The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Farm news

A farm supper and watermelon seeds


There's so much going on here on the farm that I can't for the life of me choose a single thing to post about.  We're still eating all garden meals whenever possible, and I've discovered that I suddenly like omelets with Egyptian Onion greens in them.  Our ever-bearing raspberries are starting to fruit again, which turns the meal into a feast.

I'm also getting a bit more serious about seed-saving.  We've never had a good crop of watermelons before, so this year we tried out four varieties.  The most successful and prolific was Sugar Baby, which is billed as being both disease and drought resistant.  I'm hoping it didn't cross with its less prolific neighbors and that these seeds will give us an equally exciting crop next year.

Brooding hen and broccoli

Meanwhile, the abnormally cool and rainy July has tempted my broccoli to start heading up in August.  The bug damage has been minimal and I staggered my plantings so I expect to be eating broccoli for several weeks once this one is ready.  Finally, a success  big enough to outweigh our potato and tomato failures!

Our broody hen has settled in for the duration.  She did hop off the nest for a couple of minutes on Monday to eat her breakfast, but otherwise has barely moved.  It seems like she has the entire farm's biological clock energy.  We'll enjoy eating the fruits of that energy this fall and winter.

Shame-faced plug: Our DIY kits include information on how to make a chicken waterer for as low as $1 per bird.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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That meal looks wonderful.
Comment by MH Tue Aug 18 14:02:43 2009
Thanks! It was pretty tasty.
Comment by anna Tue Aug 18 19:06:42 2009





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