Late Spring Snow

It's been a busy two weeks.  We had to re-do the row cover after one of our cats destroyed it.  We got rid of the cat.  He had also been spying on the laying hen chicks.

We had to move the laying hen chicks into a safer pen/location after an animal got into that pasture pen and killed 4 of them.  We haven't had any problems since, so we're hoping up in the yard is still a safe place for the chickens.  We now have the little laying hens in a movable chicken tractor that we use for the broilers.  We are moving them in a very poor spot in the lawn hoping that they will improve the soil and health of the lawn.

Since we had to use one of the broiler pens, we are in the process of building a new one to house all of the broiler chicks that will be moving outside this weekend.

We moved most of the vegetable plants out to the shop, to start the hardening off process.  We hope to start planting them this week or weekend (whenever it's not windy).

We planted some of the vines (slicing and pickling cucumbers and zucchini) in our little dining room greenhouse.  We're hoping they will give us an earlier harvest than those planted by seed in the garden, extending the season for those veggies.

The rhubarb is growing like crazy.  The strawberries are looking good.  It looks like most of the raspberry canes had winter kill.  Raspberries produce on the second year growth, so we'll have to wait another year again for a good harvest.  (Last year a bad June hail storm damaged most of the berries.)  The roots are sending up lots of new shoots, so hopefully they will produce well next year.

We had a cold rainy weekend with a little snow on Saturday morning.  Up until then we had been disappointed that we didn't have much planted.  Now we are very happy that we waited to plant until after the snow.  The snow and cold didn't hurt the lettuce that is planted under the row cover.  The row cover did it's job protecting the little seedlings.

Saturday's snow

John had to go out to see the snow even though he was still in his pajamas.:)

Planting Has Begun

We started to plant this weekend.  We planted some lettuce and spinach and covered it with the new row cover.  We're hoping it will protect these early seedlings.

Digging the trench to hold down the cover for the row covers

Lettuce planted in two rows, trench dug...Ready to cover.

Row cover over lettuce and spinach

We tilled the potato garden and plan to plant Red Potatoes and Heirloom potatoes tonight when Josh gets home from work.

Josh tilling the potato garden

This weekend we were busy with chickens.  We got our first batch of broiler chicks and we moved our laying pullets to their outside summer pen.
We keep the broilers inside for 3-4 weeks until they are big enough to move to their outdoor movable pens.  They grow fast and are ready to butcher in 8 weeks.  When they are outside they have the opportunity to graze on grass and clover and eat bugs.  They are moved to a new, fresh plot of grass everyday, so they stay clean and healthy.
The laying pullets (females that haven't started to lay eggs) are 4 weeks old.  They will stay in this pasture pen for the summer.  They should start laying eggs when they are 5-6 months old.  These pullets will replace our older hens this fall.  We will then move them into the chicken coop for the winter, where they have an outdoor pen that they can go outside throughout the fall and winter during nice weather.  This past winter was wonderful for letting the chickens outside.  They do so much better when they can get out in the sun and scratch around in the dirt.  In past winters we've had so much snow that for most of the wither the small pen door was drifted over.

This is our chicken house where we brood the baby broiler chicks.  There are heat lamps inside the wooden boxes (brooders).  The brooders are raised just enough for the chicks to run in and out of the heat as needed.

Chicks drinking water.

Baby chicks finding the feed.

Johnny entertaining the chicks..."Are you my Mother?"

Pasture pen for laying pullets.

Laying pullets in their new house.

Our dining room greenhouse is still doing well.  Most of the plants are big enough to be transplanted outside.  Now we just need it to warm up a little to start hardening them off.

Cauliflower

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!  We spent a wonderful weekend at Christine's parents farm.  They raise small grains and cattle near LaMoure, ND.  We hope you had a blessed Easter with time to spent with family and friends.
We staked out the rows in the gardens last week.  Josh plans to just till wear the rows will be.  This will save moisture in the soil and money in our pockets with the price of gas.
We planted the tomato seeds in our little dining room greenhouse last week as well.  They are already popping up and are starting to get their first true leaf.  That was the last seeds to start inside, except for the cucumbers.  We have always direct sewed cucumber seeds outside, but both of our parents started them inside last year with great results.  We plan to start some inside and transplant and direct sew the rest outside.  We'll see which ones produce first.

Cabbage

Tiny Tomatoes

Peppers

Our first batch of broiler chicks are coming on Friday.  We're looking forward to starting to raise them again.  I read a funny but true quote the other day from polyfacefarms.com... "We’re excited to see the last broiler go into the freezer in the fall because we’re rich and tired. We’re just as excited to see the new chicks arrive in the spring because we’re rested and poor."  I had to laugh out loud, because it is so true for us too, even though we raise just a tiny fraction of the chickens that this farm does.

Weekend Help

Josh's parents and some of his siblings came to spend the weekend at our farm.  They sell CSA shares in Milaca, MN and have a lot of experience vegetable farming.  It was nice to have the extra hands to help out on a few projects and the extra advice.  Many hands definitely make light work!

We pulled the straw mulch off of the strawberry rows.  We can already see some of the green leaves of the plants popping up.

50ft x 100ft strawberry plot planted last spring.  This will be the first year of harvest.

Growing Strawberry Plant

We tilled and cleaned some sod pieces out of the rows where we plan to plant sweet corn this summer.  We plan to plant raspberries there next spring, but for now it just gives us extra room to plant veggies.

Tilled rows that will be planted to sweet corn this year.

We put up some posts that will become the summer laying hen home.  We are putting these chickens out in the pasture here, so they can do our tilling for us.  We hope to plant a plot of asparagus there next spring.

Posts placed for future summer chicken pen.

Here is our "paddock".  When we moved in there was a wooden paddock fence surrounding this area where previous owners must have had livestock.  This is our most fertile garden.  The laying hens are in the background and the rhubarb row is in the foreground (covered in the row of straw mulch).  We have spent the warm weekends tearing down the old fence this spring.  We're hoping that if we keep the area around this garden cleaned up and mowed, we'll have less of a weed problem.

Paddock

Josh and his dad, Roger, bent some metal pipes that we plan to use as frames for row covers.  These new row covers will allow us to plant earlier and protect them from insect problems.  They brought the first pipe to the house garden to see what it would look like and envision the row covers over lettuce rows.  We will plant lettuce, spinach, and radishes in the house garden.  There are herbs planted (under the straw) in the background and strawberries (under the straw) in the foreground.

Roger and Josh in house garden.

Bent pipe frame for row cover.

The chives are growing well.  Soon they will be tall enough to start harvesting.  They continue to grow throughout the spring and early summer and can be harvested numerous times.

Chives

Here is the row of rhubarb.  We uncovered the plants this weekend and found that they are just starting to peak out of the soil.

Rhubarb Row

Rhubarb leaves poking out of the ground.

The plants in our little dining room greenhouse are all growing well.  We plan to start the tomato seeds this week.

This is our pasture garden.  It is 50ft x 190ft.  Our 1-year-old daughter, Lu-Lu, is in the wagon for a size comparison.

Pasture Garden

This is the straw that we will use for mulching the gardens this spring.  We mulch between the rows soon after the plants start to come up.  The mulch keeps the weeds out and the moisture in the soil.

Straw