Here and There

It's been an interesting week so far.  Family and friends have visited, I've been up to MOFGA headquarters for two farm business planning sessions with Richard Wiswall.  I picked up some flats and pots for seedling productions, and then got some spare parts to fix an old lawnmower.  Some more herb seeds arrived from Horizon Herbs.  The fridge is packed with eggs!  I'm trying to get them moved on to tasty purposes.  (anyone? anyone?)  And I've been playing phone tag with UPS which in theory has some neat stickers I ordered.

I also took a little time to observe a lovely tree on one edge of the field.  Ahhh

This goofy looking bit of equipment needed replacing on an old lawnmower.

 I hate using a lawnmower.  However there are some brushy twigs that short out the electric poultry netting.  This will let me quickly zip down a new fence row and level that stuff before placing the fence in a new location.  I'm looking for a human powered brush wacker thing

Lastly, I saw this cartoon in a New Yorker.  I like.    

There will be a horse on the farm soon enough.

Seeds!

The seed orders have arrived!

Fedco

and Johnny's

 Whenever I get my seed orders I go through several phases.
Phase 1
 "Hooray my seeds arrived!"
Phase 2
"Wait, that's it?  I thought there would be more..."
Phase 3
"Plants are amazing!  I can carry the source of a year's worth of produce in one box"
Phase 4
"Oh dear, to get that produce, all these need to be planted, and watered, and coddled, and picked, and washed, and distributed..."
Phase 5
"Hooray!  I get to plant, and water and coddle and pick and distribute!"
Phase 6
"Where's my beer?"

Most of the biggest bags you see there are not actually for us to eat.  They're for either the chickens to eat, or for soil microbes to eat.  For the chickens there's a pasture mix with perennial grasses for locations where other crops will not be planted for years.  Also for the chickens are a mammoth forage beet for locations where other crops might be planted next year.  The clover is for the microbes, and to keep the soil covered in the rest of the field between plantings.  Lastly, the winter rye will cover the field this fall when the season is done.

For a poetic quote relating to cover crops, I'll refer to a story about Wangari Maathai on the NPR program Living on Earth last year.  She's mostly referring to trees, but I feel the philosophy is the same:

When God created the earth, he covered it the way it is here. The soil is supposed to be covered in its green color. When you see the soil, it is crying to be clothed with green vegetation. That’s the nature of the land. So, when the soil is exposed, in many ways, it is crying out for help - it is naked - and it needs to be clothed. It needs color. It needs cloth of green. That is where the concept of the Green Belt Movement came from. It is to clothe the earth with her dress.

-Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement

I'll do my best to keep a green dress on my soil!

In the mean time, there's that polypropelene row cover I got last week which will help grow the green clothes.

I unrolled and cut off 15 feet of the 30 foot wide row cover.  15 feet is the width of my hoop house, so, now I can cover 30 feet with one long strip.  The short end I attached to a plastic pipe, so I can roll it up, and pull it square across the growing beds single handedly.

 Inside the hoop house I strung some supporting ropes above the soil.  These are attached to the metal hoops and at places on the end wall where I can raise up the ropes as plants grow.  This should keep the row cover just above the growing plants to optimize heat retention at night, but not be squishing them.  Elliot Coleman recommends wire hoops, but you work with what you got.

All rolled out, the little seedlings in there will have excellent frost protection.

Broccoli Blanket

Carrot coat?
Pepper parka?
Cabbage cardigan?

or just row cover.  It's a neat spun fabric which lets light through, but keeps heat in.  When it's placed over the soil, it slows down the heat loss to the air on chilly nights.  During the day, light can get through and plants continue to grow.  Kinda like a mini greenhouse that can be rolled up when not needed.  This stuff will help me get a jump on the spring season by trapping some of the daytime heat, and keeping the soil above freezing.  Same thing thing for the fall.  I took advantage of a February sale and picked up a roll for inside the hoop house.  It comes in a 30' x 150' roll, but I thought it would be folded four times, to make a 7.5 foot long roll, whups.  Just one fold, and it won't fit inside the truck.  Good thing Ruthie is driving.

Back inside, I've been messing around with the soil blocker.  More on that later.

If I were a seed, that would look pretty cozy.

Cold Farm

We've had a bit of a cold snap,... or rather, more seasonal weather compared with the previous few months.  The chicken water gets frozen every night, so each morning I head out there to bring 'em a new, free-flowing jug of water.   Can't wait for spring when I can hook them up to my ram pump!
But, solar panel, battery and electric fence are clicking away despite the cold.  It seems to be gathering some good solar rays.

Inside the hoop house it's always a pleasant temperature during the day, but at night it's clearly getting pretty chilly.  There was a light touch of frost on the soil this morning.

Really not too bad considering it was 12 degrees outside.  There is a lot of moisture in the air of the hoop house, and it all seems to condense and freeze on the inside of the roof.

   As it warms up during the day, all this moisture thaws out and rains down.   Then it evaporates and condenses again.  It's like having my own weather system.

Maine Organic Milling

Did you know our chickens vote with their forks?...  uh...

How about some background:  Years ago I created the website www.3VotesADay.org to promote the concept of supporting your local food system.  I sold stickers that said "Vote With Your Fork" (I still do actually).  The idea is that when you buy stuff, you are casting a 'vote' for the system that brought you that product.  So, buying veggies from your local farmer is a vote for a fellow community member, a vote for your local working landscape and a vote for small scale agriculture.  This in turn gives you a safer, more intimate connection with your food.  There is more of me jabbering about the idea at 3VotesAday.org.

I want to use this same 'Vote With Your Fork' philosophy with products that I need to buy for the farm.   This week I needed to buy chicken feed, so I went to Maine Organic Milling in Auburn.  
With the improved network of organic farms, a group found it possible to start an exclusively organic grain processing facility.  They blend all the grains right there, so they can get the best quality feed.  It's a great component of our local food network.  I'll vote for that!

 It's also pretty fun to pull up to these big old silos.

And here are some of the buff orpingtons, and a black australorpe happlily ranging about after snacking on  the new feed.

The big buff rooster.

The rooster and the ladies at the bottom end of the chicken pasture.

New Tenants

The new occupants of the mobile hoop coop.

Allright chickens, the rent is 2 eggs per 3 chickens every 1 day.  Got it?

Coop 2.0

After completing the first coop, I thought that the birds still needed a bit more space.  They will all cozy up fine together, with room to spare, but there were not quite enough nesting boxes.  Also, I needed something a bit more portable if I wanted the chickens to clean up a crop on the other side of the field.  (That's another way they earn their keep, field cleanup!)

A few years ago I built a mini greenhouse using 1" plastic tube, bracketed to a wooden frame.  The general construction idea was the same.  Luckily I had some 1" brackets left over from the greenhouse construction.  (always good when you finish a kit-type project and have parts left over, right?...)
And I had some of the same 1" tube leftover.  Had to buy some 2x6s though.

Then I added nesting boxes to the back and wrapped some leftover wire fence over the hoops.  Conveniently, the fence was 4' wide, so just two passes with the fence.  This will help support the roof. prevent chicken exploration, and let me secure the coop later on if needed.

I added perches made of branches, and another cross piece to hold the feeder.

There we go, a super mobile coop.