Category Archives: Urban Farming

Gurobo Farm Update 7/25/2013

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Another Aquaponic picture update.

My Dutch bucket as of yesterday. 3 stems and flowering.

Same peppers planted 1, week earlier. Also have grown a ton in the last 2 weeks. But now they are about at the same place the DB pepper was at 2 weeks ago. Single stem no flowers yet.

The flood and drain bed. Ground Cherries are doing well 1 head of lettuce is going.

On Saturday/Sunday i decided to add in some Tomato seeds just to see how they would do and 3 days later they are up. I pulled one out to move it and its root was more then an inch long. Crazy.

Over all i am so impressed with the Aquaponic system, next year it will have at least one more flood and drain bed… some how. And i am thinking a few more Dutch Buckets… I thing we might go really soil less next year depending on how the everything winters.

<3s

Pepper: Aquaponic Vs Soil

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So today i just want to show you two pictures from the same kind of pepper plant planted about a week apart. Other then that week of time the only difference is the first is in my Dutch bucket (part of my aquaponic system and the other/s are planted in a bed.

Dutch Bucket Aquaponic Pepper

Peppers is the beds.

I realize the soil plants are harder to make out growth but that is kinda my point, they are smaller and not as far along then this one aquaponic pepper ever though i planted the peppers in the bed about a week before i started the Dutch Bucket.

Gurobo Farms Update: 6/16

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I got a tone of things to do today so I decided to do a greenhouse photo update for you all today. But before i get to new pictures i want to say two things real fast. One, got the rogue to 20 last night and in the next few days we will see how the build runs in epics slash how the gear up is going. Two, i think the full effect of the new growth is best if you go back and take a look at some of the older garden updates. Take a second and take a look at some of the older greenhouse updates!

Now some pictures.

Peppers! You can see the Banana peppers in the back. The 4 Jalapeno’s plants are rocking. If you have a real good eye you might be able to see the Bonnets and the Bells. Everything is fruiting super well.

Jalapeno close up. Count the flowers and think about how almost everyone becomes a fruit…. Many Jalapenos!

Cucumbers. I know it is hard to tell but there are 3 in this shot. One big boy that is a little older then the other two but they are all doing really well.

Keep in mind that the cucumber shown here is about 4 inches long.

More peppers. There are 2 different kinds but both are super hot. I wonder were i put the habaneros? They were great last year.

This is one of the most impressive plants in my eyes. This is the watermellon. Yep i have it climbing on a heavy duty cage and i think it is doing really well. It even has a few flowers…

This is the other most impressive of the plants to me. This is the punkin. Again i wish i had some kind of scale… That box it is on just to keep the grass down under it is about 4 foot tall and those larger leaves are about a foot across. BIG PLANT.

Here is a shot of the west side of the greenhouse. Most of the other plants are blocked from view by the ground cherry but this tray also has a few okra plants that are really fruiting and a cluster of strawberries that are going mad. If you look carefully you can also see the grapes climbing the walls. 

Oh hey, a few other things in that last photo. The wife’s caves and the two buckets of carrots.

Even more peppers on the left and some sweet melons on the right. The melons are kinda freaking the wife out with their burst growth each day. She swears that she waters in the morning and they are X big and then when i get home after work we go water and they are MUCH bigger. All i know is i hope to have some melons soon.

Don’t think i can have an update with out showing you the tomato “bush”. I don’t really deal with the tomatos but i know there are 5 or 6 on my kitchen counter and at least 4-5 more about ready to harvest and 12s that are still growing.

Here is a shot of the most southern tomato plant, and as you can see he has 3 easy to see fruits ripening on sunday when i took these pictures.

One of the Eggplants. And yes it is fruiting already.

An Eggplant that is not fruiting…. yet.

And here are my new Blue Berry bushes. I am hoping that they will do really well on the south side of the greenhouse. I could use a nice wall of something to hide the lack of trimming and how i haven’t got the pavers laid around the base yet.

 

My Prep List, May 17, 2013

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Everyone once and I while I get on my soapbox and talk about my prepping, what I am doing and or why you might want to do some prepping. And it is that time again. Below is some of my to-do list and the why should be fairly easy to see right now take a look at the BS that is going on in the world today.

Things I need to do.

Put a few plans to keep the green house cool in the summer heat in place. Even with the cross breeze and the box fan we are having 95+ afternoons already in the green house.

Get the Aquaponics in and running. Right now I am hopping for rain so I can use rainwater to fill the fish tank. I have plumbed the rain catch to the fish tank via a garden hose that I can add or remove in just a few mins. So water changes wont be an issue in the future. But that means I need some water first…

Adjust the shelves in the Shelfreliance, turns out that I use a lot of canned meat like chicken and crabmeat. Right now the crab is in the Shelfreliance but the chicken is just sitting on top. Need to get them in the rotation. We also have gotten a lot of crap out of the family diet and those canned goods can go to make room for better-canned goods or things we can ourselves. See next item.

Learn to can myself AND get some canning supplies. If we stay on track in the garden (and I am hopeful) the wife and I will have our best year ever. Meaning we will have a ton of left overs to store for the year, ergo canning, freezing or dehydration time. Honestly if I am going to use frozen veggies I might as just stock up on cleaned chopped flash frozen veggies from the store. But if I can make my own pickles from my Orca or keep things in a mini root cellar then I am winning.

Start planning on the cold weather crops and how to keep them growing all winter long.

Well that seems like a fine list for today. I will end with some photos taken during my lunch break watering the garden.

<3s

Trays 1-4 and Qywnn

The Backside of the tomato plants.

Salad waiting on the left and look at my watermelon go! (right)

One of the Strawberries baskets.

Front side of the tomatoes.

Pumpkin…

One of now 6 Grape Plants. Count down until wine making classes?

The Chicken T

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If you follow me on twitter you know that there was a chicken/dogs encounter of the bloody kind. Basically one of the roosters got out of the extended run the wife and I have been working on and when the wife when to check on the greenhouse and naturally the dogs went along. Now we have dog tested the new run before yesterday so I was not worried about the dogs getting in but I didn’t think about a chicken getting out….

From what I was told there was a frantic yard chase until the poor little guy got pinned in a corner where the wife was able to save him. During the chase the dogs (older puppies? Maybe they just hit 2 years old last week) managed to snag some tail feathers and ripped them out and along with those feathers a small patch of skin less then the area of half a dime. If that even. I mean tiny little patch of skin.

Being the caring woman my wife is she put the wounded cock in the coop with the rest and shut down the extended run until we could fix the fault, which we did last night.

What she didn’t notice was he was bleeding just the slightest amount. Now what some of you might not know, chickens will peck at anything that is the color red. It is their peck trigger. That is why the water/food dishes are red in the tray area. So this tiny speck of blood that we over looked was not missed by the other chickens and they started pecking at his wound. At lunch it was not bad but not healing and we ended up separating him from the rest of the flock which he really did not like. Did you know that chickens are social animals? And this guy really made me worry that he would end up hurting himself trying to get back. After all he was now hurt, scared and alone… I would be a little more then that, I would be pissed off it was me and not that chicken…

Returning to work, I let my brain start to turn on this problem. Work doesn’t pay me enough to use my whole brain anyway.. The first option I thought of was ducktape! It can fix anything, and is meant to tape ducks… How much different is a chicken vs a duck?  Then I started thinking that I didn’t want to pull the tape free in a week or two and cause even more issues…. Then I remembered I read some woman that makes chicken diapers from bandanas so her chickens can go in her house… My brain screamed bandana!

A white bandana tied like below around the chicken would keep the his red covered but leave his anus free so to not create an infection from his own crap…

Gangsta chicken! Cluck Cluck!

 

Or that was the idea anyway. On the drive home it accured to me I have a growing boy that should have some old white tees that he can’t wear any more and snip snip later I had a square cut and fitted to the bird. But letting him run for a min showed that was not going to work… Not only did he peck at the tee because it was rubing against his skin, but as he ran it twisted because I didn’t want to tie it too tight.

A little more thought and some more cutting I made something that looked a lot like the letter T but with a thick trunk… Like this:

Saved by the letters T and A and the number 42!

I looped the to thinner part of the T under his wings and tide them together behind his back and then used a hair clip to keep the back of the shirt down so it can’t flip up and expose his wounded backside.

After some mild pecking at the knot he seemed settled and adding him back to his flock caused some mild peeking at the hair clip as it is kinda shiny but no more back damage. We did need to trim some wing feathers to remove some dried blood but now he is as white as the rest of the Leghorns.

We (the wife and I) added a permanent chicken wire top to the new run and life seems to be good for the chickens. We used the new addition to move said chicken’s coop last night and then left the run open all night. This morning when I looked in on them, all 8 were happily spread out over their original run and the new addition.

Now to patent my chicken T idea, and make MILLONS!!!!!!!

<3s