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Posts Tagged ‘Chickens’

Chickens At Four Frog

April 27th, 2010
Four Frog Farm | Blog

[slideshow id=174]

Hey All,

My apologies for being a flaky blogger farmer. I’m trying to reform my ways. I guess the long and the short of it this spring is the same as a lot of people - it’s pretty rainy and planting has been slow. The rain is a blessing however. It’s just hard to realize that when your greenhouse seedlings are outgrowing their containers and the field has standing water in it. So far we’ve got successions of lettuce, squash, broccoli, kale, peas, corn etc etc in the ground and we’re hoping for much much more coming up here very soon. The spring, despite the near-constant rain, has been ever-so pleasant. The onions and garlic are growing like crazy and we’re looking at our best crop of those for sure, ever. We’re selling all the hardneck garlic right back to Peaceful Valley, so look for the Capathian and Dujanski hardneck varieties. They are purple-striped types and so beautiful.

On the intern and employee front, all is well here at Four Frog. We have our best crew ever assembled and we’re enjoying learning about farming and one another. For our worker blog, go to

http://www.fourfroginternblog.wordpress.com/

Matt, Leda and Stephanie are creative, fun people who will change small-scale farming in their own ways - our job right now is to help them learn what they need to know, and then help them get their farms underway.

Chickens have arrived. Check out the slideshow at the top of the post.

For longer detail, go to our farm journal at http://www.fourfrogfarm.com

Also, for very up-to-date info, become a fan of the farm on Facebook.

Enjoy the rain,

Andrew

Four Frog

Tags: planting, rain, chickens, interns, employees

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Farmers Market season is upon us

April 26th, 2010
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

Sara here!

we have two weeks of farmers markets under our belt for this season so far! The Poulsbo market has pretty much doubled since last year, and it’s a whole new market! I’m now a raw goat milk convert, and can’t wait to try some locally made pasta! So far we’ve only had our overwintered kale, duck and chicken eggs and plant starts to offer, but it’s getting me super excited for the new season! The arugula and bok choi is looking good, we have some lettuce and spinach that is almost ready, and are transplanting (cilantro, leeks, onions, lettuce, parsnips, beets, kale, and chard) and seeding like mad (squash, melon, beans, greens, and beets) to get everything in. We mixed our own soil (3-4 parts compost, 3-4 parts topsoil, 1 part pearlite, 1 part vermiculite, and 1 part peat~~ water!) this year instead of buying pre-bagged seed starting mix and I must say that I’m liking the way it turned out. I’m also stoked to get the tomatoes in the greenhouses. We’ve run our chickens through them and I’m hoping that the extra nitrogen will be a benefit.

Our season is pretty short, and Jared and I are looking forward to getting some low tunnels up soon with the slitted row cover to hopefully extend the season. we used it before in our small garden’s raised beds, and liked the way it worked for those.

I will make a concerted effort to get some pictures of the market this next week and will get them up soon!

Tags: farmer's market, planting, seeding, transplanting, greenhouses, chickens, seed starting mix, low tunnels

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Betting the Farm on Love

February 27th, 2010
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

[slideshow id=135] Dear Blog Followers, It’s so good to be back here on the blog. We have spent a lot of time this winter adjusting our lives to the wide range of changes that take place once a couple turns together to a life of farming as their fulltime occupation. Sara and I have been married just over a year, and for the last three years we’ve been tending the earth and planting seeds together, a life skill we completely lacked before that’s now an occupation for two rather than… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: seeding, chickens

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September 19th

September 19th, 2009
Four Frog Farm | Blog

Last time I mentioned we will take 1-2 acres out of production next year and rotate chickens and goats on the ground. We are starting to speak a little more specifically about how that will look. We will probably go with around 150 laying chickens and two goats (please note that these figures will definately change - I gaurantee it). The purpose: Make more money! ... ? This year we planted more than we could care for. We hope to get greater veggie yield out of a smaller area by really focusing… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: chickens, goats, pasture

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September 16th

September 16th, 2009
Four Frog Farm | Blog

Late on Saturday afternoon, Logan and I found ourselves walking through the rows of august-planted swiss chard. Row upon row yielded heavy damage to the chard plants due to leafminers. What to do? The scenario made us think about our motives and how we were to have a sustainable farm. This year, we have way too many weeds and too many herbivorous insects (squash bugs and beetles, aphids, leafminers, cabbage whites, tomato/corn ear worm, - to name a few). We decided to focus on the health and… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: cover crops, pests, chickens, fertility, goats

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3 weeks (almost)

July 3rd, 2009
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

sara here! sorry for not blogging sooner. Jared Has been out on tour for almost 3 weeks now, and I’ve been going it alone. It’s funny how you think that you’ll have sooo much time, I mean, 3 weeks, right? well, best laid plans… the first week was rainy, it rained, POURED for 3 out of the first 5 days, and then the winds came. They blew out the rain, but also everything else. One of our canopies is now out of commission, both of our chicken houses were damaged, and the plastic… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: eggplant, peppers, rain, wind, chickens, weeds, tomato

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The farming life!

April 27th, 2009
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

New commitment. You’ll see us here on a daily basis from now on. Our apologizes for being tardy in keeping you up with our farming lives a bit more like Sara and I would like. I’m going to stop feeling like I need to update you on everything and just commit to giving you the breakdown for each day of our farming lives. Cool? All right, let’s get started. I got home from my other job as a sound engineer; I tour and mix concerts for a band, which has a gold and platinum… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: farmer's market, salad mix, tomatoes, Bok Choy, chickens, the field

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Newer entries »

Two farms are starting from scratch.

They are turning the dirt and hoping to be successful enough to turn a profit, and to become a valuable part of their communities as suppliers of organically grown food.

Peaceful Valley is giving them a head start by offering them special pricing as part of this Freshman Farmer program.

The Farm Blogs

Freshman:
New Farms Coming Soon!
Sophomores:
	Laughing Duck Farm Newcastle, CA
	Starbright Acres 12575 Polaris Dr, Grass Valley, CA
Graduates:
	Coyote House Farm Palermo, CA
	Daily Grace Farms Crescent City, CA
	DeepSeeded Community Farm Arcata, CA
	Driftwood Farm Fort Bragg, CA
	EarthDance Farm St. Louis, MO
	Ellwood Canyon Farms Goleta, CA
	Freestone Family Farm Vernal, UT
	Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm Poulsbo, WA
	Home Plate Organic Farm Orleans, CA
	Honey in the Heart Farm Nevada City, CA
	Willow Springs Farm Penn Valley, CA
	Wise Moon Farm Redding, CA