Nomads Landing 2013 Season

Seamaiden · Oct 3, 2013

Nomads Landing said:
Right on Mogrow. Serious thanks on the props, it's always a long road. I wish we could whack down, but it looks like the Sour Diesel is going to keep us till the end of November again. Last year she went till 11/24. I've been checking the GDP daily, so close... so close. our neighbor and friend Chalata Doug said damn she looks so done... but under the scope all the heads are swollen and cloudy, supported by Jolly Rancher grape stems, as soon as the heads fill with the purp, she'll be ready, maybe another week.
We have a pack of farm dogs that protect the shit out of our place, even the LEOs get on the mic and say "Call your dogs, call your dogs...". lol... That and we have other forms of protection that the enforcement is also aware of, this is a rural area as we lost two dogs this Spring to a Mountain Lion.

I thank goodness that they get on the mic and say that, instead of drawing weapons. We've had many mountain lion sightings locally, too, and a friend's g-friend was hit *by* a mountain lion dashing across the road as she drove to work one morning. Sorry to read about your poor pups. We recently lost an old, dear, LARGE cat, we don't know what to as it could have been any number of animals.

I can see that you clearly have a couple of girls who are going to drag this thing out til Thanksgiving. I can't imagine waiting that long for my season to end!

atomic punk · Oct 4, 2013

No small effort. (vary) nice looking girls, hope you land all of this endeavor successfully

Nomads Landing · Oct 5, 2013

atomic punk said:
No small effort. (vary) nice looking girls, hope you land all of this endeavor successfully

Thanks Atomic Punk. We were just chatting today about how long the projected harvest day is out, and unfortunately for us... probably the end of November again for the Sour Diesel, and maybe a couple of others. Man... Been doing fires 4 nights in a row now, one more night... then a break for 2 days then back at it. It got down to 25 last night, the greenhouse was at 55F. So far no signs of mold. We've also been letting the girls get cold for an hour or two, high to mid 30s before heating the greenhouse, to start building up a cold tolerance, saving wood and genny fuel too.

Nomads Landing · Oct 5, 2013

10-1 Update farm stuff

Here is a shot of the rabbits. 3 Californian Does and 1 New Zealand/California Buck. These are our breeders.
We are going to move them, in a bit, add a rack to house them and their kids, and worm bins to catch the manure.

Here is the Good Bug Blend from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply. We didn't scratch the earth or any other form of tilling for this. We layed a 2 inch layer of Hmanure composted for 2 years right on the earth, tossed the beans, and added a 1/2 inch layer of moldy straw (minimize N immediate unavailability due to temporary consumption by the microlife), and wal-la.

The chicks in the tractor getting ready to go to their new area with the rabbits. We are at the stage of the great culling.

Early in August we laid some Piute orchard grass seed down, and ah man when it's hot this is a wonderful place to be, and the dogs love it. There isn't much of this kind of scene here in the Juniper woodlands. It's a small area, but that actually increased its survival because it didn't take too much water. We haven't watered it for 2 weeks now, still green, still growing, and the freezing temps haven't faded it a bit. This is another no till planting. Threw out the seeds, 1/4 inch of moldy straw, watered.

The orchard. We have whacked the grass down here twice, and are reluctant to fully remove it. Mainly for feed for our horse Soba Tek Homa when times are rough.

We laid ground fabric down in the little greenhouse, brought in another water res, and getting ready to run a 12v pressurized water system, sink and shower.

Laid a little brick work around the stove.

Moms, comfrey, grapes, and our tub.

Red Worms kickin ass.

After 3 frosts in a row the maters went down, we harvested about 80 - 100 lbs of green tomatoes that we are ripening off the vine.

The strawberries are doing well, we discouraged flowering and got a shit load of runners, it's a good thing too, this morning Soba broke out and decided to dine on the opposite side of this bed.

Seamaiden · Oct 5, 2013

Great pix, Nomad, thank you for posting. I've got a buttload of maters that are green that I know won't be able to be ripened on the vine, will you tell me how you ripen yours off-vine? I tried it last year and lost almost the whole lot to rot, I think some of them must have burst and started decaying.

Nomads Landing · Oct 5, 2013

Seamaiden said:
Great pix, Nomad, thank you for posting. I've got a buttload of maters that are green that I know won't be able to be ripened on the vine, will you tell me how you ripen yours off-vine? I tried it last year and lost almost the whole lot to rot, I think some of them must have burst and started decaying.

Thanks Sea. We just have our laid out under our potting table, where it is dark, and fairly warm about 65 - 75'F. Here is a link from wikipedia. We haven't tried any bananas, apples work though, as with many other fruits. Also our maters had g0ne through three frosts before we whacked em, and still we have a fairly good ripening rate. Dia just pulled out about 20 ripened ones yesterday. Barely a fraction of the harvest though, it's kinda one of those check daily or every other day deals, at least the way we do it so far.

Nomads Landing · Oct 5, 2013

http://www.wikihow.com/Ripen-Green-Tomatoes

Nomads Landing · Oct 9, 2013

Man bud flop like mad, for the past 2 weeks it seems that is all we deal with everyday... sometimes you just gotta take a break, so we transplanted and trasnplanting moms, into one gal, and two gals. Finished the chicken layer area, for now, things are always changing. Added 3 gallons of compost to our TLO flower tea for all the girls tomorrow except Grandaddy. Dug up a shit load of potatoes, picked the red maters out from the green ones (still ripening). The daily critter feed show twice a day. Started building a horse manure windrow for red worms. Besides the CSA and medicinal herbs, we want to start a vermiculture buisiness as well, funds on the books always looks good. Chopped wood for the fires, which has been going on about 13 days straight with still no end in site. One of the neighbors came over we'll call him Chalata and burned down some doobs from some of his broken branches, pretty good. Off to start the fires.

Nomads Landing · Oct 13, 2013

It is so quiet, must be harvest time out there. Took some photos but a few weren't in focus so we will reshoot those and post manana.

Nomads Landing · Oct 14, 2013

10-13-13 Update Nugs

Bed 1 Blue Dream

Bed 2 Sensi Star

Bed 3 Blue Dream

Bed 4 Sensi Star

Bed 5 Sour Diesel

Bed 6 Pineapple Express - about a week out

Bed 7 Pineapple Express - about a week out

Bed 8 Ogre

Bed 9 UK Cheese

Bed 10 Sour Tsunami

Bed 11 Maui

Bed 12 Purps

Bed 13 OG Kush

Bed 14 Brandy's So Hum OG

Bed 15 American Crippler... She was so deficient of what we believe to be N and K, we had to whack her... or she wasn't going to run the distance.

American Crippler- Hangin

Bed 16 Blackberry Kush

Bed 17 Cheese Quake 50-50

Bed 18 Grandaddy Purple, coming down in a day or two.

View from the North

Nomads Landing · Oct 14, 2013

10-13-13 Update 2/2

The big greenhouse

The chickens in their work in progress pen. The meaters are still in there for now...

Cana Compost, each bin is 4x4x4

We been in the mid 20s at night, here is a busted pipe from the well, fixed it.

Half ass straw stuff around the pipes at the well head, working so far.

Spent the last two days grading the supply pipe so we can drain it before night fall, hopefully we will have it done tomorrow.

Ahh, 180 lbs of taters, not to mention we have been eating them nearly every night since August, plus giving them out to some of our neighbors and folks in the community.

Here is just shy of 200 lbs of tomatoes ripening off the vine.

Seamaiden · Oct 14, 2013

Love it! I'm doin' it this year, too, just nowhere nearly as many tomatoes as you. I have... err.. had an empty dresser in one of the bedrooms, so I lined it with foil and freezer paper and put the tomatoes in it. I think I was a little anal about making sure they don't touch each other, though. Made my granddaughter laugh her ass off to see a dresserful of tomatoes.

Nomads Landing · Oct 14, 2013

Seamaiden said:
Love it! Made my granddaughter laugh her ass off to see a dresserful of tomatoes.

ROFLMAO

Nomads Landing · Oct 14, 2013

Seamaiden said:
Love it! I'm doin' it this year, too, just nowhere nearly as many tomatoes as you. I have... err.. had an empty dresser in one of the bedrooms, so I lined it with foil and freezer paper and put the tomatoes in it. I think I was a little anal about making sure they don't touch each other, though. Made my granddaughter laugh her ass off to see a dresserful of tomatoes.

BTW. We thought your idea of the dresser was extremely creative. Our tomatoes are touching and there is still some tops on a few as well. We have been keeping them in the 60-70'F zone. But it's a great way for folks with shorter seasons to be able to finish out.

Nomads Landing · Oct 22, 2013

Update 10-21 1 of 1
So let's see... Bud flop is out of control, next year we definitely need the doubled high third teir of feild fencing. Grandaddy Purple came down this week, the Pinapple Expresses are about 1%, while the Blackberry Kush is at 3%. How do we get the %s. We SWAG it. Looks like oh 100 trichs in the scope view, how many are amber? There ya go.Do we actually count? Well yeah, in a round about way. Medicated counting. Dia has been bucking down the GDP and snipping down on the American Crippler. With our nights humid and our days arid, the nugs stay at a nice moisture level for quite a while, if they start getting to dry we cut out nearly all the branch material, bin the nugs, and label. A neighbor, that does quite a bit more than us, says keep the bins for nutes and soils, bag the buds... hmmm don't know about that. We would be afraid of the plastic smell leaching onto the nugs. Nights have been mid to high 20s while the days were mid to high 50s. Although the last couple of days have been in the low 70s still high 20s at night, so you guessed it, we've been burning fires since the night we started. The ladies took 20 gallons each twice this week... oh yeah bud swell.

Bed 1 Blue Dream

Bed 2 Sensi Star

Bed 3 Blue Dream

Bed 4 Sensi Star

Bed 5 Sour Diesel

Bed 6 Pineapple Express

Bed 7 Pineapple Express

Bed 8 Ogre

Bed 8 Ogre

Bed 8 UK Cheese

Bed 10 Sour Tsunami

Bed 11 Maui

Bed 11 Maui

Bed 12 Purps

Bed 13 OG Kush

Bed 14 Brandy's OG

Bed 16 Blackberry Kush

Bed 16 Blackberry Kush

Bed 17 Cheese Quake 50/50

Bed 17 Cheese Quake 50/50

Nomads Landing · Oct 22, 2013

Update 10/21 2 of 2

We finished grading the well pipe at least as far as the Big Greenhouse. Now we can shutoff the main line at the well, and drain it. The land slopes with the direction of flow so we don't actually go any deeper than a foot for most of the run. As such the depth is only about 6" by the East side of the greenhouse, we have a clay pit just 18" deep or so about 40 north of the mainline, which is where the drainage will go. It's about 10' from the side of the greenhouse so hopefully there won't be any saturation issues. We got a 10x10 hoop house up for a well house, meanwhile our Trojans took a crap and we lost water in the little greenhouse so we tapped in a gravity feed line, no psi or heat but hey it's water and the comfrey drinks it faster than anything else. Other than that we have been doing tons of studying on large scale compost and VC farms for a additional income for next spring.

It might be hard to tell but the bud flop is nuts, most of the centers have flopped to the sides, although if they hadn't some would be against the ceiling aagain. This is a view from the 8' level.

Here is the GDP in the dry shed, which is still in process of being cleaned up from the Summer's use as a storage facility.

Another shot of the Grandaddy.

And another. This was dried in like 4 days for some quick smoke.

Ahh the tomatoes from last week...

as this week ripening is happening quite quickly.

Mother shot from last week (wasn't posted) They were transplanted TLO style about 1 week ago. Yeah we are some of those people, hey it works great, just look in the greenhouse. Cuts were dipped 5 times every 3 days in a neem, safer solution. They were basically starved to keep them as small as possible, now it's time, they are clean. We threw some heating pads under the ladies to increase the soil temps to high 60s low 70s. There is a T5 54W cfl on a mover that keeps them vegging.

Mothers this week greening up nicely. You can see the comfry in the bottom left corner there.

Here is the hoop house for the well, basically a 2x4 box bottom, a 2x4 ridge and poles. 3 20' 1.25" sched. 40 PVC. Got a temp door up today. Next we are going to lay 300' of loose straw over the mainline and cover with a thin layer of earth. Hopefully the pipes wont freeze.

This is a compost tea brewer prototype from a guy called Microbeman. This one was made with what parts we had on hand, but we are going to be getting the rest of the parts when some funds come. Elaine Igrham had studied the results of different brewers and that study led us here. This type of (airlift pump) brewer offers above base oxygen levels for the life support of microlife and beasties, except nematodes, as they drown after 2 hours of submersion.

Nomads Landing · Oct 31, 2013

Oh hey Everyone!!!! We won the Skunk Magazine Emerald Cup Ticket Giveaway, if anyone is going look us up!

Nomads Landing · Nov 2, 2013

Whew we are getting close, workers have started showing up. Of coarse this means running through the same old rigamarow. Isn't so nice how compensation for meds is way, way, way, lower than say 10 years ago, while the cost of workers has gone up, and then they only want to work the gravy. The machines look better every year. Fuck those machines too...lol... Spent most of the week prepping for crews, got some broke down cars moved and organized, the girls are taking about 16 gallons each every 4 days now instead of 20 gallons every 3 days. We've have been averaging mid 40's F and 20%RH during the day, and low 20's at 90% RH at night. Interior greenhouse temps are about 35 -40 F at night (we've only been running one furnace so far), and 65 - 80 F during the days. Although we are supposed to be in the teens at night next week, which means we will have to fire up the second furnace and keep it between 40-50F at night. Our boy has been chopping up the cord wood like mad. We have also been applying a 20" layer of loosely packed straw over 600' of water mainline, so far so good water at night and the mornings with no busted pipes. The 20" of loose straw is supposed to be equivilant to 4' of earth which is our frost line here. Drew up plans and gathered wood (need to refurbish some of the sticks) for a chicken coop for the winter time. Hmmm... fed the mom's 1 TBSP/gal of Maxicrop liquid fish 5-1-1. Snipping on the GDP which most the workers don't even want to burn cuz they get to fucked up to work. Good signs there aye. The trichs are getting closer of course but not yet there, especially on BBK, P-exp, maui, uk cheese, cheese quake and ogre. Well, back to snipping.