All my M'fers put your garden forks in the sky

Dear Blogospere, I hope you're all doing really well and having a good summer. Getting on what everyone else has said I think this blog is a really good idea and I hope it gets put to good use. Like everyone else too I'm curious about the summer state of the farm and in my time away the ideas for the place are flooding in. I spent some time working with a pro composter and orchardist this May which was great and it made me think of all the mistakes I've made on various farm projects, which I really think is the beauty of the place because we have such rare creative control to experiment and play with things.
I'm really interested in how the orchard is doing. It seemed to be coming to life this spring like I've never seen it. Some ideas for caring for it so that it does even better if they haven't been done already is to weed-whack with the hand sithes all of the weeds around their base (within the fence is probably good). Also spreading compost in that area should help reduce weeds and give the tree some good juice (use your best judgement with the compost, it was looking questionable in May but we tried to make it better by adding a lot more carbon and turning it, feel free to not use it, more time letting it decompose won't hurt it and the trees don't absolutely need it I think). In general the trees should be paid attention to these days because we want to know early if they have trouble with pests and animals. Also, check if they're showing any fruiting signs.. that would be very exciting. Maybe reading a thing or two about pruning and thinning would do some long term good for the orchard (tall apple trees are harder to manage and harvest and pruning can also make for bigger and juicier fruit).

cool, well enjoy it, I imagine it's really beautiful right now.
Toe.B

A tale of two cities, and the agricultural endeavors taking place therein.

Hey farmers, it's Dan. I'm living in Chicago now, in the attic of an old man's mansion for the time being. I'm working in an upscale flower shop, which is strange, because it's like I'm working with plants all day, but for the most part they are plants that have been bred to not act like plants, and have been shipped in on the morning flight from Mexico or Colombia or the Netherlands. Also, I'm taking a crack at a bucket garden, which so far consists of three tomato plants, some kale and spinach which I planted from seed yesterday, and some basil which is having trouble because of rain and cold. Does anyone have bucket garden experience? I would love to hear about it and get get tips either here or in email.

But anyways, enough about me. I'd really, really love to hear about what's going on at the Farm. Who's there these days? How are the chix in the chicken tractor? How are the laying hens? How is the garden? What's in it? Are the deer staying out? Has anything happened with the windmill? Is the wild mint coming up in the marshy area down by the dock? Has anyone taken the humanure system for a test run? Like, what's a day-in-the-life of a farmer like these days?

I really hope that we end up using this blog a lot, partly because there are a bunch of farmers who already miss that place and want to know how things are going. More importantly, though, this blog is a really good place, as Miriam noted in the first post, to exchange and store knowledge. It can be a place for current farmers to pose questions they might have to a lot of people at once, and it can also be a repository for information generated by the answers to such questions, as well as other information.

At any rate, I don't mean to butt in too much, I just wanted to give a quick update on me and also state my hopes for the blogalog.

I hope everyone is well, and I miss you all a lot.

Love,
Dan

P.S. If anyone with a car is going to be in chicago soon and then traveling to richmond, let me know. My flower store is throwing out about 20 four- and five-gallon buckets, and I know that the farm can always use buckets.