Monday, March 18, 2013

Gardens, pigs, kids and more kids


The past several days have been like a whirlwind for me. Rushing around, trying to get the early garden planted. And grass and clover seed planted. Grand kids here. Worked all day Friday. Just running, running running. Trying to beat a rain storm headed our way. It's been sprinkling on and off part of the day so far. Which is fine because I really don't want a flooding downpour like we have been getting all winter. Just enough to get all the things I've gotten planted a good start.

If you can see to the left, which is how I am planting this year, there is collards, kale, mustard, radishes, lettuce, beets, onions, broccoli, cabbage and onions so far to the left of the horribly neglected grape vines. To the right of the vines, my grand daughters and daughter helped plant 5 different varieties of potatoes. 40 pounds worth. An All Blue and a Corona organic and then Kennebec, Yukon Gold and red. So that is my early crops so far. Planted and ready to grow for farmer's markets. And I am pooped! And SO out of shape it's not even funny y'all. I am hurting right now. But not really too awfully bad, like I thought I would be. Gardening gets a person in some really amazing stretches and reaches. It's the best exercise ever.

Also this weekend, I got 2 pigs. They are out working in the goat barn for me right now, mulching up the 6' deep hay mess the goats have wasted all winter. The pigs love this. Keeps them busy and helps me out. Kansas named them Bob and Joe.

Also took the 2 goat kids, Ira Joe and Ella Belle, to get their horns burned off. So that chore is done.

This will be a busy week too. A farmer's market meeting Tuesday evening, a bee keeping class Wednesday evening, and a backyard wine tasting event Saturday evening with some fellow farmers. Sounds like some fun to me!

4 comments:

Linda said...

You've been busy!

The pigs like the bedding huh? That sounds like a good way to get the barn's bedding loosened up. How much of it do they actually eat? Do you feed them anything else?

Kris said...

Oh yes, I am feeding them scraps and some grain mixed with the brewery grains they gave me. And lots of goat milk! I did this last time I had pigs. Put them in this stall where the goats had been all winter. They do a great job mulching all this old hay up. It's so deep right now. I am going to put some cracked corn up under all this hay as far as I can so they'll root around more for the corn.

I also started a few buckets of grains fermenting for them. I was reading another blog about this. It should take around 2-3 days to be ready. It already smells fermented. And they love the brewery grains, so this should be about the same thing. I am excited about this. Hopefully they'll get real big real fast!

Kristin said...

Wow, you have been busy! Your garden dwarfs mine. I fit about a doz plants each of Yukon Gold and Redskins. I'm glad the storm passed you by safely. Our power went out in the middle of cooking dinner- so glad I have a gas stove!

Kris said...

Gas would be nice. I used to have that. But now, all electric.

Hey, any garden is a good garden! Doesn't matter the size, as long as you get some good food from it. You can get a lot out of just a 8x4 raised bed. I try to fit as much as I can close enough together. And I go to markets too.