Goings on 'round the Farm

“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it’s liberty and interests by the most lasting bands”

~Thomas Jefferson

Things are moving along at the farm. Today's big accomplishment for me was that I got 24 pumpkin seedlings in the ground that I planted in little seedling boxes a few weeks ago. Charlie's big accomplishment was mowing the lawn. I am hoping for a good crop of pumpkins because I'm going to need them for pies come fall. I have a few pumpkin pie lovers in this house that will not abide a Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie. The cool thing about our seeds for this is that they came from two pumpkins I grew last year in our garden. Those two pumpkins grew from seeds from the prior year's pumpkins which I purchased at Walmart. So that one purchase three years ago at Walmart has provided us with pumpkins in perpetuity. We planted some back in Phoenix as well so whoever might come to live in our house will be rewarded with fresh pumpkins come October if they care for the garden at all.



Our tomatoes are finally looking good and hearty. The few days of sun are doing them a world of good. I did finally get three lima bean seedlings, but I think we just planted them too deeply in the soil because we planted four rows and only three seedlings came up. So now I planted 6 in seedling boxes, if they come up, I'll put those out and see how they do. I have cucumber seedlings and lettuce seedlings which I'm working on now as well. I just have the tiniest sprouts but, as soon as they are a bit bigger, I'll harden them off and put them in the soil.

The peas and green beans (picture above) look good, and the corn is coming up nicely. I'm concerned that we planted it so late we may not get any actual corn until October!

Our weed control efforts continue to overwhelm us. You will notice in the picture above that we have straw mulch between the plants. Under that mulch is a layer of newspaper. I got this idea from the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. When Barbara Kingsolver went away for vacation, she laid newspaper down and covered the paper with straw to keep the weeds down. We are not on vacation, but we're doing it anyway. I don't know what kind of straw she used, but we are using used animal bedding so it is covered in chicken poo and pee, all of which will eventually break down into the soil. So the carbon is being provided by the newspaper and the nitrogen is being provided by the poo and pee on the bedding. I figure this is a complete meal for our plants.

Speaking of our flock, we are now getting 2-3 eggs a day from the big girls. As soon as the young chicks start laying those old bittys are going right on the dinner table!



Today's livestock headcount:

• 6 2-year old hens that are laying and cranky
• 4 4-month old hens that are not laying yet
• 1 6-month old rooster who is just old enough to get sweet with the ladies
• 6 baby chickens who are just big enough to now look like chickens
• 6 ducks of indeterminate gender
• 9 guinea hens of mixed gender and wow are they LOUD.

Livestock Wish list:

• A breeding pair of Mangalitsa or Tamworth hogs or another heritage breed of hog (my preference is the Tamworth)
• A bred Dexter or Jersey heifer (my preference is for the Dexter) or the same breeds but in milk
• A working farm dog that we can train to scare rabbits out of the garden and scare predators away from the bird flock.
• I would also like to get a Black Angus steer which we can fatten for slaughter.