On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
12 lords a leaping.
That is where we are at right now. Dec. 12th. First Blog.
Today I planted 6 lily bulbs that were given to me as a birthday gift. Late in planting, but they will be fabulous in late spring.
I also shoved 8, foot long cuttings of Rosa rugosa into some pots of soil. Wondering if they will take root by spring as well. This is an experiment...although I am guessing they will take root.
If you are wondering....this is going to be a blog about gardening, design, plants and starting our 7 acre farm.
We have lots to do...and getting our scale drawing of the farm completed is first on the list.
But taking into account that were are starting from scratch here...which means we have no deer fencing ( which we will desperately need if we want to actually harvest anything), no tractor and realizing that the land we own hasn't been tilled or farmed in over 4o years....if it ever even was. Take all this into account and realize we have a lot on our plates. To work with and grow and manage and create.
So where do we start? Besides the dream (the scale plan) on the piece of paper. We need a tractor. We need deer fencing. We need to improve the soil. The rest of it, will fall into place.
Deciding what we want to grow and how much of it, has been in the discussion since we bought this place last year. As well as deciding if we are going to grow food to sell as well.
I believe the idea remains that we have the land...why not use it to grow what we need, and sell what we have extra of. Although I wold love to turn the land into a working farm and be able to make a nice profit off what we grow.
SO that is the goal. Grow food to eat and sell.
I am thinking fruit and maybe some animals. Of course with the necessary vegetables for our own preservation and consumption.
We put in 13 fruit trees last 2011 spring: 3 cherry, 3 apples, 2 asian pears, 2 european pears, 2 figs and 1 peach for the fun of it. This 2012 spring, I want to purchase a few different varieties of plums, a walnut, filberts, probably more apples and pears, and some nectarines. Adding about 15 or so more trees to our new orchard. The trees we bought last year were first year whips, so we will probably purchase whips for the new ones this coming spring.
I also want to grow a lot of varieties of berries. Raspberries, blackberries (and their cousins, i.e. tayberries, boysenberries, marionberries, etc.), currants, gooseberries, some strawberries and blueberries.
Vegetables of course. But I could write all night about which ones we want to grow of those. So, I'll keep it simple. Vegetables. And when we start seeds beginning in February or so...I'll write which I am starting and how many.
The prospect of having animals keeps coming up as well. We already have 15 hens and one rooster that we raised from chicks. The rooster should consider himself lucky to be there I must say. Since, in the beginning of the chicken project, we had 3 roosters and gave two away. They were all supposed to be hens. But as luck would have it...they were not all hens.
So, we have our chickens....and they lay a good amount of eggs for us and sometimes for people we know to have a dozen or so. And we can give all our food waste and scraps to them, and get fertilizer in return as well.
Goats in the future? Maybe.... Sheep? Possibly.....
