Alfred Reed Bishop and Doris William Butler

The picture above is the very tap root of Bishop's Homegrown/Face Of The Earth Seed. My grandparents shortly after moving to Pekin Indiana from Greensburg KY in 1947 where they purchased the farm that is now Bishop's Homegrown. This picture was taken in Pekin in front of the old co-op next to the old railroad depot, neither of which exist today.

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Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Least you think we've not been busy pt 1...more to come soon.





Finally decided to get some ducks too so we dug a pond and built a shelter from wooden shipping boxes and a roof from a tightly constructed eight foot deck board pallet.
Finally managed to scavenge enough material to build a turkey run. They won't be cooped all the time, just during planting season and while the plants get up and going and then it's back to free ranging.

Rounded up some scrap wood and chicken wire to make a quail run, shortly I'll coop them up and plant some amaranth, quinoa, and millet in the run for shade and shelter as well as forage when the seeds shatter from the plants.
Got tired of loosing cortunix quail to racoons when they stuck their head out the single layer of chicken wire so built a double walled "racoon protection panel" our of 6 foot pallets and wire.
Shirazi, Frog Eye Orinoco, and New Mexico N Rustica seedlings.
A "scrap wood" box I threw together with currants, gooseberries, and Josta cuttings rooting!
Bill Drakes New Mexico N. Rustica seedlings growing happily alongside Telsing's (Ottowa Gardener) red cabbage crosses! Yeah, that's worm compost by the way, 100%, cut with nothing!

The new hotbed I built from untreated lumber complete with a heating cable, four varieties of tobacco, several varieties of cabbage and collards and some Kazak. apple seedlings.
Lots and lots of fruit trees and shrubs this year, determined to head in a more permaculture influenced direction now that the bulk of my annual plant breeding is approaching completion!
The cold frame is coming along nicely. Lined the bottom with composting turkey manure/bedding and back filled with some amazingly rich cold compost. Lot's of stuff germinating, including weeds, but mostly tomatoes and medicinal herbs. The two barrels are heat sinks filled with water.
Some of the Alpine/Domestic crosses that somehow managed to survive last years turkey rapture, there should still be plenty of great genetics to ensure the development of some great cultivars in the future!

In other news we also got 500 lbs of seed potatoes in the ground today along with several pounds of sugar snap and snow peas, lettuce, spinach, raddish, turnips, kale and more. Lots more stuff to come!!!!!

2 comments:

Donna OShaughnessy said...

Well Hey ! Just found your blog. Always so wonderful to hear and see like minded folk out there (And not so far from our farm). Great photos and love the family history. Keep up the great work. I'll be back.

LindaM said...

Thanks for sharing all that hard work with us Alan. I loved the racoon wall you built! Nothing less than brilliant. Can't wait to see more.