Wednesday, April 11, 2012

New Additions

We moved in on the 26th and our household goods were delivered on the 28th. We spent the first few days putting the inside together and mowing the front lawn. Then we got down to business. Hubby spent three days cleaning out the workshop and an entire day mowing the pastures. I purchased our first chicks, six Rhode Island Reds and six Barred Rocks. I made them a brooder out of a wardrobe box and they are quite happy unless I need to change the water or add food or bedding. Then they freak out quite a bit, but hopefully they'll get used to us handling them. We try to pick up a few chicks each day. Only three of them have names because we aren't able to tell them apart. They are Pip, Pepper and Ginger.


I ordered all of my seeds from Southern Exposure and they arrived within two days! My potatoes and sweet potatoes will come separately, but at least I can get started with this bounty. I got the following:
Snap Beans, Beets, Dent Corn, Sweet Corn, Pickling Cucumber, Slicing Cucumber, Butterhead Lettuce, Looseleaf Lettuce (Drunken Woman), Romaine Lettuce, Shelling Peas, Snap Peas, Snow Peas, Pie Pumpkins, Radishes, Spinach, Yellow Squash, Zucchini, Dwarf Sunflower, Swiss Chard (for the chickens), Chamomile, Basil, Cilantro, Parsley, and Dill.

We'll be purchasing tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and cauliflower as transplants, along with seeds for nasturtium and marigolds. We've decided to use the garden spot that the previous owner used, so once I kill the grass by solarizing it, we'll till it under and get busy. I can't wait to get started.


We made our first major purchase today for the farm, not including the chainsaw. We went to Agri Supply and bought a 3-point sprayer to apply weed control and fertilizer to the fields. A really nice hay grower from the local area stopped by last weekend to look over our fields and tell us what to do with them. He said we have good pastures with good grass coverage, but need to get the weeds taken care of. Luckily, nothing is poisonous! We decided to purchase the sprayer since we'll be using it roughly three times per year. Hubby is going to give the tractor and riding mower a spring tune-up tomorrow and hopefully we'll be able to spray this weekend.

Next projects: chicken coop, compost bins and getting the garden in

In case you were wondering about our name...the previous owners told us we can keep the existing name, so the name of our farm is Seven Pines Farm. We have seven pine trees on the front lawn and they are even planted in the shape of a seven.