Greenstorm's Journal

So the trial is mostly done, we had our first frost on the 15th. Things went out mostly June 10th and were planted indoors March 7th. I brought in a ton of green tomatoes. The early indeterminates Cabot, Cole, Minsk Early, Mikado Black and Katja and Taiga made up a huge % of the harvest, especially of the harvest-when-ripe-or-nearly-ripe. Leaving a fruit on the plant when it was transplanted really did slow the plant down until that fruit was ripe.

Tomatoes and notes:

Alexander B: ripened one fruit, brought in a couple more green ones, not productive.

Ambrosia Red: fairly prolific, some splitting, ripened late Aug. Grow again to test against another red cherry.

Big hill (lofthouse): several big beefsteak type tomatoes that didn't fully ripen. Brought them indoors to ripen but probably not worth growing again.

Bloody butcher: big vines, early (one of the earliest) with a gap before ripening a bunch more, medium prolific. Sprawling is annoying. Will grow again in indeterminate patch.

Cabot: one of the mid-august producers, slightly less prolific than Minsk Early but not too bad, fairly uniform fruit, not a bad flavour. Grow again against the early reliables.

Carbon: I wasn't expecting to get anything from this and found one ripe-rotten fruit under the plant in mid-Sept and several other green-ripe fruit. Oh well.

Cole: one of the mid-August producers, pretty prolific, reasonably tasty. Grow again against the early reliables.

Cherokee chocolate: big sprawly vine, nothing ripened before frost, reasonably prolific but really takes over.

Czech bush: had some of the very first fruits but didn't ripen any past that before mid-Sept.

Exserted orange: not a heavy producer but somewhat reliable, tasty fruit, early. Grow again. Also probably has some nice crossed fruits in the saved seed.

Galina: didn't start ripening until late August but very tasty yellow cherry. Reasonably productive, probably the most productive cherry. Grow again.

Glacier: another mid-august/early producer but very erratically sized fruit and not much for production. Try a couple again against the early reliables.

Gobstopper: didn't ripen before frost.

JD's special c-tex: didn't ripen before frost.

Jory: some big tomatoes just starting to whiten/blush before frost, prone to blossom end rot.

Karma miracle: started to ripen early Sept, lots of fruit that should ripen indoors so very late for a normal year but sweet and tasty. Hard to see if fruit was ripe. Grow again.

Katja: didn't do much to start, but pumped out a lot of very large slicers that ripen mid-Sept; prolific and tasty enough to try again, may need to ripen indoors on cold years. Definitely do again. Most fruits ripened indoors by Sept 18th.

Kiss the sky: one ripened and tasted amazing, kind of purple/brown/black? Not prolific. Try again for fun.

Lime green salad: Just starting to ripen in mid-Sept this year, compact dwarf plant, prolific for the space it takes up. Try again.

Longhorn: didn't ripen, made a fair amount of fruit that I brought indoors to ripen here. Not worth trying again just for season length constraints.

Manitoba: didn't ripen but lots of big green fruit that will ripen indoors. Neat looking calyx. Mediumish high productive. Grow again in the early indeterminates just to check.

Martino's roma: just starting to turn red in mid-Sept, haven't tasted it yet, maybe try again but it's probably not a keeper.

Maya and Sion's airdrie special: earliest beefsteaks but kind of shut down after that, I was impressed with this last year but barely got anything this year. Maybe try again? Compact indeterminate.

Mikado black: early (late Aug), beautiful, tasty, plant so many of these next year.

Minsk early: productive, early (early Aug), not the greatest taste but ok. Plant lots of these.

Native sun: started ripening early to mid Sept but has done better in the past, was mild then. A fair quantity of fruit to ripen indoors. Try again.

Northern ruby paste: pretty productive but not ripened by frost, brought indoors to ripen. Try again next year.

Old italian pink: a fair number of green fruit on the patio. I just like this one and want it to work but it didn't ripen anything before frost.

Ron's carbon copy: ripened a handful of cherry tomatoes but they were really good. Probably sad to discard or for breeding work? Looked like it would have been more prolific with just a little more time. I did bring in a bunch to ripen and there were some just turning. Try again next year.

Silvery fir tree: big producer, started ripening early Sept but the bulk is coming in green in mid-Sept. I'll always grow this one. It's just pretty.

Sugary pounder: huge tomatoes, didn't ripen by Sept 15 but may ripen indoors.

Stupice: fairly compact indeterminate plant produced a couple clusters of ripe/blushing/white fruit before frost even when planted late. Grow again with indeterminates.

Taiga: ripened or near-ripened 5 big hearts per plant, grow again, tasty and not super productive but relatively compact and very early for a gorgeous bicolour. Definite grow-again.

Store green cherry: we know I love this tomato. A little sprawly, crunchy, sweet-but-good, ripened a bunch fairly early on (mid-late Aug?). Will continue to grow.

Sweet apertif: it ripened some, it's tasty, but it's not prolific. A little sprawly.

Sweet cheriette: not as early as I thought unless it was in a pot indoors, but prolific and very good for patio growing. Fairly determinate indoors. Will grow to the size of container. Tasty. Very small fruit.

Alpharora: didn't ripen but did blush before frost, was planted late, set a couple fruit. Part of the citizen seed trial project.

Uralskiy ranniy: this one may have got mixed up with some others, I think it ripened some. Grow again.

Van Wert Ohio: super bushy, just very lush indeterminate bush of tons of foliage. Started to ripen by frost, not tasted yet. Grow again. It just has so many more leaves than other tomato plants.

Violet noir: I didn't have a sign for this one, did I even plant it?

Wildling polyamorous needs its own post.

Siberian: This ripened well and set lots of fruit but is a bit sprawly indeterminate. Grow again.

Rozovaya bella: first black to ripen, had a ton of weird crazing/russetting on the surface, not sure what's up with that? Waiting on the second flush for serious tasting. I liked this a lot last year and it ripened so it's in for next year.

So, infrastructure. It's important. I have the pig sheds, the woodshed/goose shed, some internal fencing, some trees. What do I still want, in order of priority? These are pretty much the expenses over a thousand dollars I want/can expect in the next ten to twenty years.

And even if I don't really care about the roof, letting my house rot is likely a bad idea.

Tractor with attachments, $8-20k wildly variable cost since it'll be very used and I need to get it close by, I need a 3pt, a pto, and 4wd). Attachments don't need to be got all at once but are:
-post pounder (if I get this before doing the perimeter fence it'll save me ~$1-2k in getting someone in)
-hay forks
-snow blade
-tiller
-backhoe (if I get this before doing the standpipes it'll save me $2k in getting someone in to dig)
-plough/discer
Perimeter fence$6.5k (materials, renting a post pounder would be more, plus labour would be more)
New roof$20-30k, my roof was new a couple years ago but apparently those people were scammed by a terrible job and shingles are blowing off already
Greenhouse$10k
Stand pipes$4k without a tractor, $2k with one)
Buy next door lot $35k for well security, pastureland, and avoidance of neighbours building & complaining. Also it has that church on it for guests to stay in.
New well pump $1.5k will likely be needed in the next 5-10 years too.

~100k over 20 years. Farming, not a cheap hobby. Guess I need to get the pigs paying for themselves and then some.

First: the insight.

I come into work this morning and someone asks how I'm doing. I say "terrific" and he says: "your animals must be happy then, you're happy when you're animals are happy".

It's true.

Neat.

The animals are happy because the trailer debacle story ends well. There's a squidgy bit in the middle though, so here it is.

The cold is coming, we're supposed to have -30 the weekend I'm gone. It's been a terrible year for straw here, too wet at cut and apparently also drought and grasshoppers. It's been a bad year for hay for the same reasons. The pigs need a great deal of straw or hay when it's cold, they make a mattress then bury under a layer to use as a blanket. They also go through it, because they eat it.

I'd more-or-less run out of my stash of hay and straw because I'd used it in the new hut I made over Christmas, and for the babies. There was only one guy in town who still had straw, and he had large round bales only. Large round bales are beyond the weight rating of the poor old trailer I've been borrowing from my old boss for grain, so it was time to sort out my brand new enclosed trailer that had been gifted me.

This meant buying a trailer brake controller, a wiring harness, doing some splicing, and buying a new larger hitch ball. Also: getting the old trailer hitch out, testing the new trailer brain, and making sure the whole thing worked. I finally got that done -- money is tight right now, but there really aren't alternatives to these things -- and took off work early yesterday to get down and load up with straw and hopefully drive home before it was completely dark.

Except.

So the trailer is 6x6x12'. The round bales are 5x5.5'.

They do not fit in the trailer door in the back, which has about 4" rim on either side. The guy worked with me a bunch, trying it this direction and that, but we just couldn't make it work. A couple other people came to get straw or hay in the meantime, got loaded up, and we went back to trying to solve this problem but it did not solve.

I guess the round balers have either 4' or 5' chambers, then they just keep rolling the bale bigger until the operator presses the button. This guy has a 5' one and goes to 5.5' width. The ones I'd got before, from someone else, have 4' width and wouldn't have been a problem.

And of course no one else has straw for two hours drive in any direction at least, most people import by the truckload from Alberta right now but I have no tractor to unload if it's trucked in, and I'm leaving in a couple days during a cold spike.

A couple people who picked up while we were trying to fit the thing in thought they might know someone who could transport but couldn't quite make it work. Then someone was talking about getting hay from this guy and the question of big squares came up - that's a bale 3x4x10'. He did have some of those, not straw, but hay. We tried one and it fit in the trailer no problem.

Hay isn't as insulative is straw -- straw is hollow -- and it rots more easily so it's not as good for bedding. It does have more food value though, when the pigs eat it. It turns out they completely love it, too: if you have a sweet tooth imagine being put in a tub full of very good chocolate. They rolled and ate at the same time.

The square bale was also much easier to move by hand than the round bales. It's 1200lbs but, like a smaller bale, it flakes off in sections. Those flakes can be balanced on a wheelbarrow and rolled with a bungee cord around them to carry, like carrying a mattress.

The farmer says he can make me smaller round bales of straw, or square bales of straw, next year. This is the same one I'd originally got grain from, but I'd been seduced away from by the closer grain guy who has a self-loader. The closer guy does an oat and barley only mix though -- no peas, so it's not as good.

So... I guess I'm developing farm relationships out here. I'm going to get my straw custom baled? Although after a winter of hay-candy I may feel bad shifting them back to straw.

Tucker came up and helped me unload so it only took an hour, and by the time we went in last night the pig huts were thigh-deep in fresh hay. The pigs were happy, despite it getting cold enough to drive the geese in at night. And so, as my colleague observed, I'm happy too, and very relieved.