Fresh lettuce

The greens I started a few weeks back are thriving under the grow lights I got from my friend Casey at Greener Portions Aquaponics.  I planted a flat of meslun and spinach.  The mesclun is quite dense now and the spinach is beginning to fill in too.

The other evening, I got out my scissors and started chopping.  It didn't take me long to cut a whole bowl full of greens for a nice big dinner salad.  I'm also growing some herbs so I snipped some of those to add to the mix too.  It was so flavorful and fresh!  

It had me longing for spring planting and summer meals of food fresh from the garden.  I've been working on my garden planning and have my schedule all laid out to begin planting in late February/early March.  I'm going to try to do everything from seed this year, which will be a new adventure for me.  I am so looking forward to all the heirloom varieties I'll get to try since I'm growing them all myself from the get-go instead of buying seedlings at the store.

What are you most excited to plant this spring?

Garden on my mind

Today was unbelievable.  It hit nearly 70 degrees, and it was sunny most of the morning.  I had to get my hands in the dirt!

I asked my neighbors if I could borrow their tiller to get the soil in my garden and in my new berry patch turned.  I got all the manure I had added last fall worked in so it was a rich dark brown.  I love the color of fresh spring soil.  The chickens were very curious about it too.

The garlic I planted in the fall is looking pretty good.  All of it has sprouted with the bursts of warm days we've had this winter.

My next task was to do some soil testing.  I took samples from three spots in the garden and one on the far side of the yard where I want to plant some berries.  I had ordered this simple test kit on Amazon a few weeks ago so I'd be ready.

First I did the pH test.  Almost all my samples looked like this, which I read as slightly acid.  

For the other three tests, I had to prepare the samples with a 1:5, soil:water mixture.  You shake it until it mixes well then leave it to settle out.

The kit says it could take 3-24 hours depending on the type of soil you have.  Then you fill each test container with water from the solution and add the little chemical pack.  So I'm waiting for my samples to separate out before I learn more about my soil.

When I finished all I could for today, I sat in a chair on the deck, muddy and sweaty and happy, dreaming of the garden that will be in full swing before I know it.  

Chicks at two weeks

We got our newest batch of little Easter Eggers on January 25; so they turned two weeks old on Wednesday.  I swear every time we get chicks they seem to grow faster and faster.  These little ones now have quite feathered wings and love to fly up out of the brooder and perch on things around the workshop, leaving deposits to show they were there.  I am sensing they will be moving out soon!  

Check out this girl perched up on the board that runs over the brooder for the heat lamps.  Can't just hear her saying, "I'm the queen of the world!"  

It is a constant flurry of activity with 66 of them in the brooder.  This is the biggest batch we have ever had at once.

I caught one so you could see how many feathers they have already.  Their little bodies are still fuzzy but they've got these fabulous wings.

Hi there.

Now the next question will be where they'll go when they are ready to leave the brooder.  We are reaching the tipping point where we may not be able to close off a whole side of the coop for babies since we have so many adults with the 50 Golden Comets we just added.  This may take some maneuvering.  Check back to see what we work out.  Problem solving should be listed as a skill on every farmer's resume!

A Chicken Adoption

We recently adopted six chickens who were no longer wanted by their keepers.  There were two Barred Rocks, two Rhode Island Reds, and two which we now think are Buff Orpingtons.  

When we released the babies into the run beside the adults, one of the Buff Orpingtons would stand at the fence and stare over longingly at the little birds.  I thought maybe she just missed the small coop where we had housed her and the other adoptees when they first arrived.  Then I saw this scene the other night in the henhouse (the babies and adults are now integrated):

The Buff Orpington hen was laying in a pile of babies.  She looked like a mother with all her little ones (now teenagers) nestled in around her.  I guess she just felt a mothering instinct and so took naturally to the smallest of our flock.  We adopted her and now she's adopting all the babies she can fit around her!

I'm itching to get growing

We have had the strangest winter so far.  Really it has barely felt like winter these past few weeks; spring was in the air.  Then I stepped outside today and ran back in for my heavy coat.  Alas, spring was teasing us but winter is back.

I was drawn by the warmth of the outside air to start growing some things inside a few weeks ago.  I have a friend who runs an aquaponics business and he is moving locations so he graciously offered me some grow lights he no longer needed.  I was so excited to bring them home and play in the dirt!

My seed order had recently arrived from Seed Savers, so I sorted through and found a few things to experiment with - mostly herbs and some greens.  I love pouring out some seeds in my hands and examining their shapes and colors.  These were some rosemary seeds which looked like they had a golden dot on them.

I got some seed starting flats and potting mix and got to work filling and watering and planting my seeds.  The first things I planted were mesclun and spinach.  They are coming up nicely and filling in my flat.  We'll be eating freshly grown salad in no time at all!

Some of my herbs are also beginning to germinate.  I've never grown any of these from seed so I'm excited to learn as I go.  I'm taking lots of notes as I read about individual plants' needs.  

Even if it's cold again outside, standing in my office with my hands in the dirt, watching things grow, I can feel the pull of spring.  It'll be here before we know it! 

Baby Easter Eggers

Babies are back!

Check out that little lady's face.  I picked her up because her sister was trying to play tug-o-war with her leg.  Poor girl.  She was chirping up a storm, saying, "Leave me alone!"  

We picked up 64 little Easter Eggers from Mt. Healthy Hatchery yesterday morning.  These are the chickens which will eventually lay the blue-green eggs our customers so love.  This batch brings our flock up near 200 birds.  We've been trying to expand so that we can supply both locations of our local grocery Jungle Jim's.  We currently deliver to the Eastgate location each Friday morning but hopefully by mid-summer we will be in the Fairfield store too.

I love the variety in the Easter Egger chicks.  Because they are a mutt breed, they have so many different color variations.  This chick looks like she's really into eye-liner.

These yellow ones will probably grow up to be pure white.

It's amazing how small they look when you first bring them home.  64 birds in the brooder likes like nothing but in a couple weeks they will have outgrown the space and will need to move outside.

Growing a Traverse City Cherry Pit or Two

Last summer, while we were at the lakehouse, my mother-in-law and I went one day to the Farmer's Market in Traverse City.  We brought home a big bag of juicy, sweet Michigan cherries.  Baxter sat at the counter and ate almost half the bag in one sitting.  He just loved the cherries!

As he ate, he saved the pits on a plate.  When he finished, he declared, "We should take these home and plant them at the farm so we can grow our own cherries!"  How could I say no to that??

I tried to explain to him that cherries are a plant that isn't usually grown directly from a seed.  The concept of grafting fruit trees was way beyond his understanding, though, so I thought - what does it hurt, let's give it a try.  So I did some reading online and found that fruit seeds tend to do better after being left in the fridge for some time.  We filled a jam jar with wet dirt, pushed some pits down into it, and slid it to the back of the fridge.  That was in July.  

Now we find ourselves in January, and the jar caught my eye last week.  There was something white on the side of the jar.  When I pulled it out to get a closer look, I saw the bottom of the jar was packed with roots.  A white stem was pushing its way to the surface of the dirt as well.  I took it out, removed the lid and put it under my grow light.  

After a day or two, small green leaves burst up through the dirt.  It is difficult to see in these pictures, but there are two small leaves just above the soil line.  

When the boys were here on Wednesday, I took the jar out from under the light, and before I said anything, Baxter said, "Cherries!"  He remembered five and a half months ago when we put those pits in the fridge.  We talked about where we could start our orchard.  

There's nothing like the excitement of growing things, especially when you didn't think they would grow.  What a joy and an experience I hope little B will remember for years to come.