Since my last post, we got 12 baby chicks! They are so cute and a joy to be around. We have Rhode Island Reds and thanks to my brother, we found an old hay wagon that our neighbor was giving away and I turned it into a chicken wagon. The babies are about a month old now and so cute. We can’t believe how fast they are growing. Today, when we went in to hang out with them for a while, two of them were sitting up on the lowest roost. Mind you, this roost is about 18-24” off the floor. We can’t wait till they are old enough that we can move the chicken wagon out to the side yard so they can free range and explore their new world. Right now they are growing new feathers and still need the heat lamp on during cold spells, so that they stay warm enough.
We also got started with our berry hill, out behind the barn. We bought 10 Organic Blue Crop blueberry plants and 10 Organic Jersey blueberry plants and, with the help of my daughter, we planted them in the mound, next to the swale at the top of the hill. The grower’s recommendation was to mix peat moss with the soil, so that the blueberries would have the acid environment that they need for good growth. Peat moss is not a sustainable product and I really wrestled with whether I should buy a bag of peat moss, as the grower advised. Did you know that when a peat bog is harvested, it takes 220 years to form another one?Ugh! That was what caused my dilemma…that certainly is not a sustainable time period. I did have coconut coir on the farm (which is a sustainable product) but it has a neutral ph and while it has great moisture retention properties, it wouldn’t provide the acid-loving environment that our blueberries need. Today I researched this topic to see what I might have been able to use and it turns out that coffee grounds (not used ones) would have been an acceptable addition to the soil to get the acid ph I was looking for. Note to self…leave the peat in the bog and get some coffee for the next blueberry bush planting. How did we ever live without the internet twenty years ago?
Today we replaced the washed out areas in the greenhouse floor and our shade cloth arrived…Wahoo! Since ordering the shade cloth a couple days ago, we have debated several strategies on how to install it. Should it go inside the greenhouse? (This would be a little tricky due to the metal halide lights). If it goes on the outside of the greenhouse, how do we get it up there and how do we secure it? We decided to try putting it over the double poly so we didn’t have to deal with working around the lights inside the greenhouse. We ordered a 20’ x 48’ 40% shade cloth, which means it cuts out 40% of the light that comes in. This is the percentage shade cloth that greenhousemegastore.com recommended for vegetable plants. You can get shade cloth in almost any % of shade that you might need. We ordered the type that has grommets around the edge, at 2’ intervals. I found a large spool of heavy-duty weed whacker string down in the shed so we strung that through the grommets on the front, long side. We extended the string quite a bit past each end grommet so we’ve have something to hold on to. I then took an extension handle that I use to wax our RV and extended that to its tallest position. I put it in the top left corner and started walking to the back corner of the greenhouse, along the side wall. I climbed onto an 8’ ladder and then was able to grab the top left corner and hold it in place, where it should be located. Since we have a relatively steep slope behind the greenhouse, I took the string, protruding from the top right corner and walked up the hill, pulling it up and over the plastic roof until I had it where I wanted it. Our concern with putting in on the outside was that 1) it needed to be somewhat easy to put on and take down each year and 2) we needed a way to secure it in place. Our greenhouse is 19 x 48 but I should have ordered a 20 x 55 shade cloth because of the arch in the plastic and to allow for wiggle room in getting it on and it would allow the cloth to hang down over the sides a bit. We have a little daylight coming in on the one edge and about a foot at the very top but we can live with that.
It only took us 15-20 minutes to put the whole thing on. We left the string through the top row of grommets and tied them off on each side of the greenhouse. 
This fall, when it cools down, we’ll untie the green weed whacker string and pull the shade cloth off the roof and store it till spring. Easy peasy….Before we put the cloth on, the temp in the greenhouse was
While we had the floor up today, to replace the washed out sand, we ran the pvc pipe for the air and water line to the area where the first trough will be. An exciting first step to getting the troughs built.
A few weeks ago some of our seeds arrived from High Mowing and Johnnie’s. We planted our organic Red Norland and Yukon Gold potatoes and they are doing very well. We planted these in coconut coir inside of wire cages. We took one of our smaller topsoil mounds and covered it with 6 mil plastic and that will become our Pink Pumpkin Hill in a couple weeks. Around June 1st we will plant Pumpkin Hill with China Doll pumpkin seeds that will produce beautiful pink pumpkins, once they mature. When you buy these seeds from a supplier, a large portion of the proceeds go towards cancer research. We hope to have a beautiful patch of pink pumpkins in October, just in time for Breast Cancer Awareness month. Stay tuned for more info on the progress of these unique pumpkins.
We’re glad that spring has sprung here on the farm. We’re in high gear to get veggies planted so we can bring fresh, organic produce to the local farmer’s markets.
