Comments on: Field day!

By: Amy

Amy — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:46:33 +0000

Hello! I found your blog through Blotanical and I’m very excited :) I’m fascinated by organic market gardening. My family is just getting started with trying to grow our own fruits and veggies. I’ve loved to be out working in the garden since early childhood, so I’ve often dreamed of living out of town on a small property with a great big garden and maybe making some money selling produce. There is a rapidly growing interest in my area in locally grown food. Can’t wait to read more of your posts!

By: Andrea Wigglesworth

Andrea Wigglesworth — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:23:31 +0000

Irrigation - you drag hoses around 2.5 acres to water? Get drip irrigation! (Unless you already have and I didn’t see it in the journal history). 100% (+,-) water to root zone & a huge labor saver. Do it :)

By: Steve Mudge

Steve Mudge — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:28:53 +0000

I had no idea chickens could survive those low temps…if we get some chickens this year I may just try the mobile coup idea!

By: Molly

Molly — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:53:11 +0000

great post, i found it really interesting.

By: Laura Lemay

Laura Lemay — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:49:42 +0000

Ha ha ha….I always think of farming as being so much different from gardening, rather than just much MORE gardening. But then I see things on your blog like the big green tubtrugs (mine are purple and yellow) and I think OK, maybe it is just gardening. :)

By: kathy

kathy — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:10:57 +0000

Nice to see your fields brown and snow free. They look great. I enjoyed helping the farmer at my local CSA to clean up her overwintered brassicas yesterday (volunteer day). The cabbages were yucky but the overwintered kale was delicious.

By: alan

alan — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:21:57 +0000

Love to see how you make tools work for your system. That is one of the secrets, modify stuff to make it work for you. Most people try to make their place and system fit the tools. Doesn’t work with land so well.

By: alan

alan — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:19:58 +0000

Of you park your chickens on your garden plots for the winter they will make short work of cleanup. They will shred anything left from the fall, eat all the overwintering bugs, and fertilize. With a mobile coop, you can move them off before spring prep begins, and enjoy all the free-range eggs you can eat through the winter while they do your work. My chickens lived in their mobile coop (basically a tent on a frame with wheels) for the past two winters through temps down to -11 F plus wind chill and 1.5 feet of snow. As long as you keep them fed and watered, they should do fine. We had some in Wyoming survive -40 in similar housing. If you are going to have chickens, make them work for a living.