Putting your Homestead on Autopilot

Whoo, hoo!  Back again!  Feeling soooo bad these last weeks (months, sigh) has shown me the importance of making your homestead able to function with a minimum of input day to day.  Of course, there are plenty of things to do and plenty of thing you can do any day on a homestead, but today we are going to talk about making it so there are very few things you have to do on any given day.  If you design for ease and functionality, you can save yourself a lot of grief and your animals a lot of discomfort. Now, if you are out for weeks, I can only give you a few hints to have the garden not fall apart.  But you can keep your animals comfortable with only a little help if you plan well (that also means you don't have to go out in the sleet if you simply don't want to).

Livestock

                 Insulated hoses, a freeze-proof faucet, and automatic shut off valve and a floating de-icer makes this waterer as automatic as possible

• Automatic water, automatic water, automatic water... absolutely take the time and money to run a water line and have an automatic valve in your tank to give your animals all the water they need.  If you run out, they will develop a lot of bad habits fighting over who gets the water first.  While you are at it, choose a non-freezing waterer or add a floating de-icer (you will have to have electricity for that) so you don't have to drag water to them on cold mornings.  If your area's ground freezes for long periods, you will have to invest in a special waterer that is insulated like this one. Here in the southeast of the U.S., we generally don't have freezing that is severe enough to make more than a thin coating of ice. For the few weeks that all day freezing is a problem, we keep our cattle near the house and where we have a line run to a thermostatically controlled warmer floating in the tank.  The only problem developed when one of our calves thought it was great fun to play with the floating disc and we kept finding it on the ground.  You can imagine our boys, "Really, Dad!  I didn't do it!" 

This season's waste becomes next season's soil!

• Hey, We want some hay!  Your livestock will be up with the sun - they want to eat then - why make it so they have to wait on you? I have tried numerous things over the years, but my favorite winter strategy is to provide 2 or 3 large rolled bales of hay at a time. They don't fight over a limited amount as they do when I give them a square bale or 2 at a time, and the wasted hay is a nice insulator against the ground.  By the time they have eaten all they are going to get from those bales, you have nice, manure-filled hay debris area that breaks down into beautiful topsoil.  The areas that have housed those bales are noticeable for years - they grow more rye in the spring and more bermuda in the summer.  They are also the spot the herd picks to munch on first when we move into that paddock. 
• Of course, most of the year, your livestock are eating grass and you want to rotate them to new areas regularly.  Here's the good news - afternoon is the best time to move them!  Moving to a new area stimulates your livestock to start munching on the best of the fresh green grass.  Think of living with a lot of siblings and taking your cookies RIGHT NOW because you know you won't get any if you wait until later.  We think of the herd as being this wonderful, supportive place, but really it's just each animal thinking first of themselves (but living in a group). Kind of a lot like us, huh?  Anyway, the other cool, scientifically beneficial thing about moving livestock in the afternoon is that is basically eliminates the chance of your animals developing bloat.  Bloat happens when cattle eat fresh, green, wet-from-dew grass on an empty stomach and develop gasses that seize up their intestines.  Yucky way to die, huh.  The not-so-scientifically-based cool thing about moving them in the afternoon is that my boots and pants don't get wet from dew.  I know.  Really. (It's just I would rather quietly dig around in the garden first thing in the morning and chat it up with some boisterous bovines in the afternoon.) 

• Minerals are key - We all need salt.  If you don't have a proper balance of sodium and potassium in you body, you will crave salty things.  Your livestock are the same.  Enter kelp. You can order it from here  or from a number of other sites online.  It looks like green powder and smells like shrimp.  It comes from seaweed and has the same mixture of salts and minerals the ocean does.  I mix mine 50/50 with plain livestock salt and place it in a mineral feeder that protects it from the rain.  Some days they munch it up, and others they ignore it.  I figure they know what they need.  Just to mention, my beef became even more tender after I added this to the regime.  
• Lastly, worming.  Doesn't it sound like fun to gather up all your suspicious herbivores on a monthly basis so you can give them something they don't want?  Yeah, not my idea of fun either.  Joel Salatin in Salad Bar Beef recommends using Shaklee's Basic H soap in your animals' water supply every other month.  They like it, it's easy for you, it's effective and nobody gets hurt.  Win, win, win, win.  Basic H is an organic liquid soap made from soybeans.  I've had good results thus far.  Here's a link for you fellow science nerds that want to see the background about intestinal worms.  

Okay, so let's review.  Things happen.  People get sick or family comes to visit.  It rains.  Some days you are lazy.  If you plan well, your animals can go stress free with all their needs met even if you aren't rushing to check on them first thing in the morning.  And when you get down to it, your kids or honey will remember a lovely breakfast a lot longer than they will.

Fall Egg Production

If you have chickens, you've probably noticed their egg production dropping off lately.  Here's the reason:  chickens need about 14 hours of sunlight per day to stimulate their bodies to produce an ovum.  Last weekend was the Autumnal Equinox, which means the sun is hitting the earth straight on the equator.  You can look up sunrise / sunset times and see that the U.S. is receiving about 12 hours of sunlight per day right now.  This will decrease until December 21st, then slowly increase until the first day of Summer.

That shows us that for more than half of the year, your chickens do not receive enough light to make your eggs.  Now, chickens are cute and fun and all, but it's really not worth having birds that do not lay.  So - let's solve this problem.  You will need a electricity, a light of some sort and a timer. That's it!

Set your timer to turn the light on in the morning.  Extending in the evening can leave the chickies in abrupt darkness if you turn it off at night. The last thing we want is chickens with anxiety issues!  If you have a rooster - he will crow for the light.  Sorry.  Don't know how to fix that one.

Your rule of thumb needs to be that the light should be bright enough to read a newspaper.  Fortunately, here in the South the sun remains fairly high in the sky throughout the winter.  If you have the light come on between 3 and 4 a.m. and turn off about 8 a.m., you will still have enough light even in the shortest days of the year.  That is also the coldest time of the night, so a heat lamp will keep your chickies more comfortable.

Let's review - if you choose to have your chickens permanently in a movable pen, you will need to think about supplying electricity somehow from fall to spring.  Maybe park them by the house in the evenings and run a GFCI cord?  The other alternative is to have a winter house with electricity permanently available and only put them in their movable pen on nice days.

The light you choose is your choice.  I chose a simple outdoor flood light with a clamp-on fixture for its durability.  I have been known to bump into my light when working around the coop, and I don't want to risk   glass shards from a broken light or having mercury from a florescent bulb in the coop.

Pine shavings and chickens droppings on the floor will be breaking down continuously, creating heat.  You may need to cover open walls to protect the girls from sharp winter winds, but we have an advantage here in the South because our ground does not typically freeze, so the composting droppings create enough heat for them to get by.

We'll talk later about how to get your girls fresh greens through the winter, so you can still get the benefits of pastured eggs.  (see the difference here)  As you can see - there's still a whole lot more!

MAKING BABIES (no-not like that!)

So sorry to have been away this last week - I was chronologically challenged.  There is so much to talk about!  Fall is here and there is fall gardening, putting up summer tomatoes, making stevia drops, planning for spring - I keep telling you 'there is so much more'!  But today, we should talk about making transplants.  Here in the South, so many gardeners only purchase transplants to garden.  It's not a bad idea, either.  Spring temperatures beckon you to the outdoors and beautiful little baby squash plants beg to go home with you.  But let's take it to the next level and look at the benefits of 'making your own babies'.

Why aren't we seeing transplants at the home and garden store right now if it is the right time to plant?  Two reasons:  most fall plants (see here for a list) can be planted directly by seed, and the ones that need to be grown first as transplants (broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, cabbage) are all very picky and would never make it through the rigors of neglect that is found at the typical garden center.

But not for you - you will take excellent care of your babies (bad analogy - you only take good care of these babies until you eat them!).  Not only that - you are going to do this with very low investment!  Things you will need:

1. A place to put a shelf - preferably with a waterproof floor below (basements are great)
2. A shelf and a shop light fixture (I use 'daylight' fluorescent bulbs)
3. A timer to turn off the light (they need about 6 hours of darkness at night)
4. Transplant trays (choose from pots or trays)
5. Seed starting mix

That's it!  There are expensive, fancy systems - but you will get started for much less!  Here's my setup:

I had to turn the light off on the upper level because there was too much glare for the photo, but you can see the plants are reaching up to the light.  The shelves are just leftovers we had and the shop lights (I prefer the upper one with no guard) are hung from little chains.  That makes them adjustable - they almost touch the brand new plants and then can be raised once the babies are bigger.  These babies are now ready to sit outside during the day to become acclimated to the weather.  I will be planting them in the prepared fall beds this week.

So - if this is so easy - why isn't everyone doing it?  Hmmm, good question...is it that we are an instant society and want instant gratification? Do the evil store owners know they can make a bigger profit from transplants as opposed to seed? Well, I have a hard time laying blame on anyone - especially since I have purchased transplants every year I have gardened - but I think mostly we are not familiar with the process and therefore shy away from it.

Here's where The Maven's past failures are going to give you confidence to move forward.  As you go to the gardening center, you will probably see systems with 'peat pellets'.  Avoid these.  I have only succeeded in making spindly, sickly babies when I use peat pellets.  We like chunky monkeys.  My favorite seed starting mix to date is 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 mushroom compost.  Vermiculite is a rock compound that has been heated to expand and hold water.  It's the white stuff you see in a potted plant.  Mix these together and moisten them. I store a stash of this in a Rubbermaid box so it is ready any time.

Here's the drill:

1. Fill your pots or trays with the moist seed mix
2. Use a pencil or leftover chop stick to put a 1/2 inch dent in the middle of the cell
3. Drop in 2 seeds
4. Water from bottom for trays, water gently from the top for pots.  Water with a liquid fertilizer every other time (I use kelp in order to stay organic, but any emulsion will work)
5. Trim off the weaker of the 2 seedlings after 2 weeks
6. If you have a protected area outside, move your trays out during the day for a week before you transplant into the garden 

That's it!  I will show some follow up pictures as the season goes on.  Come back to see the progression.  Pretty soon at your house you'll be saying, "There's a whole lot more!"

STRAW BALE GARDENING

I know - you think everything goes perfectly in The Maven's garden.  Bugs never enter,weeds never take over and the yield is out of this world!  Ha! Fooled you!  I write because I have had all of that go wrong and more!  So here is the confession...
                                 I stink - I fail - I'm pathetic - at growing tomatoes.

I have put in 2 beds (100 square feet each!) of tomatoes and not had enough tomatoes to put any up!  Not enough for a single pot of spaghetti sauce!  I have watched my plants die from blight.  I have have seen all of the various fungi, leaf spots, molds and other tomato afflictions up close and personal.  Most disheartening is when I watch precious little green tomatoes sit on the vine for weeks, not ripening.  Finally, they commit vegetable suicide and fall to the ground to be eaten by the bugs.  Failure, failure, failure.

So why can I talk to you today about tomato growing?  Einstein said the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."  I think everyone should get to the end of each gardening season and be able to say - Well, that didn't work so well.  It means you tried something new.  You tried to solve last year's problem.

I had some new ideas this year that ended in epic failure.  But I had one new idea that has me excited. I had one new idea that will be a part of my garden for years to come.  I had one idea that gave me tomatoes!  Not just a few, mind you.  The picture shows only part of one day's harvest!  I have a handy dandy kitchen scale and weighed out 10 pounds of tomatoes in just one day!

For you science nerds out there - it is even a controlled experiment.  The messy result you see here is the straw bale bed.  I have another bed with tomatoes planted in the ground.  I added a tablespoon of Borax to each planting hole on both beds because I had decided that a boron deficiency was the reason for my sickly plants.  I did have a better yield in the standard bed than in years past.  But on the day I took this photo, I was unable to pick a single tomato from the standard bed!

That's the why - now the how - then we'll talk about who and when:

• Place straw (not hay) bales in a line, square or whatever configuration you want.  
• Sprinkle with fertilizer (organic all purpose is fine)
• Cover with 3" of bagged compost - I used mushroom compost
• Water heavily daily.
• On about day 4, you should notice the bales heating up. This is from the active composting occurring. Last year, I stuck a meat thermometer in the bales and saw it go well over 100 degrees!
• Continue to water.  About day 10, the bales should be cooled down.
• Pull apart the straw and place in transplants.
• Fertilize every other week with foliar fertilizer (more on that later)
• Water generously through the season. Every other day during hot, dry times.  

Here are the benefits of straw bale culture:

1. No tilling! No digging!  This would even work for renters - nothing but compost is left later!
2. Solves weed problems without you losing your back muscles, commitment to organic practices or your religion!  I had an area at the back of the garden that was overrun with Bermuda grass. (Say grrr with me...)  I placed a thick layer of black plastic with 6 bales on top.  That area has now given me cantaloupes, stevia, thyme and a weed-free zone that will be my strawberry tower next year!  
3. Solves reoccurring problems - like my pitiful tomatoes - that may be due to imbalances of minerals in the soil. The bales take your soil totally out of the picture.  (There will be more about how The Maven evaluates her soil problem)
4. Very versatile!  You can grow tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe, basil, radishes, carrots, broccoli - pretty much anything but corn or potatoes.  
5. Can be used to rebuild an old bed.  I placed the tomatoes in one of my oldest beds.  The soil got a rest and will be replenished as the bales break down
6. Can be used to start a new bed.  2 weeks to start and a beautifully amended bed at the end of the season is a pretty good way to go.  
7. Earthworms love it!  I spiked mine with standard fishing worms and some of my composting worms.  Anyone familiar with our Alabama or Georgia red clay is excited about lots of earthworms.  I'm pretty sure baby earthworms are issued hardhats before they venture out into our native soil!

So - if you are on the fence about starting a garden...maybe you could consider putting down 6 bales of straw next year and enjoy vine ripened tomatoes, gourmet baby squash, fresh basil and cantaloupes right from your own back yard!  I kind of think you'll never want to go back.  

Expect a lot more as I experiment with my own straw bales.  I plan to put one of everything in the back bed to see how it does until heavy frost.  I also expect to continue picking tomatoes until frost.  Happy sigh.  The Maven is truly happy.

  

Planning the Layout of Your Fall Garden

This week I have the pleasure of helping a dear friend start her first garden.  How cool to think we are starting in the fall!  Usually people are rushing to get going in the spring, really before the ground warms up enough to even plant the heat loving plants like peppers and tomatoes.

So what do we do?  Last week, we talked about planting spinach using a triangle to know how far apart to put the seeds.  This week, we are going to do an entirely different kind of garden.  My friend has 2 roughly 9 ft x 3 ft beds.  Remember, we stop at 3 feet wide so it is easy to reach across.  We are going to plant an array of winter veggies in these 2 beds.  We'll still measure with our triangles, we'll just mix and match the plants that go next to each other.

Enter the Garden Planner.  You can find this on a number of websites.  I happen to use Territorial Seed. You can play around with it for 30 days - go get your free trial by signing up here.  Here's the plan for Claudia's garden:

 Looks like a hot mess, doesn't it?  Click here and you'll see a full explanation of the plants, the spacing and the times to plant.  It's really not that complicated once you see each individual plant.

Now, how did The Maven decide what to plant?  Here's the fun part... The plants in the top bed all benefit from row covers and extended season techniques.  The bottom bed can be exposed with few ill effects.  As a matter of fact, the brussel sprouts and the kale taste better after a frost!

Of course, a lot of this will be eaten through the winter, so we will plan to replant anything that is gone in the spring.  Two full harvests before we plant the regular plants of summer!  Look at all the variety!  Think of how healthy you'll feel!  Think of what a pick-me-up it will be to have fresh veggies from your own back yard during the cold months of the year!

We'll talk later about row covers and winter gardening, but right now, just think of the possibilities. I guess you can tell - there's a whole lot more!!

Getting Started With Baby Chicks

So you are thinking about chickens, or you have already decided to proceed.  You'll probably belong to one of two camps:  either you will study and think and plan and draw up coop plans and research a zillion sites online (and on and on) - OR you want chicks NOW!

Well, either is okay.  If you want to study and get a good handle on everything before you start, you are in good shape and can plan to purchase or order chicks in the Spring.  If you want some now, you are not out of luck.  You can order babies online through about November.  Now is better than later, because we still have a few warm months left and you have the advantage of your chicks coming to maturity just as the days lengthen in the Spring.

Head out to the store and purchase a baby pool.  It will probably be on sale because summer is ending.  Then head to the feed store and get "chick starter", a chick feeder and a drop light for warmth.  Order a waterer with chicken nipples. Now, order your baby chicks.  There are a number of places to order online and you can spend a LOT of time perusing your choices - here's my recommendations:

•  I have had good luck with Murray McMurray Hatchery in the past.  There's only one catch....you have to order 25 birds!  You can split an order with a friend, sell a few as they grow older or just enjoy selling a lot of eggs.  We'll talk later about using your chickens to cut down on flies for your cows, so 25 is not an unreasonable amount.
• Deciding on a breed is not easy - I have gotten Buff Orpingtons (sweet and good mothers), Rhode Island Reds (kind of cranky) and everything in between.  Murray has an assortment called the "rainbow layers" that has white egg layers, brown egg layers and Auracanas which lay green eggs.  It makes it a little easier to figure out who is laying and is kind of fun to have green eggs.  If you plan to have them free range, you may want to consider Barred Rocks, as they are a little more hidden from predators by their coloring. Realize that heirloom birds do not lay as well as more recent hybrids. 

Now - how to set up.  Place your baby pool in a basement or garage where it will be protected.  Put about 3" of pine shavings in the bottom and hang your drop light about 12" above the shavings.  Place the chick feeder in and prop your waterer on two 4x4 blocks so the nipples hang down between the blocks.  When you place the babies in you will need to flick the waterer back and forth to attract the chicks' attention.  Pretty soon, they will all be reaching up to drink as you hear tick! tick! tick!

You now have 4-6 weeks to figure out their winter housing.  After that, they begin to lose their baby feathers and start scratching.  The resulting dust is nothing you want indoors!  If your little gals are able to jump out of the pool, you will need to make a circle of netting or cardboard around the perimeter to keep them in.

There is a plethora of choices in chicken housing.  Decide whether you want a movable or stationary coop.
Next week there will be more about house choices. See you then!  There's a whole lot more!

Planting your Fall Garden

Okay, let's say you have an amended bed to be a garden space right now and you want to get started. Whoo hoo!  Perfect timing!  Today we are going to talk about the myriad of options you have to direct sow.  Last week we talked about making a triangle to show you how closely to plant, so today we are going to plant spinach (yum, yum!) in a 4" spacing.  Here is a picture of my high tech way of making a triangle using a file folder.



I'm only going to plant 4 feet of spinach today, then I will plant more every 2 weeks.  That way, I can have yummy baby spinach longer.  Use your triangle to see how far apart to make your rows. Draw a line in the soil with a pointed tool. (I use a cobra weeder.) Then use your triangle to place 2 seeds per corner.  When they come up, you will mercilessly decapitate one of the seedlings with a pair of kid scissors.  Why? #1 - Planting 2 seeds pretty much guarantees that at least one will come up and you won't have open spots. #2 -   Leaving both can create crowding and weaken your plants.  #3 - The kid scissors are because I'm not so coordinated.

Here are some options of things that can be directly sown in your garden:

• spinach - 4" spacing - August and September
• lettuce - 12" spacing - continually as you use it
• pac choi or joi choi - 12" spacing - September
• carrots & radishes - 4" spacing - August
• turnips - 6" spacing - July or August
• kale - 18" spacing - September
• swiss chard - 12" - September
• winter squash - 6 feet apart - August
• climbing peas - 2" apart on a trellis  - September

Okay - so your seeds are in the ground!  Smooth the little rows with the back of your rake and water well!  That wasn't so hard, was it?!  Our soil is warm, so the seeds should pop up quickly.  Next week we'll talk about making baby transplants and later we'll talk about protecting your plants as the weather turns cold.  If you don't know where to get your seeds or you just like to read, head to  http://www.territorialseed.com/ .

Come back later! There's a whole lot more!

Why "The Homesteading Maven"?

ma·ven

 noun \ˈmā-vən\
: one who is experienced or knowledgeable
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/maven)

Well, it's Friday and my thought was that every Friday we would define a word that has to do with homesteading.  There are some funky ones out there, I tell ya.  But everything must have a beginning, so the best place to start is "Why Maven"?  The two words above say it well.  I have experience, that's for sure.  Experience at total failure some of the time!  I have had gardening beds overrun with bermuda grass, I have fought (and sometimes lost to) squash bugs, I have purchased tools that ended up being useless and I have purchased transplants that ended up being the wrong plant!

Good grief, Maven!  Don't you know when to stop?  Why are you still doing this at all?  Because I have also enjoyed having more peppers in my freezer than I can possibly use, I have loved the quiet mornings listening to the birds as I play in the soil, I have relished the challenge of solving problems with the animals or in the garden and I have served meals to my family that have been completely home grown!

I have a saying that I came up with.  You are welcome to use it:  "The best teacher is experience and the best experience is somebody else's!"  As the youngest in a large family, it kept me from many a spanking, I'm sure.  As a homeschooling mom, it allowed me to rely on other people's expertise in math, literature, history and science to graduate functional, well-educated adults.  As a homesteader, learning from others through reading gave me the confidence to attempt things I had never learned before!  Really, people, I'm a city girl!  I had never really been around a cow until I purchased my own!  Before this, my experience in gardening was solely in flowers and landscaping!

So here on The Maven, you can expect a lot of 'how to get started' - 'how to decide if this will work for you' - 'what are the problems that come along with blank' .  Hope that sounds like a useful thing to you, I'm having a blast sharing the joys and challenges of homesteading.

Winter is coming up and is a wonderful time to make plans for a new adventure.  Here are some of the resources I have found useful:

• Salad Bar Beef by Joel Salatin - he breaks down the process of Management Intensive Grazing and empowers you to work with nature to manage your livestock
• Weedless Gardening by Lee Reich,  How to Grow More Vegetables... by John Jeavons and The Winter Harvest by Eliot Coleman - the first explains the concept of using beds and aisles, the second sells you on the idea of planting intensively and the last is all about season extension.  
• Territorial Seed Company catalog - their planting guides are helpful and the pictures are lovely

So, there we are.  I guess 10 years of this means I have experience.  Reading other people's work has made me a little knowledgeable. I'll be working to apply that knowledge and experience to the unique situation of homesteading in the South.  Come on back!  There's a whole lot more!

GARDENING IN THE SOUTH

Welcome to The Homesteading Maven!  This is a chance to talk about gardening, raising chickens for eggs, cooking wonderful food and even putting meat on the table straight from your own backyard.  Just so you'll know - we'll take a natural, organic approach that is sustainable and recognize that no one wants to spend hours in the heat day in and day out just to eat.
I live in the South, so my discussions about gardening and livestock will relate to the challenges, opportunities and specifics of southern homesteading.  That being said, a chicken is pretty much a chicken, whether in Georgia or Maine, so a lot of what we discuss will be useful to anyone.
Specifically, I would like to break the old-school way of gardening that has tried to mimic other areas of the country but really doesn't work well for us Southerners.  For instance, the common practice is to 'put in' a garden by having a huge area tilled up and then plant long rows of things like pink-eye-purple-hulls and crowder peas.  Of course, there would be a long row of tomatoes (probably the only reason Mom stayed motivated enough to do this more than one year) and possibly there would be some peppers.  Here's the problem(s) with that...

1. Most of the soil in the deep south is extremely poor.  I have gardened in Alabama, the Gulf Coast and now in north Georgia.  In Alabama, I had a red clay that vacillated between a brick-like state when it was dry to play dough when it was wet.  On the Gulf Coast, the problem was sandy soil that had no ability to hold water or nutrients.  Here in Georgia, my garden area soil started as something akin to grey baby powder.  Never quite seen anything like that before...
2. We live in an area of the country with invasive (read huge, nasty, overwhelming, jungle-like) weeds.  I am a science nerd at heart, so my interest in gardening and homesteading has taken up a lot of my reading list.  Books from other parts of the country will say cute things like, "keep grass growing between your beds to allow earthworms to live there". Ha! Can you imagine wading through grass and seed heads as high as your pepper plants?  Can you imagine even being able to find your pepper plants?
3. So many of the traditional garden choices grown in the South are labor intensive.  Shelling peas and beans took hours.  Maybe that was fun when there was no air conditioning or electronics or moms working outside the home or soccer practice or (insert your busy choice here). Then again, it probably wasn't that much fun even then.  And what did you get for your labor?  A product that sells for $1.69 for a three pound bag.  That's not going to make the cut for a busy mom or dad with a full time job and today's busy, busy lifestyle.
4. And here's the big one... Southerners rush to put in a garden of heat-loving vegetables first thing in the spring. Why? Because people in Wisconsin have a short growing season and have to put transplants in as soon as possible in order to have any hope of getting a harvest.  When's the last time you met an old-school southern gardener that grew cauliflower? celery? broccoli? even cabbage?  Maybe never.  Let's take advantage of our long growing season and mild winters, garden year round and eat a delicious variety of fresh vegetables straight from our own yards.  
5. I could go on and on, but this is plenty to digest today.  What did Mary Poppins say?  "Enough is as good as a feast." Don't worry, there will be a lot more. 

See you soon!