On The Farm

In my garden, things don't always work out the way I plan. On paper, there will be plenty to eat from the earliest spring asparagus and peas, to the late season pie pumpkins. The reality is that rain and wind work  hard to defeat my plan. Do you ever wonder what actually comes from the garden? 

This past week in the garden, I was able to  harvest radishes (yuck) and salad greens(yay) every day. Saturday, the spinach worked in my calzone recipe. Tonight, since the broccoli is bolting in our weird spring weather, we ate as much as possible in our salad. Currently, only one gallon bag of it is in the freezer. Yet another foiled plan. 

The strawberry picking is an evening chore for the older children. A bowl is about 8 quarts of berries, and our plan is for 50 quarts-so hopefully they keep coming on for a couple more weeks before succumbing to the heat and dryness of our summer weather. 

Our hens are not laying as much as they usually do. Our tractor lost it's ~something or other~, the part that turns all the things you hook onto said tractor. Can you tell my husband handles the tractor? Since we grind our own chicken feed, we need the tractor to fill the bins with ground feed, for easy access. No tractor=No feed. I bought in two bags of chicken feed and the girls were not pleased. Eggs dwindled to about 8, from almost two dozen a day! That is a serious fowl strike. 

Today, our priority was getting those bins full. Hopefully, the girls will recover and start laying again. We go through a lot of eggs. Breakfast takes an even dozen! 

It looks like the tomato plants are making it, but the peppers are not doing well. I am thinking that there won't be enough peppers for the market this year. Sorry guys! 

Since we try to eat mostly what we grow and raise on the farm, it is always exciting to see how my meals morph, as the garden and livestock progress. Living on a farm is constantly a work in progress, which you can see on the dinner table.