The biggest one

The other trilliums in my pasture may not look like it in the previously posted photos, but they are pretty small. But today I found this monster trillium as I walked out to till the new garden! HUGE!

I found treasure in my pasture

Trilliums growing! such a lovely gift!

Peeking

Two of the five microgreens I planted are germinated and a third is peeking through the soil!

In the front its sunflower microgreens, in the back, beets are out and growing, chard is close behind and looks really similar LOL!

Can't wait to taste the beets, since I love beet greens starting a few days ago ;)

Microgreens for all!

Fill a tray with moistened seed starter, but not all the way up to the top. 

I bought these seed specifically for microgreens....how they actually differ from regular seeds of carrots, basil, kale, etc, I do not know. I might grow some all the way this spring just to see what happens LOL

Carrots, beets, chard. Sow them rather thickly. These three all have a 16-25 day germination time. 

Sprinkle some more seed starter thinly on top, although the instruction sheet that came with the seeds said fine vermiculite would also work. 

This tray is sunflower seeds (germination rather fast for these) then two rows of basil (long germination time of 16+ days). I figure you can't get sick of basil microgreens but again, I'm wondering how the basil will differ from my usual basil seeds, also growing, which I could have taken a photo of but didn't. Hmm....

The other batches I did weren't covered with anything, but the instruction sheet advised using a plastic dome (which won't really work in this case) or a "towel" and somehow that seemed a bit ambiguous to me. I immediately thought damp paper towel...so I tried that on the front tray. Since the sheet doesn't actually say damp, I used a piece of dry paper towel on the back tray. Hopefully I will record the results from dry versus damp paper towel and share that here, too! Surely!

Indoor Sun

The grow lights I threw together years ago (from Future House Farm blog) are still in use even though my kitchen is tiny and I have no other place to keep the seedlings even moderately warm. Happily they are working to give the seedlings at least part of what they need!

The chain attached to the shop lights are on a hook on the stands. so raising the height of the lights are easy and can even make for one side higher than another, to accommodate swiftly growing tomatoes.

Now I just need to get the cat to stop eating my squash plants. What a brat...

And just for fun, photo of the rooster, Georgie Porgie. He is a pretty bloke but still quite wary of me.

Black Gold

Mushroom farms have rows and rows of pasteurized, composted manure for growing the mushrooms.

The wheat straw is composted into the manure and the mushrooms are grown inside a building in a pile of the compost. 

After the mushrooms are harvested, the compost still has lots of usable nutrients, it's just not good for growing mushrooms. So they haul the compost outside. 

Then they sell it by the scoopful to hungry gardeners like me!

Now at home is the real work of shoveling the black gold into raised beds, pots, and the field garden spots (which are as yet untilled LOL). This stuff makes your garden grow like weeds! 

The Hard Part About Keeping Livestock

I have wanted to live on a farm ever since I can remember. I've wanted to raise livestock for a very, very long time. Before I started keeping chickens, I had no ideal about the realities of livestock ownership, like the bad parts. Sometimes the bad parts happen because, well, sometimes critters die of illness or old age or even a really determined predator. But sometimes, livestock can get injured because of bad judgement on the part of the stock keeper.

I've been keeping chickens since 2010. I lost 3 chickens in 5 years - Cheeks (unknown, just found her body in the pen), Wizard (unknown, I was laid up with a broken leg. Again, found her body in the pen), Paco (egg bound and euthanized). Now here at the farm, I've been here 5 months. In that time, I've lost 5 chickens:

Bossa Nova - died of old age, I suspect.
Ivy - killed by the roosters, I'm pretty sure.
Phoenix - killed by the dogs.
Spot the rooster - slaughtered by me, for meat (stringy but good rich stock)
Captain Crunch - Injured by the dogs, mercy killing by me.

Finally after 2 unnecessary deaths by dogs, I have fenced off the barn from the dog yard. I should have made that decision sooner. I should have never allowed the dogs access to the barn if the chickens were roosting all over in there (which they persisted in doing despite my attempts to keep them safely on the other side of the dog gate). I'm responsible for the suffering and death of two sweet and innocent hens, three if you count the hen harassed and killed by the roosters. My fault. All I can do is make sure I never allow that to happen again.

:(