Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Mike CHS]

I keep it pretty tidy but it doesn't take a lot of effort. The rows themselves have some good topsoil but all of the area outside of that is mostly rocky soil and our neat little hoes make quick work of what does come up. I probably need to give the folks that make those things a plug at some point.

The beds themselves are planted so thick that weeds don't get any sun to get started so no weeding there.

 

[Southern by choice]

Love the raspberry plants! My favorite!

Years ago in another state we had a huge garden and an orchard.
Loved when the berries came in- I would call my friends and say harvest time! They would come with buckets and buckets so they could make jam.
I never made jam (no time back then) we just ate them as we picked them. LOVED them!
I am looking forward to moving and doing rows and rows of them!

The strawberry field was wonderful but the daggone rabbits would take a bite out of one and move to the next. But every morning my wee little ones (wow- long ago its seems) and I would go out and pick some for breakfast!

The asparagus was wonderful but some years they would be fat and awesome other years spindly and stalky.

The orchard however was HORRIBLE!
The best day we had in the orchard was the day we ripped all the trees out!

Loved the cherry trees though.
We had a hurricane and it took some of the more mature trees out and from there we did the rest!
Fruit trees IMO are a PITA!
I'm sticking with raspberry, blueberry, and maybe blackberry in the future but no trees!

Love your garden!
Nothing better than home grown broccoli!
Something I miss but don't have space or time for right now.

 

[Mike CHS]

SBC we have had a mix of good and bad on our orchard. Deer got half of our first 20 trees but we wound up with a good variety once we got here full time. We have had good return on most everything but I'm thinking of crossing blueberries off our list of plants. They don't seem to thrive at all and I try not to plant anything that takes much effort. We don't water at all but use a lot of compost and sheep manure.

 

[misfitmorgan]

@misfitmorgan the food safety people would disagree with you about not needing a water bath for canning pickles. I would prefer not to process them as they tend to not stay crunchy when they have been cooked but safety says otherwise. I like to do the very small sweet pickles, about 2" long is my favorite. But it is hard to grow enough cucumbers to get enough small ones at the same time to can them. I didn't plant any this year...at least not yet. Our growing season goes into October/Nov. so I still have time if I get motivated enough. We'll see.

Oh I know @babsbag but they also frown on the way we make sauerkraut, crock pickles, butchering our own animals(not USDA inspected)...so yeah i ignore the food safety people when it is for our own food. I think common sense gets you quite far.

 

[Mike CHS]

We hired two of the neighbor boys today to help us get caught up. The weather has been perfect for grass growth and I was getting behind it. We had one weed eat the dry lot that still needs a lot of large rocks picked up so I can use the mower in there and the other helped Teresa do a major cleaning on all of the chicken coops. The solution to the dry lot grass is to put some goats in there like we originally planned but the amount of effort expended so far has caused us to slow down on animal acquisitions until the fence line is finished.

We move all of the electric netting every couple of days so the main paddock isn't getting over grazed. The pen the ram and the wethers are in is growing faster than they can eat it so I haven't been letting them out into the netting. I introduced our ram Ringo to a curry brush yesterday and found he will follow that brush around as much as he will the food bucket.

Many of the problem weeds that I thought were under control were regaining a foothold in the 10 acres of open hay pasture so I started spraying this morning. My sprayer only covers about 10' at a time so it took most of the day to spray about 2/3 of what needs spraying and I'll finish it in the morning if the wind is calm enough.

We will separate the flock next week in prep for breeding our 10 original ewes in July and plan to start flushing them but since they are already in good body condition so I'm not sure it will make any difference.

 

[greybeard]

My sprayer only covers about 10' at a time

What kind of sprayer, pump, and nozzle(s) are you using?

 

[Mike CHS]

I have the FIMCO 40 gallon sprayer that Tractor Supply (and others) carries.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/fimco-large-40-gal-3-point-12v-bolted-hitch-sprayer

 

[greybeard]

I have the FIMCO 40 gallon sprayer that Tractor Supply (and others) carries.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/fimco-large-40-gal-3-point-12v-bolted-hitch-sprayer

That's a good little unit. I started to buy one but got a 20 gal for my 4 wheeler around the house then built my own 300 gal sprayer for the pastures.
Do your end nozzles look and spray the same pattern as the center nozzles?

If you are interested in improving the performance of your unit, consider replacing the foldout boom with one of these:
http://www.fimcoindustries.com/ATVBK-3025.html
I and several other people I know are using them with good results on much bigger sprayers and I have used one on my 20 gal sprayer at times. Much better coverage, with a 3.1 gpm pump, and no boom to fold in and out. Each of the 3 nozzles has a shutoff valve incorporated in it if you wish to spray just one side or a narrower pattern in the center.
The end nozzles spray a long right triangle pattern and increases the coverage area.
(I ran out of room on my drawing but both sides should look the same)

I've also had good luck with Hamilton/boominator type nozzles.
https://www.smalink.com/products/SPRAYERS@@2c AG PUMPS@@2cSPRAY PARTS/SPRAY TIPS/BOOMLESS SPRAY NOZZLES/HAMILTON BOOMLESS.aspx

I know tractor supply sells the Hamilton type nozzles here, but I had to go to a farm co-op to get the fimco setup in my drawing.

 

[Mike CHS]

That definitely looks worthy of looking into. I have only sprayed the pasture twice in the 4 years we have owned this place but I wouldn't mind cutting the time spent out there in half or better.

 

[Mike CHS]

We move the electric netting every couple of days but 20 minutes spent every couple of days saves me several hours of weed whacking. Since the field fence isn't electrified they eat right up to the fence. We have almost 1000' feet of the netting so we can pretty much cover as much of the pasture as we need to keep them on fresh grass without over grazing their paddock. I'm going to hopefully finish spraying the pasture this morning to beat back the milk weed that is trying to make a come back. Supposedly it is toxic for sheep but they go for it before anything else and I haven't seen any affect yet. Better safe than sorry though so back to spraying.

We have several areas where we don't want permanent fencing due to access to/from our neighbors farm since we share a lot of work load.

The sheep are maintaining good condition and we are going to separate the lambs from the ewes this week. We got our handling chute and tilt table moved Monday and just need to rig up some fence to use for handling/loading. We wound up moving the equipment to an otherwise unusable area down by the shop.

The garden is providing beyond our expectations.