Introduction to Backyard Chickens

Hello everyone.  The work at My Athletic Life is keeping me EXTREMELY busy these days, but I did want to let you know of my guest post at Robb Wolf’s site today “A Flock of Fowl:  Keeping Backyard Chickens.”

Sweet Potato Harvest

Yesterday we harvested our first of four rows of sweet potatoes (about 100 lbs).  These Carolina Ruby sweet potatoes grow exceptionally well in central North Carolina even when we have a dry summer like this year.  We will keep them in the garage (covered and damp) for about 2 weeks to cure, at which point they will be ready to eat or store in the house for up to 6 months.

FYI, today I have a guest post at Robb Wolf’s site called The Grass is Greener, but the Weeds are Taller.  In this post, I outline some of my plans for the farm now that my days are a bit busier with the new website My Athletic Life.  Please take a peek at my guest post as well as the new site if you have time.

Thanks for reading!

Odds and Ends

1)  Dr. Andrew Weil has recently revised his stance on saturated fats: 

“You’re correct that my thinking on saturated fat has evolved. One catalyst was a scientific analysis of 21 earlier studies, which showed “no significant evidence” that saturated fat in the diet is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease. The 21 studies analyzed included nearly 348,000 participants, most of whom were healthy when they were enrolled. They were followed for five to 23 years, during which 11,000 developed heart disease or had a stroke. Looking back at the dietary information collected from these thousands of participants, the investigators found no difference in the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, or coronary vascular disease between those individuals with the lowest and highest intakes of saturated fat. This goes completely against the conventional medical wisdom of the past 40 years. It now appears that many studies used to support the low-fat recommendation had serious flaws.”

2)  In spite of Dr. Weil’s intelligent reevaluation of the facts, our local newspaper dietician, Suzanne Havala Hobbs, continues to dole out the dogmatic advice of avoiding “artery clogging saturated fats.”  Come on Mrs. Hobbs, your readers deserve guidance that is based on sound science, not fat phobic conventional wisdom.

3)  If you are interested in making your own bacon, check out my guest post at Robb Wolf’s site.  This post is similar to my very first blog post Makin’ Bacon; however I have made the instructions much easier to follow.

4)  You have a few days left to post your June fitness goal in order to be eligible for the free, signed copy of Sarah Fragoso’s Everyday Paleo.  I will pick a winner on June 1.

Farm Happenings

This morning I spent several productive hours working outside in the garden.  First up was a quick weeding of the previously mulched garlic.  And the weeds turned into much appreciated cow chow.

Next, I transplanted my first batch of 60 tomato plants which I started from seed in mid-February.   The nice surprise in this task was finding earthworms galore as I dug the holes for the tomatoes.  All of that hard work in soil improvement is most definitely paying off.

A few days ago, I retrieved a small swarm of bees from one of my hives.  Luckily, the swarm settled down in a semi-dwarf apple tree which made the job of getting them into a new hive almost trivial.

Lastly, I wrote another guest post for Robb Wolf this week about Growing Sweet Potatoes.  Please check it out.

Thanks for reading.

Gardening With Raised Beds to Promote Drainage

Welcome to new readers who found Soil to Sustenance via my guest post on Robb Wolf’s The Paleo Solution.  As I indicated in that post, I am a big fan of raised beds for backyard gardening AND for growing vegetables in a larger farm-scale operation.  

Even though they are a pain to create, raised beds have many advantages to simply planting in rows.  Given the 2+ inches of rain we received in the past 24 hours, I thought I would show how raised beds can help with drainage.  Notice how the standing water has settled in the pathways between beds.  This water no longer poses a threat to the roots of the potato plants in these beds, but will still be absorbed into the surrounding soil.

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