Skip to main content

Homestead in Full Gear

All danger of frost has finally passed. We have been very busy around the Far Better Farmstead. We have a new goat - a French Alpine! She is about 3 months old and we hope she fits in with our Nigerian Dwarfs. Right now the "pecking" order is being re-established. She is a pretty thing and from good milking stock. Sadie is giving as much as a cup per milking and is doing very well.
Our New French Alpine Doe


The Buff Orpingtons are a big disappointment - they have yet to lay the first egg and they are about 8 months old. The roosters have matured well but the hens are very juvenile. We do have an older buff, some Black Australorps (my favorite) and we purchased 3 young Rhode Island Reds. We are getting enough eggs to eat and enough eggs to sell for feed so we are still doing very well. The electric poultry net is still doing very well after moving it a few times.
The 3 Rhode Island Reds aren't laying yet but the other 5 are paying their own way.

The potatoes are doing well. I have planted about 1/4 acre of field corn, 5 good rows of sweet corn (isolated), 3 rows of beans, 3 rows of turnips, 3 rows of beets, 3 rows of collards, and 2 rows of carrots. In addition, my tomatoes, peppers, and sunflowers all made it through the frost danger just fine. I also have 12 hills of cucumbers and melons and 2 hills of squash coming up. Now if I can just keep it all weeded......
Tomatoes and Peppers - 48 plants in all - Sunflowers in upper right - you can tell crooked rows don't bother us!


Potatoes are doing well, this was May 24 - they are starting to bloom now.
Corn isn't up yet, but should be soon

Our strawberries are starting to come in and they are delicious! I had some with fresh goat's milk the other day and they were fantastic.
Upper 2 beds of our Berry Patch - Raspberries on far right


And last but actually first, the children are out of school for the summer. It is always fun when they are home. The chores never get completed but in the scope of things the children are more important than chores anyway.

Maybe we will get some more pics soon!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

David Bradley Walk Behind Tractor and Engine Swap

"A scythe is great for your back but very hard on your patience" - Patrick at Far Better Farmstead      It all started when it rained 80 inches this summer. Yes, I said 80 inches! Needless to say, I didn't get to put up much hay with my scythe and rake. I did do one good cutting, but should have got 2 or 3 and even the one cutting didn't cover the whole field. As much as I like the scythe, I started wanting a quicker way to cut a small amount of hay.  My fantasy rig is my old 600 Ford tractor with a sickle bar, rake, and old square baler. I sold the 600 several years ago and have regretted it every since. My second fantasy was a BCS or Grillo walk behind tarctor. You can get a sickle for them and many other implements as well. Both options are out of reach of our budget right now, so that's why I call them fantasies rather than options! As I searched around the web, I found out that Sears used to sell a walk-behind tractor called the David Bradley. ...

Building a Whizbang Wheel Hoe

I am a fan of Herrick Kimball from  the Deliberate Agrarian . I have read every blog post at his web site, built a whizbang chicken plucker (see it  here ), and own most of his books. So imagine my joy on Christmas morning when I unwrapped a Whizbang Wheel Hoe kit from Herrick's  Planet Whizbang  web site.  The contents were just some metal pieces, bolts and washers:

Whizbang Wheel Hoe After a Full Garden Season

Is summer already gone? It is so hard to believe that September is half gone. Despite lots of hard rain, about 75 inches here, our gardens did very well. I have been planning a post on the gardens (and lots of other posts, too) but we have been very busy just enjoying life here on the homestead. Anyway, the one new tool we used this year that really stands out is the Whizbang Wheel Hoe. The picture above was taken after a full garden season of almost daily use. The handles darkened a little from our dirty hands and the blued finish on the blade wore off with use, but the hoe held up wonderfully. How did it perform? Superbly! If you "stir" the dirt with it every other day or so, there will be no weeds. There were times we didn't do that, even for a full week when we went on vacation, and our garden was the most weed free that we've ever had. We still had to use a regular hoe between the plants, but this thing is very quick and easy down the rows.  Herr...