Oops, wrong day!

Nikki and I were pretty certain today was the day we were going to get our birds, so we got everything organized last night and I set the alarm so I would be up and dressed when the post office called.

Turns out we were wrong. Today was the shipping date, so we should get them tomorrow. Oops!

In other news, I am beginning to wonder if weathermen are intentionally messing with me. I think they must be, otherwise why was I standing in the garden this morning watering in the middle of a rain shower?

First salad of 2007

Tonight we're having the first salad from the garden this year. I picked a double handful of various lettuces, chard, radishes, and a couple of green onions. I can't wait. We'll also have a side dish of asparagus from the yard. I'll have to look back at the archives and see what the date was for last year's first salad.

I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when I finally spotted some potato vines beginning to appear. I was starting to think they were all duds. So far only the red potatoes are up, I hope the others follow soon.
I got the second plantings of carrots, sweet corn, radishes, beets, chard, salad greens, and peas in yesterday. I also planted cucumbers and green beans.

Saturday we spent with family at my niece's first birthday party. It was nice to see a lot of family we hadn't seen in a while, we had a great time and my niece is, of course, the cutest one year old on earth.

Dodged a bullet!

Looks like we dodged a bullet last night. The weathermen on TV were doom-and-glooming about a frost advisory for the entire state, I wasn't too concerned as it was 60°F at 6pm, but I covered everything delicate before going to bed, just to be safe. Turns out it wasn't needed, I don't think it dropped below 40°. That ought to be the last time I have to worry about it at all, I hope!

The garden looks great, I can't believe how far I am ahead of last year. I already have the first planting of corn sprouting and have squash plants at 5-6". Sunday I'll be planting cukes, beans, and new blocks of radishes, beets, carrots, and chard. I tried transplanting some of our wild asparagus to a spot where maybe it will grow a little bit better than it does by the pine trees. All we get there is stalks thinner than a pencil.

The birds arrive next week, have to remember to call the post office on Monday and warn them that they'll be getting a noisy package for us,

A new trough

The big rubber bowl we were using to feed the pigs just wasn't cutting it. They were getting too big and were fighting with each other too much. I decided a new trough was in order, where they could eat peacefully. Here it is on it's trial run. They are still a little too short to just stand next to it, so I may remove the top board on the near side. That way they won't have to climb in to eat from it. Anyway, it seems to work, and I built it with scrap lumber I had around, so it didn't cost me anything.

The garden is still doing well, my luck seems to be holding with the weather. Still no frosts in the forecast, but it may dip into the upper 30's on Thursday night. I think I'm safe.

Happy Mothers' Day to all you moms out there, have a great day!

Garden List 2007

I think I have everything that's in the garden on the list , but I'm not 100% sure. If I missed anything I'll add it in later.

Acorn squash
Banana pepper
Beets
Black Krim tomatoes
Bloody Butcher tomatoes
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Butter & Cream Sweet Corn
Buttercup squash
Butternut squash
Cabbage
Cantaloupe
Carrots
Cauliflower
Cayenne pepper
Celebrity tomatoes
Checkered Sweet Corn
Cherry tomatoes
Chioggia beets
Cucumbers
Fingerling potatoes
Green beans
Green Bell pepper
Habanero pepper
Holy Mole' pepper
Iceberg lettuce
Jubilee tomatoes
Kohlrabi
Leaf lettuce
Leeks
Mesclun salad greens
Mr. Stripey tomatoes
Old German Orange tomatoes
Peas
Pumpkin
Purple Bell pepper
Radicchio
Radishes
Red Bell Pepper
Red cabbage
Red onion
Red potatoes
Rhubarb
Roma tomato
Russet potatoes
Snap peas
Summer squash
Sweet Potatoes
Swiss Chard
White onion
Wisconsin 55 tomatoes
Yellow beets
Yellow Bell pepper
Yellow Onion
Yellow Pear tomatoes
Yukon gold potatoes
Zucchini

Taking a chance

April 30th is our traditional date of last frost for our area, but last year we had a heavy frost on May 12th.

I've looked at the extended forecast and it doesn't look like we have any future danger of frost, so yesterday I took a chance. I put nearly all of the tomato and pepper transplants in the ground, and planted pumpkins, squash, zucchini, and 2 rows of sweet corn. Now I have to keep my fingers crossed until about Memorial Day.

Not much else is new, the pigs are getting bigger, they are getting used to us now and will walk right up to us at feeding time. Soon they will start getting demanding. The ducklings, chicks, and poults will be arriving May 23rd.

Planting by the signs

I finally got my order of potatoes and onions yesterday.

I had decided that I would follow folk wisdom and plant my belowground crops in the dark of the moon, and sure enough I get my potatoes the day before a full moon. So the potatoes went onto trays and into the fridge out in the barn, awaiting more propitious circumstances. The onions we planted after supper, they were looking a little wilted and I didn't want to risk damaging or losing them.

Those of you that know me, know that I consider the scientific method the greatest achievement of man. And that I consider astrology to be beneath contempt. So why am I following dated, semi-astrological beliefs about planting belowground crops in the dark of the moon? I guess it's because I am not so foolish as to believe that there there may not be a reason that we just have not discovered yet. It seems to me that people that depended on the vegetables they planted for survival were probably more in touch with the ground that they worked and the plants they tended than we are today. If planting by the signs was good enough for them, I am not going to immediately discount it.

Since I do trust the scientific method, I am going to plant just a few of the seed potatoes today, on the day of a full moon. It may turn out to be an interesting experiment. Stay tuned!

More planting...

We had another beautiful weekend, weather wise and I took advantage of it by putting all of the cole plants into the garden yesterday. I put in cabbage, red cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and leeks.

I tilled up an area adjacent to the garden, about 16' x 20' for Nikki yesterday and she is planning a big flower garden, she got some of it planted yesterday, other seeds need to wait until there is no danger of frost.

The Great Tomato Experiment is a 50% success. The two plants in the garden are thriving inside their Wall O' Waters and have turned from sickly yellow to the deep dark green that a tomato plant should be. They are 12-15" tall and once they grow just a little bit more I am going to let them blossom, with the goal of eating a ripe garden tomato in June. The cuttings haven't shown much vigor, but I haven't completely given up on them.

The pigs are growing by leaps, and they are always hungry. I am going to have to build a new trough for them because the giant rubber bowl I've been using is getting to be too small for all four to eat at once without fighting.

Still havent gotten seed my potatoes and I am starting to get anxious. I wanted potatoes in the ground 2 weeks ago. I will have to start being a squeaky wheel, I guess.

Optimism

Someone once said that a gardener is an eternal optimist, and I think that's true. I stopped at Home Depot the other day to buy a garden hose and saw that they had 12" tall potted tomato plants for sale already. Now THAT is optimism!

But since they were cheap, and I found a pot that had two plants in it which made it even cheaper, I decided to take a chance. I bought Mr. Stripey tomato plants, an heirloom variety that is very popular in New England.
On Friday I set up a couple of Wall o' Waters in one of the beds to get the soil warmed up. Saturday I cut off all of the branches on the first 3/4 of the plants and planted them in starting medium, trying to get even more plants out of my purchase. Today I planted the original plants inside the Wall O' Waters, with most of the stem underground to develop into roots.

I have no idea if any of the cuttings or the mother plants will survive, but if they do I should have tomatoes at least 2 weeks earlier than I had anticipated. I am optimistic!

4 rods of strawberries

Because I am a dork, I get a kick out of using archaic language. I recently learned that a 'rod' is 16 1/2 feet, which is pretty close to the length of my garden beds (additionally they are a fathom wide, although that term is usually reserved for water depth). So Nikki and I planted 4 rods of strawberries yesterday, about 70 plants.

We planted a mix of Junebearing and everbearing strawberries, I'm not sure if we will see any berries from the Junebearing plants this year, but I hope there are some from the everbearers.

I am really hoping I get my potatoes and onions soon, it's time to get them in the ground. The seed company is supposed to send them at the proper time for planting, I might give them a call and see when they are planning on getting them to me.

More critters on the way!

We have completed our order for birds this year. It turns out McMurray Hatchery wasn't going to be able to help us out this year because our order was too small for their minimums.

Luckily the folks at Ideal Hatchery were able to work with us and we got exactly what we wanted. Our chicks should arrive sometime around May 21st.

Last year we raised a mixed flock of heritage-breed turkeys, this year we are raising all one breed. They are called Narragansett turkeys and are an official heritage breed. Here's the official description :

"The Narragansett turkey is named for Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, where the variety was developed. It descends from a cross between native Eastern Wild turkeys and the domestic turkeys (probably Norfolk Blacks) brought to America by English and European colonists beginning in the 1600’s. he Narragansett variety is similar in color to the Bronze breed, though it is lighter in color and in build. Narragansett turkeys are gray or dull black with a white bar on the wing feathers. The beak is horn colored, and the head is red to bluish white. "

We are also raising "meat" chickens, as opposed to "egg" chickens. Nikki chose to raise Black Broilers because they grow fast, but not as fast as some of the meat birds that grow so fast that they can't walk.

And finally, which will be a huge surprise to you faithful readers who remember my experience last year, we ordered ducks. However, we only ordered four of them. I was able to deal with having three ducks for a few months last year, so I think I can handle four. It was just that when we had nine of them it was too much. We ordered Blue Swedish Ducks, which look very pretty in the pictures, and they should look nice wandering the yard.

Now I am off to get planting in the garden. Cheers!

New Arrivals

Saturday brought two deliveries to the farm.

The first was our four new pigs from Jack and Lori Krell, owners of Organic Jack's in Hartford. The pigs are posing in the picture above.

The pigs look great and they were definitely ready to be put on pasture. They have done nothing but root in the dirt and sleep since they got here. They even (mostly) ignore the trough of feed left out for them, preferring to dig in the dirt.

The second delivery was 9 cubic yards of composted manure.

I finished digging out the walkways between the garden beds on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, then moved the compost up the hill to the garden using a dump cart and my John Deere. I could be very happy if I don't see a shovel anytime in the next 2 months or so. All of that work was worth it, though. The soil in the beds looks and smells great. Rich, black and stinky, I hope our plants will thrive in it.

I was worried about being behind last year's garden pace, but there was nothing I could do about the weather. Saturday and Sunday were both beautiful sunny days with temperatures in the 50s, good shoveling weather! With a few days of hard work I am nearly caught up. I got all the compost rototilled and mixed with the dirt today when I got home from work and I should be ready to plant seeds tomorrow, only 2 days behind last year's planting date!

What the heck?

I guess I won't be getting the garden in on Sunday after all, since we got about 7" of fresh snow yesterday! The snow should be gone by then, but I think it will still be way too wet to do anything.

Yesterday was no fun. The roads were terrible and I had to lay in the snow and put the plow back on the farm truck. My break-away mailbox design worked really well when (as usual) the snow plow hit it, but I was hoping to not have to replace the shearpin until next year. Oh well, I guess that is spring in Wisconsin.

Last Saturday was a great time, we had a a bunch of family and friends over for an early Easter feast. We cooked the whole ham we had prepared from our big pig last year, it weighed nineteen pounds and took five and a half hours to cook! I checked the cooking chart in one of my cookbooks and it only had hams up to fourteen pounds, so ours was literally "off the charts".

And now, drum roll please, the results of the voting for the pigs' names for 2007. The winner is..... Jackie, with the names Hickory, Maple, Apple, and Smoke. Second place went to Eenie, Meanie, Miney, Moe. For all of you complainers, Nikki did NOT win, she merely posted her sister's entry. A big "thank you" to all that participated!

We'll get the pigs on Saturday, we should have pictures up by Sunday. Cheers!

New logo

You can see we've got a new logo over there to the right. Ardwyn Farm is officially Certified Naturally Grown now, so we can use the symbol here on the blog.

There is not much new to report, the weather has turned cold again briefly, but it can't last forever. All of the coops, pens, enclosures, etc., have been cleaned , repaired, and prepared for their new tenants. Not long now before the pigs arrive and we'll get the turkeys a little earlier this year in order to give them some more time to grow.

Depending on weather and if the ground ever gets a chance to dry out, I'm hoping to put a lot of seeds in the garden on April 15th. That's the same day I started most things last year and it worked out just fine.

Getting things together

I got all of the garden bed boxes finished on Saturday, and got started on shovelling the topsoil from the walkways into the beds. I couldn't believe the number of nightcrawlers and earthworms in that soil, every spadeful had about 10-20 worms in it. That's a good sign, I think. I'll take some pictures of the setup this week and get them posted here.

We went to the Krell farm yesterday to pick out our pigs for this year. We found four gilts with black-spotted rumps that look pretty good. Jack will be delivering them on April 14th, so we'll have a bit of a headstart on last year. I think we should have a contest to name them this year, the winner gets 2 pounds of bacon in October. All ideas are welcome.

All of the seedlings indoors are in good shape, the peppers are just now sprouting. My tomatoes are about 90% sprouted, as is the cabbage.

Starting the garden 2007

In the past week I've got my mini-greenhouses started. We now have seeds from 7 varieties of tomato and 5 of hot peppers started, as well as cabbage and broccoli. I might be starting a little bit early, but I think I'll be okay.

I don't think I need to start anything else inside, most of the other seeds will be sown in the garden just about a month from now. I hope to have all of the raised beds finished this weekend and then I'll start working in the compost.

Not much else happening. We have decided to have four pigs this year after all. I need to get to the feed mill and see when the owner is going to start ordering birds, I'd like to get the turkeys about 2 weeks sooner than we did last year. I also need to ask how much more feed prices are looking to be this year, corn prices are sky high with so much of it being used to make ethanol.

The latest..

It looks like we'll be getting some above-freezing temperatures soon. That will be a welcome change, I'm getting a bit tired of winter.

I have been reviewing my gardening calendar and prepering to start some seeds indoors. I have a little better plan this year, I think, and should see an increase in the viability of my seedlings. Speaking of the garden, it looks like we have probably sold all of our CSA shares, now I just need to make sure we have plenty of veggies for our customers! I am not too concerned though, as I feel I was very conservative in estimating the number of customers we could support.

The number of pigs we will be purchasing seems to be up in the air again, as Nikki and I were comparing notes the other day and it looks like we already have 3.5 pigs spoken for in the fall! So we will have to sit down and talk about exactly what we want to do. We raised 2 hogs pretty easily, but unless my math is off, 4 pigs would be twice the work.

I had a phone conversation with a representative of Naturally Grown, and after a short interview, they agreed to proceed with our certification. We'll have an inspection sometime and then things should be complete. I'll add a link to them soon.

2007 seed orders are in!

I placed our order with Jung Seeds on Monday. Looks like we will have plenty of potatoes and onions this year, we'll be getting 225 onion sets and 4 different kinds of potatoes. I also ordered buttercup squash, 2 kinds of sweet potatoes, snap peas, swiss chard, and a mix of lettuces. All of the other seeds will come from leftovers from last year's order and saved seeds. I can't wait to get back out there in the dirt, it will be a while though.

More bad weather on the way, we got about 20" of snow last weekend and they are forecasting 2-4" of slush for tonight, which sounds dreadful. 4" of slush? Yuck!

Not much else happening. Have to start making calls about getting some feeder pigs and getting some horse manure and topsoil delivered for the garden beds soon.

Shoulda checked the forecast..

I guess I shouldn't have said anything about the weather, because we are currently under a blizzard warning. Nikki is up north for the weekend, involved in a program called Becoming an Outdoorswoman. They are going to teach her how to tie flies, ice fish, shoot a bow and other outdoorsy stuff, I hope the weather isn't too terrible up there and that she can make it home safely. I have already plowed the driveway twice, just trying to keep up with the drifting, and we are supposed to get another 12-20 inches of snow tonight and into tomorrow.

In other news, I have completed the application for our farm to become Certified Naturally Grown. It's along the same lines as being Certified Organic, with the same requirements for decent treatment of animals and no use of drugs or hormones, it just has somewhat less stringent rules on feed. It will be nice to get the certification, I don't know exactly what use it will be other than to reassure our customers.

Some editing of the previous post, we are now thinking of maybe only raising 3 hogs this year and seeing how much more work it is than 2 were. Also, I forgot to mention that I think we are going to raise a few pheasants this year as well.

Hope everyone is keeping safe and warm, Cheers!

Winter survival

Well it looks like we have made it through (hopefully) the worst of the winter. We had about 25 days in a row of sub-freezing and sub-zero temperatures, but things have warmed nicely the last week or so. The warmer weather, along with a second surge of gardening catalogs, have me thinking spring but that is still a good stretch away.

We are starting to put together our garden and livestock plans for 2007. Right now the plan is to get 4 pigs, 10-12 turkeys, and half a dozen or so meat chickens. If the chickens are worth it we may raise them all summer, we shall see.

The garden will, in theory, provide at least twice as much produce as last year and we'll be experimenting with some new varieties and some different companion plantings. Some of the new vegetables this year will be red potatoes, sweet potatoes, swiss chard, a strange Peruvian hot pepper, and some new herbs. We will most likely not plant soybeans again this year,except as a cover crop.

Now that spring is approaching, you can look for more timely updates to the blog. Thanks to all of our faithful readers!