Howle’s Hints

BY JOHN HOWLE

GET YOUR GARDEN GROWING

April and May are two exciting months in Alabama to get your garden growing. Being able to provide your family with food you grew yourself gives a level of independence that is unmatched. Whether it be a backyard garden, farm-raised chicken and eggs, or a cow you are having processed, it’s always a wise choice to be food independent.

Plant the Produce

April is a great month to get those garden seeds into the ground once the threat of frost is over. During mid-to-late April in Alabama, you can plant corn, squash, green beans, butterbeans and tomatoes. For crops such as okra, you will want to plant later in May when the soil temperature is higher.

Typically, if you plant in mid-to-late April, your squash will come in first. If you keep the squash picked regularly, it will continue to produce for a couple of months. Squash can be boiled, fried or grilled.

If you plant a large-enough garden, you can have vegetables all year long. My favorite way to prepare and store food for long term is by canning. I typically can squash, green beans and tomatoes, but any produce can be canned for long-term storage. The best part of canning is no electricity is required. Simply store the canned glass jars on a shelf out of the sun, and you’ve got food that can be stored for years. If you are planning to freeze the excess produce, typically you blanch the vegetables before storing in freezer bags for long term. Cream corn, okra, peas and butterbeans are easy items to freeze for long-term storage.

Squash can be boiled, fried or grilled and if picked regularly, will provide longterm produce.

Best Meat to Eat

In addition to vegetables that can be stored longterm, make sure you stock up on your meats. Pasture-raised beef and poultry are healthy items that can be frozen and stored long term. If you are raising beef, find a processor in your area that can cut the meat up in your desired specifications. If we are raising a beef that is naturally fat and well-marbled, I’ll have the beef cut up into retail cuts such as ribeyes, filets and roasts. If it is a cow that runs on the lean side, I’ll simply have the entire beef cut up in ground beef. If the cow is lean, ground beef is much more forgiving when grilled on the grill. It’s also a great idea to add chickens to your farming operation. Not only will you get fresh eggs each day, the chickens eat a lot of items that you would normally throw away. Discarded cabbage, squash that is too big and old to eat, beef fat, bread, and other items can be quickly digested by the chickens. When the chickens get too old to lay eggs you can have healthy meat as well. If you fill a large pot with

Chickens: Keeping some pasture-raised chickens will provide you with meat and eggs. In addition, they are two-legged garbage disposals eating much of the old produce you might throw away.

water and get the temp up to 150 F, dip the entire chicken into the hot water for two minutes. The feathers will practically fall off. Finally, remove the head, feet, and entrails and place in a freezer bag if you plan to eat the chicken later. An entire chicken placed in a crockpot with a can of cream of mushroom soup, carrots, onions and potatoes makes a tender, delicious meal.

What to Grill?

This is a great time of year for grilling not only your meats but your vegetables as well. Corn, squash and full-length okra complement any meat on the grill and that flame-grilled flavor is hard to beat. It is truly a satisfying feeling to grow all your own meat and vegetables, and it’s a good idea to be able to run to the garden instead of run to the government when you are hungry.

It’s a satisfying feeling to fill a plate with everything you grew on the farm.

The Perfect Pruner

Anvil-style pruners are a great tool to keep in your pocket in the outdoors while hunting or completing farm work. If you are turkey hunting, the pruners allow you to open up your field of vision even in thick cover, which is essential when hunting hesitant toms. If you are repairing fences, it seems like the fence only breaks down in areas around saw briers, vines, and other obstacles. With anvil-style pruners, you can quickly clear the work area of these annoying vines. Anvil pruners have a cutting style that allows one sharp blade to cut through the vine against the flat, anvil surface.

An anvil-style pruner is a handy tool to keep around while in the outdoors.

Great Bait

This is a great time of year to catch some fresh fish for the fryer. Live bait works well for catching pan fish and bass. One of the best baits I’ve used this time of year are grubs. A productive place to find these baits is under round bales of hay. The grubs have a thick layer of skin, and I’ve often been able to catch two or three fish on the same grub. Simply roll the round bale over and you can often find grub worms underneath.

Grubs can be found under round bales, and they make great fishing bait.