Homemade Incubator Plans Now Available as an E-Book

"How To Make A Homemade Incubator" is now available as an e-book on Amazon's Kindle store. It is for sale for $0.99, and I will be making it available for FREE from time to time. It basically tells you how you can make your own incubator out of an old refrigerator or freezer. We had good success with our incubators last year, hatching about 300 chicks due to the faithful help of my son, Thad, who consistently turned the eggs and checked the temperature.
I also have other e-books available. I write under the name "R. Eugene Pearson". These books include:
The Antediluvians
Bible Limericks from A to Z
A Profitable Choice
A Dinosaur Game
The Three Mousegetteers
Zorba the Grape
Punishing Puns: Clean Jokes for Groan-Ups (some chicken jokes included)

The Starvation Garden

Do you have a place to put yard debris? Grass clippings, weeds, old straw from the stall, wood chips, old vegetables, or other organic debris can be put in a bin and allowed to compost. I have a bin about two feet high by six feet square. In this I throw old rotten dahlias, dahlia stalks, old hay, etc. and ashes from the stove.
     When we have left over potatoes that are going bad I throw them in the compost bin. I make sure they are covered a little so they won't freeze. These potatoes then sprout and grow in the compost pile and keep producing new potatoes which in turn sprout the next year. If hard times ever hit you, you will have a food source. (I hate to be a doom and gloomer but with our nation 14 some trillion dollars in debt, I don't know how much longer the party can last.) You can always dig through the compost bin and find potatoes!
     Another great crop to grow is carrots. They can survive a hard freeze so they can last all winter long. You can dig them all winter long.

Daylilies are a wonderful flower. We have four varieties at the farm. They are dependable perennials and multiply and get thicker every year.

How to Order Our Dahlia Surprise Mix

 

 

The Dahlia Surprise Mix has at least 40 Dahlia tubers and at least eight different varieties. These may include a variety of types, Ball and Pom Pom types, Decorative types and perhaps a few Dinnerplates. There are some nice flowers in this mix. They will bloom from late July until the first hard frost. The tubers can be left in the ground through the winter if mulched so they don't freeze or stored in a cool dry place.

 

 

The Dahlia Surprise Mix can be purchased for $16 plus $7.50 for shipping to Oregon or Washington. Shipping to all other states is $12.50. Please include an extra $1 for any additional Dahlia Surprise Mixes ordered.

 

    (Chippendale)

 

We also have 'Chippendale Dahlias' (5' high, 6'' orange blooms with white tips) available for 40 tubers for $10 (shipping rates are the same as for the Dahlia Surprise Mix). AVAILABILITY: FEBRUARY TO JUNE 15. No orders after June 15.

 

Send your check to:

Pearson's Foothills Farm

P.O. Box 966

Sandy, Or. 97055

 

We will try to get your order to you as soon as possible but please allow 3 weeks for delivery. Thank you!

A Simple Graft

The first batch of chicks has hatched, 70 out of 98 in the incubator, and that was without candling the eggs. Not bad for a homemade incubator. (For more info on that refer to the previous blog).

     After they hatch we put the chicks in several homemade brooders. We use regular lightbulbs instead of heat lamps to keep electricity costs down and they do the job. An enclosed box type brooder catches and holds heat well. A brooder light for a larger brooder area uses light sockets attached to the bottom side of a board which is raised by end pieces about 8'' high.

     The younger chicks snuggle up to the lights and the older chicks perch on the board above the lights as the heat rises and warms the board.

 

 

     Our trees are dug and potted. We have a lot of Grand fir, Noble fir, Doug fir, and Western Red Cedar. We also have some Austrian Pine, Incense Cedar, Coast Redwood, Pinyon Pine, and others.

     Deciduous trees include Red Maple, White Ash, White Birch and Purple lilacs.

     A deciduous conifer we have a lot of is Japanese Larch. It has an excellent light green spring color as the needles emerge and vibrant fall orange and yellows.

     Our 4-6' potted trees are 5 for $40. the smaller trees 2-3' in gallon pots are 10 for $30.

 

 

     We again have our "Dahlia Surprise Mix" available this year. 40 tubers for $16 (shipping is available). You get at least 8 different varieties and some very nice flowers. We also have individual dahlias for sale. To receive our brochure call us at 503-668-4524.

 

 

A Simple Graft

 

     It is fun to graft fruit trees! And it is not that difficult. It's an inexpensive way to increase your number of fruit trees. Our Shiro plum tree kept sending up lots of suckers from the rootstock. We have dug these up and moved them and grafted the shiro onto these, so now we have about 20 Shiro plum trees.

     Plums, apples and pears seem to graft fairly easily, some of the others not so much.

     A simple graft to try is simply to make your scion (the part being grafted on) into a V shape on the bottom. the scion should be about6 to 8''. Make sure your scion is the same diameter as the stock you are grafting it on to. The green cambium layers of the scion and stock need to match up.

     On the stock carefully make a slit down the middle of it going about an inch to an 1 1/2" deep. Insert the bottom of the scion into the stock. It should be held in place by the spring tension of the two sides of the split stock. next wrap the graft thoroughly with electrical tape and you're done. the tape keeps the graft from drying out.

 

 

Multiplying Rootstock

 

   Some apple rootstocks can be started by cuttings (M111 apple rootstock for example). Make cuttings of around 10'' in length and stick in the ground in a place that gets morning sun. Do this in February and March. By next March they should be well rooted and ready to transplant. Also experiment when you prune your apple and pear trees. Sometimes cuttings of these will root in.





Homemade Incubator

Welcome to the first blog posting of the "Cheep, Cheep Farmer" featuring the happenings and sale items at Pearson's Foothills Farm. We also want to share ideas for frugal farming.

We've just put in our first batch of 100 eggs into our homemade incubator made from an old refrigerator placed on its side. A refrigerator or freezer is an ideal thing to make an incubator out of since it is already insulated. It is heated with light bulbs and uses a Durostat thermostat which works good enough although it would be nice to have one with less of a variance in temperature (plus or minus 3 degrees F). Set the temperature for 99 degrees F and hope there are no power outages for 3 weeks!

The other key part is a fan set in the corner. The fan is set to come on when the thermostat clicks on. We don't use automatic turners because they are expensive and our experience is that they only last one season if that. Besides my son Thad, age 11, doesn't mind turning the eggs, on most days 4 times. We have found if you miss a few turnings it's usually not critical. I hope to have more complete instructions for making a homemade incubator available in the near future.

Better yet still than an incubator is to have setting hens. We have one setting now that is part Silkie. Silkies are the best setters we've seen.

My favorite Bantam chickens are the Mille Fleur. We have several chickens that are a mix of Mille Fleur and Silkie and they are good setters also.

My favorite larger chicken is the Barred Rock. It seems to tolerate the damp conditions in Western Oregon better than most chickens. The sight of a large Buff Orpington rooster free ranging though is an impressive pastoral scene.

At the farm now we have a lot of large conifers for sale. Cedars, Firs, Pines, Japanese Larch, Spruce and others. The 4-6' potted trees are 5 for $40. The smaller trees are 10 for $30. We again have our Dahlia Surprise special this year; 40 mixed dahlia tubers for $16 and shipping is available. If you would like to receive our brochure with individual dahlias, give us a call at 503-668-4524 and we will send you one.

Are you a seed saver? It's fun to save seeds and see what you get. Also have you seen the prices of the seed packets in those mail order catalogs? Have you ever examined a cantelope, tomato or squash and seen how many seeds it contains? True, these seeds may not yield a fruit exactly like the one you got it from, but if it's from a tomato it is still going to be a tomato and if it's from a cantelope, it's going to be a cantelope. Last year I "planted" a bunch of rotten tomatoes (threw them on the ground) and they produced lots of good tomatoes.

Are you aware that many of the varieties of trees and plants that you find in those seed catalogs were the result of a chance seedling with unusual characteristics? Granted, saving those plum or peach seeds to see what you get is a long process, but even if you don't get a real winner you'll get something that will produce decent edible fruit and at the very least will serve as a pollinator for other trees of the same kind. Be aware that some seeds, like those of trees need to go through a weathering process before they will germinate, so they are best planted in the fall or winter.



Well, so long for now. Getting back to chickens let me leave you with this thought: Jesus said,

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem....how often I would have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!"

Let us stay under the protection of His wings. May God bless!