Scenes from the gaden

Beehives

Tomato plants: 06/16

Tomato plants: 07/25

Brandywine pink tomato ripening

Stella cherry trees waiting to be planted

Firewood

This may not be the most glamorous post, nor a topic we want to think about during the summer months, but it is part of our story that we wanted to share...

When we purchased our house, it came with a wood stove but so far we have only used it sporadically, mostly as a back-up when the power goes out. Like many other Mainers, we primarily heat our house with oil. After a bit of discussion last winter, we decided that since we were already working towards having less dependency on corporate farming, it would also make sense to take steps to lessen our dependency on oil and utilize our wood stove much more. We realized that part of our goal toward living a more self-sufficient life has become providing our own heating source during the long winter months. Even though it was early January and winter had already settled in, we wanted to put our plan into action as soon as possible. We carried in some firewood, loaded up the old Dutchwest wood stove, and attempted to open the damper. A loud clanking sound came from inside the stove and just like that, we discovered that it was broken! After starting to price out replacement parts and realizing that those only were going to cost in excess of $800, we decided it would be a smarter investment to purchase a new wood stove rather than pay to repair the potentially 15-year-old one. Of course this started yet another discussion about what kind of stove we should choose and where we should buy one! Ultimately, we ended up picking the Jotul Castine and decided to purchase it from Embers Stove & Fireplace Shop.

Since our home sits in the middle of nearly two acres of land and is surrounded by trees on all sides, it makes sense for us to begin selectively harvesting them for firewood. This is also helping us work towards our future gardening plans because as we drop trees we are opening up more space for the sun to get through in different parts of our yard. We don't intend to get all of our firewood from our own land and just recently purchased a cord of unseasoned wood from Whitehouse Logging and Firewood .

The winter months are not always our favorite time of the year, but this new endeavor has us looking forward to when we turn this pile of logs into fuel for our home...

Stay-cation on the Homestead

It has been very busy the last few weeks here on The Hicks Homestead between taking care of the bees and preparing the gardens.  We took a vacation from our day jobs the week of Memorial Day and the weather has been fairly cooperative as far as getting our outside chores done.  Charlotte even got to try out her new sprinkler while we got some of our outside work done.  The bees have been multiplying and on sunny days we can hear a dull buzz in the yard all day long.  Josh got up close and personal to get some shots of the bees in action!

One part of being a beekeeper is protecting the colonies from disease and infestations.  Josh applied our first treatment to the bees in the form of a grease patty.

Completed grease patty on wax paper

The grease patty is made of 1/4 cup of Crisco and as much white sugar as the Crisco can take. This patty is one of the weapons we use to combat tracheal mites. The bees will eat the sugar and the crisco over time and this causes all the bees to smell like grease. This confuses the tracheal mites who are searching for the bees by smell and without a host they will die. We (and by we, that means Josh!) will continue applying new grease patties as the older one is eaten away.

We have also been getting our new raised beds built and transferring seedlings to the great outdoors. Once the dust settles, we'll adding another post about all the happenings in the garden. Stay tuned!

Repotting

Over Mother's Day weekend, Josh capitalized on the break in rainy weather. On Saturday, he planted our first round of Golden Beets and Red Chancery Carrots. We are planning on doing multiple plantings of both of these varieties. If all goes well, we will have enough carrots and beets to store for use throughout the winter months.

Mother's Day found us repotting our latest batch of seedlings in preparation for their move to our raised beds. This probably should have been completed a few days earlier but with the weather being so nice after quite a rainy spell, we spent most of our time off from work outside. After the dirt (and newspaper!) settled, we ended up with 12 Butternut Squash, 4 Boston Marrow Squash, 16 Straight Eight Cucumbers, 4 White Cucumbers, 12 Zucchini, 12 Summer Squash, and 12 Sunflowers. We had 10 Jiffy pots laying around the house so we used those up first but I handmade the 62 remaining pots using our PotMaker tool.  We are planning on storing and using more Zucchini than our other crops (I will perfect my zucchini bread this year!) so we will be doing another batch of 12 Zucchini in order to increase our output. Stay tuned!

Chickens

The chickens have become a very important part of our self-sufficiency goal. We have been selling a portion of our eggs and so far have been able to cover our operating expenses each month. We are averaging about 3-4 dozen eggs per week from our six hens. In June, we will be adding to our flock with the addition of six Barred Rock hens.

Here are some pictures of our girls causing trouble


hunting for some food

soaking up the sun

Steph's First Mini Book Review

Since I have been working in libraries in one capacity or another for just about half my lifetime now (how did that happen?!), I am quick to utilize all the wonderful resources that I have at my fingertips before shelling out one penny for anything like that!  I have hoped to include as a part of our blog some of the books that we find useful throughout the journey.  The first one that I have had the time to open and look at, even though it is probably not the first one we will utilize, is Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables by Mike & Nancy Bubel.  It's another rainy day and even though the skies are brightening, I was in the mood to finally crack this interlibrary loan book open so I could return it to the lending library by its due date!  We definitely have extra space in our basement (once I do a bit of organizing, that is!) so trying to create a space dedicated to food storage makes complete sense and would be a huge stride in the direction of our self-sufficiency goal.  In between requests from Charlotte and other household chores, I am getting the feeling that this is definitely a project that Josh and I can undertake and actually take at our own pace.  The authors not only introduce you to many different options for food storage, they suggest the type of crops that would make sense to grow for this purpose.  Chapter 15 was dedicated to "The Basement Cellar" and seems like it will come in the most handy for our particular situation.  The text is easy to read and there are helpful diagrams throughout.  I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in raising these type of crops and using natural storage to enjoy your harvest all year long!

A New Queen

We have experienced our first bee casualty! On Friday afternoon I inspected both hives to ensure that the queens were laying eggs and that everyone was working correctly. I have been nervous because one of the hives has shown much more activity on the outside with workers coming and going.

However, when I opened up what I thought was the weaker hive and pulled a frame out I saw something that made my afternoon....larva in the bottom of cells! This confirmed that the queen was out and laying eggs in the hive to increase it's size. I immediately pulled out each frame and located her walking around on an inner frame. After locating her I put that hive back together and went on to the other hive which has been showing so much more activity.

I opened up this hive with a bit more air of confidence (this one has had bees swarming everywhere), pulled my first frame, and saw capped honey/pollen being stored. This meant they were foraging and storing food but no larva were present on this frame. My first thought was "no biggee, the queen will just be on the next frame". I pulled the next frame out and saw more capped honey and pollen being stored. This process continued for all 10 frames until I recognized that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach...The queen was dead...

I immediately called Rick Cooper at Bees-N-ME and after talking with him decided to secure his last queen for purchase. Saturday morning I picked up the new queen and brought her home.


New Queen with worker attendants

Introducing a new queen can be tricky, and to help improve the odds that she will be accepted I sprayed down each frame of bees with the sugar water solution mixed with vanilla extract. This masks any scent from the old queen and helps create a smooth succession. Now the waiting game begins again.....


Bees feeding on 1:1 sugar water solution



More Seedlings

On Earth Day, we ended up planting 72 seedlings! I wish I could say this was an activity that I had completely coordinated with the celebration but truly that's just the way our weekend happened.  Being somewhat of a spreadsheet addict, I look for any excuse to create new ones.  I started working on one for us that will track the progress of all the seedlings in an easy-to-update format.  This should help us learn from any potential mishaps or successes.  Here is a link in case anybody out there is actually interested in stuff like that!  My brain is full of other potential spreadsheet ideas swimming around just waiting for new data to be put into them.  We are adding more raised beds this year so I am going to track where we plant everything in order to prepare for future crop rotations.

Here is what those tiny seeds have turned into only one week later!

Bee and Garden Update

Last week, Josh opened up both hives to check on their progress and was glad to see that both are coming along nicely. Each hive has released their queen from her cage independently and both have sucked down the 5lbs of 1:1 sugar water solution. Keep in mind it takes 10lbs of nectar to create 1lb of beeswax! This sugar water will help give them a head start on all the work they need to do.

Smoking the hives

Checking the sugar water solution

He actually pulled out a few frames to get an even closer look.  Each hive is already drawing out comb on the inner most of the 10 frames.

As far as the garden goes, the peas have been slow to come up so far and we're beginning to wonder if the seeds were bad. The weather has been perfect for them to germinate but there hasn't been any sign yet. Only time will tell but we may have to wipe peas off the menu from the garden this year.

On the other hand, the tomato plants are growing fast and furious. Josh suspects that they will even need to be repotted once more before they are planted outside. The leeks look like they are going to be a success as well.  We're already thinking about planting a tray of 24 next year instead of just the 6 we planted this season.

The bees are here

By 6:30AM Saturday morning, I was on the road to pick up my bees. After installing a package of bees at Rick's, I loaded up our new neighbors and headed home to install them. Everyone I had talked to leading up to Saturday asked what the bees come in. I did my best to explain but here is a picture of a package..
 

Bees waiting to be installed



The bees are clustered around the queen in the cage




Queen cage removed from the package





Dumping the bees into their new home



Getting the sugar syrup ready for the install



Done!

You may notice that initial pictures are clear but when I started to install (dumped out 34,000 bees!) the pictures start to become a bit more fuzzy. My camerawoman (his beautiful wife, Stephanie) started walking backwards across the yard when the bees began buzzing. No matter how much I assured her that they would not bother her..she insisted on keeping her distance (I'm sure some of you out there do not blame me!).

The bees are settling in now and we will be adding more pictures soon.    



Honeybees

Our next big adventure has been taking shape over the past year. I first became interested in beekeeping as a hobby when I watched a segment on our local news, Bill Green's The Green Outdoors, about beekeeping in Maine. I instantly started my research into beekeeping. I read articles online and acquired a copy of Storey's Guide to Keeping Honey Bees. The more I read about it, the more obsessed I became with starting up as a hobbyist beekeeper (also known as an apiarist).

I started looking up local beekeeping courses and found Rick Cooper of Bees-N-ME.com. I talked with him numerous times via email in the fall of 2011 and signed up for his Spring 2012 course. After three full day Saturday sessions my course is over and my bees will be here on April 14! I can not say enough about the advice that Rick offers to his students during this course. His class teaches you the basics but it is intertwined with his personal experience spanning over 30 years. He speaks with a passion for the bees that reminds me of the Lorax!

Here are the hives that will house our Italian neighbors:

Finally found a use for the old horseshoe pit

I chose 10 frame deep hive bodies for the brood boxes. The hive bodies and accessories were purchased from Bees-N-ME.com directly.  I ordered two packages of bees and each package will weigh about 3lbs. The 3lbs equates to roughly 17,000 bees! That will make about 34,000 bees living in their high rise condos. By the end of the summer if everything goes according to plans there will be roughly 70,000 honey bees in each hive and hopefully a harvest of honey in the fall. We are not planning on the bees producing that much honey the first year because most of their energy will be directed into drawing out 20 frames of beeswax for their winter stores. The most important goal for the first year is to get them through the winter and have them come out strong in the spring the following year.

-Josh-

Peas

On Saturday, we prepped one of the raised beds and on Easter Sunday we planted three rows of Thomas Laxton Peas.  I can't wait to take my first snack break on these when I am mowing the lawn!




Prepped raised bed ready for planting!

My toy- Echo mini tiller



 On Easter morning while Charlotte was playing with her toys, I transplanted our 36 tomato seedlings and moved them under lights to give them a growing boost.  Next up to start are our cucumbers and all our different squashes.

While I transplanted, Stephanie became an expert pot maker using our new PotMaker mold.  This simple tool makes very sturdy molds out of recycled newspaper.  Best of all, the pots she made are 100% biodegradable!

2012 garden

Our 2012 garden plan has been taking shape since the first snow fell. In fact, the garden actually started last fall when we planted our first crop of garlic. Here are the first garlic scapes poking through the hay:

We have also started 36 tomato plants indoors with more seedlings to come.

Part of our focus has been on growing and heirloom crops. Most of the produce that you buy in the grocery store are some sort of hybrid, usually chosen for its ease of harvesting. However, these are not always the best tasting variety nor do they have as much nutritional value

We are planning on having the following varieties in our 2012 garden:

1. Rutger Red Tomatoes
2. Brandywine Pink Tomatoes
3. Yellowpear Tomatoes
4. Rosa Bianca Eggplants
5. Purple Top Turnips
6. Waltham Butternut Squash
7. Thomas Laxton Peas
8. Cucumbers
9. Summer Squash
10. Zucchini
11. Parsnip
12. Golden Beets
13. Carrots
14. Sunflowers

In addition, we are planning another fall planting of garlic for 2013. We are also making additional plantings for our asparagus bed to increase it's size for the future.  

We are also in the early stages of providing some of our own fruit.  Last year we planted seven highbush blueberry plants and will be adding to this by planting two peach trees this year.

Welcome!

We would like to welcome everyone to The Hicks Homestead blog. This blog will be used to document our journey as we explore sustainable living and minimizing our carbon footprint. We will share our successes and failures as they come with all of you. One of our first successes started last fall with the construction of our chicken coop.

Human door

Chicken door

This coop houses our six chickens (Buff Orpingtons crossed with Rhode Island Reds) and in turn they usually provide us with six eggs daily. This was one of our first steps in minimizing our dependency on large scale corporate farming. Our happy chickens produce eggs that are better tasting and nutritionally superior to eggs from the big box grocery stores. When you compare the nutrition facts on factory farmed chickens and eggs from pasture-roaming, bug-eating, dust-bathing, happy chickens you see the difference. Get ready:

• 1/3 less cholesterol 
• 1/4 less saturated fat 
• 2/3 more vitamin A 
• Two times more omega-3 fatty acids 
• Three times more vitamin E 
• Seven times more beta carotene
• Three-to-six times more vitamins

This initial step has been a complete success so far and we are considering getting additional hens in 2012. The demand for our natural, farm fresh eggs has been steady and is picking up as word spreads.

Chickens scratching around in the yard...

and in the woods!