Some of the things that worked this last year

Carrots!  We planted a full 30 foot bed of carrot seed last spring, thinned it once, weeded it once, and have been eating carrots since June.  Our major pest for carrots is the Carrot Rust Fly.  The organic control is to cover the crop with a row cover.  We did last year but removed it in August after being told the Rust Fly season is over by then.  How wrong we were!  Up to three generations of this pest can occur in a year so there is really no time safe.  This year we kept our crop covered once germination occurred.  In order to water and weed the row cover must be removed so there is always a chance of infection.  Last night when I was cleaning carrots for the week I noticed for the first time this year a little damage on two carrots.  Last year we lost our complete crop.

One Huge Carrot

Garlic!  Of course, garlic is one of the easiest crops to grow with very few pests.  My only past problem has been waiting too long to harvest and having the heads open up.  When that happens they won’t store well.

Potatoes!   We plant a full bed of potatoes each spring of Yukon Gold.  Once the plants flower I stop watering.  In the past we have found that too much water will result in black rot in the center of the potatoes.  We store them in a large plastic boxes mixed with peat moss in the barn.  Last year the deep freeze froze some of them – which will destroy them.  We bring them into the house in a five gallon bucket, keeping an old towel over the top to block light to the spuds.  Light turns them green, said to be a kind of poison, affecting people with mild stomach disorders.

Summer Squash!  Can anybody in any climate not grow zucchini?

Sweet Peas!  Our late summer crop was eaten by a rabbit that took up home in our vegetable garden.  Pam brought in a neighbor one summer afternoon to harvest some of our produce for her family and the person didn’t shut the gate behind her.  The next day I noticed it open and I noticed the large rabbit running around.  With all of the plant growth there were too many places for it to hide and we didn’t get it out until fall.  Our carrots were safe because of the row cover.

Onions for storage!  We planted a full bed of red and yellow storage onions and about 1/3rd of them will be good for storage. The other 2/3rds sent up seed heads and while they are good for a few months, they won't store well.  You start to get rot where the large stalk connects to the bulb.  The reason for this was our warm February followed by weather in the 20's.  The onion is a bi-annual, setting seed in the second year; the onion gets confused and thinks it is in the second year when very cold weather follows warm weather.

Of course our goat milk (with cheese and kefir) was abundant this year, so much so that we had enough to share with a couple of families.  We froze over 50 lbs. of Panir, 20 lbs. of Mozzarella cheese, and several pints of Ricotta cheese.  We have had an abundance of eggs from our chickens and ducks, meat from our ducks and we raised 50 meat chickens which are now in the freezer.