As a first step in tidying up the entrance to the farm, Ron hung prayer flags over the birms on either side of the gate. A day or so after he hung them we had a note in our mailbox from one of our neighbors inquiring where we obtained such nice, big prayer flags [1]. So I had the opportunity to meet one of our neighbors that I had not met before. Later that day we had some other neighbors stop to ask what we were up to. They were delighted to hear about the establishment of a community farm in our neighborhood, and showed sincere interest in signing up for shares in the fall crop. There are approximately 100 families in our neighborhood, so if we can sign up even a quarter of them we will be off to a great start.
It will be lots of fun landscaping the front entrance. There are two large rock birms there already, with a lot of deer resistant, native plant material well established, so mostly it just needs pruning, trimming and shaping.
Entrance to Lost Valley Gardens
We acquired our first two chickens over the weekend which was even more exciting than I had anticipated. They are already almost at egg laying age, so we don’t have to tend to them as closely as we would new chicks. Also, they are large enough that our cats are not interested in trying to eat them, which is a very good thing. The dogs are fascinated with them, as are we. We have a web cam in the coop so we can watch them at night. I find watching them quite mesmerizing for some odd reason.
Hens in the Coop
On the veggie and plant growing front, Ron has been cleaning up the greenhouse and doing maintenance on the pump and cool wall. We also had to order a replacement motor for one of the exhaust fans, which we are still waiting for. This is the second time we have had to replace the motor on the main exhaust fan, which indicates that we need another exhaust fan and more ventilation vents to assist with the air exchange, especially during the hottest months. I moved my broccoli and chard transplants to the greenhouse last night, and will be potting them up into 4″ pots this afternoon. Lettuce transplants are finally sprouting, and peppers and tomatoes will probably be coming up this week.
Greenhouse Cool Wall Maintenance
We marked out the areas that we intend to utilize as growing areas for the fall crops, in addition to the greenhouse, and I calculated that our total production growing area for the fall season will be about one third of an acre. This should be an excellent start for us. For the first several seasons we will use row covers to control pests and maintain optimum growing conditions, and in the future we will build larger, more permanent cold frames or greenhouses to enclose these growing areas, and to allow us to transition them to hydroponic/aquaponic growing systems.
Expansion Area for Production Growing
The market gardens will immediately be built out with another seven raised beds providing a large raised bed area which allows for high density growing.
Raised Bed Market Garden
This week we will continue to work on our plan and budget for the remainder of the year.
Happy Valentines Day!