What's Up at GFF?

It has been long enough since we've done some sort of "farm report" that it feels like the time is right to do just that on the Genuine Faux Farm blog.  Since the daylilies are at their peak this time of year, it only makes sense to open the blog with a nice, big picture of one of the beautiful blooms we can find here.

For those who do not know, Farmer Tammy had surgery to repair an Achilles tendon and remove the bone spurs/chips that were sawing away at it.  She is approaching the six week mark after surgery when she can begin rehab in earnest.  

She is also hoping this will signal the beginning of the end of her "captivity" in the farm house.  You see, it turns out that much of the farm is not horribly accessible if you don't have two working legs and feet.  We did invest in a three wheel scooter to try to provide her with a tool to have access to the farm, but one of the wheels was warped and we only just received the replacement.

Speaking of annoying things...  Ok.  Wait.  I am not saying Tammy is annoying.  But, I WAS saying the faulty scooter was annoying.  Are you all trying to get me into trouble or something?

 

A few weeks ago I might have said something about the annoying deer at the farm.  Having varmints like woodchucks, rabbits, raccoons and other critters cause us problems is not a new thing at the farm.  However, we haven't had horrible issues with deer in the past.  So, of course, this year had to be the exception for that particular animal.

The amount of space we planted for veggies this year is a mere fraction of what it once was.  We've provided a bit more wild space, which is nice.  But, the deer apparently decided this was not adequate and they found that our potted plants up by the house were tastier than anything else.  If you look at the photo above you can see that they got up on the back entrance to the house and managed to bend up some of the railing.  

We suspect they pushed each other around when they realized there were no more spider plants to eat.  Apparently, every part of those plants are pure ambrosia for deer.  They tasted several other plants as well.  I guess we've got about twenty or more pots available for new plants if we want to bother with that now.

So far we have been able to keep the deer out of the high tunnels.  So, that's where the remaining potted plants went for a while.  

The snow peas germinated poorly this year, but we were able to harvest enough to have several meals (but not enough to share with others - sorry).  We had a couple of sunflowers that volunteered in the pea row and we just couldn't quite bring ourselves to pull them out.  So, there they are.  

The green beans have been producing pretty well and we've been concentrating on freezing beans for Winter.  We did have enough to offer beans to people on our egg and veggie list and I suspect we'll be able to do that again once people come back from vacations and the next flush of beans fill out.

The potatoes in Valhalla look like they are about ready to harvest, so we'll be pulling those in soon too.

Typically, we like to move the Valhalla high tunnel in May, but we just didn't have the time, energy and resources to do that this year.  That's ok, we'll be in better shape to do that next year.  For now, we'll start converting the old pea, lettuce and potato rows to Fall crops over the next week or so.  That's actually right on time, so there is hope for future crops.

Eden, on the other hand, is in need of some repairs and then we'll see what happens with that one for the rest of the year.

The garlic crop has been slow to develop this year, but the harvest is just around the corner.  The plants seem healthy enough, but are a bit smaller than they often are.  We'll see what the heads of garlic look like when we pull them out very soon.

The poultry on the farm are doing well (or have done well).  We took the broilers (meat chickens) to the park just under two weeks ago.  This year, we are only raising 100 birds in total - down from the 500 we had last year.  

This is just another fact of life with our farm right now.  Two people on the farm, both people have full-time off-farm jobs.  Something has to give.

Poultry, if you don't know, require attention more than once a day, each and every day that you have them on the farm.  While we have shown we are certainly capable of maintaining multiple flocks, it does wear on a person after a while.  And when you are down to one person doing the chores...

At present, we have a flock of turkeys, who are inquisitive and participating in crowd gobbles as a way of greeting Farmer Rob when he brings food or water.  We are raising the same sized turkey flock as we have now for many years running.

We also have two flocks of laying hens.  One flock is currently laying and resides in the Summer Cottage on pasture ground.  We will be looking to move these birds to new homes as we get closer to September.  The young hens (known as the henlets) should begin laying about that time.  In the past, we have kept the older hens until October to give the henlets more time to get into the swing of laying. That will not be the case this season.

The net result is that we may have a lull for a while where we might not have as many eggs to sell as we have in the past.  But, once the henlets get back to full swing, we should be able to fill orders just fine. This is just another of those things we need to do to adjust to the realities we find ourselves facing in 2022.  

There it is - a farm report from the Genuine Faux Farm.  If you've got questions, feel free to contact us or make a comment and we'll be happy to write a follow-up blog to address them.

Have a good day everyone!