Farm Update: We’ve been busy!

My husband and I both work full-time jobs, in fact, I think I probably work 3 full-time jobs. Between running my actual web design business, Misfit Interactive, maintaining the farm while my husband is off-site working, and then managing the entire household, it can get overwhelming.

When it comes to the farm, we’re constantly maintaining what we can and chipping away at projects that need to get done while keeping note of what we need to improve next time.

Case in Point: One of our latest projects is figuring out the best way to support tall tomato plants. We have some tomato plants that are over 6 feet tall, and our original bamboo stakes just aren’t cutting it and the plants are falling over.

My husband is constructing a 2×2 frame around the plants and using juke to tie them up so they can continue to grow where we want them to and remain supported. Each bed takes at least an hour to setup and tie the plants, and we have like 8 beds of tomato plants. Hopefully we’ll be done this week and I can share our progress!

Once that is done, we have to get caught up on weeding  and putting down cardboard. We have to dig out the stream at some point since it’s getting full of run-off gravel.

We’ve also been battling a lot of freaking raccoons that have killed a lot of our chickens lately and all of our ducks.

The Chickshaw chicken coop has been working splendidly. The chickens are safe, though not really nesting where they are supposed to be inside the coop. But whatever, so long as they are safe.

The garden is fruitful right now, but we’re battling some squash bugs so I suspect our summer squash production is about to end abruptly. Hopefully we won’t have issues with our winter squash though because those are doing amazingly. There’s a lot of maintenance we’re struggling with to keep on top of things, and I think a better method of scheduling time is going to be necessary.

We’ve also noticed we’ve grown some things that I’m just not really utilizing right now because I don’t really like it, despite my good intentions. Dinosaur kale being one, and mustard greens being another.

We’re about to start our planning for the fall and winter gardens, which means starting up the seed shelving again. We’re also trying to keep on top of harvesting and preserving what we can and I’ve been making a lot of homemade tomato sauce and just knocked out 8 jars of pickles today with some excess slicing cucumbers we had.

Some upcoming goals include creating videos of some of the shenanigans here on the homestead, documenting our successes and failures for others to learn from, and enjoying ourselves and the process as much as we can.