Homemade Deer Spray

This week I bring you a recipe for something that you absolutely don't want to eat, but luckily the deer don't either! A friend of ours gave us this recipe for homemade deer repellent and it works very well.  There are so many reasons to use this over the store-bought blood spray and here are just a few:

-It is cheap and easy to make
-No chemicals
-Safe to use on flowers and around your vegetable garden
-(slightly) less smelly than store-bought spray
-leaves no visible residue on your plants

We use the deer spray on hostas and other plants that deer find delicious as well as sprinkling it around the base of the fence around the garden. Even though we have the tall fence, it doesn't hurt to steer them away from all of our veggies. Here is everything you need:

Mix 2 eggs, 1 cup Murphy's Oil Soap, 1 gallon of water, and 2 tbsp of Spreader-Sticker. You can get the Spreader-Sticker at a landscaping supply store and as its name implies, it helps the mixture to stick to the plants so it lasts longer.  After you whisk all of this together, let it sit out in the sun for a few days or however long it takes to get nice and smelly. You will need to apply it with a big brush because it will clog the nozzle if you use a sprayer. Apply once every couple of weeks, or more often if it rains a lot and this will keep the deer away!

The finished product...mmmmm....

Bev using the deer repellent on her hostas.

In other news, the shallots are coming up and here is yet another picture of the cold frames!

Our Favorite Tools

I was thinking about what to write about today and thought it would be fun to share Endeavor Farm's top 5 favorite tools. Having the right tools in your garden is so important in making work more efficient and easier for you and so here are some things that may help you out!

#1 - Hand Seeder

This is a very inexpensive and simple tool that has helped Terry out greatly when seeding trays or directly into the garden. Some of the seeds we plant, like lettuce or carrots, are so small that they are hard to plant one at a time in your hand. Using this tool, you can plant more efficiently by placing one seed in a time by lightly tapping the container making your seeds go further and eliminate the need to thin the seedlings once they grow.  There are many variations of this tool so whatever one you feel most comfortable with is just fine!

#2 - Dibble

Although this tool has a funny name, it is very helpful when transplanting. 

This tool allows you to make a hole in the ground that is just the right size for a seedling. 

#3 - String Line

This tool can be made by you and do not underestimate the effects of planting in a straight line! If you take an extra moment to plan out your rows, and lay this string out to plant along, you can plant in a much more efficient way. Not only can you maximize space in your garden but when it comes time to weeding, it is much easier to work in a straight path with either a hand cultivator or a rototiller and you end up damaging fewer plants.

#4 - Hard Rake

Preparing the beds is an often tedious but necessary task.  Removing rocks and large clumps of hard dirt from the beds and smoothing them out before planting will make a huge difference in the success of your vegetables.  This kind of rake is also very helpful in mounding soil to create raised beds. 

#5 - Rototiller

Last but not least for sure is the trusty rototiller. All of the tools above are hand tools but this is one machine that is imperative for the success of our garden.  If you don't have room to have a tractor run through your beds, this is a very good option.  Rototillers are instrumental in tilling up grass to make new beds, loosening the soil deep down for success of plants like carrots, mixing organic matter into  the soil, and adding oxygen to the earth.  This year we designed the width of the beds to accommodate the rototiller so that we can do more weeding with it and save time and our backs from hand weeding. 

I hope these are some helpful tips and although there are many other important things we use in the garden, these are our top picks (especially around this time of year when we are doing a lot of planting)!

I am in love with the cold frames and couldn't pass up showing you a picture of the beautiful lettuce and radishes.  We enjoyed our first salad from the garden this weekend and it was absolutely delicious!

Plugging Along

There isn't too much exciting news to report at Endeavor Farm other than that crops are starting to pop up and we are continually planting things in the ground.  Carrots, kale, lettuce, spring mix, arugula, shallots, onions, and swiss chard are all planted.

 

Radishes

 

 

Spinach and lettuce

 

 

Bev planting shallots

 

The tomato plants are doing great and are potted and ready for you to transplant them in your own garden! 

There is still lots of space that awaits the flower plugs, green beans, basil, and more. Our first market is coming up in about a month - mark your calendars for May 19th! We can't wait to see you!

 

Red Bud

 

Snowdrop

Azalea

Pysanky

Decorating Easter eggs is an activity that many kids love to do around this time of year. As a kid I used to dye eggs with the Paas dye that you can buy at any store, but as I have gotten older, my sisters and I have taken Easter dyeing to the next level. My mom has always displayed her intricately dyed eggs around the house during this time of year but it wasn't until a few years ago that I started to get into this method of decorating called Psyanky. It is a Ukranian tradition of decorating eggs using beeswax and the verb 'pysata' literally means 'to write'. Technically the word pysanka refers to an egg decorated with traditional Ukranian folk designs but the Rieses have extrapolated this term and made more non-traditional designs on our eggs.

In Tremont, we are lucky enough to have a Ukranian Museum where they have an elaborate display of eggs around Easter. They also sell the supplies you need to make your own pysanky if you are interested in trying this yourself. The eggs they display have a ridiculous amount of detail and precision which I will never attain, but will always admire.

 

Pysanky at the Ukranian Museum

 

Here are some of the eggs I have made over the years!

 

HAPPY EASTER! 

What Season Is It?

This has been the strangest year for weather that I can remember and it seems like the weather won't make up its mind.  Is it summer? winter? spring? summer again? In any case, we are grateful to be able to put things in the ground and get yet another season started. The cold frames are proving to be successful and we are loving to see spinach, carrots, lettuce, and radishes coming up. The frames themselves are beautiful and I love being able to see the bright greens through the glass. Looking at them reminds of terrariums I used to make as a kid.

This weekend Terry and I planted lots and lots of carrots from seed in the garden. We are growing orange, yellow, and purple varieties this year. We didn't have much success with them last year (partly due to some pesky rabbits) and so hope for a better year. Terry has spent a lot more time this year tilling the soil deeply to get it as loose as possible, allowing the carrots to easily grow downward.

 

The garlic keeps on growing and we have transplanted lettuce and beets into the ground. Terry had to cover the small plants with fabric on the nights that the temperature dropped low to protect them from the cold. We also seeded arugula and our spring mix this weekend and will do plantings at 3 different times to stagger our harvests. We will continually plant these delicious greens until it gets too hot, and then wait until it cools down in the fall to plant again.