Wow! , I can’t believe it’s May already, we have been too busy around here.  With so much to do I have neglected updates to the blog, I hope you can forgive me?!  Lemme run down a few things that have gone on since last we spoke.

We have had another dairy calf born, SweetLily is her name!

Newest Calf At The Farm

We had a litter of pigs born, as well as picked up a Large Black Boar to breed back to the mama pig.

Fightin' for the milk

Large Black Hog

Ok Ok enough of the farm animals, if you want more check out my other blog here!  Now on to the veggies!

After the tillage and bed preps , using the Earthway Seeder , I planted a large section of purple hull peas and they are coming along really nice.

Purple Hull Peas

The Earthway seeder is nice, but it does take a bit of adjustment to get it working at it best, and I’m still learning the ins and outs of it!

We also planted around 20 or so tomato plants, mostly Celebrity, a few Arkansas Travelers, and three Yellow Pear… If you haven’t tried these little wonders, I highly recommend them , sweet and delicious with just a hint on acidity….ummmm ummmm love em!

Celebrity Tomato Plant

It was getting late so i couldn’t get a good picture of the whole bunch of em , next post maybe!

Carrot Bunch

Pulled up a few carrots that we planted late fall last year, My wife loves em, I’m not a raw carrot person, but we did slice up a few and drop em in a jar of pickled Jalapenos… now that’s a treat!

We also have the cucumbers out and ready to run up the trellises , also the  zucchini and yellow summer squash is in the ground and growing along with some purple potatoes and Yukon Golds.

Got some corn planted too, but again the Earthway Seeder was hit or miss, along with the fact that my step-daughter was helping me…  Thanks Julie  hehehehe

oh tea, and I’m trying some Diakon Radish to make into some Kimchi later!  I’ll let you know how that goes too.

So that’s the update for now, I’ll keep ya posted…stay tuned!

Here on the farm we have planted a few fruit trees, a fig or two, two plums and a nectarine. The fig we planted last year, and it was going good until the freak spring weather we had this year. It started budding and had a few leaves coming on when the late freeze hit, I really thought it was gone.  But that little tree really recovered nicely.

Fig Tree

As I was Making the rounds yesterday, I noticed some large figs on the tree. Now just to be clear the actual fruits have been growing for a month or so, so they didn’t just pop up yesterday. The difference is they are twice the size of the smaller unripe ones.

Figs

We did finally get some rain this last week, maybe the extra water made them swell a bit. Whatever it was it worked, hopefully we can keep the birds off of them too!

Lucille Is Getting Close!

Lucille, one of our milk cows, is about to have another calf for us.  Last year Lucille surprised us by calving a week after we had her Artificially Inseminated. This time we put her out with a bull and let nature take its course, should be any day now!

Lucille, The Expectant Mother!

Here is the view from the front!  I’ll keep you updated!!

Lucille Front View

Until next time!

Cucumbers growing up the trellis

The cucumbers we planted have really started to climb, and they are just loaded with cukes. I think now that I should have made two separate trellis , one for the “straight eights” and one for the pickling variety I planted, but no, I had to mix them together. I can’t tell one from the other until they grow up a bit, oh well, they both taste just fine.

Fresh Off The Vine

I’ve been picking them for about a week now and have gotten about 40 or 50 cucumbers, I’ve given most of them away, but gonna pickle some here soon.

The only pest problem so far has been one lone Goat and her kid, I looked out the front window the other day and she was leisurely walking across the front yard like she owned the joint.  After I got her back in the pen I noticed the damage to the cucumber vines, several leaves were eaten back to the main vine.

In all about a 2 foot circumference hole was eaten into the vines, no real damage though, just large leaves, I don’t think she likes the little Gherkin sized cukes hehehe.

Hole where the goat ate the leaves off.

The full viev of the trellis

We have been lucky these last few weeks, we have had some much needed rain. The temps have been fairly warm for this time of year, Highs in the upper 70′s low 80′s.    Been pretty busy with work around the farm, lets see whats been going on…..

• Got the tractor running , wasn’t too hard , just a carb rebuild, some new wires and what not.
• put in another 8′x8′ raised bed, planted some peas in it.
• Ruby the milk cow calved, also we had a diary goat kid, tis the season you know!