New livestock and continued work in the garden

Photo: tall corn on the right, shorter corn to the left and pumpkins in the foreground.


I regularly read a few other blogs and recently The Crunchy Chicken had a link to this article from the New York Times on turkeys. The Bourbon Red Heritage Turkeys won the taste test for best tasting turkeys. This is fabulous news for us here at Cipolla's Gardens because it just so happens that we recently purchased 14 Bourbon Red Turkey chicks. I'm really excited to know that somewhere in the world...oh yea, in NYC, which is only about an hour away, people have been known to pay over $100 per 10+ lb. bird. Maybe we could make a living farming. Turkeys are delicate creatures. They are well known for high morbidity. We have been told to expect only half of the chicks to survive. Maybe we should order more. If you, dear reader, would like to pay me $100, I'll produce a turkey for you. It will be free range, fed on bugs and grass and a supplement of turkey feed. I cannot, however, guarantee Thanksgiving delivery. I have no earthly idea how long it will take these tiny chicks to get to 10+ lbs. As I've said before everything here is a learning experience which is what makes this place so fun.

There is a lot going on in the garden right now. The pea pods are just starting; the green beans are getting ready to be picked. We have tiny green tomatoes, and if we were one bit conscientious we would do a better job of staking the tomatoes; they are growing despite our neglect. We planted a few more seedlings (I know, I know, why even bother planting them this late? But they were started and ready to go in the ground, so in they went, if we yield nothing so be it. If we have and Indian Summer, we'll be the luckiest farmers on the planet.) The pumpkin patch is doing great! I'm thrilled with the condition of the pumpkins. They have huge hearty leaves and every plant has multiple flowers. The corn, having suffered late planting and various levels of neglect is a beautiful case study in what happens when you fail to weed the garden properly. Notice in the photos that the tallest corn has a nice layer of newspaper and hay below it. No weeds ever got a chance to take hold there and nice strong stalk grew up. Move over a few feet were the farmers ran out of energy, and you see shorter corn that was papered and hay-mulched later. Lastly see the sad little seedling looking things, this is where we still have not papered and mulched. We figure that the upside of this situation is that now we will not have all the corn maturing at once.

Livestock headcount

1 cow
13 Turkey chicks
27 Chickens in various stages of maturity
6 ducks
7 guinea hens
1 puppy
2 cats

Wish list

We have a Hereford heifer that is set to be delivered sometime this month, perhaps next week. We are getting her from the same person who sold us Josie. Herefords are a meat breed, so we are going to make every effort not to get attached to her. Josie, however, will probably be another story. She will probably very much enjoy having another young girl to hang out with and chew her cud with. Our plan is to breed this cow one time let her raise the calf then, eek! send her to the meat packer.

Charlie would still like some Tamworth hogs. As of now, these are not on the agenda, once we get a hog the farm will be pretty much complete. We made the decision earlier not to get goats or sheep.

What we're eating:

Lots of peaches, plums, corn and a few early tomatoes. I bought some haricot verts at the farmers market last week that we have not eaten yet, and the green beans in the garden are almost ready for harvesting. We have harvested several pounds of blackberries but we are on a small canning hiatus right now, it just makes the kitchen so hot to do all of that boiling.