Lima Beans - My First Attempt

Ever get excited trying to grow something new? Here's my newest crop attempt....pole Lima beans. I'm growing a variety that I've never seen in a seed catalog. I obtained the seeds locally from another gardener. The beans are white with black markings. Black, not dark maroon. And when they are cooked, they make a black pot broth. Interesting. Different. 

I poked the seeds along the inside of the Rockwell that runs along the street. A wire fence runs along and above the wall to keep Crusty the farm dog from jumping the wall, and it makes a great trellis. 

It didn't take all that long before the plants sent out multiple vines. I don't know if this is typical for all pole limas, but this one is making very bushy plants with scads of runners. The runners want to climb straight up, but I'm training them to weave back and forth horizontally in order to utilize the trellis space with the plants early growth. 

So this is how they look today. The few plants (10) have filled in the trellis with my back and forth weaving. I'm now working on weaving the top foot of the trellis. After that I guess I'll run some horizontal wires from pole to pole for the vines to climb up onto. 

I'd say that this variety is aggressive. Wow. Is this typical for pole limas? 

Fungus

Rain. Rain, more rain. I'm sick of it. But it surely has been loved by the fungi growing around here. I decided to take a farm walkabout and see what sort of fungi are visible.

Above, this little oddity is about 1 1/2 inches high jutting out if the forest litter. It looks like a red star flower atop a white stalk. Pretty and weird. 

Above....walking among the fern regrow th in the secret garden, I accidentally came across a patch of wood chips with little red dots all over them. Tiny and very red. I wonder what sort of fungus this one is. 

Above, I came upon patches of bright yellow dog vomit fungus. So colorful, it's hard to miss. Wow, it just screams at ya. I came across three patches of the stuff growing on decomposing cardboard. 

Above.....Mushrooms abound. Big. Small. White. Brown. Robust. Fragile. These are just two photos, but I saw lots of littler mushrooms all around. 

Above..... Shelf fungus was easy to find along old rotting logs. I haven't seen this variety before. Most of the shelf fungus is the type that looks like a turkey tail fanned out. 

Above...... So what's this stuff? I'm guessing it's a fungus of some sort. I found this growing on my back porch steps. 

And lastly, this bright yellow stuff is growing between the layers of wet cardboard. 

Lilikoi In Bloom Right Now

This morning I stepped out the front door into beautiful sunshine, a rare occurrence lately in this very wet month of June. Taking the time to enjoy the view, I looked up a spied a beautiful flower on the passion fruit vine (called lilikoi here). Whoa, the vine must have been flowering for the past week or more and I didn't notice. There's even tiny infant fruits away up high in the vine. Fantastic. 

I've never noticed how long it takes the fruits to mature from the time the vine flowers, so this time I'm making a note of it. I'm curious to see just how long it takes. Does anyone know or have a guess? 

I am noticing that most of the flowers aren't resulting in fruits. Is that normal? I don't know because I never closely monitored the lilikoi vines before. But since most of the flowers are not setting fruit, I'm assuming that they are insect pollinated. I've never noticed birds or bats visiting the blooms. 

Well, looks like I'm no expert when it comes to lilikoi. I do know that it loves to climb trees. It's easy to grow at my location. That it produces fruits seasonally. And that I love the flavor. 

Farm Plan - The Finale

Plans are all well and good, if one has a crystal ball that predicts the future. But the future is not guaranteed, so a plan is only a hopeful plan. Sort of like the difference between theory and fact......plan vs reality. 

I'm not one who has historically been good at adhering to a plan. ...like the time I went on vacation to hike the English moors and ended up hopping the ferry to France. Trip plan out the window on a whim. Ha! That's me!  

So I've revealed my master plan to you all, but please don't hold me to it. Perhaps fate may interfere with the plan, or perhaps I may toss the whole thing out the window and do something else. Hey I'm a girl, and I think I heard someone say that a girl can change her mind.    😉

Seriously though, I believe it's good to have some sort of plan in the works. Maybe it will be modified along the way, but it gives me an idea of what direction I'm suppose to be going in. 

By the way, I'm open to suggestions. Just recently someone posted a suggestion of growing moringa for livestock fodder. It's a great suggestion, so I'm incorporating the idea into the farm plan. I'm going to add several more trees to the farm in the next few weeks. 

I don't know about you, but I'm sick of thinking about a farm master plan. So let's go off to other topics. 

Farm Plan - Future With Water

"C" asked me why do I have to rely upon the rain? First, I live in a rural area where the government doesn't provide water to everybody. That means, no "city water" on this farm. On the road I live on, the county water department will not run water lines to my farm. If I wanted county water, they would install a water meter one mile away down the road. This means that I would have to buy and install a mile of my own water pipe (a mile's worth ain't cheap), plus go to the expense of trenching it in and restoring the ground surface to the county's satisfaction. PLUS purchase and install a booster pump to bring the water up to the farm. And pay for the county to install a water meter. Who knows how many tens of thousands of dollars that would cost me. But believe me, I have no intention of finding out. The county can keep their water. 

Another thing to consider......Once I would hook into county water, then I'd have the expense of having to maintain my own water system, pay an electric bill to run the booster pump, pay to maintain that pump, and pay a monthly water bill on top of it all. Not a good deal any way I look at it. 

"P" voiced concern about the farm running out of water during a drought. Yup, could happen. But there are steps that can be taken. First I could do things to reduce water use, such as using deep mulches, going to drip irrigation, growing some crops in non circulating hydroponics, creating wicking beds. For livestock, instead of open water troughs, they could learn to use water nipples. And finally, I could simply haul more water myself or buy a water tanker full and have it delivered. There are water delivery services here that make buying delivered water easy. 

"E" wrote to say that it sounded like I had the water system in place, so what would I be doing in the future? Well actually there are a few water related projects that I have planned.......

1- install a hose system to distribute the greywater easier to different areas. Right now there are only 3 spots that get greywater. I plan to create a better system so that the greywater can be sent to numerous more sites where it is needed. 

2- make a system to divert the overflow water from the residential catchment tank to the agricultural water tank down in the field. Currently the overflow runs into the woods. It could be better utilized by using it to replenish the ag tank. 

3- create more water storage in locations adjacent to food crops. When it comes to a strong drought year, I'd like to see the available water be easily utilized by the food gardens. 

Farm Plan - Water

Without water, there is no farm. 

Happily I'm in an area that historically gets enough rain on average. Some years are quite wet (like now!) Some years are quite droughty. The wet vs dry is cyclic, so surviving one versus the other is not all that difficult. It's just a matter of waiting for the next year. 

This farm relies upon rainwater. There are no streams. There is a inactive dry river bed cutting across the farm that in the past carried excess rainwater during heavy rain storms. It was not a continuous stream. But bulldozing up the mountainside has diverted the water. ☹️ There are no natural ponds nor bogs here either. The majority of the farm lies atop an old a-a lava flow, so that excess rain rapidly drains down into the lava. A few acres lies atop a pahoehoe flow which has numerous small lava tubes below it. Again, heavy rain rapidly drains away in most places but there are spots where drainage is slow or delayed. Thus the farm does not create its own ponds. The only visual evidence of rain runoff is in the driveway. Therefore swales to capture rain runoff would be on no use on this land. 

Rainwater is harvested via roof tops and directed to large storage tanks called catchment tanks. Roof tops include the house, barn, various sheds and livestock shelters. The farm had three large, round, corrugated steel tanks capable of holding a total of 23,000 gallons. Additional water is stored in numerous small man-made ponds, one larger 16' round diameter 3' deep (4500 gallons), and the others varying from 25 gallons to 150 gallons. These smaller ponds are for mosquito control. 

During droughts, my current water storage is not sufficient. So I haul water by the half ton load twice a week. That's not a lot of water, but if I do it continuously, it's enough to get the farm through the drought years. I just don't put off hauling water until the tanks gets low. It would be too late then to make a difference. So I haul year around whenever the tanks are less than full. And since I pass by the water spigots several times a week anyway, it's not a hassle getting water. 

Another source of water for farm use is reusing the greywater. My take is.....why drain greywater into a hole in the ground when water is so precious a resource? Greywater is diverted to orchard trees and some fodder crops. Bananas and pipinolas thrive on the constant water. By not allowing the ground to become waterlogged and by adding  manure & mulch from time to time, I have no odor problems when using the greywater. 

I don't try to store greywater. Storing it mean that it would need to be treated in some fashion. Even if it just means dribbling it through a series of plant filled ponds, I don't have the set up for it. Aaaaaaah, perhaps a future project. So currently I just run it directly to the plants that I am targeting. 

Farm Plan - Food Future

Since this discussion is about the farm plan for food, expanding food production is the paramount goal. But it includes not just food for us, but food for others and feed for livestock. 

As far as human food goes, the plan primarily calls for producing surplus to sell for farm income. A second focus is on changing our own diet expectations.....truly learning to enjoy "real food" all the time rather than slipping in commercially prepared foods. In regard to this second goal, we do allow ourselves to splurge on the weekends, which helps a lot. Total "bad food" deprivation doesn't work for us. If we get none, then we crave it even worse. Thus right now we are not 100% food independent although in a crisis we could be. And possibly in the near future we will be. So part of the future food plan calls for us to work on this issue. 

Producing surplus........ the main goal of the homestead farm plan. Consistently producing surplus would open the door to being able to support our livestock independent of commercial feeds. Surplus would also give our bartering more flexibility, the problem being that currently I often don't have what others are looking for. Surplus would also mean that I could attend local farmers markets and convert that excess into cash. Face it, no matter how independent a homestead wants to be, there is still the need for cash for taxes, insurances, medical costs, tools, some fuels, repairs and maintenance, and expansion costs. Not everybody wishes to barter the items and services that I need to acquire. 

What sort of surpluses do I have in mind for the future? 

Increase edible pastures. 

Learn to produce grains for on farm use. 

Increase salable fruits and vegetables. 

Produce resale items : plant starts, seeds, compost, mulching material. While these are not food items directly, they indirectly result in food.