2
March
2010
Hello everyone. Just thought I would take a minute to put together an update to the farm happenings.
Spring seems to be upon us in the greenhouses these days. Seedlings a plenty are sprouted and showing true leaves even. Hotbeds have been dug, layered, capped and are cooking away as you read this. The laying hens are laying eggs again, the pig pens have been cleaned, the broilers are almost all out of the smaller greenhouse. We received our first shipment of bedding plants last week. Spring is defiantly beginning to take hold.
Seedlings we currently have sprouted in the greenhouse include: lettuce, spinach, arugula, onions, carrots, peas, cilantro, mustard greens, radish, mizuna, and beets. True leaves are showing on some and for this time of year, really who could ask for more? More seeds are being planted every day and the last few days efforts have included the construction of hotbeds to accelerate seed growth.
Last week was a little past time to clean out the pig pen, this unimpressive chore left us with a pile of natures best fertilizer. Some of you may be familiar with the concept of a hotbed, most of us are unfamiliar with these so here is a quick intro and then what we did. Hotbeds are essentially compost piles 2-3 feet thick which are capped with soil. These are ready to plant beds, which heat from below through the decomposition process. Compost piles routinely reach temperatures of over 180° F , this bottom heat is ideal in unheated greenhouses or cold frames which sustain freezing temperatures regularly until later in the season. The hotbeds we have recently constructed are dug to roughly 2.5 feet pig manure , spent barley, and soil are well mixed into the bottom of this pit which is then capped with 6 or more inches of soil to hold in the heat and provide media for seedlings to get started. We have planted only freeze tolerant plants in these beds at this point but the next step will include planting tomatoes and peppers directly in these beds within the next 2 weeks. Without bottom heat it would be an exercise in futility to plant these hot season plants in the greenhouse until at least late April or mid May. The construction of these hot beds will not only allow an early start for the hot season varieties but once the decomposition has progressed to the point of cooling the root zone is filled with an optimal supply of nutrients for the growing plants.
The animals seem to be happy with the warm temps, longer days, and melting snow too. Our laying flock has started laying eggs again and we are hard pressed to keep up with all the eggs we are getting. The pigs are happier and more energetic these days….this might have something to do with a freshly cleaned pen as well. And the broilers, although only some 20 left are often found lounging in the sunshine enjoying the fact that fate has found them in a greenhouse during early spring. In my opinion a greenhouse in early spring is perhaps one of the best places in Idaho.
We just received our first batch of bedding plants from our suppliers. This year we are determined to have larger plants for sale earlier in the year and the plugs we just received certainly reflect that. Not only are these plugs over a month earlier than our last year’s purchase, they are also HUGE, these regal geraniums are some 6 inches tall already and branching!
With all the happenings around the house and farm you can’t help but feel spring in the air. Fresh produce is just around the corner along with blooming plants and baby chicks. Here’s lookin forward.
Dewayne Arave 
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26
January
2010
Hello everyone,
I don’t know about the rest of you but right about now spring is starting to nag at me almost daily. The thought of planting seeds and planning out the CSA is pervasive. This past weekend included a great three hour class for the Idaho Falls Community Gardens, the class flowed quite well and I covered some basics of vegetable gardening in Southeast Idaho. We continue to have some fresh chickens available, about 60 left last time I counted, seems we have a following of people who just want one a week which is easy enough to accommodate. Oh yeah, I started a new job with the INL providing technical support. Its been a busy few weeks…..
We are starting to plan out the growing year. Usually this is a loose plan of things we want, need and hope. This year we plan on being slightly more conservative than we have been in previous years as far as number of new varieties we try to plant and maintain. Instead we will focus a bit more on quantity produced. In previous years we have dumped all the income from our sales back into the business itself. We started 2 years ago with a small nest egg and bare pasture. After two years of dedication and putting every penny back into the business two major things have been achieved. 1. a viable organization is developing, the business is establishing a clientèle, and overall volume and sales have increased significantly. 2. We consumed our nestegg, even went into debt to grow the business. This coupled with the immense workload is difficult to sustain to say the least. This year we are going to focus on at least paying ourselves something for our efforts instead of just putting all the money back into the business.
The glass for the Idaho falls Community garden went pretty good. I was surprised at the level of interaction with the audience. Many people had great questions showing some astute interested in the topic at hand. The topic being basic vegetable gardening in SE Idaho. With the unique and challenging circumstances we face in our climate there was certainly plenty to cover. The class was suppose to be 2 hours but with all the questions and interest we managed to take things into just over three hours. I was fairly nervous standing up in front of 70 strangers, most of which were older than I, and being the expert on the topic with any manner of questions coming at me from left field. However, now that it is all said and done, I am quite pleased with how it all went, I would call it a definite success.
The chickens are doing great. Its amazing how fast they grow. Out of 300 only 60-70 remain. The soil in the greenhouse will be amazingly produtive as we have managed to turn almost all of the 1000 sq ft house’s soil down to an average depth of 4 foot. With the leaves and chicken manure we have incorporated into the soil, we have essentially created a greenhouse wide hotbed and therefore we expect to have a great early season production of greens in that greenhouse.
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28
October
2009
Halloween is around the corner and so is the last Idaho Falls Farmers Market of the season. Many people asked us last week if we would make it to the next market and so far it looks as if we will. We still have peppers and tomatoes to sell as well as green leaf lettuce, arugula, radish, kale, colard greens, chard, and spinach. Not a bad mix for this late in the year if I do say so myself. Don’t worry if you miss the last market, we will be stocking the Eagle rock Co-Op as often as possible.
We still have chickens available around the end of November. We brought in 300 chicks and have been raising them in one of our greenhouses. They have taken up a little over a third of our smaller greenhouse and are doing a good job of turning the soil, rooting out all the bugs, and fertilizing for the next crop. They are still fairly small for commercial standards. Last time we weighed a few they came out to average around 2lbs each. According to commercial production guides we are behind the growth curve but this doesn’t bother us. We are feeding them grass, apples, a commercial grain mix, and plentifull supplies of worms they scratch from the greenhouse floor. No commercial operation would do things this way I suppose, its not efficent and economical enough. We also have them in twice the recomended space for full grown adult 8 lb birds. I can’t imagine having those birds 4 times the size they are now and living in half the space. Well so much for effiency eh? If your interested in some fresh or frozen chickens fill out an interest form by clicking here. They will be $2.50 per lb and can range from 4-8 or more lbs. As I mentioned earlier they should start becoming available around the end of November.
Hope to see many of you at this weeks farmers market, if not I am sure we will see you around.
Dewayne Arave
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20
October
2009
So we went ahead with the chicken order.
For those of you who didn’t hear, we ordered 300 baby chicks to grow until the end of November. These are Cornish rock X’s and grow very fast. These little guys grow fast, at 21 days old they are now over 1lb and should be somewhere at or near 8lbs by the end of November. Read the rest of this entry »
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1
October
2009
Its cold outside here is SE Idaho as I am sure we all know about now. Today was our final CSA delivery. Yes three weeks ago was suppose to be the final delivery but we couldn’t help ourselves apparently. So after calling every CSA member and getting confirmation’s from most of them we put together another package of farm fresh produce. Read the rest of this entry »
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