Spring Gardening Time!

We're so excited for spring to be in full spring. We had a nice thunderstorm last night with lots of rain, and with the temperatures being in the 60s, and even forecast to get into the 70s in the coming days, no doubt everything will start exploding with growth!

I didn't get my seeds started as early as I would have liked (no surprise there!), but I'm hoping I'll have enough time to get at least some of the spring crops before it gets too hot for them. 

I did some cleaning and rearranging in the greenhouse, which will also double as some a storage space for my housefire-salvaged "stuff". 

These lettuce and brassicas over-wintered in the hoophouse and will be 

transplanted into the main garden. 

First time growing onions! Hope they do well!

We'll have about 75 tomato plants this year! I plan on doing a LOT of canning!

Blackberries are coming in nicely!

Lots of seeds started for the summer garden!

The boys helped me with some new mulch for the rose garden. I want to keep it well managed this year- last year it pretty much grew wild and the weeds and grass were out of control!

Spring is Busting at the Seams

Hindsight being what it is, I now see that I could have easily put my garden in over a month ago. We've had such an amazing spring so far, and had a very mild winter. Yes, I definitely should have planted things weeks ago. But alas, caution kept me sticking to the "last freeze date", which we passed a few days ago.

Thankfully, I did start some things in the greenhouse, so at least I have a few

things to transplant into the garden.

I have 56 tomato plants ready to transplant into the garden!

A view of the outside of the greenhouse. Our chicken pen is in the foreground of the picture. The blue tarp you see is part of the rabbit operation, housing three bucks.  

Some delicious Black Seeded Simpson leaf lettuce.

I started a few cucumbers in the greenhouse, but will direct sow a lot more in the garden.

A Killdeer nest in the middle of our garden. I guess we won't be using that section for awhile! :)

We fenced off the garden area so that the horses can go back into the rest of the pasture.

This is the 8 year old's section of the garden. He's a good little gardener!

Here he is with the oldest boy, planting his seedlings.

Repurposed Roof for Horsebarn!

This was a major project that's been on the top of our priority list for a long time. The old shingle roof was so bad and even the underlying plywood, that the entire roof had to be ripped off.

"Before"

Measuring all of our used metal we got off the milkbarn (greenhouse) roof.

Removing the old roof.

It looked so different without a roof!

Handy Husband, goofing off. :)

Half way done!

The new fascia boards look great!

We had saved all the metal we'd taken off the old milkbarn (now the Greenhouse), and only had to buy a few extra pieces to have enough metal for the whole roof. It turned out great! It's such a relief to not have to worry about that anymore!

March Farm Update

Since I didn't post much (if at all?) in March, I thought I'd give a rundown of some of the farm activities. It was certainly a busy month, and it seems as if we had no spare time at all... which is understandable considering the season. So much to do in spring...

Chickens and quail alike have started laying really well.

We bought the first purebred chicks we've had in years:

Lavender Orpington and Black Copper Marans.

We did a major cleanup around the farm. And I mean MAJOR.

Started lots and lots of veggies from seeds in my wonderful greenhouse.

Tested our brand new incubator (more on that coming up in a future post).

Started preparing our garden plot. It'll be the biggest garden we've ever had- a quarter acre!

More eggs.

We planted some grape vines, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries.

Worked on replacing the horse barn roof (more on that in a future post).

Repainted one of the upstairs, kids' rooms.

Did I mention lots of eggs????

Snakes are coming out!



And last but not least, we are incubating more eggs. :)



Rabbits in Winter

This morning, the temperature outside was a crisp 14 degrees, but inside the greenhouse, where the rabbits are being kept, it was 27 degrees. Not too bad, really. I gave the buns some more hay, as I do every couple of days, and they love burrowing through it and finding tasty bits to nibble on.

New Animal Additions to the Farm

In an effort to revamp our farm's food production, we are acquiring several new rabbits and a Pygmy goat buckling. We'll pick up the young rabbits Saturday, and getting the buckling later today. 

We have the buckling's temporary home ready, where he'll stay for a while until we can slowly integrate him into the herd. 

The rabbits will be housed in the greenhouse over the winter, and I've been working on coming up with a good layout for their large pens. It's not finished yet, but I still have a couple of days before they get here. 

Greenhouse Roof Finished

We have had some nice, mild weather lately, so Handy Husband took the opportunity to finish the back portion of the greenhouse roof. 

Greenhouse Half-Done

Over the last few months handy husband has been remodeling the milk barn, turning it into my long-desired greenhouse. We replaced the tin roof with corrugated plastic, and cleared out the old fixtures inside. So far we only have the front half completed, and ready to use. We don't have any beds built yet, so will just do container gardening for now. I'm very excited about getting to use this little space and can't wait to see the growing potential!