So much for a principle a month. This principle is kind of a no brainer. Obtain a yield. I have yet to think of anything we do where we aren't obtaining some sort of yield. Everything I put in place around here is so that I can obtain a future yield. Even in the moments of creating this garden farm I am obtaining less concrete yields that include excercise, pleasure and pride. Read on to find out more about what kind of work is being done for our future yields. It's almost winter again. I haven't posted since last March. In fact I hadn't even logged into the website since March. It's been a busy and very satisfying year. Our first full year on our new property. We've built a whole lot of garden beds. Enough of them that I feel comfortable starting the CSA up again in 2018, though it will be small. Looking at them all covered with leaf mulch is so satisfying right now. I collected almost 300 bags of leaves in the last 3 weeks with help from friends and family and the people of Niagara. Most of the people who helped don't even know. They just went about their business and raked up the precious gold and put it in bags at the side of the road. I hope they don't realize for a few years the precious biomass they are giving away. Ssshh don't tell. Bees In February we ordered two bee nucs. A nuc is a small started colony with a queen. After a very rainy spring we were able to pick up our bees in June. One colony expanded very quickly and seemed to do really well. The other colony wasn't doing so well and I noticed a queen cell on one of the frames so I figure that's one of the things that took some time. I saw the new queen and the colony seemed to do ok after that but didn't expand into a second brood box before fall. That colony is going into the winter smaller and I really hope it does ok. It warmed up one day last week and I took a quick peek into the hive to see how the girls are doing. The cold weather came on suddenly and I was a little worried about them. They are still there all clustered together. I set up a windbreak around the hives, another use for the bags of leaves and hopefully they will survive the winter. Chickens Also in June, the same weekend we got the bees, we were gifted with 4 lovely young chickens It was a busy weekend. These young ladies were only 6-8 weeks old so it would be September by the time they were ready to lay. We renovated an older coop and enclosed a yard for them. Then in August a friend of mine was looking for a home for 7 mature hens and so we added them to the 4 we already have and now we have 11. A nice prime number. Those ladies started laying right away and it's been so great to have the eggs. I love the ladies! They are so fun to watch and they give us eggs. I've put the dog and cat on notice that they are at the bottom of the pecking order. Ever since, the dog and cat have been working harder to convince me that they have their uses too besides snuggling. Between the 2 of them they have caught a lot of mice hanging around looking for a free handout and a place to crash. Gardens Gardens, gardens and more gardens. This property was a blank slate. I started installing beds last fall and continued adding beds all through the spring and summer. The final push has been with the leaf collection. I can tell you that I have a whole lot less grass to mow and that makes me ecstatic. Not my favourite chore. I've always said that gardening is my art and having 2 acres to manifest that art has been very exciting. The pictures don't currently do it justice but I'm very happy with what I have so far. The beds and paths are not always straight lines and they will be planted with a mix of vegetables, flowers, herbs, trees and bushes. We planted a number of trees in the spring including heartnut, apple, pear, cherry and pawpaw. All but 2 of the pear trees have made it. We also planted about 10 hazels and a couple roses, sea buckthorn and siberian pea shrub. We had some problems with deer and needed to figure out a way to protect the trees. I really hope they make it through the winter because they didn't have the best start. We started seedlings in our greenhouse at the end of last winter and they went like gangbusters. We had cabbage and brussel sprouts, fennel, kale, chard and a few flower perennials do really well in the newly established beds. I was able to sell some of the veg that we grew to people I work with at my office job. Our squash crop was obliterated before it even got started because the deer like the young shoots. I think I've figured out a way to protect the vegetables from the deer using bird netting over the crops. The pumpkins that were able to establish themselves did pretty good though and I ended up with a nice little crop. So now we are into winter, we even have some snow on the ground right now. Everything is put to bed and I'm going to enjoy the holidays and take a little break. Back to it in January when I get the planning started for the new gardens and our CSA. Look for the CSA page in early February.
1 Comment
11/22/2022 04:56:00 am
Looved reading this thank you
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