The new hens are nearly ready to lay enough fresh eggs to sell again. We’re collecting nearly two dozen a day now, but they’re still kinda small. It won’t be long now. Look for another announcement and the return of the sign out front by the road saying: “EGGS!”
The new batch of egg layers is growing fast. Here they are trying out their new high roosts for the first time.
Here’s one just two months ago, on the low roosts:
They are about five times the weight they were two months ago. We should have fresh eggs again soon!
You’d never know it by today’s weather, but last weekend, the weatherman predicted a frost. So the day before, we harvested all the less-than-hardy plants, bringing them inside for processing. It took every crate and basket we own to gather it all! Despite a massive canning, drying, freezing effort, (thanks for the help Christie and Zac) we still have many baskets of half-ripe tomatoes, lots of cukes and peppers to put up. I make it sound cumbersome, but the fact is we love having fresh food by the bushel crowding the counters in our farm kitchen.
Many of the broad leaf herbs also got pulled to rescue them from the coming frost. When dry, this will be about a pound each of basil and flat leaf parsley. Chives, onions, mint will be ok a while longer outside, along with the kale, brussel sprouts, peas, etc.
The keeper squashes are on the lawn curing in the sun for a while, to harden up the skins before storage. It’s rewarding to see them all gathered from the garden patch, all huddled together on the lawn.
All in all, a pretty good year and a plentiful harvest!
The smell of the kitchen this time of year is incredible. Today we’re making salsa from our sauce tomatoes, bell peppers and poblanos. We will likely be processing the harvest every weekend for the next few months. We’ll eat good this winter!
March is a pretty exciting time for New England farmers: The seed order arrives, we start digging around for seedling trays and heat lamps. Sprouting seeds kick of the re-greening of the dead brown ground being revealed by the quickly retreating snow banks. Karen has broccoli and kale started already, pushing up first leaves. Last week she planted 4 kinds of tomatoes and 3 kinds of peppers. This week, some of the early flowers and herbs will find their spot out on the seedling starting porch.
Get ready for some great produce this year!
