Making up our minds......

Here it is the 9th of April and before you know it will be May! The greenhouse is coming along.....hope to get the plastic on next week......on a day that isn't windy!!! Geof is mumbling and looking in his book to see when we started tomatoes last year.


When we started growing produce in 2002 everything was started in the greenhouse BUT as you live and learn seed into soil is just as effective( for squash,pumpkins,etc) and there is less worrying about frost and they tend to catch up rather quickly.We lost 1200 squash transplants our first year growing due to a heavy frost apple blossom weekend and we'll never make that mistake again,of course you can get frost at anytime but we generally don't set out transplants until the last full moon in June,which is the 15th this year,so we may be able to get them in earlier.We do have crop cover for our beans and peas which we'll start putting in soon.......April 17th we had snow peas in the ground last year.
The strawberry plants are looking well,no winter kill but they will need some straw,4 round bails should do it.
As for our  fruit trees,Geof has pruned those and they are still looking like sticks in the ground.LOL We heard through the grapevine that C&O Nursery had a lot of winter kill and we won't be getting any new trees this year......waiting to hear from them on that.


No turkeys this year,still up in the air about meat birds.....the price of feed the past two years was crazy!!  WE SHALL WAIT AND SEE!
We have until the first week in July to order them.We like to keep our prices reasonable and in range for everyone.I have seen some outrageous prices by other growers and I don't know how they justify it.......so lets hope that feed doesn't go through the roof this year.I think I have four chickens left in the freezer..........how am I going to make them last!!


Today would have been a perfect day for Geof to plough but the truck has a broken spring and he has gone to get that fixed.I think ploughing and harrowing are two of his favourites.......gives him time to think.LOL

Last years peas and the beans under the crop cover.

This is in August.......as you can see the peas are out and this was our third or fourth crop of beans.

Green and Yellow beans

Snap Peas

Fruit Tree Planting

We placed another order for trees from C&O Nursery,101 of which 80 are peach,that will bring it up to 224 trees in total!Two new varieties of peaches,Redstar and Coralstar,the other 21 trees are plums and cherries.
Here is a video of last years planting.

A New Year

Not much going on here these days.This is our down time so to speak and I can honestly say I love every minute of it! This old body can't do what it did ten years ago! Don't get me wrong,I love farming but it's hard work and it consumes every minute of every day,seven days a week!

April will be here before we know it and the seeds will be rolling in. Geof wants to plant a few more peach trees and some cherry trees as well. The deer have left them alone for a bit now but they sure did do a number on the cherry trees over the summer,lets hope they'll continue to grow.

Some of the ladies that bought their pickling cucumbers here are still talking about them as well as the dill.We certainly had a beautiful crop of it this year. Geof didn't get to plough this fall due to all the rain....maybe that was a good thing,as I see my pasture area depleting! LOL We didn't get the straw on the strawberries either.....I see Morse's didn't get theirs covered as well at the Windermere corner.....it will be a spring job,I sure do hope the plants fair well over the winter,I can't go without strawberries another year.Looking forward to the new variety Valley Sunset:)

As for meat birds and turkeys.......a few months' ago it was a definite NO!! I will never eat another housed chicken,so having said that,we'll either cut back and just raise enough for ourselves ......say 40 or 50...............the 200 hundred in past were a challenge but doable. We shall see.
I do enjoy the hens,especially the ones I incubated.They seem to have their own personalities.....more personable,if that's possible.I really hate to part with them.We had 10 roosters here! LOL We are down to four now and I'm happy with that  number. I will have some banty eggs this spring to hatch,I'm looking forward to them as they are so darn cute!

We really need to get at that building this year.......that dream of a horse is still  there......I believe it will happen 2011.....stay tuned!

We babysat Geofrey on Monday and he loves collecting the eggs.

 Got one Grampy