What we learned our first year on the farm

Weather rules your life here. So many things depend on the weather its frustrating when the weather does not do what you want, when you want it! October was very rainy and cold. The late harvest of tomatoes did not work; they just never ripened due to the cold.

The best laid plans can result in nothing. For example my idea of growing my own chicken feed did not work too well. Some of the plants I did grow did not grow well and the ones that did were next to impossible to harvest and use.

My sunflowers turned out good but im’ not sure if I like feeding that to my chickens with the shells on. I'm going to try again next year, but I think I need to go back to do more research. Anybody can plant a seed and make it grow, it's harvesting, drying and storing that is the hard part. I hung a bunch of sunflowers in the work shed to dry and the mice got to them and ate most of it, so the chickens didn’t get most of them.

Our carrots from the garden were great!! I wish we had grown 16 times more of them. So next year we are planting a whole bed of them at different intervals so that we can harvest them through out the year and still have plenty to freeze and use in the winter.

Our compost pile is now doing well. It's 5 ft by 6 ft with some fencing around it. We are sifting thru the bedding in the chicken coop for manure every 5 weeks to keep it active. Chicken poop is one of the best manures you can use, but you can’t put it on the plants directly or it will burn. So using it in the compost is the perfect solution. It is high in nitrates that plants love.

We harvested our last bunch of chickens for meat with a grand total of 11. That was very rewarding, but I’m glad to get it over with. It was getting cold and they were eating a lot of money oh I mean feed every day (little piggies). So it quickly gets to a point where keeping then any longer is just costing money and they aren’t growing any bigger. SO… off with their heads. Next year the plan is to get 24 (enough for the year) all at once and butcher them before it gets cold.

Our canning supply is holding out well. We gave some away for Christmas, but barely put a dent in it. Kris is tired of pear/apple sauce, but I still love it. I have got a good supply of jars already saved and will be keeping a eye out at the thrift stores all winter. I mostly want blue Ball jars. I just love them..

My lovely wife is looking forward to a better tomato harvest and sugar snap peas. We think (hope) that there will be fewer weeds in the garden. And we hope to be more prepared for the apples and pears that we were overwhelmed with this fall I’m sure she will have many wonderful ideas on pies, jams, ect…