September Newsletter

Snippets, snapshots and tales from our north Florida farm.

Shiitake Mushrooms September 2016

Seminole Squash

Donated Windows for Greenhouse

Muggy the Mugrat - Making sure we stacked them correctly.

Zucchini Bread Orders

Our Happy Hen organic eggs, basil and roses.

Bean pest control - aka Anole Lizard

Yellow Four O'clock flowers.  Beautiful

 

September arrived like a lion, literally, a Hurricane Hermine lion.  We were blessed with no damage to property or plants, just a few days of no electricity which meant a great loss to a lot of our frozen/refrigeratables.  With five refrigerators we still have no complaints. Unfortunately now we do not have an air conditioner.  We've been helping it limp along for a long time now, it has finally given up.  As sole proprietors of the land, we don't even have a start to have the money to replace it.  On the bright side, it's nearly fall.  If you are an early riser you may have noticed and want to proclaim that fall has arrived....a bit early.  If you are, you are certainly not alone.  Yeah, the heat isn't over, I mean, this is Florida after all but we are praying for a long fall.  This year beans have beaten the heat and so far the vines are over 12' long and producing ... even if we have to share with some outlaw deer.

As we continue our quest of creating a plethora of year-around organic goodness known as an edible food forest, I want to know just how much permaculture can be incorporated with fruit trees on one acre of land.  As we look forward to be able to afford 50 or so acres one day, right now we also live and share with the driveway, chickens, ducks, turkeys, guineas, rabbit, etc.  I have seen this is California, etc., and although we share more with insects, have soil issues, etc., we are currently "successful" at having an ecosystem of predator insects and lizards to help control most of our garden pests.  At least it looks like we are on the right tract. 

It's always planting season, this week we'll plant hundreds of cool weather crop seeds of beets, carrots, kale, Swiss chard, onions, cabbages, as we move to the end of September.  We are consistently planting, a term I call "tucking".  Tuck a seed or seedling in a little spot here and over there to elongate harvests.  The more we plant, the less that space will be taken over by weeds which are basically plants of the unwanted varieties.

According to our Shiitake Mushroom Logs, fall arrived a couple weeks ago as we had our first harvest, about three weeks earlier than last year.  We have a lot of things going on, currently growing in our gardens are tomatoes, eggplant, arugula, asparagus, beans, okra, kale, cucumbers, Seminole squash, long island squash, peppers, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, onions, yellow squash, zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, birdhouse gourds, garlic, mint, basil, lemon grass, oregano, water chestnuts, scallions, garlic chives, and I'm sure I have forgotten to list some; Fruit - apple, fig, peach, blueberry.  We also have flowers for cut flowers we'll sell next year and other flowers/bulbs as pollinator attractants. 

Thank you so much, have a wonderful September!
 
Ron and Annette Layton
Little Eden Heirloom Farm
Crawfordville, Florida
850/274-7690

Tomato Hornworm Season

You are standing outside late in the afternoon and think you were just buzzed by an evening hummingbird. Think hummingbird moth or hawkmoth. The five-spotted hawkmoth (Manduca quinquemaculata). They quickly fly around sticking their long proboscis into the heavenly scented four o'clock flowers feeding on their nectar...and laying its eggs. Unfortunately that's where the love stops. It's the dreaded tomato hornworm season.

Praying his Way Out

A small boy, by wandering too far into the woods for the cows, lost his way. He tried to describe to me what his feelings were when he saw that he was lost. He expected never to see his friends again. Feelings of terror crept over him. He might remain there and starve to death. He might be torn in pieces by wild animals. There were many dangers to which he was exposed.

I asked him what he did when he saw his situation. He said he knelt down and prayed a long time, and when he arose he did not feel that he was lost, but was quite sure he would find his way out. "And sure enough," said he, "I had gone but a little way after I prayed when I came to the road. I was close by the road and didn't know it."

I have thought many times it may be thus with Christians. They sometimes wander from the narrow pathway, and are lost in this wilderness of woe. On seeing their situation, they give way to feelings of despair. Satan has induced them to wander, and now he would hold them fast.

Backslider, have you wandered far from the Lord ? Have you left the path of righteousness, and fallen into the enemy's snare ? Yield to God. Submit to him. Pray to him. Pray earnestly that you may have help to find your way out. He will hear you, and help you; for he has said so in his word. The narrow pathway may not be far in the distance after there is more need to give; and casting some into all; at least, it may not take long to return to it with angel hands to guide you. It is not the will of our Heavenly Father that any should remain outside of the fold. By earnest prayer we may find our way back, though we have wandered far.

Do you feel as though your transgressions have cut you off, and left you without foothold, or without any stay or prop in the word of God? Remember He is mighty who has said, “My grace is sufficient for you.” He is as strong and as mighty to save to-day as at any previous time. Put all your trust in him. Say, with Bunyan, “Lord, I fain would honor thee by believing that thou wilt and canst save.”

Jane R. Trembley, Battle Creek Michigan, 1870

A Week in Photos

A photographic tour into our daily lives last week.  With my 90-hour week of animal care-taking, gardening, baking, cooking, cleaning, posting, researching, videoing, teaching, oh and yes, taking time to play with our rescued and spoiled pets....there's not enough time to photograph all the happenings so here's a snidbit.  I also took a number of videos we'll post on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/littleedenheirloom).  Most of the videos this week are ones to help you understand a bit of this region's garden pest examples, their eggs, a recipe to help kill and control fungus on tomatoes, running bean string for pole beans and more.

Let us know if you would like any Pindo Palm trees at $10 each, Organic Heirloom Yellow Four O'clock seeds $3 per 20+ seeds and guinea keets from 3 weeks to 10 weeks old - $10 each. 

Here's just a peak - enjoy!  

Ron and Annette Layton
Little Eden Heirloom Farm
Crawfordville, Florida 
850/274-7690
Email:  littleedenheirloomfarm@zoho.com
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/littleedenheirloomfarm
Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/littleedenheirloomfarm/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/littleedenheirloom
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/littleedenheirloomfarm/

Heirloom Yellow Four O'Clocks - Stunning and the flower scent is heavenly - $3 per packet of 20+ seeds

Birdhouse Gourds - Almost ready to harvest!

Harvesting Eggplant, weeding and planting!

Our Juvenile Delinquent Grow-out Pen - a menagerie indeed!

Young ducks and geese!

Unloading new chicken night pen - Thank you Carla!

Muggy, one of our Supervisors

Cutting tomato leaves and stringing beans

Beautiful sunset

A bit of the day's Bakings - Caramel Rolls and Cinnamon Raisin before baking

After Baking

Caramel Chocolate Chip Pie Before Baking

Caramel Chocolate Chip Pie After Baking - My original recipe - Yummm!

Happy - our newest hatchling duck!

A bad photograph of a leopard frog - with many inches of rain this last week, this water frog must be displaced and looking for a new home!

Moving Pindo Palms - Sale $10 each

Missy says Pindo Palms are awesome!

Pindo Palm

Pindo Palm - ripening fruit

Pindo Palm fruit - YUMMM!

Ron picking up Pindo Palm fruit

Baking goodness for customer orders!

Skipper Butterfly eggs - We'll show a video of this beautiful garden pest

Our Future Egg Layer Ducks

With eggs hatching nearly every week, we now have 20+ future egg laying ducks ….

and counting.  Not all are hens, I assure you but although it will be a while before we get our first eggs, we are on our way to a good start for our duck egg venture.  The sun was high when Ron did the finishing touches on their new night pen while I was busy mending a fence and transplanting cucumbers and watermelons so they can grow up and over their fence/trellis.  We have moved the ones that were old enough, about half of them, over to spend their first night as “adults” in their humble abode, complete with plush hay bedding (aka future garden fertilizer) that they enjoyed nibbling on until nightfall.  Aside from the fact that they are cute, yellow and fluffy when babes and as adults they’re great bug eaters and certainly contribute to our organic composting/garden fertilizer recipes, why the interest in ducks/duck eggs, you may ask?  Some folks are allergic to an enzyme that is in chicken eggs but is absent in duck eggs; some folks say duck eggs makes their cakes rise higher and their bakings more tasty. Others love egg drop soup, some may want a pet duck or two….

We put up new trellises, two down, three more to go in one of the gardens.  Each at about 70 feet long and currently being used to keep tomatoes off the ground, pole beans, as well as cucumbers, support for peppers, eggplant and more.  As organic growers we do not use treated posts due to chemical leaching so with these being bamboo, we’ll hope they will last for at least a couple years.  We were asked to help clear some invasive bamboo in trade for these welcomed posts and trellis material. 

Chicks and guineas have hatched, not sure how many as each week or two we get a new batch out of the incubator ranging from 5 – 10 depending on how many guinea and duck eggs are laid.  Our batch of chickens from February are beginning to lay…you can tell this by the tiny egg a newly started hen lays…Tiny, cute and without a yoke.  Nothing wasted, it goes into that morning’s omelet, bakings, etc., and the shell goes to be composted adding calcium to our fertilizer/soils. 

Only about 4 more weeks to try to keep the fungus off our tomato plants, we've planted more beans, okra, cucumbers, herbs, warm weather salad mixes, squash, flowers and more, we are now preparing for fall plantings hoping for another long cool, not too cold of a fall and winter.  Everyday something gets pruned, an area weeded, harvested, planted, planned, baked, and on delivery days, delivered!   

Thank you so much for being a part of our Farm Family, we thank you for your support of our Farm and our Mission.

Ron and Annette Layton
Little Eden Heirloom Farm
850/274-7690

Independence Day - Our Freedom

The Sopchoppy parade - I remember when there were antique cars, vintage tractors, horses, local businesses (without the screaming boombox music); now it's mostly politics, no horses, one antique car, love the old tractors!

After spending the day enjoying the Sopchoppy parade, the park, its arts and crafts, with family, just about to our driveway we met a convoy of every law enforcement vehicle going who knows where.

Drive a little slower folks, it's ok to be fashionably late.

Look twice for pedestrians and motorcycles.

Take a moment longer to make sure you turned off the stove, be careful around that gas grill.

Everybody is somebody's loved one, you may not know the person(s) that you hear about on the news that died, but someone does.

Have a safe rest of your Independence Day.

Take a moment to think about the freedom we have.

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed — else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

Summer is Here Folks

Just a few hours old...her's sleepy...

Welcome to summer.  Some plants and people seem to do well in this heat and others do not.  Ron and I are determined to get the job done, hot or hotter although now that the heat is here, we must do better at coming in when it gets hot and not trying to push our way through it.  We work and we work hard.   The sun was hot and high when we finished a larger pen to move chicks, ducklings and goslings in.  Butterfly nets aren't just for butterflies, they are also great for catching feathered babies.  They are happy in their new digs.    Our incubator never stops running.

Plants are looking great; along with planting for sprouts and micro-greens, we are busy planting seeds in flats for outside planting in September...yes, September is just around the corner. Outside we are still planting as well, plants that don't mind so much the heat, i.e., beans, Seminole pumpkins, etc.

Please contact us for chicks, ducklings and guinea keets.  Pre-order early as our incubator is always full.  Information and Prices:


Day Old Chicks - Large breed egg layers.  Mixed flock of Americauna, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, Buff Orpington, French Copper Maran, Black Giant, Sex-Link, and more.  These chicks my be purebred Rhode Island Reds, Americaunas, or Barred Rocks.  $3 each (10 or more $2.50 each)

Day Old Ducklings - White Layer Duck - This is a hybrid duck, it is created by crossing different purebred ducks with the best egg laying abilities.  These ducks are egg machines, they happily lay an egg nearly everyday.  Seven eggs per week per duck for weeks and then she'll skip a day or two.  Their molting time is short, seems to be every few months for a few days.  Heat, Cold doesn't seem to matter.  ... Hence the name Layer.  This is the second generation so I don't know if these babies will lay as consistently as the original, I'm sure they're egg laying capabilities will not disappoint.  If I had to mention a downside to this breed it would be that they may not be the best as backyard city ducks.  the hen....she talks and talks and talks...always got something to say....loudly...   $10 each (10 or more $7 each)

Day Old Guinea Keets - Mixed flock of colors!  These birds produce a large number of colors from regular speckled, to purple, tan, grey, pied; I'm always anxious to see what new color is popping out the shell!  Great bug eaters and security alarms.  $8 each (10 or more $6 each).


We thank you for your support of our Farm and our Mission.

Ron and Annette Layton
Little Eden Heirloom Farm
Crawfordville, Florida 
850/274-7690
Email:  littleedenheirloomfarm@zoho.com
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/littleedenheirloomfarm
Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/littleedenheirloomfarm/

Guinea Keets wondering about the new sights and sounds.

Hatchings - Guinea Keets and White Layer Duck - just a few hours after hatch!