How to Prevent Wormy Apples Without Using Sprays

It's a beautiful spring day out on the farm. The birds are singing, the grass is green, and the blossoms are now appearing on the apple trees. This is the perfect day and time to talk about insect infestation prevention in an orchard.

We do not spray our apples. It is a tedious process, expensive, and unhealthy way to go for managing wormy apples. What we do instead is hang stockings full of moth balls to prevent the moths from coming to our orchard to lay their eggs.

You see, the worms that you find in apples start off as an egg that is laid inside the blossom by the moth. This has to happen in the spring when the buds open up into the fragrant apple blossoms we love. To prevent this from happening, we mask the smell of the blossoms with moth balls, something that the moths detest and stay away from. Sure, our apple orchard doesn't smell so nice in the spring, but we have a large worm free apple crop in the fall from year to year!

2019 Vegetable Garden: 7 Weeks Before Frost Free Date

This morning I looked at my vegetable garden with its 3 foot snowbanks still occupying the space wondering how I would get my first crops planted. Cold crops are to be planted this time of year so they can ripen before the heat of summer. If you wait too long, the lettuce will bolt and the carrots will become bitter before they are ready to pick. 

So, patio gardening to the rescue! That's right, I am planting my cold crops in pots this year. I decided to try this mainly with the carrots as I want fresh carrots early in the season and they are the worst to transplant. All my other seeds went into the Areogarden. This will give me the opportunity to start those crops and transplant into the garden at a later time when the soil is workable.

Week 7 down and 6 to go until we are at our frost free stage of the gardening season!

The Easiest Way to Can Pepper Jelly: Ball Jam & Jelly Maker and AutoCanner Version

With all those peppers out in the garden, I had to find some use for them. So, it was time to break out the canner and my jam & jelly maker to give you another new video on an old recipe.

Ball Recipes used in this video:

Pepper Jelly Ball FreshTech Auto Canner Instructions:
https://www.freshpreserving.com/pepper-jelly---ball-auto-canner-recipes-br1438.html#q=pepper%2Bjelly&start=6

Traditional Pepper Jelly Ball FreshTech Jam & Jelly Maker Instructions:
https://www.freshpreserving.com/pepper-jelly-%7C-pepper-jelly-recipe---ball-fresh-preserving-br1308.html#q=pepper%2Bjelly&start=4

Reduced Sugar Pepper Jelly Ball FreshTech Jam & Jelly Maker Instructions:
https://www.freshpreserving.com/reduced-sugar-pepper-jelly---ball-auto-canner-recipes-br1439.html#q=pepper%2Bjelly&start=11

Wintertime on the Farm: Angus Calf Set-up

The weatherman says a blizzard is on the way. That has been the story here all winter. It feels like the winters we knew from 1996 - 1997. We have had a lot of snow compared to the past several years and bone chilling temperatures to go with it.

However, it was near 30 degrees today as I took the video and the calves were enjoying the outdoors. We still had everything set up in the barn for -11 degree winter windchill. Mostly, we are worried about the two youngest of the bunch being they do not have as thick of coat on like the rest of the herd. But, everyone so far has been happy and healthy through this season and we hope that spring will come soon!

Homestead Update: We are weaning the calves!

As predicted, we began weaning our newly acquired black Angus bottle calves Thanksgiving week. We are just doing the three older ones and any calf who eats at least 2 pounds a feed a day. That is about half of the bunch at present. We also separated out a few calves into their own pens so we can determine how much feed they are consuming each day. This is just a temporary measure and we hope to have them all back together real soon. 

11/13/2018 Homestead Update: 1 Week into Raising Blank Angus Bottle Calves

The calves are growing bigger each and every day. They are now really moving around. So much so that the nice weather we had today we allowed them to roam outside in the pen. However, I wasn't around to get a video of them jumping and kicking up there heals, sad to say.

The calves are still on the same schedule of 2 quarts of milk in the morning and another 2 quarts at night. They have 5 gallon buckets of fresh water in their pens at all times. We also put in a square of grass hay for the smaller ones to chew on. There is now a big tub of grass hay in the largest pen for the 3 oldest calves. Everyone also has access to calf starter feed at all times. We will wait for them to get bigger before rationing that out.

Right now, the most favorite time of day for everyone is the morning and evening milk feedings. The three oldest don't have too much longer looking forward to their daily bottles. We are planning on weaning them away from milk come Thanksgiving.

Black Angus Bottle Calf Setup Tour for Homesteaders

What I didn't say in the video was that we had an alley down the middle of the barn for easier unloading of the calves when we brought them in on Tuesday. We could swing the panels open and usher the calves down the aisle to the pen in groups of two. Considering that this bunch is a little on the rowdy side compared to calves we have had in the past, this setup was much better than what we have created the past.

We also found out that Angus start eating feed and will forage at only a couple days old. With our Jerseys we expected this. But, with the Angus we just set it up like we did with the Jerseys so they would get used to the objects in the pen. We were surprised when we set up the water pales and the calves started drinking right away. They were with their mothers up to this point though, and we all know that calves and other baby animals learn by watching their mothers. So, they probably were foraging and drinking water right beside them even though they are still at nursing age.

What I do like about raising beef breeds is that the owners of the cows allow the calves to suckle and get the mother's first milk which has all the rich nutrients and natural immune supporters. With dairy breeds, the farmers/ranchers will try to get the calf off the cow as soon as possible or not let them drink the mother's first milk at all as they try to get as much $$ from milk sales in their operations. This generally leads to malnourished calves that get sick quite easily.

What I do not like about raising beef breeds is that they are bigger and stronger and are harder to manage then the dairy breeds. But, as long as you have a good strong fence, time, and patience, they do bring in a juicier burger to enjoy on the grill in the summer months!