April Update

April 6, 7, and 8 (and some more days after that) we put a lot of crops in the ground, and now several have popped up! We've planted peas, potatoes, lots of green leafy things, summer turnips, beets, onions, and some other stuff I'm forgetting at the moment. It's so hard to put my little baby greenhouse plants outside into the dirt! I'm just scared they won't make it after all the work I put into them...but, so far, so good! We have an area we're trying to plant that is quite rocky unfortunately...and our precision seeder (for the smallest seeds) sure doesn't like it! So, so much for 'precision seeding.' I'll be out there hand-thinning all that stuff pretty soon.

We got our 50 baby chickies (red cornish broilers) a week ago! I know, I need to post photos! But, that often goes by the wayside when we are busy. Plus, one of our daughter's favorite toys is the camera, so we never quite know where it's at! They little guys started escaping their brooder tub on day 4, at 5 days old! So, we had to scramble around and make a new one for them out of some junk we found lying around here. It's actually pretty sweet. They're pretty happy now, and running *fast* all over their place, and growing wing feathers already. It's hard to catch them! Of course Lea likes to hold them as much as she can, and put them in a basket for Easter. Pretty cute!

*Will* try to post pics soon!*

First crops are in the ground!

So excited! It's been a rough spring with all this rain...most folks think "rain is good for the crops and farming," but this is not so this time of year when we are trying to work the soil and plant. You can't work in it when it's wet or you will compact it and do some long term damage. In between the storms, we finally did the final tilling on one of the fields and got some snow peas and snap peas in the ground, just before the next storm... with more to go in, but at least it's something!! And, probably my favorite spring crop, hence it's priority!

Greenhouse Blues & Goats

So, we're brand spankin' new at this whole greenhouse thing. Now, don't worry about your produce, we can always buy starts if we need to as a back up. :) That said, here is the story. Isaac built a greenhouse. The pluses are: it's made mostly of 'junk' we found around here for free, and, it works, most of the time. The minuses: it doesn't have a way to ventilate in the heat. So, yesterday, I cut some of it open because it was 70 degrees out. Let's just say I provided a way to close it back up, but it wasn't very wind-proof. So, being Idaho in spring, it had to get super cold, wet and windy today. We looked out and saw the greenhouse practically blowing away! Well, the bones of it are sturdy, but the plastic was flapping all over and the ... other solid parts ... were falling over too. We had a fine episode out there trying to fix it in the wind and rain, while our newly 3-year-old daughter was inside potentially destroying our house with her new exploring abilities! It was enough to keep the plants happy for the day, but when I saw the temp dip to 37 at 9:00 tonight, I went out to rescue them. We do have a heated cold frame and our house as a back up for such emergencies, luckily. And, all of the plants out there are cold-types anyway, except the tomatillos, which do seem pretty hardy too. ... Tomorrow, we rebuild!

We also fenced the goats into a smaller area 'temporarily' while we rip down fences in order to bring in large trucks of compost and such. Well, they've figured out a way to get out. Today we came driving in from a birthday party and noticed they weren't there, but they came to us right away in the driveway. Luckily, they seem to want to get back to their new little home. But, we've got to do something about this before we set our precious little veggie plants out!

Also...3 days til chick time!!

Compost Delivery

I'm feeling pretty industrial looking at these! As a small farm, it seems you have to do strange things like this...we are too big for a pickup load, and too small for a full semi, so we got half semi. (It's 20 yards, or about 30,000 lbs). Now we just have to figure out how we're going to spread it!

Tractor!

We hired out some tractor work this weekend. Pretty exciting! We tilled up quite a bit more than we are going to plant in veggies, so we can plant some cover crop to put in some nutrients for the future. I sure hope we can get our own tractor soon!

March Update

Bit of a rough week with illness, but still getting some things done. Isaac started work on the hoop greenhouse (for transitioning the seedlings from indoors to out) and made a lot of progress. I planted some more seedlings in the house...they are all looking good! Next we are looking at more fencing for the goats as we expand the veggies out into their huge pasture. We're not going to make our deadline of first planting by March 15, but hopefully it will pretty soon!

We had some friends over to play and feed the goats last week. Then we had 'first tilling' day. I put one photo in sepia to make it look old-timey. Isaac and Lea worked on the indoor growing system. And I added in just an outdoor windy day cutie pie pic. :)

First crop is up!

Yep, officially our very first crop as a 'real farm' is up! The lettuce mix germinated in 5 days. Yahoo! Also we had some crazy storms yesterday and it looks like our farm is at the end of this gorgeous rainbow.