ and Holmes’ recipe for homemade cough syrup.

Making Homemade Cough Syrup

Syrups are a way to make medicine taste great, prevent spoilage for longer storage, and get the added medicinal benefits of honey, juices or molasses.

To make syrup yummy for kids ages one and older, follow the directions for making a decoction (see below). Then add honey, and/or molasses, alcohol or juice concentrate.

The simplest syrup is one part decoction, one part honey. Mix this combination well and store it in the fridge for up to three months. You can always add a little alcohol – such as vodka, rum or brandy – to help preserve longer. A four-ounce bottle requires one tablespoon of alcohol.

Homemade Cough Syrup 

Make a decoction with the following:

  • 1 part comfrey root
  • 1 part echinacea root
  • 1 part elecampane root
  • ½ part thyme
  • ½ part ginger root
  • ¼ part licorice root

Strain the mixture and add an equal part honey and half part black cherry juice.

Mix well, let cool and store in the fridge.

This formula is ideal for clearing out a wet cough, which can linger.

Herbal Decoction

A decoction is essentially a strong infusion, made by simmering herbs in water, versus steeping. This brew can be used to make syrups, or consumed straight as a potent medicine.

Instructions for Decoction

On the stovetop, bring three parts water and two parts fresh herbs, or one-part dried herbs to a boil. Cover, and let simmer for 15 to 30 minutes. Remove from heat, let steep for another few minutes, strain and drink. Or, this decoction can be made into a syrup (see above).

This recipe has been shared from Healing Herbs with permission from Skyhorse Publishing Inc.

This article about homemade cough syrup was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe to Hobby Farms print magazine.

Categories
Crops & Gardening

Brambles: Spring Care for Raspberries & Blackberries

Brambles like raspberries and blackberries provide summer berries. But the work for yummy berries starts in spring with pruning, fertilizing and creating a welcome environment for plants to wake up. Since brambles are perennials and have some common characteristics allowing the following techniques to work for blackberries and raspberries.

The first year or two will require more water, mulch and regular care but won’t produce fruit. Once the brambles are established, they’re hardy and can grow on their own. However, these tips will ensure the most successful chance for a summer of harvests once they are old enough to start fruiting.

Pruning

Late February through April is a great time to prune, as long as there won’t be future freezes. Pruning maintains size, vigor, form and future fruiting. These plants have perennial roots and crowns but biennial stems (called canes). They develop new canes each year.

For most home garden bramble varieties, fruit only grows the second year, so you’ll want to make sure and protect those canes, as they’ll be the ones to bring fruit. You also want to avoid pruning first-year canes. These need to grow and be ready to fruit next year. Therefore, look for last year’s canes to prune. These will look dead and brown, as opposed to red or green.

In addition, prune out canes that are diseased, damaged or crowded. Each plant should have about six healthy canes. Finally, prune back lateral branches that will fruit this year to a length of 12 to 15 inches so they can grow larger fruit.

Fertilizing

Mulching around plants in the fall serves well to build nitrogen into the soil throughout the winter, but boosting them in spring has shown lots of success in creating more abundant fruit harvests, though not totally necessary. To fertilize, use a granular product; organic or a basic 10-10-10 works great and watering it in with a water-soluble fish emulsion 5-1-1. This application can be done in the spring and then again after harvest to boost the plant to set fruit buds for the following year.

To apply fertilizers, gently rake the soil in a circle around each plant being careful not to damage the roots. Sprinkle fertilizers uniformly around the drip line of the plant and 1 foot outward, but never near the base of the plant. Be careful not to get fertilizer on the foliage or against the bark because this will cause damage.

If the fertilizer does come in contact with leaves, brush it away immediately afterward. Once you have spread the fertilizer, gently work it into the soil with a rake, then water the fertilizer into the soil so it can become available to the plants.

Prepping the Environment

  • Trellis: Make sure the trellis is strong, erect and has great supporting wires. Understanding that spring can be very windy, it helps to secure limbs with branch locks into a supportive and safe position. Wind can damage plants by breaking limbs that aren’t secured. Branch locks are repositionable fasteners used for lateral tying and training vines.
  • Position Canes: The best way for the canes to be positioned is straight up to support the fruit load. Guide them making sure they have a great supportive structure before they start growing a lot of leaves and vines.
  • Spacing: Ensure good air movement and sunlight spacing between canes. Sunlight on the buds will develop the fruit and sugar content to make big, sweet, juicy fruit.
  • Check your PH: Brambles prefer slightly acidic to neutral PH of 5.5 to 7.0 If your plants have produced fruit before, you’re probably on the right track but soil quality does change year to year. If you start to notice the coloring of the leaves is pale, it’s worth soil testing because you’ll still have time to amend what is missing.
  • Mulching: Check the amount of mulch around plants. Blackberries and raspberries should be permanently mulched with about 4 inches of organic material such as pine bark, rice hulls or wheat straw. This mulch will help control weeds, conserve soil and moisture, and promote growth of the root system. Since the need to cultivate for weed control is reduced by the mulch, fewer roots are broken, resulting in less unwanted sucker plants between the rows.
  • Preventative Pest Control: According to the Oklahoma State University Extension office, “Spraying/or excluding pests for insect, disease, and weed control (Extension Current Report CR-6243) is necessary. In blackberries, liquid lime-sulfur is applied at 1/16 inches budbreak for anthracnose control. An appropriate pesticide should be applied at bloom time to control strawberry clipper. Plants may need to be sprayed during harvest to control the newly introduced spotted winged drosophila. Raspberry cane and crown borer’s are other major insect pests.” For more specific pesticide recommendations, contact your local county Extension office.

Raspberries and blackberries are very hardy perennials that last for several years. They are a crop yielding more in its lifespan than most other things you will plant. Understanding how to aid these plants will help them reach their full potential.

Once you get the hang of tending to brambles, check out hybrid varieties as well. Boysenberry, dewberry, youngberry and bababerry all grow in similar conditions with similar needs.

This article about brambles was written for Hobby Farms online. Click here to subscribe to Hobby Farms print magazine.

Categories
Animals Beginning Farmers Farm & Garden Poultry

Chicken Coop Ideas: Merryweather Farm’s Camper Coop

Chicken coop ideas include a camper-turned-coop at Lauren Pszczolkowski’s Merryweather Farm in East Haddam, Connecticut. Pszczolkowski’s family in Poland came from a farming background. “Hearing their stories and growing up around animals and gardens made farming feel like a natural fit for me,” she recalls. “Getting involved in 4-H at a young age only deepened that connection.”

Finding comfort in being able to rely on her land and provide for herself, Pszczolkowski’s farming venture includes a focus on producing fresh eggs and delights from the garden, plus a side angle in unearthing vintage goods.

Taking a minute away from daily duties, we spoke to Pszczolkowski about chicken coop ideas like turning campers into coops and succumbing to chicken math. We also learned how farming can offer respite from the modern fast-paced world.

Doing Chicken Math

Chickens form a key part of Merryweather Farm—although Pszczolkowski didn’t originally plan on acquiring such a large flock. “At first I thought keeping a few chickens would be a fun hobby,” she says. “Little did I know, I’d fall victim to what they call chicken math—it’s a real phenomenon! I quickly became addicted.”

“I’m fascinated by the different breeds and the array of egg colors they produce,” adds Pszczolkowski. “Over the years, I’ve delved deep into the world of chickens, learning so much about them. Along the way, I’ve made a lot of friends and connections through various chicken connections.”

Call & Response Chicks

When interacting with the peep, Pszczolkowski has come to utilize a special chicken call that she’s developed over time. “Sure, my neighbors might think I’m a bit crazy,” she says “but there’s something special about seeing them come running to me whenever I call.”

An Independent Mama

When it comes to the stars of the Merryweather Farm flock, a chicken named Mama has emerged as a leading light and the inspiration for chicken coop ideas and vintage finds. “A friend of mine, knowing my love for vintage campers, made an awesome find—a vintage Shasta camper turned chicken coop!” recalls Pszczolkowski. “So a few years back, I ended up hauling home this sweet red camper along with a bunch of hens and that’s where I met Mama.”

Spotlighting Mama’s personality, Pszczolkowski says that the hen has her own chicken coop ideas with a fondness for laying eggs in unexpected places. “You’ll often catch her chilling on my porch ready to say hi to anyone passing by,” she adds. “Mama’s as independent as they come and that’s just part of what makes her so special.”

2024 Farm Goals

Looking forward to the current year, Pszczolkowski says that her main goals for Merryweather Farm include bringing home a quarter horse named Felix and adding a three-stall barn to the property.

Additionally, introducing some goats and a mini-donkey to the farm has also been discussed, along with expanding a series of runs for rescue bunnies and guinea pigs. Finally, Pszczolkowski says that she intends to increase the farm stand aspect of Merryweather Farm and incorporate more farm days for the local community.

Respite From The Modern World

When it comes to the most rewarding aspects of running a family farm, Pszczolkowski says that being able to offer a safe haven for animals in need brings her “immense joy.”

Pszczolkowski also says that it’s been fulfilling to watch her son grow up surrounded by animals and nature. “I believe it’s crucial to teach our children the value of simplicity and gratitude, especially in today’s fast-paced world,” she explains. “Our farm serves as a classroom for life lessons where we learn to appreciate the little things and cherish all that we have.”

Follow Merryweather Farm on Instagram.

This article about chicken coop ideas and Merryweather Farm was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe to Hobby Farms magazine in print.