The Viability of Micro-Farms

At just 5.5 acres, I consider my farm small, especially considering that only about 2.5 acres of it is usable right now.  Things are just getting started, but I feel pretty confident that eventually, my small piece of land can provide 70% of required food for two adults.  My goal is to provide food, not to make a living.  Which begs the question, can micro farms do both?

I ran across an interesting post about the vaibility of small farms.  I thought the profit/acre anecdote was particularly interesting.  This is just a single datum point, but it is a datum point.

Too Long

I am a bad blogger. It's been way too long since a decent update. I got home today and grabbed the camera. So here we are in May... things are growing, there is hope.

First, we got two fruit trees from the county extension: A Champ Black Cherry and a Quincy Garnet Beauty Peach. They don't look like much now, but they are going to be spectacular additions to the homestead.

Plants in the greenhouse are very happy. Plants outside are not so much. We got fish emulsion fertilizer to help things along since we lost a winter's worth of compost.

I am way behind in my planting. I need to plant seed to replace my fried herbs, my next salad green rotation, more peas, more beans, more... everything.

The Quincy peach.

Signs of spring in the peach.

The Champ cherry.

Asparagus is UP!!!

Strawberries donated by a friend in their new home.

Greenhouse Kale. Very happy Kale.

Greenhouse spinach.

Greenhouse Broccoli.

A permanent resident of the greenhouse. Please leave name suggestions in the comments.

A feral strawberry patch near the terrace in the front yard.

A Japanese Maple. Just wait until the fall on this one. Stunning.

A big bumble bee visits the Azaleas.

So not me

This has nothing to do with me.  Nope, nada, nothing.

Nothing to see here.  *whistling*

A Whole Week

It's been a whole week since I last posted and I apologize for the silence. As expected, I am crazy busy between work, El Brego, and farm life.

Amazing progress continues to be made on the farm. My eleven laying hens have settled into an easy 9 eggs a day rhythm. They love free ranging around the farm and they appear to be very happy chickens, which of course is important to me.

The chicklins are about a week away from being moved outside to a temporary pen until they are big enough to either be butchered or integrated with the laying flock. I've been lucky and have not lost a single one of the thirty two.

The plants inside the greenhouse are growing like gangbusters. The plants outside are just now starting to perk up. I've got potatoes and peas up, way up, but something amiss has happened to my onions. They have yet to make an appearance. My neighbors also have a garden plot and are not so smug as me so they use conventional fertilizers and seedlings bought from Agway. And I have to say that they are kicking my ass right now. Not only is their garden patch mysteriously weed free, but their plants are bigger by far. So, I am on the hunt for some organic fertilizer to give my little ones a boost.

In other fabulous news, a woman who contacted me from this blog stopped by this weekend and put her and her husband's sweat equity into my little farm. They came bearing beautiful strawberry plants and quickly made themselves busy cleaning up the place. They helped us plant the strawberries, tear out raspberries from the terraces, cut down Sumac, teach me how to safely operate a chainsaw, chop out tree roots blocking some drainage pipes, and otherwise educate and entertain. I am truly indebted to their kindness and willingness to help a complete stranger make sense of it all. I hope to see them again soon!

The logging of the back pasture will being in the next few weeks. I can't wait to have beautiful green pasture. Driving around the area, you can see these deeply green lush fields which were hand carved out of the New Hampshire forest generations ago. I only hope to achieve the same success on a small scale here on the farm.

What's Up?

Ask me "What's up?" Go ahead, ask me.

...

Peas! Peas are up! The first real veggie sown directly outdoors showed up this weekend. And, lo, carrots are also up.

So I planted some more today. Onions, carrots, more peas, more potatoes, turnips. I transplanted cucumbers and pumpkins. It might be early, be the forecast is for HOT, and they were getting root bound in their seed trays. So out they went.

Yesterday, in between getting ready for the show and lessons and bathing the International Horse of Mystery, I wired the greenhouse fan to turn on when needed, based upon a thermostat. Too little too late, the 90 degree record temps fried some spinach, cilantro, and tomato seedlings. Oh well, we'll plant some more.

Lots of work is getting done around the farm, the barn roof is almost finished and it looks awesome! Some drainage work is being done to clear out the spot I hope to use as a compost. The sacrifice areas got more stone dust, leaves got raked, fencing got repaired.

And now, the farm is starting to look presentable. The house is a complete disaster. So off to clean the house. You can call me fat, but you can't call me lazy. :)

Change

A dear reader sent this in:

Farm Fresh movement a growing trend

This, my friends, is called Change. And it is going to happen.

Investing in Asparagus

We made lots of progress around the farm today. We got the front gate installed (we had dismantled it to widen the driveway for the Brego-size trailer). I added a few more tons of stone dust to some low spots in the sacrifice paddock. I moved several mounds of dirt around, consolidating them into a single mound. I planted some seedlings into the outdoor garden: broccoli, brussels sprouts, spinach and kale.

But the most exciting thing is that we started our asparagus patch! Last week in the mail, I received 30 crowns of Certified Organic Jersey Giant F1 90% male asparagus. Yep, that's the good stuff. These crowns must have been hand-picked by virgins and rinsed in unicorn tears because they cost a mint.

But no matter, I finally had my crowns so we excavated the asparagus patch. It's in a primo spot, very well drained, good sun, near the greenhouse, tastefully decorated with country kitsch signs.

I am very excited to be eating asparagus... two years from now. It feels like such a real commitment, a real investment, to put asparagus in. It's possible the asparagus will outlive my time on this particular farm. It will surely outlive my shoddily constructed greenhouse. :)

The Patch

Crowns in the furrow

Chickenistas inspect the work