Tuesday on the Farm

With homestead farming, each day will be a little different. It's not like a commercial farm where I need to adhere to a preset schedule in order to get certain crops in on particular days so that their harvest date is fairly established, or keep to a spraying or fertilizing schedule. Homestead farming is a bit more flexible, but knowing that I need the crops in order to support the farm, the drive to get things done is surely there. 

Every day starts with tending the livestock. That's a daily given. No deviation from that routine. Then it's off to do other things. 

First thing, I had some trading to do. Tuesday is a good day for that because I can take anything left over to the town farmers market on Wednesdays. I really don't have the refrigeration to store a large amount of veggies for several days. That's one thing I have to take into consideration as I'm growing more and more veggies for trading and selling. Packing the frig for overnight is one thing, storing for several days is another far different thing. So after first chores, I was off to meet a few "traders", plus pick up some young chickens needing to be relocated. Trading went well and I was back in time for lunch. 

I still had some pineapple plants that needed homes, so today I tucked them into several micro sized beds, giving a total square footage of 12. 

Next, I need to plant the taro starts that I prepared yesterday. As much as I hoped to get them planted today, I'm not sure I'll have time. So I put them all into buckets of water to hold them for another day it two. 

Now there was an urgent need to mulch all the new plantings. Out with the lawnmower and start mowing. 8 trashcanfuls later, I was ready to apply mulch. All the newly planted things got mulched, then watered in. The rest of the grass clippings went to tup up the previously mulched beds. 

The late afternoon I spent harvesting guava poles. It's slow work because I have to cut up the slash afterward and lay it down in one of the working hugelbeds. I don't like leaving the slash just laying there because it eventually makes it impossible to walk in the guava forest. So collecting poles goes slowly. It's not difficult work, just slow. On the next post, I'll show you what I'm using the poles for.