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The Ex-Fed Homestead
เข้าร่วมเมื่อ 4 ก.ค. 2023
During my time as a federal government servant my colleagues would often ask me about gardening, raising chickens, making maple syrup, and all of the homesteading aspects of my typically quiet at-home lifestyle. After retiring from federal service I wanted to share such homesteading topics with a greater audience...with the mission of educating and possibly entertaining an interested community.
Making an Old Deck Look New Again
After finishing with the pressure washing of the deck, it was time to stain it. Putting a new coat of color on any project makes the project look new, and staining this old deck is no exception. Watch how the new stain gives new life to this old deck!
มุมมอง: 65
วีดีโอ
My Best Carrot Harvest Ever!
มุมมอง 156วันที่ผ่านมา
After years of trying to grow a significant crop of carrots, this years crop was outstanding. I grew Rainbow, Bolero, Imperator, and Caravel carrot varieties, and was very pleased with the results. Check it out!
Totally Satisfying! Cathartic Pressure Washing
มุมมอง 34421 วันที่ผ่านมา
There is something about pressure washing a surface that generates instant happiness. A strong pressure washer provides immediate gratification for those who enjoy instant cleanliness. My dilapidated deck benefitted from the strong application of plain water, which encouraged the retreat of dirt, grim and mildew, leaving pristine wood that was ready for stain. Watch this video and regale in the...
Making Fresh Tomato Sauce from the Garden
มุมมอง 100หลายเดือนก่อน
A new hand-cranked food mill is helping to make some great tomato sauce, fresh from the garden. This video demonstrates how to make a fantastic sauce from a variety of freshly picked garden tomatoes and herbs grown just outside the kitchen door. I would have canned the extra sauce, but it didn't last long enough with my family around! HA.
Replacing Wheelbarrow Tires
มุมมอง 61หลายเดือนก่อน
One of my wheelbarrow tires exploded and I decided to replace both tires with solid tires that would never explode (good call.) This video shows how to replace your wheelbarrow tires.
Garden Harvest Day and Lessons Learned
มุมมอง 120หลายเดือนก่อน
Garden harvesting is the climax of the growing season. Some vegetables are picked all at once and some are harvested in an ongoing fashion. In this video we'll show you some of the magnificent vegetables we grow on the homestead and also share a few lessons learned during this year's growing season. Enjoy!
Picking Gorgeous Blueberries
มุมมอง 1032 หลายเดือนก่อน
I wanted to take a run through the blueberry patch. I haven't shown the blueberries yet this year and wanted to share a quick sampling of the crop before the end of the season. Enjoy!
Moving the Chickens Outside to Fresh Grass
มุมมอง 762 หลายเดือนก่อน
It's time to move the Cornish Cross chickens from the brooder to the chicken tractor. Fortunately the tractor has been upgraded with a lift system on wheels. The chicks already look happier on a fresh salad bar lawn. They will be around for another four weeks until they graduate!
Onions and Shallots are Ready for Harvest
มุมมอง 972 หลายเดือนก่อน
The onions are ready for harvest (as one observant commenter noted!) I also had forgotten that there were shallots at the end of the onion rows that blended right in with the onions...so that was a nice surprise. Enjoy the video.
Building a Chicken Tractor Lift
มุมมอง 822 หลายเดือนก่อน
I finally got around to building a Chicken Tractor Lift after several months of planning. I obtained some free recycled metal and then took an 8 week welding class. Then I used my buddy Roger's welder and made the lift (with a lot of help from Roger.) It works great and makes it a lot easier to move my chickens around the yard in a shelter that allows them to eat grass, bugs, and other protein....
Happy Harvest of Yukon Gold Potatoes
มุมมอง 1.7K2 หลายเดือนก่อน
The Yukon Gold potatoes are the first ones to be harvested this year. I'll show you how I dig up these spuds and a technique for doing so efficiently. I harvested a super bunch of potatoes that will last all through the winter and into the Spring when stored in a cool basement or root cellar.
Summer Planting for Fall Harvest
มุมมอง 2173 หลายเดือนก่อน
Pulling out an unproductive row to succession plant a new row of fresh vegetables makes great sense in the summer. This will lead to a stronger fall harvest and increase food production without an increase in square footage of your garden. In this video I refresh an unproductive broccoli bed with new compost and broccoli seeds, along with some carrots and golden beets. This should prove fruitfu...
New Cornish Cross Chicks Are Here!
มุมมอง 2453 หลายเดือนก่อน
The new Cornish Cross meat birds have arrived in the mail and I'm picking them up at the post office and introducing them to their new home. Clean bedding, food and water will make their new chick brooder a great home for their first three weeks until they are ready to venture outside. Enjoy the video!
Field Trip to an Italian Lemon and Olive Farm
มุมมอง 6113 หลายเดือนก่อน
Field Trip to an Italian Lemon and Olive Farm
Expertly Mulching Onions and Goodbye to a Friend
มุมมอง 1454 หลายเดือนก่อน
Expertly Mulching Onions and Goodbye to a Friend
Building Community at Our Annual Pancake Breakfast
มุมมอง 1006 หลายเดือนก่อน
Building Community at Our Annual Pancake Breakfast
Making Maple Syrup the Old Fashioned Way
มุมมอง 6397 หลายเดือนก่อน
Making Maple Syrup the Old Fashioned Way
Way to make a foray into vertical video!
Wonderful harvest my friend.
Thank you so much! I'm nervous about harvesting the sweet potatoes, but am trusting that this year will be ok. Thanks for watching!
Wow! Great audio quality! I think you need to adjust the Left/Right balance though. And those carrots are magnificent, especially the one that was wider than your forearm! Looking forward to the sweet potato harvest
Still working on the right level of negative gain and Matt mentioned the left and right balance as well. I'm near 500 subscribers so I decided I should up my tech game! Be Well Alex.
Carrot SuperMan !!! WoW! Great video !
You may see some carrots in your future!!
come on now ... use a TURBO TIP and a SURFACE WASHER = much faster - easier and better results
I had no idea! I'm totally getting a Turbo Tip now. Thanks for the "tip" @diverdave4056. HA!!!
Very satisfying video! The deck looks beautiful, I sure hope no high school linebackers decide to flatten it
My former high school lineman is more gentle nowadays! :)
It was really satisfying, like how you take the opportunity to wash the bbq too.
Thank you Melanie! I liked your sweet potatoes. I'm nervous about harvesting mine, but I'll have to do it soon. Happy gardening!
Did you have to add any paste to the sauce? How much salt and pepper did you add to the sauce? And would you change anything if you were canning the sauce?
I didn't add any paste at all as it was very thick after rendering down. I added about a half teaspoon of salt and pepper (I usually go light on these) and several fresh leaves of thyme, basil, and sage. When canning tomatoes I usually add a teaspoon of lemon juice, but we've been eating all the the sauce lately. :) Thanks for watching!!
Glad you're all right, Scott!
Thanks Rob. Scary moment, but all good now.
Nice harvest Scott! Would you mind sharing the varieties of plants you featured?
Hey Rob. Sure...I have 4 kinds of carrots this year: Rainbow Blend from Hart's Seeds, Imperator, Caravel, and Bolero from MIgardener. The exact kale variety is unknown to me . Same for the Okra as I have been saving the okra seeds for the last 3 years. This year I grew 5 kinds of tomatoes: San Marin, Amish Paste, Big Boy, Roma, and a golden cherry tomato that I picked up from my local nursery along with the zucchini and Waltham Butternut Squash. Be well.
Just found your channel and I am so glad I did! So relaxed and pleasant to watch.
Thank you so much for your kind comment! I love that you found this relaxing and pleasant...that is exactly the vibe I'm trying to put out there. All the best to you and please keep commenting! Thanks for watching!!
Love the custom Richardson's blueberry collector!
HA HA. Only fan would recognize it!!
Weighting the bird netting down with the cement weights is a great idea!
Thanks so much @ShilihsBride. Use fast drying cement in some cups and it will speed up the job. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Yrs ago the electric company was in our area triming the right of way for power lines . They were chipping the limbs into a huge truck. I asked if i could get some and they dumped an entire truck load free of charge. To say i was happy is an understatement, that is till i realized it was full of poison ivy. Im in southeast texas and not sure if yall have poison ivy where you live but if so keep that on mind when getting wood chips😅
We sure do have poision ivy! Thanks for the warning. Fortunately I've been lucky thus far in that area. I'll certainly keep it in mind. Enjoy the videos and thanks for commenting!
Awesome potatoes. Takes me back to my younger years. My garden was 300 ft wide (100 yards) I always planted 6 rows of potatoes. My wife, my kids and I would have an assembly line going. I would turn them over with a pitch fork , my wife would shake the vines , 2 of my kids were picking potatoes up and loading them in a cart and the youngest would pile up the vines. Ask any of my grown kids today if they want to dig potatoes and they will straight up say " on potatoes I'm digging will be digging a bag out of a bin in the grocery store " 😂😂 Wish I was still able to farm on that scale but those days are gone.
I'll keep digging up potatoes until my back says otherwise. I just enjoy the continual sense of surprise that I get during the process. Finding a big honkin' spud always makes me feel successful as a gardener, despite many other occasional setbacks. Thanks for watching my videos Russell! Be well.
Not a bad harvest, Scott.
Great video !
Your onions are ready too.
Oh yeah they are!! Video coming on that too. Thanks for watching!
AWESOME HARVEST!!!
Thanks for watching @blessedhummingbird4.
That’s a great harvest of potatoes! I’m harvesting Purple Viking potatoes tomorrow. I hope mine do as well as yours.
I'm thinking of growing purple vikings next year. Let me know how it goes! Best of luck in your garden and thanks for watching my videos.
I planted some fingerling potatoes but I don't know when to harvest them.
Thanks for watching @precious1019! Just let them grow and keep them watered until the plants die back naturally. Once the tops are dead and laying on the ground you can pull them up and let them cure. Cure potatoes at about 45 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit with high relative humidity (85 to 95 percent) for two weeks. I put them in milk crates in my basement. Don't wash the potatoes before doing the curing. Healing of minor cuts and bruises and thickening of the skin occurs during the curing process. Once cured, sort through the potatoes and throw away or compost any soft, shriveled, or blemished spuds. Have a great day and good luck with your potatoes!
You’re the new Anthony Bourdain!
Lovely!!
Thank you! 😊
Out standing! Molto bene! Grazie mille per la condivisione
Thanks Geoff! My wife wants to move to Italy now!!
Thank you for loving Hilda as you did. We will continue watching your channel feeling that she is here with us! 💙
Those onions look really healthy Scott, thanks for the video. When do you normally harvest them? Down here near Atlanta I start my seeds towards the end of September, and aim to get them in the ground the first week or so in November, then harvest in early spring.
This is exactly what I needed to see. I have a few girls eating eggs too and I have needed to find a way to convert my boxes rather than replacing them. You have giving me exactly the help I needed to make a plan for my boxes. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful! You are so welcome. Thanks for watching.
great video Scott! 😁
Glad you enjoyed it
Great video !
Thanks!
the landscape is trully amazing over there
Thanks you so much for watching my videos!
Excellent work. Totally strait forward, no Mumbo Jumbo. Do this, then this, put in bottle and sell. Like the olden days at a farmers market
Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
It will be enjoyable to watch the harvest instead of fast forward digging
I didn't plant fingerling potatoes this year....but they are coming up everywhere!! Love those free volunteers...Looks like I'll be harvesting fingerlings after all!
This True Temper piece of crap is the only one on TH-cam thats needing tub crack repair. Hey PI attorneys why not work on some class action suit on these guys.
I guess that's where the term "mad as a wet hen" comes from
Ha! Thanks for the laugh Sue. And thanks for watching.
Glad you're back, Scott. The work never ends on the homestead.
Thanks Rob!
Looks like somewhere in NewJersey or whereabouts.
Yes it does! But it's really on the north shore of Boston. Thanks for watching!
Abrasive flap disk on an angle grinder works a lot better than a grinding disk.
Awesome. Thank for the tip!! I'll have to get one and try it.
I'm always careful to check the balance of the blade after I think I'm done before reinstalling the blade on the mower. Occasionally, I need to take a few more molecules off one side to even things up. Do you think that's necessary or am I just being compulsive?
@@notnalb58 Kevin I have a balancing kit and totally forgot to show it as I was ready to put the blades on the mower. I'll have to do another video (probably next spring is when it will happen! ha.)
Exactly what I needed! Thanks! And thanks for working safely!
Thanks for watching!!
Hey, I don’t own chickens yet, I’ve been doing a lot of research for the last two weeks. There are plenty of videos on YT showing diy rollaway nesting boxes….even I knew that your chickens would get to the eggs - you need strips of light cloth to make a curtain so the chickens can’t see the egg. Surprised you didn’t spend a few minutes seeing what was and wasn’t working on TH-cam before jumping into your own trial and error
Take a drill bit and drill a hole at both ends of the crack. That stops the crack from continuing.
Awesome point @Maugwa! Much appreciated.
Great job, Scott 👍
Thanks Mary. Hope to see you soon.
Great job, Scott 👍
Thanks Mary! Keep on Watching. I hope to do more videos now that gardening is beginning.
Great time , I had so much fun. Thanks again, Scott😁
Thanks for coming Tiffany. We'll do it again next year.
Hey Scott you started a good thing! I wish that could be done in more places. Keep it on I enjoy your videos.
Thanks for watching Joe. I don't know if pancakes could assist in world peace, but it ain't a bad start! HA.
@@ExFedHomestead I watched that video twice, and very enjoyed it. It's meaningful to me to know that people still care about each other. That's why I enjoy it so much. Be a little interesting to come and visit your area sometime if I happen to be in the area and know your location. Or what state. I appreciate it to hear that you were a cop at one time. Thanks for your service.
There are a lot of people still out there that care deeply @@joeborntrager3083. I meet great people everywhere, not just here in the north of Boston. Great to have you watching the exfedhomestead. God Bless.
Hey I appreciate your input in life it's great.
Thanks again for sharing
Thanks for watching the video @suewolhart3535!!
In the past year I have rebuilt three wheelbarrows, two steel tray and one plastic tray. I'll make a few comments based on what I've learved. 1) The main advantage of a plastic tray is lighter weight compared to steel. 2) The main disadvantage of a plastic tray is that they crack fairly easily, and the main reason such wheelbarrows are discarded seems to be cracking. I found that repairing the crack in my wheelbarrow was pretty easy. I found a piece of semi flexible plastic and lined the bottom of the tray with that additional plastic. I glued the additional plastic in place, and then drilled new bolt holes and reset the bolts holding the tray to the frame. That seems to offer a lot of additional strength to the tray which I'm hoping will minimize additional cracking in the years to come. I agree that having tires that don't go flat is a big improvement. The test of a wheelbarrow is that it ALWAYS needs to be ready to provide service when needed, and if you have flat tires you have a useless wheelbarrow.
Great comments @SeattlePioneer. I appreciate what your saying and agree with the though of reenforcing the bottom of the tub. Great call.
@@ExFedHomestead <<Great comments @SeattlePioneer. I appreciate what your saying and agree with the though of reenforcing the bottom of the tub. Great call.>> Thank you. I've seen numerous videos on various methods of repairing plastic trays on wheelbarrows. I think that's fine and suggests that there are a variety of ways to do that kind of repair job. I particularly appreciate your support for the idea of reinforcing the bottom of plastic trays. I used a piece of flexible plastic I had on hand, glued and then rebolted the tray to the frame. The major reason for discarding plastic wheelbarrows are cracked trays, which can happen pretty easily. Reinforcing the tray suggests that the likelihood of such cracking will be significantly reduced.
What is the make of the welder/stapler? Where did you purchase yours?
Took a while to find the order from my wife's shopping account.... it's the Wrdlosy Plastic Welder, 800PCS Staples, Plastic Welding Kit, Must Have For DIYers, Instant On/Off, Plastic Welder Kit, for 26.99. the link is www.amazon.com/gp/product/B091YXR9L5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1 . I'm gonna use it for my busted up recycle bins as well. Good luck!
Hi Scott! Good to see you here. I knew D when we were kids!
Hi Shannon. I have had the pleasure of speaking with your mom here and there over the years (who has of course spoken about her daughter.) Thank you for your service and thank you for watching the channel. D says hi!
Should try the pigeon peas during summer.
Can you eat them raw like snow peas??
I got all mine from Johnny's this year. I prefer just using one source to cut down on shipping costs, especially when seed packs at places like Johnny's are like $5+. I think I'll try MIGardner next year. I'll be interested in your results.