2013 Catchup

It's 2014, a new year and a new set of goals for our farm (yes, we've started to call our homestead a farm).  But before we get into a new year, I need to catch up on the fall of 2013 activities.

I lost my job in September and started a new one which requires me to be at the office from 7-4.  This has really thrown our lives into a disarray.  I'm now waking up at 5:30 AM in order to take care of the chickens and rabbits before driving to work, and returning home right around dusk.  Getting off at 4:00 will be nice in the summer months, allowing me to work outside from 5:00 - dusk, but in the winter, it's just darkness.

We planted approximately 50 pounds of garlic in October.  We started breaking apart the heads the night before and continued the next day, a task that we greatly underestimated the effort involved.  Altogether we had around 15 man hours just getting the cloves prepped.  With the help of my mom, we planted all of the garlic in 5 hours.  In order to speed things along, I gave everyone involved a nail apron to fill with cloves.  I then put the holes in the ground to drop the cloves in by screwing pieces of 1 inch diameter dowel rod to a 4 foot long decking board.  I would put the board on the raised bed and step on it, pressing the dowel rods into the soil.  Our estimates for next year are that we should harvest around 400 pounds of garlic, sell 300 pounds, and plant 100 pounds.  I will definitely need to recruit more labor for breaking the heads and planting.

Raised beds ready to plant garlic

 We received 4 rex rabbits for free from a friend.  My original design of suspending the cages from wire (as described in the Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits) did not work too well.  So I built a rack out of 2x4s and placed the cages on it.  The rabbits have done well and I'm looking forward to breeding them when the weather gets warmer.

I think that wraps up what happened during the hiatus.  We have lots of things planned for 2014 and my goal is to update this blog weekly with more tips, how-to's, and advice.

Stay tuned, it's going to be a great year.