Farm Update

I've been kind of bummed out working on the farm these past two weeks. It's been far too wet for my liking. Lots of rainy nights and even a few day long rains. It's resulted in water laying here and there in the gardens due to the sub-rock being pahoehoe lava. I've been working in the rain, which surprisingly I don't really mind all that much. The rain hasn't been cold. But my feet complain about being too wet for too long. And then, there are plenty of things that I want to do that just won't work in the rain, such as till the gardens and mow the grass. 

Some of the plants aren't happy with all the rain either. Several of gardens of green onions came down with rot and died. The potato boxes have stopped giving me big tubers, so I'm ending up with far less than half the anticipated harvest. 

On the plus side, all the rain has meant that most of my cuttings are taking. I planted plenty of chaya, cholesterol spinach, pineapple suckers, and sweet potato cuttings....they all rooted. That was amazing. Normally there will be a percentage that fail. 

Since it appears that the climate change means that the farm gets more consistent rain, I need to think about protecting crops from excess moisture. Surely I could grow most things in greenhouses or high tunnels, but that means a major expense. I'm not ready to do that. In fact, I'm at the point where I want this farm to support itself. So the farm needs to earn money in order to build greenhouses or tunnels, or roofs of some sort over certain gardens. I'm going to have to mull this over. 

On another note, I've captured and sold the pigs. I broke down and purchased a professionally made pig trap. It wasn't cheap, but the sale of all the pigs actually paid for it. On my next post I'll show you this new fancy trap.