Garden season over, winter’s coming
As our 2012 garden season has come to a close, it’s now time to concentrate on getting ready for winter. Around here, winter can arrive in a heartbeat.
The hay is all in place, over $7000 for the the 7 blocks this year. At that price, we bit the bullet and invested in a professional hay tarp. We had the hay all put into one place this year, since we have the tractor to move bales. We’re also installing gates at each access road.
So far, we’ve pretty much dismantled the gardens, except for some parsnips, beets, turnips, cauliflower and cabbage. We had a hard freeze on the 5th, and that pretty much took care of the garden.
We’re adding a “storage container” to our little farm. That will allow us to properly store our garden and farm tools someplace other than in “Mom’s garage”. That has meant clearing a large area of loose sand and tumbleweed, and moving stuff (including an old truck) so the big truck has enough room to make the correct turns, and back into the spot for the container.
The horses are all gone. We put down the one gal that had eye cancer, and then gave the other two to our neighbor’s grandson. He’s great with horses. The day he came to load them, it only took about an hour to get them into the trailer. Not bad, considering Dusty (the gelding) had only been trailered once (and he didn’t have pleasant memories, having been gelded, vaccinated, and hooves trimmed), and Dakota had never been in a horse trailer.
This past weekend, we put the ram in with the ewes, and the buck in with the nanny goats. In about 5 months, we should have lambs and kids popping out all over the place.
A month or so ago, we took our “old cow” to the butcher. She was 4 years old (had 8 teeth), and didn’t breed last year. After the younger heifer presented us with a beautiful heifer calf, the old gal was “excess inventory”. She’s in the freezer now, and the steaks and burger are absolutely awesome. Except for her poor confirmation, her meat would grade out at prime or better. We got 452# of meat, nearly a freezer full.
We also hatched 11 chicks in September and they (along with their mothers) have moved to the “grow-out pen”. Soon we’ll put their mothers back into the big coop, leaving the youngsters to grow. First one that crows is a Sunday dinner. Any others that crow will seal their fate, too.
Over the winter, watch for “farm tales”, stories about the Four Country Gals living their dreams. They’ll be here on the blog, so will still be doing more “re-arranging”.
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Categories: Certified Organic Garden, Do it yourself time, Horses, Sheep, Uncategorized Tags: beef, certified organic garden, eggs, farm, goats, home-raised meat, lambs
Certified Organic!
We got the call this morning from Rhonda at the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food. We’re officially Certified Organic for our vegetable gardens.
Now, we’re awaiting word on the grant. All the applications and inspections are complete, just waiting for the final word. If we get it, we will place two 20 x 54 hoop houses over our large garden. We will then raise a winter cover crop of hairy vetch and let the sheep graze it down a bit in the spring before tilling it into the soil.
We also have the aquaponics system fully assembled and are now awaiting the arrival of some fish. That should happen later this week, or early next week. We’ve been running the water to get it all settled and trying to get the temp up so the fishies won’t freeze.
We have seven lambs on the ground and all are either sold or reserved for our breeding stock. We also have the cutest heifer calf. She will become our breedingstock foundation. More about her later.
We’re fully committed to both Farmers’ Markets in Cedar City this summer. Of course, that’s weather dependent… we’re still getting rain, high winds, lows in the low 30′s and the ground is too wet to work.
Categories: Certified Organic Garden Tags: beef, certified organic garden, Farmer's Market, lambs, organic vegetables
We’ve had 2 weeks of early spring
Hey, it's early spring! Let's get silly.
Early spring usually comes in early March. It gets nice and warm during the day (above 55), but still freezes at night. We may also have several days of no wind.
Today was the end of early spring. Now we’re back to a pattern of high 40′s to low 50′s with pretty brisk winds in the afternoon. It’s also mostly cloudy.
Last month, Bev saw a possibility of applying for a grant for our gardening and Farmers’ Market project. About the same time, Cindy was researching a new project called “aquaponics”.
I did more online research and made a few phone calls. Last week, we got a visit from a really nice fellow with the Natural Resource Conservation Service of Utah. He’s going to write two grants, one for the aquaponics (nutrient management) and drip irrigation systems, and then another for a hoop house over our 40×60 foot garden. Of course there are always strings.
The biggest one is that we obtain a certificate of organic gardening. Fortunately, we’re jumping through those hoops already. Considering the benefits and the risks, it looks like a good fit for us, as we have more time (lots of paperwork and record keeping) than money (resources for hoop house, and other big stuff).
It will also give us more credibility at the Farmers’ Markets and also help us set up a CSA, something we’ve wanted to do for a long time. That is the process where folks pay us to grow veggies exclusively for them. They pay in advance, and then we grow, pick and pack wonderful boxes of produce for them each week.
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Categories: Do it yourself time Tags: beef, Cedar City, farm, lambs
Going on 5 years later…
It’s been quite an adventure. Bev has graduated from Senior citizen bus driver to Enterprise school system bus driver. That’s a much better gig, as she’s off from the end of May until the middle of August. Also, she only works four hours a day… much better for both her mental and physical health.
Cindy’s back has finally caused her to quit working and get officially “disabled”. She’s still able to work on the computer, and if we don’t push it too hard, she can still climb up on the haystacks, and garden.
Mom has completely recovered from all her ills, and is back “in charge” of our lives. At 81 she still does about 90% of the cooking.
Shari has had a big health scare and adventure, culminating with open heart surgery, and a pacemaker. She now feels better than she can ever remember. Guess that means she’ll be doing more in the garden this year.
Bev is becoming the new author of this blog. She’ll be keeping things up-to-date as to what items we have available for sale at the farm, when and where we’ll appear at Cedar City Farmer’s Markets, and whether or not we have eggs, beef, lambs, or hogs for sale.
Categories: Introduction Tags: beef, Cedar City, eggs, farm, hogs for sale, lambs
