This week

Hi Everyone,

Well, the strawberry caper has been solved. Why weren't we getting any strawberries? It wasn't the plants. It wasn't the weather. It certainly wasn't the farmer. It was RACCOONS!!
After all the rain and wet weather last week, I was out checking on everything and saw, what seemed like, thousands of footprints around the strawberry patch. I googled raccoon footprints and sure enough Mr. and Mrs. Rocky Raccoon were having themselves a nightly feast of our strawberries. We have moved some of the electric chicken fencing over to surround the strawberries. I'm sure Rocky and Rockette were in for a literal shock when they went to dine two nights ago. In the last two days we can see strawberries again on the plants. It's to late to share, as there won't be a full bounty at this point, but at least the questions have been answered.

This week we have available a nice mild salad mix and garlic scapes; those lovely shoots the garlic plant pops out a couple of weeks before the garlic bulb is ready to pull out of the ground. They are strange looking, but have a delightful mild garlic taste that you can chop up for just about any dish or salad.

We are picking up a number of pullets (18 week old chickens that are ready to start laying) in the next couple of days to add to our laying chicken numbers to keep those eggs comin'.

We planted another 400 onion plants and 50 sweet potato plants yesterday. We have 50 more sweet potato plants still to come and be planted. Herbs, peppers, cucumbers, beets, beans, squash, potatoes and tomatoes are off to a good start. Blueberries and garlic should be the next to be ready.

The farm looks so nice this time of year. Everything is still green and growing with few weeds to ruin the picture.

Vicky and Steve