INTRODUCING THE NEWEST FARM MEMBERS:

Hey there! Welcome back to the farm!

About 2 weeks ago, we finally got ahold of the farm addition that we’ve been talking about and hoping for since spring of 2021. It was then, while in Wisconsin visiting our future child’s intended godfather, that we ate quail for the first time. We’ve wanted to add quail to our little homestead ever since! They are somewhat hard to come by in our neck of the woods, though. So when I saw the little hand written sign listing them and a few other types of poultry as available on the community cork board in the feed store, I jumped at the chance. 

Mr L has built them an adorable little house. He will be building 2 more of these boxes this coming weekend - the goal is to keep a total of about 10 quail in each box, with 2 males (cocks) to 8 or so females (hens). I believe his plan is to attach the 3 boxes to an A-frame, so that the quail are not directly over each other, primarily for ease of cleaning. (I will update this with a new photo when the whole thing is assembled!)

The little birdies have been delightful to watch. In nature they are ground birds, preferring to hide under shrubs and in clumps of grass. They clearly enjoy how close their hutch is to the ground. Initially they were fearful of every moving thing, but over the last several days they have grown accustomed to the activity of this farm. I can tell they’re relaxing because they don’t run and hop and flap into their hidey-hole cubby every time they see me anymore.  

All in all, we are glad to have them. We look forward to them eventually laying eggs that we can hatch into more quail, and thereby becoming productive, contributing members of the farm.

Has anyone ever stumbled upon a wild quail? They scare the crap out of me EVERY time! They wait until you’re basically on top of them and then they burst out from underfoot and fly away with a frtrtrtrtrtrtrt noise.

Certain Things Happen Every Year

Hey there! Welcome back to the blog!

There are some things that happen every year on the farm like clock work. Many of these things we have learned to anticipate and cope with; we monitor the fruit trees in the early autumn for pests that we hand pick, I look up the projected last frost every January and count backwards to plan all my seed starting dates, and so on. Certain things come up every year and we have adapted and put systems in place for it.

Other things come up every year, and somehow EVERY SINGLE YEAR it’s a surprise. How? Every year the days get longer, and EVERY YEAR that causes the chickens to resume laying eggs. And yet - EVERY YEAR I’m surprised and caught back on my heels. And the birds are free ranging.

Let me share a little something about chickens, for those of you that don’t already know. My chickens are heritage breed. They are allegedly smarter than your average production bird. If nothing else, they are certainly more resourceful than other breeds we have had. This is great when we are a day late making a run to the feed store (I have watched them catch, kill and eat a whole chipmunk. It was both gruesome and impressive.). It’s slightly less awesome when they resume their annual game of hide the eggs.

The goal every year is to anticipate the return of egg laying and keep the girls locked up in their expansive run, with access to the nest boxes and a few other human-accessible hiding spots. Wouldn’t it be great to have only a half dozen or so places to check and find fresh eggs that we have been missing for months?! Yeah. Unfortunately, it never quite pans out that way, and I instead end up playing hide and seek with a flashlight to try to find them before they crack, rot, or attract nasty critters that would be just as happy eating the hens as the eggs…

Someday, we will have a system in place for this. Every year I get on top of a few more tasks, every year my planning WORKS for a few more things. Maybe next year will be my year for early season eggs. This year the dog is enjoying her frozen-egg-scrambles.

What recurring event have you set up a system for? What is the system, and how long did it take you to set it up? Leave me a comment below!

A Brief Barnyard Update

Hey there! Welcome back!

I promised an update when I got the results of the state poultry health tests back, so this is that just a day or 3 late.

The flock came back clean and clear! We are now certified and able to sell chicks and ducklings in NH for 2023. Our first batch came out of the incubator yesterday - 24 healthy, lively, noisy chicks!

I will post a lengthier update soon. Thanks for checking in!

Cover Crops! Finally!

Hello, and welcome back to the blog! 

We are in the process of preparing the garden for planting! Mr L and I have had the same conversation over and over with regards to the garden. He firmly believes that one cannot grow vegetables in the ground unless one rototills that garden annually in the spring. I am trying to convince him that low or no till approaches are preferable, especially in our location as we have very little topsoil over a granite ledge and are on a grade - I don’t want what little topsoil we do have eroding away due to being tilled up every year!

To that end, this year I (finally!) got cover crop seeds before planting season was fully underway. We went through Rohrer seeds, and got 2 different blends to try out as well as 2 bags of plain buckwheat. In the garden, our primary goal for planting the cover crops is to choke out the stinging nettle and burdock that I fight with every year. We are also hoping the cover crops soak up some of the excess nitrogen we have in our soil. Buckwheat is supposed to be good for mining phosphorus from the deeper layers of the soil, bringing it to the surface where the other plants can access it. 

The two blends we got are the “Cool Season Soil Saver” and the “Restoration” blends. Restoration has forage beets in it, and I’m hoping to use that to break up some ground so that next year we can expand the garden to double the size it is now! The soil saver blend has mustard in it, which is supposed to help repel deer. We are going to plant that downhill from the blueberry bushes. The deer around here are entirely too bold about sampling my fruit trees and bushes!

I will be sending soil samples off to the UNH Extension Office lab for testing this week. I will publish the results when I get them in, and I hope you will all join me on the journey towards soil improvement! I am eager to see what we can accomplish over the next few years with low/no till growing and cover crop usage. 

Next week we’re going to talk about the poultry testing we had done this morning! (I should have results Tuesday or Wednesday of next week!)

Let me know your experiences with cover crops, if you have any!

Seedlings and toddler “help”

Hello, and welcome back to the blog!

Friends, it's March! March is always a fun month for me. February is so cold and so dark. In spite of being the shortest month out of the year, it somehow feels like it's the longest! March brings longer days, more sunshine, and warmer weather. It always gets me thinking about the garden because it's the earliest we can start seeds indoors in my climate.

Speaking of starting seeds: this is the first year that my little Bug has helped me plant. That was super exciting! He was very cute and very, very focused. For a kid who isn’t even two yet, he’s surprisingly detail oriented! So far, we have started tomatoes, bell peppers, cabbage, celery and basil. Lots of basil. In the next few days, I'll be starting some more herbs: thyme, rosemary, sage, and possibly oregano. The goal is to have herb and veggie starts for sale at various farmers markets this year, so keep your eyes peeled for news about that!

Hopefully, next year we will be able to put up a hoop house. That would give us the ability to start far more seedlings, because we would have both more space and also more natural light. Light is one of our biggest limiting factors. There is only space for so many grow lights in our house, and we don’t have a single windowsill that gets enough natural light to make healthy seedlings.

I am so excited to finally see some greenery around the house! Spring is by far my favorite season on the farm!

If anyone has tips for corralling toddlers in the garden, please leave those or any other thoughts below!

Springtime 2023

It’s that time of year again, folks. The time of year when I start having to go 3 rounds in the ring with myself every day because it is TOO EARLY to start seeds. Our last frost won’t be until the end of May. The few times I have started seeds now, at the beginning of February, the seedlings have been gangly and weak and the transplant was terrible. So I’ve learned my lesson. But the days are getting noticeably longer, so anytime we have temps above freezing like we did today my hands get itchy for some soil.

I was talking with a patient of mine last week, and he may have given me the key to getting through this time of year. He was telling me that right about now is when he would normally be making his own seed tapes, for seeds like carrots that are really too small to place accurately by hand. He used toilet paper and white liquid glue. Then my coworker told me she uses toilet paper and a baking soda-water mixture in a spray bottle. So now I’m feeling a little foolish and late to the party, but I’m also excited to give this method a try.

Speaking of patients and coworkers, I started a new job. It’s a step up and the money is decent, but the commute is 1.5 hours each way. That’s going to seriously cut into my weeding time. No decisions are being made yet but… I’ll be honest, it’s a long drive. Thankfully we haven’t had too many bad winter storms.

I am very excited to see how little Bug does in the garden this year. He was determined to help last year, and about the only thing I had growing last year were mint weeds, so he was able to pull plants out of the ground almost indiscriminently and he was very cute. I think this year he might approach actually helpful, getting on towards his second birthday. We’ll see. I think next year I’ll do up a separate little garden plot just for him, if he ends up as interested this year as he was last year. If he has no interest, obviously, we’re not going to try to force him, but last year he couldn’t be kept away and he loves to help feed the rabbits and the poultry and the dog, and unload the dishwasher, so I imagine his helpful little self will want to be in the garden too.

Anyone have tips for gardening with a toddler? Leave them in the comments below!

So many rabbits!

Hello, and welcome back to the farm!

We attempted this year to be more proactive in our rabbit breeding program. The goal was to have 3 rounds of litters, with 2 bred does each round. We instead ended up with 3 litters total. We also have had no luck getting them harvested, because Mr. L’s work schedule has been utterly insane (3 jobs, weekend overnights, craziness). This means that we now have 21 rabbits on the ground that are headed for the freezer. I thought the oldest four were way overdue, but in checking my notes for this post I see they’re only 16 weeks, which is about when we try to harvest because that’s when the pelts are useable. Many people harvest meat rabbits at 12 weeks, but the skin is too thin and fragile at that age.

One of the problems we ran into this year is that we have one doe who just won’t get pregnant. She’s proven, she has had 2 litters for us, she still lifts and everything, but for over a year now we cannot get her pregnant. She is not overweight. She lifts. Just won’t take. And Mr. L is being a big softie and refuses to process her, so I won’t be able to peek inside to see what’s up until she passes of natural causes. We always try to breed 2 does at once, but we kept pairing her with another doe, so we kept ending up with only one litter.

I have to admit, I am looking forward to having fewer rabbits. I’m excited to go down to just feeding our keepers. Mr. L and I are going to do some enclosure revisions, including adding a roof overhang for more shade and to protect the feed from rain and snow, and replacing the bottom wire on several enclosures that have rusted out and broken. No rabbits have escaped yet, but that’s mostly because Lancelot is a big sweetie who loves to be loved and doesn’t overly care about roaming. We have had to use giant heavy rocks as obstacles to keep our grow-outs contained inside their tractor. They escaped a few times as little babies and now they have a taste for freedom!

Free roaming bunny that I found when I got home from work. Hadn’t even made it out of the car yet.

We do have some rabbits available if anyone local is looking to start up a program, but after this weekend and next weekend we will have far fewer! If you’re local and interested send me an email: info@honeybunnyhomestead.com Everyone else feel free to leave your comments below!

Fall 2022 Recap

Hello! Welcome back to the farm!

Big changes incoming! We got our LLC filed and our tax ID application in, so the store page should be opening up really soon! We also got our garlic harvest in, but that was a bit overdue so I have no idea how well the garlic will or won’t store. We will probably mince and freeze most of what we don’t plant, just to be on the safe side.

The garden went mostly to the weeds again this year, so I’m working hard to try to get ahead of it for next year. I’m pulling weeds, and as I go I’m putting down a layer of cardboard, then the pulled weeds that haven’t gone to seed. The weeds that have gone to seed are getting tossed over the bank! A weed is just a plant growing where you don’t want it, and that bank could use some extra erosion-preventing foliage. Once the weeds have thoroughly desiccated in the sunshine, I’m going to put down fresh chicken and duck manure to cure over the winter, topped probably with another layer of cardboard. That should give my soil enough protection to not erode over the winter, while leaving me a mostly clear workable space come spring!

This weekend we are planning to harvest some long-overdue rabbits and maybe a couple of chickens. We’ve also got to get the frame feeders installed in the beehives. We must be in a dearth - those girls have gotten MEAN! I got stung while I was pulling up the garlic, at least 20 feet from the hive entrance! If they survive the winter, we are going to have to move them a lot further from the house. My one year old is getting really mobile and curious, and I don’t want him stung just for toddling around our front yard.

I’m working on getting some grant applications in for some exciting projects coming next year - we’re hoping to upgrade our chicken enclosure and get a few more rabbit runs built. I firmly believe that our rabbits are happier on the grass, and it reduces our feed bill too. Win, win!

Next year I’m looking at planting our corn, squash, and beans in the 3 sisters method. Anyone with experience with that style, please leave me a comment below! How did it work or not work for you? Lessons learned? Anything you’d keep or change about it? Corn is just such a space-intensive crop, I don’t really have room to plant all that I want to plant unless I start mixing other things into it. Anyone have experience growing cucumbers instead of squash? I know many squash are in the same curcubit family… Let me know what you think! Thanks a bunch in advance!