The Farm started as a homesteading experiment, with mistakes and corrections based on the movement of seasons, not bandwidth.

   The 2024 garden season is unfolding. The strawberries are coming in 'all massive' once again. Our selective breeding on the shape and sweetness is showing up in this year's harvests. Red raspberries are full and beginning to ripen. Peas and squash are flowering, some garlic and cabbages are ready to harvest, and the rest of the garden veggies look strong at this point.

   We just finished the garden fence to protect it from our strong summer north wind. This is going to create a micro climate for the 1/4 acre garden area. The greens, carrots, and culinary herbs are still providing from the winter garden but the greens are seeding while carrots start to grow small root hairs however still tender. Garlic is almost ready to harvest from the November planting; we just finished harvesting the garlic scapes. We are currently going through the 20 garden beds (3 ft. wide by 20 ft. long) and testing for pH, N, P, and K. Flatweed, chickweed, and a variety of grasses grow all winter and migrate into the fallow winter beds; the weeding never ends.

    Pests are controlled through plant rotation, intentional plantings, and other plant based methods. We also have used two chickens in a small cage (chicken tractor) moved along the bed before planting to scratch out weeds and eat grubs, root maggots, and earwigs. We have a continuing population of voles and had a new wave of slugs. Slugs are managed under control with frequent weeding, and plant inspections at dusk. Voles are underground. Spraying the ground with a castor oil and water mix moves most of them out of the garden, but we haven't been able to move out the colonies. We removed all the grasses from around the beds and that seems to help keep the voles away from the beds. We would use 3 gallons of castor oil a year if we sprayed it every six weeks. Voles harvest our asparagus roots. We also don't plant beets or turnips because these voles eat them. They disturbed our carrots this year and we lost 1/3 of our winter to spring crop. Otherwise, bugs are currently under control; we think the crop rotation and inspections manage that.

    Bees, we still need to introduce some mason bees in the old stumps in the garden as an experiment to increase plant yields.

    Soil, we use bulk compost made from our barnyard poop cleanup and mix it with autumn's dried fallen leaves. We feed growing plants with NPK regularly mixing dried compost, langbeinite, green sand, and bone meal. Plant rotations in sequences by plant families also help maintain an exchange of nutrients in the soil. We don't till our beds, we use a broadfork.

   A solar, off-grid, small electric system runs the fans in our greenhouses and provides a remote power source.