Growing Season is Upon Us

It appears the growing season has come sooner than usual.  Don't be deceived!  There is still threat of frost.  It is so easy to jump the gun and start planting, but experience says "Wait!" 

So here I am anxiously waiting, but planting things that are safe to plant, foiling all my written plans, and rethinking how BEST to use the little space I have. 

I did purchase another Green Stalk to grow vertically.  These were all moved to the back deck during the last few days.  That was a lot of walking!  The stone colored one is the newer one because they don't sell the terra cotta color any longer.  This is the only one NOT planted in yet.  I plan to plant bush beans in this one.  The instructions say you can put three seeds in each pocket.  At that rate, I can have 90 plants in one tower that takes only 4 square feet of space.  

The second tower has the strawberries I planted in 2022.  They don't look good, but the plants are only just now waking up.  At this point, I am not sure I will buy more to fill the tower.  I may just fill it in with something else.  I also have some Yellow Wonder Alpine strawberries that can fill in the gaps.  

The third tower has the kale, chard, spinach, and baby bok choy.  These all came up already and yesterday I planted in the gaps that had seeds that didn't germinate.  

The fourth tower are lettuces.  Each tier has a different type of lettuce; three tiers have already sprouted.  

I also have plans to fill some large buckets with compost and plant some trailing plants at the base of the deck.  

The small white flower boxes are onions/chives.  I sowed the seeds heavily since most are older seeds.  

In the main garden area, the beets, radishes, broccoli, cabbages, and peas have already come up.  Again, yesterday I filled in the gaps where nothing came up.  Carrots were planted earlier this week and take some time to germinate, so we will keep waiting for those.  I still have five empty beds to fill when frost threat is gone.  

And just look at all those edible weeds!  I have so much chickweed, hen bit, purple dead nettle, and dandelion it is insane!  If it wasn't a garden, I would bring my goats in!

In the expanded area, I have two rows of mounded compost and the rings.  It is hard to figure out what to focus on for growing.  There are so many things I want to grow, yet I just don't have the space.  

Finally, I have a perennial garden which has some fig trees.  Unfortunately, I think the fig trees have mostly died.  If this is true, I will not buy more and replant.  The plan for this space is to sow seeds for medicinal and culinary flowers and herbs that can self sow each year.  I am going to use stones to line the walkways so plants don't get trampled.  Unfortunately, I am not sure the space is big enough for all I want to do!  

I did put up this little garden area that I plan to put a hummingbird feeder above.  I have a hummingbird haven seed mix that we will plant in this one. It isn't a perfect little garden, but I am sure with all the pretty flowers, it will be beautiful anyway.  

I want to move the sheep to the dry lot so I can broadcast sow some sorghum, sunflowers, and other fun plants for our use as well as the animals. I only had two sorghum plants germinate last year, but ended up with a cup of seed for this year.  I saved some sunflower seeds from last year and have plenty of others.  I would love, LOVE, to have a flower garden just to encourage pollinators.  Oh...the dreams!  

I guess we will wait and see. 

~Rachel

Growth and Expansion

The homestead is changing.  There are a lot of plans in the works, but the first it so expand our pasture spaces. 

This means thinning the trees, clearing shrubs, and opening up the back in order to implement my idea to put the cows in the back.  

So Al has been super busy cutting down trees, hauling away branches to the local dump site, and chipping other branches for our garden.  

Large trunks are being set aside for firewood, and he chips the branches into several piles all over the place.  These piles will be relocated when he is finished. 

This is the view from the creek toward the house and shop.  The wooded sheep area is to the right.  

This is the view to the left. The creek is behind me. 

One of the reasons I felt this was a good spot for the cows was because there is a barn.  Did you know we had an old barn?  Yep.  So far it has been used to store farm equipment and hay.  This barn is not a good option for small livestock and chickens, but it is perfect for cows.  We only need to remove the loose door to make it a run in.  When it rains, water flows around the barn, so we will make sure the pathways are clear for water to flow around and down to the creek.  

So the point to cutting all these trees is to open up the area so grass and forage will grow.  It is there, but just needs more space to grow.  With fewer trees, this will be possible.  We will attach the sheep fence to the buck pasture fence line, thus creating a series of paddocks and pastures that connect. 

As for growth...

We have gained several goat kids and lambs over the last few months.  

Maizie had two little bucklings: Cap'n Crunch and Frosted Mini Wheats

Then Amber had a little doe: Honey Bunches of Oats.

Mocha gave us one huge buckling: Crispix.

Kahlua kidded twin doelings, which are the sweetest and friendliest little things! Their names are Cocoa Pebbles and Corn Pops.

And just the other day, Jersey gave us triplets: two does and one buck, named Apple Jacks (gray doe), Trix (black doe), and Chex (black buck with white ears).

For our sheep, we have a total of 7 remaining lambs after loosing little Bing-Oh. Just this morning, Thyme gave birth to the last two lambs of the season: Backgammon and Parcheesi. 

Before that, we had Rosemary lamb with Anise and Bing-Oh.

Then Basil birthed twin ewe lambs, Angelica and Chicory.

Sage gave us a ram and ewe, Skip-bo and Lovage.

We have decided not to sell any lambs this year, but raise all the rams for me at (including the two remaining from last year that were stunted in growth). The ewes will be used for breeding more lambs, so we can make it profitable next year.  Our mistake last years was selling all of our lambs, leaving us with nothing for meat. 

Next up, our cow Lilly, which we have not seen bred, but can't really know.  I guess only time will tell on that one!