Harvests

It has been a busy summer. We snap photos of our harvests when we can. I have a couple below.

Kelsi is holding our first ever cabbage!

It was massive! 

The sunflowers are doing really well this year!

First bean of the year.

Garlic and onions drying on the garden shed roof.

Thanks for reading!

Halpern Homestead Vacation

Kelsi and I went camping in the Colville National Forest a couple weeks ago. Kelsi took some nice pictures of the dogs that I want to share.

Fishing, family and sun. Couldn't have been a better week. It's good to get away from the farm ever once in a while. 

Making Your Own Chicken Feed

Does anyone have experience mixing chicken feed from whole grains? We are going to try it, just looking for some pointers. We found a good Organic source to buy whole grains from. 

Watering

Here at The Halpern Homestead we try to reduce and reuse as much as possible.

This mess of hoses above is our effort at conservation. We have our garden on soaker hoses to minimize waste due to evaporation which occurs with overhead irrigation. So far, each year we have doubled the amount soaker hoses we own. This requires a lot of hoses feeding into them. We have also added 2 separate timer units to aid in more consistent and effective watering. Looks like a cluster, but it is working for us. 

One thing I have learned is that the soaker hoses are not effective when joined and the length exceeds 100ft. The hoses after 100ft are usually very low flow and pretty ineffective. 

Preserving Food: Peas

We picked 2gallons of peas the other day.

The peas with good shells were frozen whole.

The peas with bad looking shells were shelled and frozen.

Not a lot of food for all that work! But it'll be delicious!

Cute Little Squirrels

Was going through the camera and found some pretty cute pictures of the squirrels Jules is always barking at.

Garden Photos

Over head view.

Peas grew up the trellis nicely this year.

Sunflower wall

Bring in the bees!

The Halpern Homestead Forest

Kelsi has a lot of nice flowers mixed in with the veggies. Makes for a very pretty garden.

The squash are taking to the little trellis we made for them.

Giant sunflower.

The cucumbers are climbing the trellis we made for them as well. Hope they make it to the top!

Beans are finally starting to come along.

Beans

Gypsy

Sweet Pickle

Mirasol

Thanks for reading!