Category Archives: Farming

4th of July

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… and my corn, happily, beat the old saying by a long shot. They say you should shoot to have it knee high by the 4th of July. Well, mine is around chest-height in some spots, but all of it is over my waist. It is thriving in the hot weather, and now that we got a good soaking from a ‘gentle’ thunderstorm last night, I am sure it will shoot up even more.

The tomatoes are approaching 5 feet in height and vining profusely. Some are so heavy already that they are already close to knocking over their cages, so we will probably have to do like last year and make a framework for them to lay on.

Radishes are all ready, and lettuce is getting there. Herbs are getting ready as well. It won’t be long for zucchini, as they are in flower. It won’t be long for early tomatoes either. They are loading up with green fruits in huge clusters of 8. I can’t wait to see what they look like when they ripen.

The Wyandotte rooster has been named Sigurd. He has started to crow, but doesn’t know the whole song. He sings ‘Ca CAAA caa’ instead. :] So far, he gets along with Chanticleer for the most part, but he seems to be getting really out of control and rough with the girls so he may end up in a stewpot yet. I hope he improves – he is a pretty boy and would be great for producing more chicks.

It’s been overall dry and very hot here. Some things are loving it, like the peppers, but others (beets, carrots) are despising it and are struggling. Hopefully it all evens out in the end.

Some more young trees have sprouted from pits. There’s a plum and 3 more peach trees now! The big trees we put in have taken some bad deer damage but are still holding on. Hopefully they can establish and come back next year for some good growth.

Our fields have been fully cut. The biggest customers are satisfied, but we don’t have enough for the last ones, so we have had to find fields in other nearby locations to cut and bale. Good problems, I guess.

I project that I can start roadside sales in another 2 weeks if all continues as it is. Might be sooner, might be later, but I think that that is close to what should be expected.

Haying Season

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Haying season started last weekend here. We made over 500 bales of good hay and delivered it to our first customer. We have more cut down that should be ready to bale tomorrow and Saturday. That will finish the first customer and move on to a second.

From that second customer, we will probably be getting some Chinese Silkie chickens. I am hoping they will give us some hens, but if they are all roosters, then we will most likely just be adding to the freezer.

The chickens are growing nicely. They’re enjoying having some sweet hay to scratch in, and I let them out to free range for the first time just the other day. They enjoyed it, hopping around and testing their wings. Chanticleer started crowing a few weeks ago, and now he crows every morning, in the middle of the afternoon, and sometimes rarely at other times. He is a good guardian, too, sounding the alarm when a cat saunters by or a sparrow flies over, and herding the girls back to safety when he feels he needs to.

The garden is doing reasonably well. The potatoes look really nice, and some of the tomatoes are setting small fruits. I had some trouble getting the beans and peas to come up due to root rot fungi in the soil, but now there are plenty popped up from the replacements I put in. There are still some issues with the lettuce being spotty, which I am hoping that a little more water will solve. Radishes are going to be ready soon, and kale and turnips not too far behind that. Zucchini/squashes are getting some of their big true leaves, so they should start to grow very fast now. We also planted potatoes, broccoli, and a few onions in a ring around the base of the old silo, so we’ll see what those do!

Garden 2012

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The garden for the 2012 season is fully planted, and most things are coming up well. The primary weed appears to be nutsedge again, which we are fine with because this plant is very easy to pull. Some tomatoes already have blossoms. This is despite the fact that most of my tomatoes got many of their outer leaves frozen off after an unexpected frost on their first night in the ground. The only ones that were untouched were the ones I got from Mellow Phone/Good City‘s porch party.

I have so many extra seed potatoes that I also planted them in a ring around the silo, and I have been selling them on Craigslist as well. I sold 16-17 pounds of reds to someone from Frewsburg. I listed them at .50 per pound, but changed $7 and threw in some extra, because this arrangement benefits everyone. They get to grow food, and I get a few dollars and don’t need to dump the potatoes into the compost.

I had to throw in some new sunflower seeds due to an unfortunate tiller accident. Thankfully I still had some heads saved from last year’s crop. I now grow my own variety of sunflowers, ones that grew wild in the place my barn fell after the fire of 2010, so it’s not as if I could go to the store to buy new ones. The Stillwater Valley sunflower is a medium-sized, yellow flowered, stout variety with small, very tasty/sweet seeds.

It looks like we might have to replace some beans, because for some reason we often have a hard time with fungi rotting or damaging the seeds during the initial growth process. Last year we also had a problem with one of the varieties of root rot in the first few weeks. I am giving some additional time for things to sprout before I resort to replacement, though. There are very few squash and cucumbers showing above the surface at this time, but I dug down below the soil before yesterday’s rain and found the seeds swollen but almost dry. That would explain it. Hopefully they start popping up now that the ground has had a good drink.

The hot (high 80s to 90s) days with no appreciable rain for a few weeks takes its toll. It was seriously stressing some of the trees and fruit plants I put in, as well. The currants and gooseberries seemed oblivious, but a couple of the trees needed almost daily watering, having started to abort leaves, and a couple of the rasberries seem to have died despite the babying.

My seedling apricot trees are doing well, having been repotted to 3-gallon containers. I anticipate that they will be ready to go into the ground this fall. I also picked up 5 blueberry bushes that were already producing. I couldn’t resist – at $4 apiece, it was a bargain. They’re potted up, mulched with pine needles and soil acidifier, until I can pick and amend a suitable place in the ground for them.

The radishes will be ready first, followed by things like herbs, lettuce, and kale, and then turnips, beets, and zucchini. The rest follow that – beans, cucumbers, etc. I hope to start selling a few things by the end of June, and maple syrup will also be offered at that time.

We might get to start the haying earlier this year if the weather continues like this. We are having two haywagons rebuilt, and we may rebuild a third on our own. The equipment is home, and is being prepared for work. I’ve ordered a used exhaust manifold for our 1950s Case DC, and that should arrive soon.

The chickens are getting bigger all the time. They are almost completely done feathering out, except for the males – two of them are cockerels, and are just starting to get their ‘roostery’ feathers. Our big red chicken is one of them, and we’ve named him Chanticleer. The other is a silver-laced Wyandotte. As long as the two of them don’t fight much, we’ll keep them both, but if they start to go after each other, Chanticleer is the keeper. His temperament is exceptional.

Orchard Happenings

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I purchased and planted 10 gooseberry + currant plants from Mike’s Nursery in Lakewood, NY. There are 2 Pixwell, 2 Poorman, 2 Red Lake, 2 Crandall, and a cross called the Jostaberry. I also mail-ordered bareroot Hinnomaki Red and Tixia gooseberries and Pink Champagne and Blanka currants from Nourse Farms in Massachusetts. This was done after a recommendation from Abers Acres, and also to fill out the row better because it looks pretty short compared to the tree and cane fruit rows. The new ones are supposed to be here within the next day or two and will be planted immediately, weather permitting.

All raspberries and blackberries have been planted (25). 1 appears to have died, but will be left and given a chance to regrow if it is in the cards. If not, it will be replaced at a later date. Another previously thought to have died has recovered since the rain came. The rest all seem vigorous and are sending out new growth. The ‘Jewel’ black raspberries are doing especially well.

I have obtained 6 more grape vines in a mixture of Himrod, Canadice, and Concord. I still have 2 vigorous Red Caco from the last batch, and most of the frosted-off ones (Fredonia and Concord) are also regrowing buds. They are waiting in pots until the time of their planting.

Trees I have put in so far include:
1 Golden Delicious apple (brutally attacked by deer the same night)
2 Empire apples
1 Macintosh apple
1 Jonathan apple
2 North Star tart cherries
2 Lapins sweet cherries

I have 2 italian plums and a 5-in-1 grafted pear that are waiting to go in. I will be getting more in the future, and probably at least a few more this year, but this is a good start. They are fenced with 4-foot chicken wire or welded-wire garden fencing which seems to strongly deter deer, even though the tops of the trees stick out much higher than 4 feet in all cases except the North Stars.

I also have 4 baby apricot trees that are 1 year old, and a new plum just sprouted. These will go into the ground once I raise them for a few more years. If they grow anything like the 4 peach trees I grew from pits, the 1-year-olds will be ready to go into the ground in another year or maybe 2. I have many other pits in the dirt and am waiting to see if any sprout.

The chickens have a wire run now, and they love it. I am waiting until they are closer to being full-sized before I let them out in the lawn proper, but the run gives them a good, safe alternative for now. I did the first full cleaning of their coop a few days ago, adding to my compost pile.

Sunbathing

The garden is disced up and will soon be ready for planting, once finishing touches are put on it and the weather dries up for a few days.

Progress

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I’ve been selling a few jars of maple syrup here and there, waiting for the growing season to begin. I am looking at a mid-May planting date, like I usually do. I could put in some crops earlier, such as kale, peas, or onions, but it is easier for me to simply cultivate the land and plant it all in one go. The seeds are all purchased for the most part. I will just be purchasing some started plants for things like tomatoes and broccoli.

I picked up 16 more raspberry starts, 8 black and 8 red, at the Frewsburg spring consignment auction. This is added to the 5 raspberries and 4 blackberries we already have, so we should get a pretty good little bush of them established if they all survive and so forth. I also purchased 8 grape vines, but they were severely nipped by a hard freeze on a night it wasn’t expected, so they have yet to recover. I will have to just wait and see on those.

I plan to order some other small fruits like gooseberries and also some fruit trees to put in if everything permits. It may get partially put off to next year, but it will happen.

The chickens are still growing fast! They are around 6 weeks old now, and are getting fully feathered. These are pictures from a little over a week ago, so they’re even bigger and more feathered now.

Their coop has also seen big progress. They are outside in it now, and have been for around two weeks. We still have yet to put the wire run on the front of it, and the next boxes onto the back, but it is secure and liveable for them, which is the main thing. They won’t start laying for another 3-4 months, and we have a little time before the run becomes more necessary, but they are definitely way too big to be in the house anymore!

Chicks! (Part II)

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Those little buggers in the previous post look a lot different now, and they’re still growing… fast!

and they really love kale.

REALLY.

Which is fine with me, because it’s the one vegetable that was hardy enough to survive the entire winter with no protection whatsoever, and can be harvested fresh and given to them as a treat a few times a week. They go nuts – the little gal in the above photo will even run up to me now.

Chicks!

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Yesterday, we got our shipment of 15 day-old chicks.

I got them from Mt. Healthy Hatchery, which was recommended to me when I was pricing supplies. I would’ve gotten chicks locally, but I specifically wanted Wyandottes, and I have yet to find someone around here that has them to sell to me.

I put in for 5 Golden Laced Wyandottes, 5 Silver Laced Wyandottes, and 5 ‘Easter Eggers’, which are basically a mutt breed of chicken that lays colored eggs (pale blue or greenish, usually). Both breeds are good to very good layers and are also large enough for meat purposes if desired. They are also supposed to be very cold tolerant and have good/fun temperaments.

They are currently under a heat lamp in my makeshift brooder, and all seem to be vigorous, eating, drinking, and doing just fine. I’ve wiped off a few fluffy butts just to make sure they don’t get caked up, but other than that there are no issues. Fingers crossed.

End of Maple Syrup Season

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Today marks the end of maple sugaring season here, at least for us. It probably actually ended a few days ago, but this is the first day to take really good stock of things after some long nights at work.

The recent warm streak of weather has been spoiling my sap in the buckets before I have a chance to boil it down (spoiled sap is marked by a cloudy or thready appearance and a sour or off smell). It’s also greatly slowed the collection rate, both because the higher temperature means the trees don’t flow as well and also because bacteria plugs the pores in the hole that allow sap to come out. Bugs have also become extremely prevalent to the point of there being dozens in some buckets. I continued to leave the buckets up anyway, seeing if the weather would change, but it hasn’t.

I noticed that my silver maple’s sap had taken on an off flavor for a while now, so I pulled the tap from that tree about a week ago. The tap hole has already dried up, greyed, and no longer drips. I went out today to check on the other buckets, and not only was the sap spoiled again, but was in very little quantity. The trees were still stubbornly dripping periodically from a few of their taps, but I sampled the sap and it was of low sweetness. Other taps seemed dried up. I examined the branches of the trees, and the buds on some of them are swelling or even breaking. This means it’s time to stop. Buddy sap is not used for production because it produces serious off flavors in the syrup.

This is not a disappointment. Even though the season has ended earlier than is normal, I also started much earlier, so the length of overall time was virtually identical if not slightly longer than usual.

I pulled all the spiles, stacked the buckets, and will be washing them out this evening. Then, they’ll be put in storage for next year.

EDIT: Unfiltered maple syrup is now available for sale, pick up on farm only. It is not formally graded, but there is a range of colors from light to medium-dark. It is sealed in glass mason jars and I recommend refrigeration for best quality. $16/qt., $10/pt., or if you have a same-size, modern-style mason jar to exchange, take a dollar off.