Pictures

As promised I am now adding pictures. Caitlin just got our camera so I am able to share some photos. First, here are a couple of pictures of the chicken housing:



And some of the chickens:

Seedlings

We Started some seeds already, actually about 2 weeks ago. I started some tomatoes that I am going to graft. I am using Maxifort as the root stock and am using buffalo as the fruit stock (typical choices). I am also going to experiment with grafting some Sunkist and Persimmon tomatoes as the fruit stock. In case you are wondering why do this at all, tomato grafting imparts the tomatoes with disease resistance and higher fruit yields. The Maxifort plants have wonderful disease resistance and produce about twice the yield of other tomato varieties, however they product terrible tasting tomatoes.


Maxiforts after 2.5 weeks


We also started celery, celeriac, and a few varieties of onions. The bulk of our planting will happen in about a month, at least everything we are going to transplant. In order to do that we need to build the green house, which is the next major project now that the chickens are settled.

It begins...again

Well, I am going to try and start writing regularly about this years farming. Caitlin and I are actually starting our own farm. It is going to be very small scale (maybe the equivalent of 5-10 CSA shares). We have big plans for the year, well plans anyway. The first order of business for us is to get a flock of hens. We decided to buy some 5 month old hens rather than raising chicks. This is because they will start laying soon (some already are), and because the expense of raising them from chicks makes it nearly the same start-up cost. We have spent a lot of money on start-up costs for the vegetable part of our farm and it made sense to have a product to start selling soon. If we had raised them from chicks, we would not have eggs until late-Aug, and the initial costs would have been similar. We are going to complete build housing for them next week, and then pick them up Sat. or Sun after next. We will be getting White and Barred Rocks, a Buff Orpington, some Welsummers, some New Hampshire Reds, and a few Wyandottes (I will add some pictures once we get them). I also started some seeds (tomatoes, celery, and celeriac) but I will write about that later.