This is a series I started 2 months ago to keep track of the progress on the farm. Every month, I will show our progress on the farm. let's get right into it!
Previous episodes
This Month On The Farm #1
This Month On The Farm #2
Clear Skies
I finally saw the end of the tunnel cutting the vines on the fig tree, new stems started shooting from the moment I liberated the fig tree from its organic shackles.
It took me almost 2 months to do all of them, and there are now 3 more trees with the same amount of work.
Unfortunately, it will be difficult to access it for now as they are completely overgrown with tall grass, and soon the Asian hornets will come hang around right before summer. It's something that I will probably continue after Autumn, sometimes you just have to pick your fights.
Feeding chicken
The Coexistence with the chicken became a routine very quickly, I am still the only one cleaning the coop, but everyone else is otherwise giving a hand with the feeding. The first mix we bought wasn't nutritious enough, but now is a mix of wheat, corns, and other cereals, they don't seem to have runny poop, and even leave some of their food sometimes.
I take them out of their defined area once in a while, so they can roam around our land and find food for themselves, the real challenge will be with the dogs coming on Friday, but this is a story for another time.
Processing Grass
We have a constant supply of grass, that I then pile up inside chicken area, and let it decompose, and make the chicken work in the process. I also have lots of worms that I added at this spot, I don't think I will call it a "Wormery" per say, but it takes one shovel hit, to discover a whole bunch of them. I also pour the chiken poop here, and veggies that aren't too rotten, as the chicken feed on them.
The Hills Have Eyes on My Carrots
Our neighbours kindly offered us to take some carrots on their land, and we accepted, from the moment we can repay them in a near future.
The flesh was becoming a little bit tough, and I try and as you can see, of a gargantuan size. We already ate half of it, and I will probably make a gratin for the rest of them.
Not the prettiest carrots, but they're doing the job
Plum(b) Trees
We have quite a substantial amount of plum trees, I pruned the trees a little bit too early last year, however I can already see that the trees have created a massive amount of foliage, and lots of fruits.
I am also excited because we have several types of plums (prunes, Mirabelle), and they all ripen at a different time, we can spread the harvest nicely.
Berries
I was really worried about the berry bushes, because we had so many days of frost, right after the flower bloomed, and it could have ended very badly. we lost some potential fruits, but I am quite amazed how well they recover.
I am still trying to figure out an irrigation system as they are quite far away from my water source, I am currently boosting the new strawberry plants with a nutrient mix, I might do the same thing the bushes.
Apple Trees and Pear Trees
They were quite late to flower, but I really feel that we are getting some amazing results after feeding them nutrients (Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphorus), Once again, we arrived late in the year (August) last year, but it still produced a good amount of fruits. This year will be particularly good even if the trees are quite young and pesticide free, meaning possible complications later on.
Modern Warfare
Honestly, my beans aren't going well. After the frost in February, they seem to have been completely stunted, and barely produced beans. Aphids have been overtaking the entire stems, and only few things can help get rid of it.
This land, hasn't been cultivated for at least 3 or 4 years, and there are tons of insects, tons of life, tons of ants.
As the ants bring aphids to the plant, I thought of way to deter the ants, and cinnamon is one of them.
These pictures were taken 2 weeks ago, and I still haven't managed to control the situation, I've also added cayenne pepper in the water and soap mix that I am using in the spray.
Neem oil is next on the list, I anyway knew that the beans were just an experiment, and I was ready for it to become just nitrogen matter, if it did not produce beans. I really sowed them too early and was too eager to start, lesson learned for next year 😁.
*Use the cinnamon when you know it won't be windy, or rainy*
*pew pew pew*
Roots & Transplants
I am really good at growing pot in pots as it was my specialty in South Africa, and throughout the years, I've learnt how to push a plant to its limit through finning, LST, pruning, toping, and all sort of techniques to get the plant to produce the biggest yield.
I've discovered that what's true for weed, is apparently true for anything else that you grow. As you can see here, the plant (cabbage or cale I think?) was root bound and developed an incredible network, this is the basis of growing strong plants.
The first batch is ready to go on the field
As explained in my previous episode, one of our neighbour is an older gentleman full of good advices, and suggested to use a wire, to make sure to keep a straight line. It will also allow us to go through with the tractor if needed. Once you have a straight line, you can take the wire off.
The way I've been explained this, is that we are apparently wasting water by watering this way, instead of using a dripping system. We indeed have grass growing where we watered, and it seems to clutter the rooting system for the onions and the beans. That's what I've been told by my neighbour, but somehow heard a complete different explanation from the permaculture community, which claims that you can totally grow and leave the grass, canope, everything.
I am experimenting a little, and leave the grass in some places, I really want to experience first hand the results, and see if it affected the harvest.
More sowing
The kids helped a little, but they get bored with it after a minute of starting sowing seeds. In the big rectangle above, I sowed spices, herbs, like tarragon, basil, parsley, dill, rosemary, oregano, etc...
I would like to have a designated area in the future, a raised bed near to the kitchen where we can have all the herbs growing altogether.
Then we had a soccer break...
Cheating
I was not fully satisfied with the sowing, so we got some extra seedlings to plant, mainly tomato and pepper plants.
I bought several different varieties of tomato plants, and I still want to add cherry tomatoes.
Getting prepared for Potatoes planting
We dug these big trenches, 3 of them, to plant potatoes. It's safe to say that it would have taken me forever to dig, so I am very thankful that our kind neighbour gave us a hand again with his tractor.
Instead of taking the entire day to dig up 3 trenches, the work was done in 30 minutes. As much as I don't want to admit it, I will eventually will have to invest in a tractor, if I want to have the best results. Time is money after all.
After digging, you lay some manure, that will greatly help with the rooting system. I would have personally used organic plant food in bottle, but if manure works, let's give it a try.
@thebigsweed the other day, was commenting that farm work is actually the best workout, and he is so right! There's no surprise farm people are the strongest, I can't imagine having to do that kind of manual work on a daily basis without having a meal right after!
First Eggs
After an entire month when we waited patiently, tending to them, feeding them and showing love, we eventually have one (full) egg. A day of two before this picture, a first egg came, but the shell was quite soft, which apparently means that they aren't getting the enough calcium. We then decided to boil some egg shells and add it to their diet, and it worked right away.
As you can see, the first egg was much smaller than the next one, I think they're getting the hang of it for now, and finding their best spot to lay. In the near future, we can either build better compartments for them to have a nice, cosy area, or we might just purchase one online, but taking the risk that it won't fit the door of the coop.
For now, I am the poop guy around the house, so my mission is to clean poop all day. Baby poop, medium size child poop, chicken poop, and every soon dog poop also. I am at peace with it 😁
I've set two beams on the concrete blocks for them to rest at night, as they need to be elevated. OF course as they aren't on the picture, it's quite hard to imagine.
Pepper planting
I was not planning on planting peppers, but I saw them at the shop and they were dirt cheap, so I jumped on it, and they will do great with my tomatoes. I don't think I've grown some before, maybe one year in South Africa, but I can't recall having a great harvest.
In the same row, I will add cucumber and tomatoes, and see what's up. I am also aware that we will probably be riddled with fungus; powdery mildew, more aphids, lot's of fun ahead ^^
Setting up the Fence (in the rain!!!)
No, this isn't the next FPS shooter with ultra HD graphics on PC, this is me holding a hammer and going at it, I have no idea what I am doing, or it's going to withstand time, these are the posts that got gifted few weeks ago by a local Vineyard, and I took advantage of that raining to drive some through the ground, as the soil is a little bit softer.
Right now, the goal is to fence up for the dogs, but we will do something more substantial in a near future. I am going to purchase the fence tomorrow on the 6th of May, one day before the dogs arrival!
Planting Strawberries
Right next to berries and blueberries, I've added now Strawberries plant, that will hopefully become bushes in few years time.
As you can notice, there is a slight burn (that we call "nute burn" in the ganja growing jargon) on the leaves, it's because I've slightly overdone it during feeding time. The other ones a looking healthy, I don't think we will have much this year, but we are planting for the future 😍
Sowing the potatoes.
At last, few days ago I've started laying these beautiful potatoes inside the trenches, Once again, I did not watch any tutorial online, so I am kind of freestyling, and we will see if it works.
I know that I am eventually supposed to raise the bed, once they started growing. Once again, I've never really grown that much potatoes all at once, and I am pretty sure that we will face many challenges, I am just enjoying the ride on that one.
I also forgot to mention that we have moles, and I've been suggested all kind of techniques, smoke bombs, carbon monoxide poisoning, and none of them is what I want, so I might just let it be for now.
A small amount of moles could actually be beneficiary to a garden, this is somewhat debatable (in the comment section).
Sowing more stuffs!!
Spraying the aphids again
Corn and peas
A while back, we agreed to plant some weird purple beans and corn together, they apparently can coexist on the same plot and the beans plant climbs on the corn stem, I am sure it's gonna look pretty cool also.
You can start to sow a little bit earlier than the suggested timeframe in pots, so I did this, I was surprised that it took so long to sprout, and with a mixed result for now.
Voilà, that's it for this episode, that was packed with fun activities, I had to take some out because it was just too long to read. If you have any suggestions on what to plant, I actually have 2 rows that are still undecided, so don't hesitate to let me know what you are currently growing, and it will be duly noted!
On Friday, the dogs are arriving, they just left in their first plane, we wish them a swift journey to us 😌
Originally posted here: https://hive.blog/hive-120078/@edprivat/this-month-on-the-farm-3
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