2020 April

April 7, 2020
We have been busy this year and last, increasing our chicken flock, with the baby goats that were born last May (have a look at previous posts on the Facebook page, they were cute!), me learning to milk our goat, building a greenhouse, and... you get the idea. 

For today, given that there are quite a few people thinking of starting a garden this year that may not have much gardening experience, I put together a brief list of tips and planting time chart for those that may be interested. Here it is


 

A new year! 2019

March 21, 2019
Welcome back! As you can see, we've been busy doing things other than posting here, but we have been working away. 

We got our poultry fence up, so the chicks we got last spring have all lived and are now well into laying eggs - hurray! Our ducks (a few runners and campbells) are laying very well also, so we are back in the business of selling tasty eggs from our happy free-ranging (but safe ranging inside their fence) chickens and ducks.

We've also gotten into pigs the past 2 years, which has...
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2017 here we go!

March 2, 2017
Yes, I know, it's been over a year. We have tried various incarnations of internet and will, I very much hope, soon have consistent internet that works even in a concrete ands steel house in a valley in the country.

In the meantime, what, you may ask, have we been up to?

Well, last year was very dry so quite a few plants, even weeds, were slow; tomatoes on the other hand LOVED the weather and I had so many I ended up giving away a box to my kids' school! I also got my very first eggplants.
A ...
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Back in action!

January 22, 2016
As you can tell by the dearth of posts over the summer, the planting / gardening / harvesting season gets very busy (not to mention all the other stuff I do that isn't the garden and CSA). But it is late January, I'm getting seed catalogues in the mail again so I can pore over them and decide what I want and what I can realistically try this year. It's also kind of neat to have been gardening long enough (for myself and more recently for others) that I can recognize many varieties and know wh...
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Plant Wars!

May 22, 2015

A short time ago, in a garden not that far away…

Episode I: Uprooting

Yes, I am the perfect age to have seen the Star Wars movies as a little kid and for that to have a huge impact. The original three are better. 

Plant-wise though, this is about weeds and invasive plant species, which are two different things. A weed is basically a plant that is growing somewhere that you don’t want it to grow, and it can be anything from native stinging nettle and poison ivy to the random carrot that ma...


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It’s nearly time to plant!

April 29, 2015

It’s warmer and sunnier, the mud is more or less dry, and the grass (and weeds!) are starting to grow. That means I can actually do outside gardening stuff, which is wonderful after winter. We were away for a week in Kentucky, as there’s a 3-Day Event (horseback riding) and an aunt to visit, and they’ve already got blooms on the cherry trees down there. At home, it’s time to weed, plan out the garden layout, dig some of the garden areas, and transplant / plant a few things. The garlic...


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Some catch-up Photos

April 15, 2015

So the internet is apparently cooperating with me for now; here are some photos. 
This first is that little starter mini greenhouse set-up I mentioned in an earlier post, you can see the date at the bottom of the photo and compare it with a later photo that's from less than a week ago. 



This is the garden on April 3; doesn't look like a whole lot yet, but... 


The garlic I planted in the fall is sprouting! just like it should. 



This is the "later" photo of the plants from the first one. Planted on...
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Spring ups & downs

April 3, 2015

This week has been a bit up and down here, and yes, I’ve been remiss and haven’t posted more photos yet. I appear to be jinxed in that respect because I've just tried to upload one photo 5 times with no success. I will try later this weekend!

So: there is a great deal less snow here now, which is nice because it’s warmer, but it’s also incredibly muddy. Mud is fun outside, just not so much inside when tracked in by people and dog and cats and clinging stubbornly to the floor. 

I can a...


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Starting seeds, part 2; and what's starting to grow!

March 23, 2015
I had been writing this to talk about how to start several of the seed types, but with the weather lately it's also a good demonstration of why it gets done! Lovely day yesterday with sun, rain, snow and wind...
Anyway, on to the indoor planting stuff, which is somewhat more intensive and forethought-requiring, but is very much worth the effort. 

There are many plants that need a relatively long growing season to produce the parts we can eat. These are the ones that need to be started inside i...


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Almost spring, and starting seeds part 1

March 16, 2015

I had meant to post this several days ago, but I’d offered to help in someone’s office for about a week, then had to catch up on all the stuff I hadn’t done while I was doing that, then realized I couldn’t find my plant markers from last year… and now it’s March Break! 

We do have large sections of driveway visible, and there are a few spots where we can see actual grass (not green). However, the snow out back is still up to or past my knees, which I know because the kids and I we...


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About Me


I am essentially a country girl - I grew up on this farm, I rode horses (still do but not as much as I'd like), ran, rode my mountain bike through the woods, and had a whole lot of pets growing up. So, it follows that I went to school and became an ecologist, working with animals and plants and their interactions. I'm married and we have three children, all of whom seem to be growing much faster than seems possible. With that background, taking over the farm and turning it from hobby to business seemed like a logical next step - it's amazing how well my childhood, ecology work, parenting, and just general outlook have so many ties to each other and to working on the land where I live.

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