Homestead Happenings

It’s raining caterpillars!

And other news this post, including Hubby’s big mistake, lots of garden snaps, critter updates and the new normal weather chaos.

Big ones, small ones, skinny ones, fat ones . . .

Black ones, white ones, green ones, yellow ones . . .

Let’s see, perhaps a bit of 80s pre-conditioning before our current day “You vill eat ze bugs!”?

We’ve never seen so many, and such a variety. They do not look the least bit appetizing and clearly the birds agree, or there couldn’t possibly be so many.

I’m not exaggerating when I say you cannot take a step without seeing one. I’m hoping they turn into gorgeous butterflies and soon we’ll have a garden full of them. But I haven’t looked them up yet and they could easily become some voracious relative of horn worms for all I know, about to attack the tomatoes.

They’ve destroyed my spring cabbages and are working on the fava beans and snap peas now.

Fall cabbages in the back compared to spring cabbages up front

At least the goats appreciated all those Swiss cheese-like leaves.

Snap peas don’t last long here anyway and while those creepy crawlers get the leaves of them, and those of the radishes, at least they leave us the fruits.

I’ve already made a large crock of sauerkraut and a quart of fermented radishes. Plus we’ve been getting loads of mulberries thanks to Hubby who has been destroying the tent worms that have been appearing all spring. Those little buggers love the wild cherries too and can easily destroy all leaves and fruits in a matter of days.

So, big kudos to Hubby for coming to the rescue, and spending a fair amount of tedious time harvesting these little beauties as well.

But, Hubby is also responsible for the misdemeanor crime of killing our potatoes! I should’ve caught it. I know, he was just trying to help. So, he filled our potato buckets with too much compost too fast and now we have potato disaster.

Lesson learned, you can only add a couple inches at a time, even if the greens are much taller than that.

I’ve got lots of herbs companion planted with the tomatoes that are all looking great.

Thyme, cilantro and dill growing between tomatoes

One of the best garden decisions I’ve made is far more flowers in the garden. Not only to attract pollinators, but to attract us too. It’s a far more inviting space than just rows of crops and makes me want to go in and play. 😊

The Peggy Martin rose just one year after planting a cutting from a friend.

And the Burr rose, many years old, huge and seemingly indestructible, even from constant nibbling by the sheep and goats.

And one of my garden favorites, which my photo doesn’t do justice at all: Nigella, a delicious seed and lovely tiny blooms in blue and white.

Their seeds have a grape-like flavor and are delicious in bread and kombucha.

A larger garden view

Another fruit that so far seems successful are the persimmons. We have both Virginia and Asian planted and the flowers on them are so unique, just like their fruits.

I’ve also got the citrus planted at last and I’m so excited! I cannot fail! (Says no one but me and I’ve gotten quite a few discouraging words from others on this venture.)

Meyers lemon, Satsuma orange and Key limes, don’t fail me, please!

Planted along with the new ‘kiss me under the garden gate’ flower which is doing quite well, and the still unfinished wattle fence.

In the best news we have our first kids just born this morning. Milking season approaches too quickly!

The weather madness continues, unfortunately. Big surprise.

Some still think these are contrails! Good grief!

This weekend’s forecast looks like a drop-down menu: 1/16th inch rain possible, or severe storms, or flooding, or hail, or tornadoes. Try planning for those options, peasants! 😩

Hope life is a little more predictable in your neck of the woods!

Thanks for stopping by. 🤗

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Author: KenshoHomestead

Creatively working toward self-sufficiency on the land.

8 thoughts on “Homestead Happenings”

  1. Wow that is an intense caterpillar invasion, I am sorry you are dealing with that my friend.

    Here we have a ton of lady bugs working on our aphids and some wacky weather due to geoengineering gone wild but lots of beautiful baby fruit trees on the way.

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    1. Thanks G! We’ve got some big rain now, maybe they will be washed away before they can do anymore damage.

      Glad to get your update and hope you have good fortune with your trees! Your nature photos are so gorgeous and you give me hope that nature will endure these human attacks, one way or another.

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  2. forgot to mention. the apple is 3 days old and looks fresh cut. no brown on it. and the orange is 5 days…no mold. no shrinkage from lost moisture. looks brand new. same as the apple. never again will i buy fruit in the store.

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  3. all of our mulberries got hit with a chemical frost. it is a contact killer. and no it isn’t spray from farms. we are no where near any farm that sprays their fields. every year the airplane sprayers come and drop a freeze on us after a warming and pow! wipes out everything in bloom.

    that being said. i found something else you might want to watch for. bill gates chemical being sprayed on fruits, veggies in the stores called APEEL. it is a heavy metal chemical soup that keeps the produce looking good for years to come probably. arsenic is one of the many ingredients.

    i bought some apples. so called organic…hardly that….i cut a piece off and set it aside as a test .the stores won’t tell you what is treated in the chemical soup. they don’t have to. so i took one of the apples cut it open and set it aside.
    it doesn’t turn brown. not at all. even to the core of it. no flies or fruit flies will touch it. nothing touches it. except people. a true organic apple starts to turn brown before your finished eating it. these don’t!
    tried an orange. it doesn’t shrink or shrivel up it looks like wax fruit.

    not sure how to tell on lettuce and stuff like that. except grow your own as best as possible as your doing kensho. we can’t grow everything but we can grow quite a lot. anything grown outside is not organic. the chemical fall out from airplanes takes that away. it gets into the soil, the water, and sucked up by the plant.

    just more info you probably didn’t need to hear but there it is. take it for what it is worth. pennies!! for the thought that is.

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    1. Thanks for the update H! Sounds terrible there and without much hope for a stop to it. What do you think of this new move to outlaw geoengineering that some states are trying? My hunch is what’s been happening here for many years was more of the experimental phase, and now it’s gone full-on at a huge level. I say that b/c we had it so bad for a while, but for us is a bit better these last couple years while there and many other places it’s still getting worse.

      As for the store-bought—I’ve noticed some of this too. It was one of the main reasons for my citrus planting this year, because that’s what we buy most often and I agree, something is very weird with the fruits that look fake and huge and have little taste and last for many weeks without aging. We have a few Mexican markets here that get more natural-looking produce. And the prices, wow, just insane!

      It’s all totally unacceptable, so why are the vast majority of folks accepting it with hardly a peep?!

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