It's been a little more than a year since we moved to the farm. A lot of work has gone into turning the house into a home, and we are getting to a point where the inside of the house works well enough for us to live comfortably. We still have a lot of work ahead to improve the upstairs of the house, making more room for 5 growing children, and storage continues to be an issue. However, the lack of suitable storage in the house has forced us to be more ruthless as we sort through what we really need to keep and what can be donated or repurposed.
And while the work inside the house will continue throughout the year, 2023 will be a big year for us outside! Here are a few of the big plans we have for this year ⤵️
Gardens
When we moved in, a single raised garden was already located just off the side porch. While it is a decent size, we realized last year that this single garden wouldn't cut it if we wanted a high enough yield to make a difference for our family.
Over between our pool and barn, however, we have a perfect spot for a good size garden. We're planning on 6-8 raised beds and hope to install a greenhouse to help us get a good head start on next year's gardens.
This is the first rough sketch of the garden with the green house in the top left, gardens around the outside and a large harvest table in the middle.
We've already purchased a few dozen different seeds and indoor greenhouse starters to get going. This year's selections will include plenty of veggies like corn, carrots, cabbage, squashes, kale and more.
We're also planning on growing sunflowers and a mix of wildflowers will be spread throughout the gardens to add in some colour and perhaps give us enough to sell roadside!
Chickens
Shortly after we moved to the farm we purchased a small flock of 6 chickens and a coop from a family near St. Thomas. It was a long day of back-breaking work, but we managed to relocate the coop to our property and welcomed Millie, Daisy, Willow, Carmella, Laverne, and Shirley to the family!
Chickens are such amazing and interesting creatures. We had no idea they would each have their own unique personalities and become such an integral part of the farm.
Sadly, we have lost 3 of the ladies and are left with only Willow, Carmella, and everyones favourite, Shirley.
With the flock shrinking and our love for these fascinating and entertaining birds growing, we plan to add a handful of new birds to the mix this year. Our current chickens breeds are Scarlet (Shirley and Carmella) and Ivory (Willow), and they give us nice big brown eggs, but for the new birds, we are looking for some more unique looking chickens and perhaps a coloured egg layer! We haven't decided on a specific breed yet, but we are thinking something along the lines of Azure Blue, Silver Laced Wyandotte and Irona.
Quail
We're also considering a small flock of Quail for the farm. These birds won't have the same unique personalities that our chickens have, but they are high egg producers and are very easy to raise from chick to egg layer.
Their eggs are also only about the size of a grape, making them a great little snack when hardboiled!
The unfortunate part of raising quail is that they have to be contained and cannot be treated as free range like our chickens. They can, and will, fly away. In some cases the quail may return to its flock, but that is highly unlikely. So we have a little planning to do on the housing front before we can bring these birds onto our farm, but they are sure to be an exciting addition!
Bees
Finally, what may be the most exciting addition to the farm yet will be our bees! We recently placed our order for two hives to start us out, all the equipment needed to keep and tend to the colonies and have signed up for an Intro to Beekeeping workshop ran through our supplier, Earth+Honeybee.
We've always been fascinated with the idea of keeping bees, and producing our own honey for our own personal use and perhaps one day to sell. Our property has ten apple trees, and with the addition of wild flowers in the gardens, there will be plenty of food to keep them happily buzzing.
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