Planning the Garden

Planning the Garden

    I don't know about you, but I have already started planning out my garden. This is the time to start planting all those indoor plant seeds again. Tomatoes , eggplant, broccoli, cabbage, kale, carrots, celery, cauliflower, peppers some of the cool weather plants and squash, cucumbers, pumpkins, and such for the warmer weather if you plant by seed instead of plants. This year  I hope I can stay on top of the watering since last year it was so dry.

     I pulled up all the old dead plants to prepare my raised beds. I need to add some mulched leaves and such too, and more soil. Have lots of chicken manure to turn in too. My green house is filled with all my  house plants and trees that I have collected and grown over the years. 

    I started my tomato seeds, eggplants, cayenne peppers and my sons favorite, Brussel sprouts in single starter pots so far, and put them in the house for a few weeks. I have already looked at everyone's seeds (non-gmo of course). I am only going to do a garden for the basics, so no full blown growing since the space is so limited here. My herbs take up a lot of space too.

    I want to build a few up right garden planters that will have rows will all the left over wood we had from the renovation just to get rid of some of the mess. Recycle when I can is the best thing for everything.   That will give me a spot to plant more of my herbs, not to mention be easier on the back.   I want to put a few buckets of veggies out too, transplanting some tomatoes and peppers and getting potatoes started in a few too.  

    Sustainability is the thing I really am trying to get better at. Now that we have chickens and ducks we will have the eggs and meat. What more do I need ... a few goats would be nice but that is for a different time and space for now. 

Preparing for fall and Growing the Farm

     Yesterday we got about 50 or 60 meat chickens from our friend and her dad. I know we have no room for them all but if we can get the roosters of the bunch to slaughter stage it will help us food wise for the winter.  The hens can give us more eggs too but the price of food will go up also. 

This is only a few of the new chickens we got .

     The baby pigs are growing so fast. They are a month old tomorrow. They get out everyday and eat the goats food.  But now the pen is wired shut so they can't get in there. We need to sell a few of the un-registered ones to make room for the ones who are and breed more registered ones. If anyone is looking to have a hog roast let me know.

     Yesterday I borrowed one a Rex bunny to breed with our rabbit Sugar. I sure hope this time we get some babies. They are the same breed. The Rex bunnies are so soft and thick velvety fur. They are great pets for children on up to elderly folks. They make great pets. They are easy to take care of and can be trained to live in the house.

Sugar has a box for her soon to be babies.

     The goat pen needed mending again. Jacob has smashed into it enough again to break the wiring around the bottom most of the way on two sides. He was escaping and coming up to the front door. While we were wiring I got into a nest of fire ants again, this will be the second time this weekend. The rain has driven them out of the ground everywhere.

Chloe checking out the wire job!

Jacob is mad now that he can't escape.

Ant Attack Ouchy!

     We have started on the girls section of the house. Getting ready to put in windows. Hopefully we can get all the window work done.

   

Planning Time

I have been working on many things this month. I have my prep time started for the ending of this year and starting plans for the following. I have really been doing a lot of research about homesteading.

 I have plans for a goat stand ready to build. We are taking in one more goat. It is castrated but he will be a good mower. I am still looking for a buck for Chloe the goat to breed with. She has become less skittish which helps when we breed her. I hope we will have a baby or babies from her this year.

 We should be getting eggs from the older hens soon since they are settling into their new digs. By the end of next month our younger hens should be laying. The one who lays now is adjusting to her mates too. I will still save eggs to eat but leave some for the hens to hatch for meat chickens.

Our registrations for our pigs are back now. We will now be able to trade for a boar or sell all of our boars to buy one of a different lineage. We will breed Lady Cersei in August along with our other females. By spring we should be ready to sell some piglets.

I would love to be able to put up some tomatoes but my plants never put out the first bloom. I am getting ready to plant the fall garden this next week. I am going to stop by the farmers market to see what is out there. Apples will be one thing I will be putting up this year. I did get a few bags of blueberries in the freezer.

I have been looking for some New Zealand white rabbits to start breeding for meat too. I found a very cool hutch plan today that allows you to save the poo to a bucket. That will be in the making soon too. For now the g-girl’s rabbits will be just pets and if we get babies from them we will sell them.

There are just so many things I want to do here and only so many hours in a day and so much money we don’t have to get things done but little by little I will check them off my list of things to be done and hopefully we can see some income coming in instead of always going out.

Jacob and the Girls

     Yesterday was a busy day here on the farm. My daughter was here getting her car ready for her trip but in the mean time she brought Jacob over. He is the goat I was talking about the other day. He is a Nigerian beauty. He is very sweet and very smart. He wasn’t in the pen for more than a half an hour and he already escaped. See, Chloe was being mean to him and she wanted to let him know by all means she was the boss. He found a weak link in the fence and out he went. I am glad I was right there. We had gone down to the barn to check on him because our G-daughter say Chloe was head butting him. I sent her to the house to get some feed for the two goats and scooped him up and put him back in the pen and called for some wire to “batten down the hatches.” We gave them cool water and I drug the dog house that the dogs never use down for him to have his own house to hang on and in. We collected some grass for both of them and hoped that would be a truce for the two of them. Dad went down before bed to check on them. Things were settled down and Jacob was on his house and Chloe on hers.

     I collected 2 eggs yesterday, so I guess that the new girls were happy in their new home. I got to hold Lil Red yesterday too. She is very sweet and I see why the G-kids wanted to keep her. I will be moving her in with the other reds here soon. Sad thing happened though, my big white hen that took care of all our new babies died. I knew she wasn’t going to make it for too much longer. She was a broiler house chicken and I know they are short lived. We all have to be prepared for death on the farm whether it is for food purposes or natural causes/ predator. I feel bad but things are what they are. We move on. I will be excited now to leave eggs for the girls to hatch though which makes up for the loss.

     

I love all my animals and spoil them all rotten. I spend a good bit of time scratching pigs yesterday as of every day. The love to line up by the fence and wait for a scratching. Minnie and Cersei are always the first in line too. They will most definitely flop over too. My farm keeps me sane and moving forward.  I am looking for the day where that is the only thing I do besides  the Kingdom work.

CHICKS, RABBITS, PIGS, GOAT & KIDS

My daughter’s boyfriend has decided to hang up the farm life and go back to work. They wanted to know if we wanted to buy the rest of their chickens. We have room for a few more in our miscellaneous coops and they are already laying eggs, so this is a no brainer. Anyways the g- kids wanted us to save their favorite chicken, Lil Red. I am such a softie.  My daughter will be bringing them to us this afternoon when she gets off work.

Truck is coming along slowly but surely. New parts are about to go into it. The tear down is down to a bolt or two. It will be nice to have it all done. We need it running for the work we have to get done here.

The g- kids have been getting a lesson in backing over the last few days. They have baked muffins for us a few times now. Now if only I can get them to finish cleaning their room, which would really make me happy. I have a warned them already that they have to keep their new room clean or they might lose it altogether. They get their space including bath and loft bed in a whole area off the main house and it should make them very happy if they abide by the rules. Today is their laundry day and yes I do make them do that too. Little by little they get rid of things that they don’t need which will make their transition to the new room easier to move.

Well it must have been a false alarm on the rabbits part because we have no babies as of yet. We need to move a few hutches close to the house so I can maintain them when the girls go back to school easier. They seem to like their new homes. The kids say they are heavier. The kids want to start training them. They saw something on Pinterest last night they thought was cool, “How to train a rabbit with a clicker.” They wanted us to build them a suite in their room too. Not! It was a cool but not in the small house we will be living in.

The goat seems to have settled in well too her coat is shiny and she is letting us pet her more. She was very skittish when she got here. I am making plans for a few stalls in the barn maybe this fall. I have been looking at others set ups for their goats and a playground will be one of those things I will put in the pasture for them.

We have a new escapee in the girls pig pen. Sox has made her way into the boy’s pen a few times now. She could well be pregnant also.  I hope not because she is the tiniest pig we have. The days have been so hot here the pigs stay in the mud holes most of the day. Temperatures have been near 100 degrees. Even the pool seems very warm these days. We all just do the best we can to keep cool and continue on though.