Missy Marine

Hello! What a joy to find this post again to see how far we've come! Things have changed so much. We now have a 100'x50' garden plot in the back yard with a western block containing eight 4'x50' hand-dug (by me!) beds and an eastern block containing the other eight 4'x50' beds. The beds run east to west down slope, so that the monsoon rains we get in the summer will flow in the paths and (hopefully!) not wash away our soil amendments and compost. My husband and FIL installed irrigation piping from the well to the back and front ends of the property, and then set up 12 wobblers total (6 in the west block, 6 in the east block) in our first garden plot. We have found we don't have enough pressure from our residential well to run all the sprinklers at the same time. We have plans to install an agricultural well, as well as rain catchment systems, in the near future.

Right now (nearing the end of our summer), the western plot is under sunnhemp and cowpea cover crop and we just chopped the cover crop down in the eastern block, getting ready for fall transplants. We also have two beds full of red noodle pole beans and sweet potatoes. We are harvesting more pole beans than we can use every day! Oh, and the sunflowers! Oh my goodness, we grew ProCut single stem sunflowers and all they needed was the occasional drink of water to keep them growing strong through our blazing hot summer!

My husband built two Suscovich-style chicken tractors (with some modifications, like hardware cloth all over the tractor and on the bottom to keep predators out) and we love them. We have to get creative during the most freezing nights in the winter because the tractors are not really weather proof, but they work for us for now. We have been breeding our own Muscovy ducks (we eat the [violent, pain-in-the-arse] drakes and keep the lovely females for eggs) and our own chickens, which are American Bresse + Ameraucana crosses--we call them Bressecaunas lol. We eat eggs every day and feed the extra eggs to our two dogs, one of which is an Anatolian Shepherd with a huge appetite. We have plans to build a more permanent, weather-proof hen house soon.

I currently have another 100'x50' plot covered with a silage tarp in the back yard, behind the first garden plot. When the weather cools late in the fall, we will uncover, rent a tiller for a one-time till, recover with the tarp and occultate for another month, then remove the tarp, measure out the beds, broadfork the beds, and then dig out the paths/shape the beds. The plan is for this plot to go completely under caterpillar tunnels, as soon as we can either afford them or get approved for the NRCS grant (which we haven't applied for yet).

While digging out that second garden plot, we will move the silage tarp to the pasture in the front yard. That will be our final 100'x50' plot. I have plans for that plot to become a  sunflower (in the summer and early fall) and strawberry (in the winter and spring) plot. In the two backyard plots, I will grow food to feed our family of 5, along with select veggies and cut flowers for the farmers market and hopefully a farm membership/CSA program.

I do have a small orchard in the front yard right now, closer to the house. There is no irrigation there, only a hose, so unfortunately, the orchard got neglected over the hot and dry early summer, so my little trees are in need of some love. My plan is to station several other small food forest guilds throughout and bordering the property, but irrigation and/or rain catchment systems have to go in first because nothing survives on this hot and dry property without water (except the cacti and other spiny weeds!)--though we hope to transform the entire property into a SPONGE as time goes on, so that when it DOES rain, we can keep and manage as much of the water as possible.

I never thought I'd be a market gardener (perennials were and remain my first love!) and now I'm applying for my local twice-monthly farmers market, which starts in October. I will be selling sunflowers/zinnias/cosmos bouquets, whatever extra warm-season produce I have (tomatoes, sweet peppers, eggplant, okra, cucumbers, zucchini, basil, etc.), and my handmade herbal-infused soaps and salves. I'll transition to cool-weather produce and flowers in the winter. One day, we might also offer eggs and honey at the market, but we also might just produce those items for personal use and stick to selling produce and flowers.

I have dreams that my neighbors will win the lottery and retire to a gorgeous tropical island, so that we can one day purchase more property in this neighborhood and expand the farm. We'd like our children to have the opportunity to build close by so that we can help them with their own children/farms/lives one day.

Every day on this property is an adventure. I was wrong about the fence when I created this thread last year. There is no fence along the back edge of the property, and the fence on the entire north side of the property is not functional. A few months ago, a deer ate one of my young mulberry trees, and a neighborhood dog keeps coming into our yard from the back side of the property, trying to attack our poultry. There are also coyotes on the trail cam. Fencing is now a huge priority for us. We are currently trying to decide if we should get a loan to get a fencing company to properly fence the entire property. I don't need a fancy fence to keep the deer out...I need a secure fence to keep my dogs in, so the dogs can run around the entire property and scare predators away. We were going to build the fence ourselves, but my husband works full time away from home and I have young children that I'm homeschooling, so I no longer think that's a reasonable option.

I will try to come back now and again and include some photos. If anyone has any advice for me, or even just encouragement, please share.

We use the pelleted pine for cat litter and bedding for the bottom of our chick/duckling brooders. Then, I use the used/powdered pellets as weed-block around my fruit trees. When wet, the powdered pellets form a dense mat mulch that blocks light and moisture so weeds can't poke through.

craig howard wrote: Do wolf spiders hunt other spiders like these?

Maybe, but wolf spiders aren't much bigger than the large female brown widow spiders, so not sure.

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Can't really encourage other bugs to eat them or discourage other bugs as a food source...it's a pole barn, so it's always somewhat open to the elements (the bay doors never close all the way). I will try leaving the doors wide open during the day so birds might come in and eat them. And I will tackle webs with the broom, though I admit to being kind of scared!

As soon as my juvenile chickens are big enough, I'm going to let them in the barn and see what happens. Hopefully they will eat them all up! :)

Thank you everyone!

We moved onto our new Central Florida property in early May. On the property, about 20 feet from our house, we have an aluminum pole barn with sides and three large bay doors. Was being used previously for housing antique cars. Nothing was in it when we moved here, except the spiders. We should have gotten rid of the spiders before moving our belongings into the barn but we didn't because we didn't have the time and didn't know what to do about the spiders. The barn is completely infested with brown widow spiders--countless small males and dozens of giant females. Egg sacks everywhere. Now, many of my boxes of beautiful books are covered in spider webs. I'll be honest--I'm also pretty scared to go in there because I can't set two feet inside without kicking webs! But I usually just clear the webs away and get what I need (our animal feed is stored in the barn, so I'm usually in there twice per day).

I'm trying to avoid potentially harmful/carcinogenic sprays and powders on this property, as much as possible anyway. My husband bought a fire gun that attaches to a propane tank (it's legit--he mostly uses it for starting coal for the grill) thinking he could burn the spiders out, but that proved to be completely impractical as about 99.99% of our things are totally flammable and the spiders go way up high in the barn anyway.

Are there any domesticated birds or other animals that eat brown widow spiders? Like...can I let my chickens in there, assuming there's nothing toxic/dangerous for them to eat besides the spiders? Would this even work?

Any other ideas on how to get these spiders out and make our barn safe for us to go inside? Thank you!

John C Daley wrote:Sounds nice!
Horses will compact and ruin your soil
Geese or similar may work for you.
Chicken tractors may be ideal and supply eggs
What do you mean when you speak of irrigation?
Will rainfall capture work there and reduce you reliance on the well?

A functional rain catchment system with the capacity to hold lots and lots of water is a DREAM of mine! We have SO. MUCH. RAIN. in the summer here in this part of Florida. There are two structures on the property: the house (960 square feet) and the pole barn (700 square feet). We could catch so much water! So yes, we will be constructing a rain catchment system in the future, but it's going to take time. My husband works full time outside the home, and I homeschool, so these projects will not happen all at once, but designing them now is fun and keeps the dream vivid! :)

When I mentioned installing irrigation, I was referring to digging trenches and laying down the PVC piping to bring water from the well (which is close to the house) to the front and back of the property, so that we can water baby fruit trees and supply drinking water for our animals.

I don't plan on putting any horses on the property. In the future, there may be additional poultry, meat rabbits, beehives, a couple pigs, and eventually, dairy goats, but I tend to dream big and then go with where the Spirit leads me, so nothing is set in stone. :)

Larry Fletcher wrote:My friends often ask me if we are 100% food independent. Here is a video I made about the Winter/Spring season...this is as BAD as it gets!

Great video! I subscribed!

John C Daley wrote:What type of pasture is there?
Do you have any fencing?
Is there a water supply?
How big is your family- water use, etc?

Hi John, thank you for your reply.

I'm not sure what type of pasture there is. It looks like about 2 of the acres of the property are "pasture"--mostly sparse grass growing in acidic sand (typical Florida). I added a couple photos of the property yesterday--you can see the grassy parts of the property bordered by some old oak trees. This property is in the middle of horse country--lots of other 2+ acre plots of land and everybody's got horses or goats mowing their pastures. We're not ready for livestock other than my ducks, and they don't eat grass...so I need to figure out a way to keep the pasture from overgrowth, as our rainy season will be here in a couple months.

The entire 2.41 acres is fenced, though the fence needs to be repaired in 2 or 3 spots.

There is a well on the property, but no irrigation farther than the house. We will eventually be putting in irrigation, but this will take some time.

There are five of us in our family, not including our dog, cats, and ducks. The kiddos don't do much mowing, though. :)

How would y'all recommend I take care of the pasture until I get gardens, paddocks, and food forest installed...? We're gonna hit rainy season in this part of Florida very soon, and that grass is going to grow.

So far, I have the property map and the topo overlay.

Anne Miller wrote:Welcome to the forum and congratulations for the new property.

To me, once the fencing is secure, the duck pen erected, then it sounds like your hands will be full of building an addition to the home.

My suggestion would be to have a small kitchen garden to get you started.  Everything else can wait probably until year two.

Your property sounds lovely and again congratulations.  

Thank you!