February 17, 2014

On 2/2/2014 we planted (indoors) broccoli, early jersey cabbage and red cabbage.

On 2/10/2014 the broccoli and early jersey cabbage is up, still no red cabbage.  We planted (indoors) Florence Fennel, Cumin, Kale, Blue Breadseed poppies, Jalapeno peppers (Saved Seeds - SS), Ancho Peppers, Bell Peppers SS, Cayenne Peppers SS, Silver Fir Tree Tomatoes (read about in Animal Vegetable, Miracle), Yellow Pear Tomatoes, Martina's Roma Tomatoes, Oxheart Tomatoes, Amish paste tomatoes, and Marglobe Tomatoes. 

2/17/2014 we re-planted red cabbage.  We have 14 hens and one rooster that were hatched in October of 2012.  The winter production of eggs went way down, but it is starting to climb again.  We got 8 eggs yesterday.  Our chickens are 13 Australorps (including rooster) and 2 Rhode Island Reds.  We are currently using Bartlet Milling Companies 20% layer pellets with Apex, and they free range all over the farm.  We got about 8 inches of snow this past week and they would not walk around in it.  We provided some area near the chicken coop where they had some cleared ground for scratching that they would go to, but we didn't figure that out right away.  We are still learning.  Currently we have finished putting rocks on the greenhouse floor.  After we put down the big rocks, we bought some smaller rocks (I think they were called 67m's).  They are dark grey.  We wanted them for both thermal mass and to level the floor.  We bought two tons (made two trips in the pickup) for about $32 each.  We wanted the darker color to absorb more sunlight.