A few things done

We have had an out of town guest here this last week so my routine has been a bit different. So, for an update here are a few things I have marked off my to-do list:

I have found a guinea hog boar "husband" for my sow. I will be picking him up in Arkansas at the end of May or early June. You can see the farm that I am buying him from at the link Rudugast's ideal Livestock.
The boar we are purchasing is a boar out of Skyfire Oreo and by Skyfire Sargent Pepper. Both our boar and sow will be "shared" with our neighbors to do tilling, compost turning and in the fall cleaning up under the nut and fruit trees. Of course they will also "help" us by having piglets. Think Hawaii here (unless your a vegetarian then just think Cute).
By the way--- I may have some piglets for sale in the fall for anyone interested.

I have a platform set up to raise my 250 gallon water container up off the ground. It is a mini deck like structure and it is under the chicken roof and though I would like to use it for watering the garden, I have such a large garden that when a drought occurs 250 gallons is just a drop in the bucket. (It can be used for emergency water for us though--along with our Big Berkey if we really needed it.) Instead, I think we will set it up as an automatic gravity fed watering station for the chickens and any sheep that are penned in there---or who have access through the neighboring pasture. That way we can travel a bit more during this summer without worrying about who will water the sheep, chickens, etc. Always an issue in this day and age of small farming.

I have tomato plants ready to plant out. Some of the seed was sent to me from a fellow blogger and then I also have the tomato "accordion" that I really enjoyed last year and did well in the drought. I also have more asparagus seeds sprouted for me and some friends. I am working towards another 40 foot row of asparagus so we can have a large harvest each year. The plants that I grew from seed last year are very tall now and seem to be doing well. Last year they never got taller than a foot---this year they are all at least 5 feet tall.
In addition, basil will also go out soon---in about another week. Their still rather small.

A 40 foot row of sweet potatoes went in on two very rainy days---only to get sun burnt on the first sunny day. So they are now under some burlap shade and looking a bit better. Hopefully they will make it since they are the two purple varieties of sweet potato I purchased. The rest of my sweet potato slips (about another 40 foot row) come at the end of May from Sandhill Preservation.

I got a 40' bed of raspberries planted ---but not mulched yet. Hopefully I will finish that by tomorrow. I am using old bedding from the ram/chicken pen so it should be full of good stuff for the berry plants. All my berries came from Nourse farms and look really nice. I even got a few extra--which I shared with my neighbor.
I have the yellow "anne", black "bristol" and two reds: "carolyn" and "taylor". By next year we should be snacking on berries and in a few more making jams and jellies hopefully. We had raspberries at our previous residence--but of course we didn't bring them with us.

My perennial oxalis bulbs/corms (aka OKA or OCA) came today and I will take pics of them to show what they look like before I plant them tomorrow. They are part of my expanded perennial beds that I am adding and posting about last post. Of course I only was able to get a few corms of these--they are rather expensive. We will see how they grow and taste and maybe in the not to distant future I will have my own to sell or trade with others.

Lastly---my lambs are growing like weeds this year. The grass is green and growing---unlike last year when it stayed short and stumpy. I will have to put up some new pictures soon. This batch of lambs has been very fun as most all are about the same size. They are like one huge school of "fish" swimming around the pastures, ignoring their mothers and overall trying to get into trouble. Baaaaad lambs! ;-D

Have a great weekend everyone!

Tomatoes

While I was sick, I tried to use my "feel good" times effectively and worked on getting some more of my seeds started. (I had a horrible cough "thing" going on. Yuk!) I now have all our tomato seeds started for this year and all have been quick to sprout. I am running out of grow light space, which is more of an issue of no where to hang them, and I need to solve this quickly or I could end up having problems because of it. I have had plenty of radiator space though and it's been cold. Anything requiring heat to sprout is set on the radiators, or near them, and usually sprouts very very quickly--as in just a matter of days. 7 to 9 days to sprout---no way! their up in 4.
I am trying something new by planting the tomatoes in dixie cups this year. Not that the dixie cups are new--I have used those before for seed starting--but how I planted the seeds in the cups. I only filled the cups about 1/4 of the way up with soil and then planted the seeds. As the plants have grown up in the cup, we first thinned, then added more soil. Most haven't made it to the top yet but they seem to do fine---a bit leggy since they were so far down in the cup but it works with the idea of "potting and re potting". Only this way---I don't have to move them to a bigger cup/pot yet but I get the benefit of encouraging roots along the stem. I will see if I think they end up same, better, different than the way I normally would start them. Maybe just more convenient rather than better. Or maybe no difference at all. Hopefully they will have many roots more quickly. We will see.
I also have a picture up at the top of this post of my artichokes in the paper pots. Here is a picture of them two weeks ago, so you can see how much they have grown. I have been using a 50/50 mix of bagged seed starter mix and worm castings. I love this mix. I will stick with it since it seems to hold moisture very nicely. I find that even the regular bagged seed starting mixes have just a bit to much peat for me. I think they dry out a little too quickly and get hard. Everyone who has started seeds knows how hard it is to re wet dried peat mixes. The worm castings seem to keep the mix a tiny bit moister and easier to re wet. Even if I make my own (which I have done for soil blocking) I will incorporate the worm castings from now on---I just really really like it.
Out of the 30 seeds for the artichokes that I started I only had 12 finally sprout. The un sprouted are still down on a heat mat ---but I think I am just about ready to throw them in the compost pile. I am not sure if it was me, the seeds or the technique or maybe all three. I had 8 sprout fairly quickly but then the rest were stragglers. The last one sprouted about 1 week ago----which is the reason why I haven't just chucked the whole batch yet. Now that I actually have some up for this year that will more than likely set buds/fruit, I will start the rest this spring (remembering to soak them this time) when I can just set them outside and let nature do it's thing with them. We will see how they sprout then.
I did want to have about 20 of them so 8 more would be nice---but no big deal if I don't get them. I can always take side shoots off the current plants next year and get my other 8 that I wanted.

Well, I know everyone has ordered seeds already BUT if anyone wants a free package of "Rose" tomato seeds--described here---please email me with your address and I will send it to you. I debated whether or not to keep them but really I have plenty and they were a freebie with my order. I thought about starting a few just to try them---but again, I really don't need more.
Currently this year we have planted these varieties of tomatoes:

Purple Russian
Egg
Japanese Black Trifele
Pink Accordion
Granny Cantrell German
German Lunch Box
Weeping Charley
Dad's Barber Paste
Homestead 24
Purple Calabash
Carol Chyko's Big Paste
Great White

All of these seeds are from either Baker Creek or TomatoFest. All have sprouted well and I of course have many left over. I would like to eventually start all the seeds in my packages to grow and sell in the early spring but we just don't have the room this year to do that. Next year I believe we will be a bit more organized and have less remodel supplies and hay stored in areas where they aren't suppose to be. That in turn will re-free up room for my seed "stuff".

Everyone have a great day--we're about a month from the "official" start of spring.

SmallMeadow Farm Icelandic sheep, Irish Dexters and heritage chickens