More boring farm news

Hello Again, For some reason the combination of raining days mixed with sunshine and bits of hail have driven this week into forgetfulness. I thought I had Spring Fever for a minute. I ended up tilling some new areas of the farm to get ready for Summer planting and never finished it.

By the time Wednesday rolled around I was ready to go to a local auction to see if any bargains were available. I got three rims and three tires with rims for $35 dollars. I will send them to a friend in PNG. All the other farm implements went for too much money.

I planted around 700 sweet corn seeds into trays for an early planting of corn. This is one way we can get a head start on summer sweet corn. I will plant another 1000 next week as well to get ahead. This way if we start them off a week apart I can plant them a week apart in the soil and hopefully pick them a week apart. A friend Simon Callcut taught me this trick.

On Thursday The same Simon came around and gave me a hand with the groundwork needed to start the new greenhouse. He imported it from the USA and is now moving to the USA so he ended up selling it to us to have on the farm. It is 30 feet wide( 10 Mtrs) and 100 feet long (30 mtrs). We have room for two more of the same size all next to each other. Just a dream at the moment. One will be enough work to get used to.

We worked hard all day till dark to pound the 50 steel pipes needed to hold the arches going across the greenhouse area. This is the most important thing to do right as they all have to be precise in height and distance from each other. The plastic will not lay perfect across them if that is not done right.

This morning was cold and raining so I got a break from farming and relaxed after breakfast. When the summer season is here that will only be a memory.

I was able to finish leveling and pounding in the steel pipes with my son helping me holding the level and he actually finished tapping them in.

We than went to pound some wooden stakes to place the corners of our new chicken coop house.
So far the size is 6 metres wide and 12 metres long. We hope to have 150 chickens by next year to have our own full production of eggs for farmers market sales. Eventually when we apply for certification they will be included.

I have to build a fence on three sides to keep them in . About 1/2-3/4 acre of land will be their free range. We are not sure of the exact size so have to measure that soon.

Our vegetable picking machine is still not ready to be delivered hopefully next week as the final touches are getting installed. The mechanic started it up for me and showed how much has been done to it. I will post pictures later on of this contraption.

Well, there is much to be done this weekend so until next week See ya.

Farmer John