Wednesday April 25, 2012
Starting plants from seed is a skill that any small farmer, homesteader or hobby farmer will want to master as soon as possible. And it's easy - although the specifics differ depending on the plant you're growing, in terms of germination temperature, seed depth, and how long before your last frost you start the seeds. The most critical part of seed starting is (as is often the case in farming) infrastructure: you'll need at minimum, a horizontal surface and some fairly intense lighting (fluorescents are enough) to grow stout, hardy little transplants for your garden. Those of us growing food on a larger scale will benefit from a high tunnel for starts, but even a folding table can hold a garden's worth of tiny plants.
Monday April 16, 2012
Already wondering what you need to do once your baby chicks get a little bigger? Feeding and watering your growing chicks and eventually, your grown chickens, properly will maximize their health, growth and egg production (or meat production if you're raising chickens for meat). Luckily, it's not hard to choose the right commercial feed for your chickens' needs. For the more adventurous or advanced chicken farmer, making your own chicken feed is a possibility as well. And for the diehard self-sufficient homesteader, consider growing the basic ingredients for your chicken feed.
Monday March 26, 2012
It's a good idea to begin feeding your bees as the spring arrives and temperatures begin to warm, but before the first flowers are blooming.
We had a stretch of (extremely!) warm weather last week and I was able to check on my very busy, very abundant hive (I combined two weak hives last fall) and put some sugar syrup in a hivetop feeder for them. They seemed very happy about the bounty!
Tuesday March 20, 2012
If a hen won't get off the nest when you go to collect the eggs, instead trying to bite you with her beak, she might be broody. This can happen regardless of whether you have a rooster! It's springtime, and hens tend to go broody at this time of year.
If you want to raise your own chicks, you might be happy to find a broody hen. If not (or if no rooster's in the picture), you'll want to break her up. Learn how to do that, and how to nurture the broody hen to bring those eggs to hatching into baby chicks:
