March 31, 2012 - 08:08 AM
March has been an exciting month on the farm with thousands of tiny vegetable plants propagated in the green house and set out in the field gardens for our Vegetable CSA. Tomatoes and peppers have really grown big and re-potted several times so we hope to get early production on them. Half are in the gournd and half waiting until we are sure we do not have an April freeze.
The berry field has gone through full bloom and the berries are set and growing. We will be changing out the entire water distribution system used for irrigation in April. We changed the filtration system last year. If we have a drought, this will give the plants more water than we could before. I anticipate an early blueberry crop this year.
The blackberries are looking better than they have in years. We also in-planted new plants where there were die off gaps from the drought. The new acre of berries planted two years ago is doing well and we replaced 25% that died in the drought.
We fertilized all of the fields we planted clover and rye grass on in September and have an abundance of forage. The cattle look good. Now we will see if we can cut some hay in May. We have four steers for beef left and all but 1 and 3/4 are sold. We have some beef available now by the package and hundreds of pounds of lean ground beef.
Eva has been teaching to full Farm to Fork Cooking Classes. The last class was covered by Texas Highways and will be featured in an article in the magazine in June. There are many class choices available for the rest of the year.
We have moved the layer hens to fresh grass and they have an abundance of rye and clover. Baby chicks that will be future layers are now weeks old and growing fast. We received this week Italian and French heritage breed meat chickens. They will be raised on pasture and ready to sell at the farm in 8-10 weeks (around mid-June after processing).
The only downside this month was at the end when my foot got crushed under the tractor bucket. Now fractured, I have to get well soon. Farming in a blue boot is not going to be any fun.
I have been updating our Face Book page for Greer Farm more than blogs due to just being too busy. I will try and have regular blogs during the summer.