Season's Start 2011

I've been somewhat dragging me feet to start the blog back because it is one of those things that will need to be done late at night when the kiddos are in bed and I have a few minutes to myself.  Well, we are off on our way to our 4th season at Steed Farms and the veggies are doing good.  Rain was well timed with our first planting and things got a good start.  Things have dried up considerably since mid October and we could use a few soaking rains.  Plants just do so much better with a rain instead of irrigation water.  We have had a few issues with some fungus on broccoli raab and some mites on our red kale but nothing too overwhelming. 

We planted two cover crops the first one has done well with perfect timing of rain.  I always try to sow the seeds before the rain.  The next cover crop was sown but the rain prediction was entirely wrong and we only got a fraction of the rain and the seeds that germinated died off.  So I'm not sure what I am going to do just yet. 

We added goats to the farm.  Well, at least a neighbor is leasing some of our back 1.5 acres for his goats.  I need to take a picture of them.  He did a great job of putting the fence up and is willing to offer goat meat to us.  I believe that the minimum amount he is allowed to sell under USDA rules is 1/4 of a butchered goat.  He would sell 1/2 to a whole butchered goat if you like.  We will send out an email if you are interested with prices.

Our pine trees that we planted all died again this year as our ground is so high and dry.  We got too dry in spring and early summer for them to establish.  So I am thinking of adding grass fed beef to our farm.  Stay tuned in to see how that goes.

On a sad note...my last blog post mentioned how we probably would not see some of our community members with the start of the fall season.  I didn't realize how prophetic that would be.  Many of our members will probably remember Karl Rossa.  The friendly gentleman who wore a Navy hat and loved to talk about the latest ongoings.  He passed away this October from a heart attack.  We are deeply saddened by his passing and he will be missed not only from our farm community but also our larger community.  Please keep Audrey and his family in your thoughts and prayers.  I was looking forward to giving him back a book he lent me over the summer "Internal Combustion".  I thought it might be nice to plant tree this weekend to celebrate his life.  We will miss you Karl.  I've included his obituary.  http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary-print.aspx?n=Karl-Rossa&lc=1543&pid=153998083&mid=4841434

The Season Begins

Well another season has started. We are already underway with most of the first vegetables planted. We have about 25 different types of vegetables and the majority of them are doing well. We do have a problem with grasshoppers flying in taking a bite and then leaving. This would not be such a problem with larger plants but with seedlings that is a big setback. We have also been finding a few hungry caterpillars that are biting some of the brassica plants (cabbage, brussel spouts, broccoli). But all in all things are looking well. We should start harvesting in mid to late November. The weather has not been very cooperative with record high temperatures and then record lows a few days later. The plants are a little confused. As fun as shattering record temperatures might be, plants hate it. A nice average temperature with little bouncing around and a few gentle rains each week would be perfect. But perfect weather is seldom seen and that is the risk in farming.
Our community of supporters has signed up with us and we are very thankful. We are also as excited to see our harvest as they are.
To update you further on the farms activities, we are backing off of the ornamental nursery plants due to the slowdown of the entire industry. The Dixie Chicks are looking very big but have not started laying eggs yet. We keep checking everyday but nothing yet. We have built two half acre areas for goats. The posts are in but there is no fence yet. We are concentrating on planting the majority of the old citrus grove(that we pushed this last few months) with pine trees. This has rescued our greenbelt tax relief from the county. If we hadn’t done that it would be a $5000.00 hit to our tax bill. So for now the plan is to plant longleaf pines and revisit it in the future.

That is our current farm status, we will see how things play out this season.

Chugging along

The Dixie Chicks are getting pretty big and curious about life outside of their box. They are really wanting out and I can't blame them. I am hoping to finish their new comparatively elegant grand coop. They will love their new space.

We have harvested all of the broccoli at one shot. It was ready really quickly as well as the lettuce. I will need to delay planting times better. Smaller quantities and more plant dates. Much of our awesome lettuce went to seed fairly rapidly. We were able to harvest some and sell some but we lost too much this year.

Jalapeno peppers, eggplants, and radishes are producing now. The red mustard and the turnips are inundated with beetles and spraying them is not helping. About every three days the pests would return after a spray. I will try them again next year but earlier to see if that makes a difference.

The Valencia oranges are ripe now and are delicious to eat off the tree. A few peaches and plums are ripening. We lost most of them to the frosts.

We are thinking of adding goats to the operation. "What goats!" I know...like we don't have enough to deal with already. We will see. I still have a little bit of sanity left to spare.