Its May!

Well, it's May and I think the rains have stopped! We definitely have a lot of water in the pond to last through the season and the ground is pretty well saturated! We are really hoping to have the discer (plow) in the field this week. It seemed that throughout April, every time the field finally dried, it would rain again, and not just a little, but 2" of rain in a day!! As they say "April showers bring May flowers"...

This week we worked on our tomato trellises. We are gathering redwood boughs (off the ground) to use instead of buying some cheap (but not really that cheap) lumber from the store. We cut the boughs to 8' long, criss-cross two pieces and screw them together to make an "X". Then we put a bar across the bottom to help reinforce them. Once we get them into the field, we will space them every 15' straddling 2 rows of tomatoes and run wire the length of the row connected to the top of our "X"'s. The tomatoes are supported with twine connecting from the plant to the wire above. The plant will then grow up the twine, hopefully to the top of the trellis. We have never tried this before, but we think it will work. We did install one in our "experimental" garden, where our heirlooms are planted.



Our tomato trellis

Yesterday, we got our chicken coop delivered to the farm! It is a 4x4x4 cube, which can hold up to 12 chickens, but we will probably only have 5 chickens. We have started looking for layers on craigslist; we are really looking forward to the fresh eggs (and manure)! It is very sad how chickens on large scale farms get treated; beaks and wings clipped, no room to turn around, etc. If you can grow your own or find someone who sells them off their farm, I would highly recommend buying them this way. Even some of the "free range" chicken eggs you can get in the store have their beaks clipped. Chicken beaks are like our fingers! They use them to explore the world and pick stuff up. Also, farm eggs or free range chicken eggs are MUCH healthier for you. The chickens eat food that is more natural to them, grass, bugs, worms, etc and their eggs are much higher in Omega fatty acids (the ones that are super good for you). If you can't buy eggs from a farm, then at least try to buy the ones at the store that are free-range, because these chickens do have the opportunity to go outdoors.


One side of the new coop


The other side, which you see inside the roost and laying boxes

Things are going good in the greenhouse and many things are really ready to go out in the field! I feel like somedays, our tomatoes double in size in the green house. We are hoping to start our cucumbers and melon seeds soon. We will grow Armenian cucumbers, french cantaloupes, "regular" cantaloupes, pickling cucumbers and English cucumbers (more your standard cucumber). We are really looking forward to eating these crops!!


The early girl tomatoes, which are looking great!

Other than that, not much has been going on. Brian and I have been getting out on more road bike rides, doing anywhere between 14 and 25 miles. Brian brewed his 2nd batch of "all grain beer" and we have been enjoying drinking his first batch. Kazy is doing lots of hunting of voles and mice -- up to 3 in a day!