(VIDEO) August Homestead Hangout
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This is our Homestead Hangout for August. It’s part of a series where we update you on all of the highlights that have happened in the last month on our own homestead. A lot of our content is “how-to” stuff while this gives you a glimpse into our world.
Watch “August Homestead Hangout” on YouTube >
Things are winding down from he summer here on the homestead and we are still trying to solve the problem of our mystery garden issues, but we did get some summer crops. And now it’s time to start moving into thinking about what we want to have in the garden for fall and winter.
Wildlife on the property has kind of been winding down as well. A lot of the animals have finished raising their young but there are still a lot of babies out there and we have been capturing them on our trail cams so we have a lot of footage to share with you.
We are so excited that you are here with us today. We would love to have you subscribe to this YouTube Channel and like the video if you enjoy spending time with us.
Blueberry Picking & Putting Up
In August, Julie and I made our annual trip to our local U-Pick blueberry farm. We made a video about this trip so check it out if you have an interest. This particular farm has 900 bushes representing 11 different varieties of blueberries so you're encouraged to sample them as you go to find the ones that you like best. I assure you that at least some of the berries did actually make it into my bucket.
We ended up taking over 16 pounds of blueberries home and that's a few too many to eat in one sitting, so we preserved them by first putting them on a tray lined with waxed paper and then popping that in the freezer so the berries would freeze individually. We then bagged them in freezer bags and put them in the deep freeze so we can enjoy them all year long.
The Soil Mystery Continues
Last month you might recall that we started a bioassay or soil test in our efforts to solve the mystery of our stunted garden plants. The results are in and we have more questions than answers. So what did we do? We developed a new experiment!
First we chose soil supplements that are readily available. We went with peat moss and compost that is heated to break down diseases and herbicides.
We removed the plants from two of the stock tanks, one at each end of the garden. Next we collected soil samples from each tank. We filled some seed pots with this soil and some with the added supplements. We planted the same variety of peas in every cup. We set these up on our seed starting shelf in the garage.
Outside in the tanks we used the same supplemented soil for a side-by-side test in both tanks. And then we waited. It’s now been a couple of weeks and the results are coming in. Though these surprised us too.
Inside the humidity and temperature remained about the same in all of the samples, but the plants in the supplemented soil did slightly less well. Outside the humidity and temperature between tanks was dramatic. All of the plants were were a little smaller than those inside, but the plants in the supplemented soil were slightly large, which is the opposite of the indoor results.
Rabbits in the Clover
By the end of August rabbits had eaten nearly the clover in the quick bed by the driveway. We don't mind though, this clover was just meant to be tilled into the soil to be used as fertilizer anyway, and the rabbits actually converted it to fertilizer for us.
Perimeter Flower Garden and Pollinators
The bed around the perimeter of our main garden was bursting with color in August as flowers like this sunflower came into bloom. We also had a lot of low growing plants like Nastertium that opened up their blossoms and that attracted a lot of interest from our local pollinators like these honey bees. We were excited to see them because that's exactly why we put these plants in.
Summer Harvest
Despite ongoing garden issues, we did get to do enjoy the fruits of our labor in August. In addition to green beans, everything in the greenhouse is doing great, including the lemon cucumber. So far we’ve picked some black Hungarian peppers, lemon jalapeños, alma paprika peppers, and the Thai orange peppers. This is the first time we’ve ever had Thai peppers and they are much hotter than we expected!
Fall Garden Planning
In August I planned out our fall garden, which meant spending some quality time with our seed box, seed catalogs, garden notes and growing charts. If you are interested in learning more about garden planning we encourage you to download our FREE Quick Start Vegetable Gardening guide which is available on our website at WildHomesteadLiving.com
Fall Seedling Care
Here are some of the plants, the vegetables I'm going to be planting in our fall garden. These are all in the brassica family, so we've got broccoli, and cauliflower, and cabbage. You may notice that they're in plastic pots instead of the seed blocks that we used in the spring. That's because we're still trying to solve the mystery of what went wrong with our soil mix. So what I'm using right now is commercially purchased seed starting mix that doesn't block really well so I'm using these old cups that I've had from other plantings.
Now I only want one plant in each one of these cups so I'm going to thin down to one, which means I'm going to pick whichever one in each looks the strongest and cut the other. And I'm also gonna fertilize. The best time to start fertilizing your starts is when you get your second set of true leaves, and a true leaf is these. This is the seed leaf, the first baby leaf. And then the first set of true leaves, and the second. so now we're going to go ahead and we're going to trim and fertilize and give them a little bit of time outside acclimating to the weather today.
Wildlife in the Woods and Fields
August was a time of transition for many species of wild birds and small mammals on our property as they completed raising their young for the year and went into the post-breeding season. We're continually trying to improve our property for wildlife and there is one section of the property that we've put in three years of work so far towards this particular goal.
I've mentioned in past videos that I'm trying to eliminate non-native plants here on the homestead and one of our main problem areas is right here. When we moved in this patch was entirely covered in Japanese Knotweed. I pulled and dug out as much of the knotweed as I could and put down cardboard to try to smother out the rest of it. A lot of people use herbicide for knotweed but I prefer not to use herbicide if at all possible, and for smaller patches like this the "smother and pull" method has worked for me in the past. It just requires constant vigilance, so I'm out here weekly pulling out new plants that come up and trying to make sure that they are burning up more energy than they're putting back down into the root system.
Here's a sneaky piece. Knotweed. Salal. Non-native. Native.
This is going to be a longterm project. It's already been three years, it's probably going to be at least three more of constant vigilance, but the native plants are already starting to thrive in this area and with native plants comes native wildlife. So in the long run this is going to be worth the labor to not use those pesticides and to just make sure those native plants get re-established in this spot.
Our resident family of crows completed raising their young in August and the adults have now entered the post breeding season molt. We saw how hard these parents worked, so I don't think it's coincidence they lose their feathers right after the breeding season.
The resident deer population is still busy raising their young of the year. We've seen a number of different fawns on the property. You can tell them apart by their spots. Some of them have tiny spots that are not very noticeable and some of them have very distinct, very round spots like this guy. I'm not sure what happened with this fawn but after taking a quick drink from the pool he bolted off to the left. When he came back he looked very stressed. I'm not sure if he just lost sight of mom or if there was something else going on that upset him but he was on high alert clearly. He eventually headed off, seeming to have calmed down after whatever incident upset him.
We continued to see deer sampling the plants in our perimeter garden during August but none have yet tried to breach the main fence around the raised bed garden. We made a video about the philosophy behind this fence design if you're interested. We're pretty happy with the way it's helped us keep peace with the wild neighbors.
While we've been catching a lot of footage of deer on the camera up near the garden we've also been seeing them move through the wooded portion of our property on a regular basis. We maintain this area in a natural state specifically so wild animals can use it as a travel corridor and the deer seem to find it very valuable, and we see them move through both day and night. We'll continue to maintain this part of the property for these animals no just because we enjoy sharing our property with them but because we also enjoy disappearing into the woods nearly as much as they do.
Many other animals besides deer have been using the wooded trails through our forest, for instance this Eastern Cottontail that seems to have made friends with a Spotted Towhee. At least they seem to be very comfortable feeding in close proximity to one another here on the wooded path.
We've also seen what we believe to be a Snowshoe Hare using the forest, not just based on the black-edged ears and lack of a cottony tail, but also based on the fact that he trains nights, presumably for an upcoming race against the tortoise.
Once again a Virginia Opossum made an appearance on our trail cam in August, although he does not appear to be on the same training regimen as the hare.
But maybe the opossum should be in training, because this Bobcat also appeared on our trail cam on August 3rd. We've seen these cats on a regular basis on our cams in the past, and it's a good reminder that when we do have chickens or other livestock we're going to want to make sure our fences are up to the task to make sure we're good neighbors to these cats...
... as well as the Coyotes that also continued to make appearances in August. We were really excited to see this individual as we think she's the one that was limping in the past two videos. She still has a slight limp, but she looks much improved over the past videos, and it looks like she had another coyote following along right behind her, possibly a young one. That was good to see as well.
Towards the end of August we looked up to see a kettle of Turkey Vultures, possibly gathering together in the early stages of their fall migration. It was exciting to see them... these are Julie's favorite birds and she has worked with them in the past when she was a wildlife rehabilitation in upstate New York. These birds serve an important ecological role and it is always a thrill to see them.
As summer transitions to fall on our homestead, many animals will head off for warmer climates in the south. Our permanent residents will prepare for winter while others that have summered farther north will arrive to spend the winter with us. We will continue to do our best to be good neighbors to all of the animals that share our property.
August Closing
That’s all for our August Homestead Hangout. We hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into our world. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them in the comments section below. We would also love for you to come over to our website at WildHomesteadLiving.com where you can sign up for our emails. We send free exclusive content to our community on a regular basis.
