Preparing For Spring....

It's that time of the year to start planning for spring. I ordered seeds and plants/tubers earlier this month. I have even started some seeds, onions to be exact. I order some rose bush seeds more for fun to see how they turn out. I got a red, purple, white, and yellow and their are in my fridge stratifying for about 2 months. I got some lemon grass and those have rooted about time to transplant them into pots.

Onion Seedlings

I also decided I should see how well my sweet potato and ginger roots took storage. I started those too. It seems some of my ginger roots did get frosted and have just rotted. The doors in the shop have shifted and one got left open a crack. I have enough time to a get few ginger roots from the store to start. I have several more reasons besides cooking to grow ginger. I have been making homemade root beer and ginger ale/beer, which is not really a beer. It does have kick though. I will talk more about that on my food/herb blog. :)

Ginger Root

 My sweet potatoes did alright and I have a few with sprouts on them now.I have Beauregard tubers from Johhny's Selected Seeds I planted last year. I did order two different varieties for planting this spring and will get those starts in May some time. I will receive those from Urban Farmer Seeds. I am going to go through this process later in March and compare start times to finished tubers, etc.

Sweet Potato Starts

On the order of gardening stuff. I bought some red wigglers for my worm bin. It has been vacant for several years when I very little success with my last bunch of wigglers. I got better suggestions this time and I have some happy worms busily working on our scraps from fruits, veggies, etc.

Worm Bin

Happy Working Worms

The weather has been wacky as usual, but warmer on the average. The last 2 days we had got around 20 below. Brrr.... Still not warm enough to work on the tractor, which is still giving me issues. I am back to looking at the carburetor, when warmer weather shows up. In the mean time, 'Olive' has been doing just fine with the feeding the cows. :) We are slower and can only move one bale at a time. It is something we can deal with.

I have been doing a little family ancestry searching. Jim order a month's basic subscription to ancestry.com. I have been mixing it up so to speak to pass the winter blues. Sewing, cooking, baking, fermenting, starting seeds and tubers, chores, etc. Keeps me busy. :)

Happy Farming!

Liana

Cold Weather and Head Colds..

It has been really cold here and in the process we ended up with head colds too. We ate lots of turkey and vegetable soup, chili, and then chicken and vegetable soup. I think I added every herb and spice I figured would help clean out the sinuses and loosen stuff up. Besides typical daily chores we have just been resting. It sounds like we were not alone either many other people had gotten sick also.I have not even wrote on my blogs until now. We are on the mend and finally feeling well enough to get some errands done toward the end of this week. Including a few other odds and ends I have had planned, but were put on hold. Last time I was sick was last spring when I was working too much out in the wet and cold weather that did me in for about 2 weeks.

I am still working on the D-15 when it is warm. Hopefully, the parts I ordered will be here when the weather is at its warmest. I need to get that tractor to be more dependable in starting.

I have been looking at seed catalogs and have been planning what I am going to get and plant for this year. Mom and I are not sure what is going to make it through this winter for our hold over plants. I really want to expand into selling annuals, perennials, and hopefully trees and shrubs on the farm. We need to add other items to sell on the farm besides beef, breeding stock, and a few eggs. Field crops besides hay is not an option. We don't have enough tillable acres and we need the hay for the animals. We have enough space to have a small greenhouse and grow plants. I love working with nature either it being animals or plants, so it seems like a good fit. I want to have bees again, but unless the weather quits being messed with it is almost impossible to have honey bees. I will keep promoting natural pollinators in the process by planting different flowers. The cheapest way to go at this point.

We also will be looking for some hens that are laying this spring. After the badger wiped out all but 3 little chicks. We really don't have any replacement hens for the older girls and they have been passing on to the big chicken heaven in the sky. I think we are down to about 15 hens. Enough for eggs for us and mom and dad, but no extras to sell. It was quit helpful to sell those extras last year.It made a difference in the expense of the feed bill. I also need to rebuild or remodel the chicken coop this year. The picture above is when I first built it. The squirrels one year really did some damage. The frame overall is in pretty good shape. I just want to remodel the back end and it needs new poly weave or something anyways. I like the greenhouse part of it. This allows a lot of light to come in which helps in not having to use electricity for lighting or heating. It gets cold at night but heats up really well during the day.

Lots of things to work on and plan for this year. It can be quit exciting and also frustrating trying to figure out how to get it done. :)

Happy Farming!
Liana