IN SHORT...
Here is an abbreviated version of this week on the farm....The chickens are happy and healthy. We're experimenting with some worm farms, using a few old windows, to supplement the protein needed for the chicken's diets. The bees are flourishing - I already had to add another hive body onto each! They are quite productive! There are lots of yellow squash getting bigger every day, plenty of green tomatoes, flowers on the green beans and zucchini. We planted corn, more melons, more cucumbers, pumpkins, and tons of beans - including some heirloom pole beans called "Reverend Taylor." Today, we finished setting up some bamboo trellising for them. These, plus the canopy of sheets shading our kale and chard, secure our garden as being completely insane-looking. "Anything you do that makes your neighbors think your crazy," our papa farmer, Eric, used to say, "probably just means you're doing something right!"- Hannah.
ANY FRIEND OF BAMBOO'S.
Last week my mother sent me an email about a craigslist ad for arundo donax, also known as giant reed grass. The ad advertised that it was similar to bamboo, a material Hannah and I have a lot of interest in. It was simply inviting people to come cut the stuff down for free. After examining our bank accounts, free was indeed in our price range. Bamboo is an amazing building material used for everything from trellises in the garden to roofing, flooring and even walling––if that's a carpentry word––in the house. After a little research, we found that arundo donax is basically the same thing. Cultivated in Asia, Africa, India and parts of Southern Europe, this fast growing and hollow grass is often labeled invasive and is even outlawed in parts of Florida. It's used in many of the same ways as bamboo––from musical instruments to fishing poles––and they're even finding uses for it in bioengineering! Hannah and I have no idea what we're going to do with the 30 or so we cut down, but it was inspiring getting the stuff. It can grow to a height of 20 ft or more, eclipsing 30 ft in ideal conditions. It spreads impressively fast, so if you were going to plant some you would want to keep in completely contained, but the end result are these looming forests of unending potential. That's why finding a place to grow this stuff is now on the long list of Rough Draft "To Do's," because finding uses for it wont be much of a challenge at all. We will have lots of gardens and needs for trellis systems, but also we want to eventually build our own house––why not grow some of the materials ourselves? Heck, we could even use it for some walling!- Jesse.
