The Farm – Sunrise Farm Project

Resilience

My wife and I started our farming adventure to build a lifestyle around family and caring for a portion of the world we could eventually call ours. When Covid slowed the supply chain while raising the strain on the food production we saw a new problem that hit us in a particular spot and a new chapter started for SFP.

We realized that we needed to evaluate our farm operations and capabilities with resilience to any number of issues. For example, what happens to our garden if there is a drought? An evaluation of various watering methods led to the decision to use a drip irrigation system- our research told us it was more efficient than using sprayers.

Another question we had to consider: what happens if the power fails? I worked out how to use a generator and gravity to move water. Each regular use item had to be assessed, from the freezers to the lights. Additionally, we had to consider food supply, and how our own garden would come into play. Slowly I worked out each problem. It was an extremely lengthy project. I heard the counter arguments, and many sources stated interruptions in supply chain are rare and minimal in impact.

Just this past month, we got to test some of our plans and preparations when we lost power for several days. In some ways, it was a surprising success. We ran the generator to keep long term food storage cold and to run lights in the evenings. Our animals were contained by solar electric fences. We were able to harvest in the garden and send the scheduled CSA boxes out on time.

Sure, daily life was different and there will be continued work into improving the resilience of SFP. Every activity and each chore was slower and required more effort. But it was a satisfying small win for why we farm the way we do and how we try to accomplish it.

A Farmer’s Work is Never Done

Barely five years ago, I had a very naive view of gardening. It wasn’t a bad view, it was just far away from how I approach my garden and farm now. But back then, I thought that sometime in the middle of May (based on our zone), we would till the garden, plant our 4 crops, and hope for the best. Sometimes, there would be watering and weeding, but other than that, my time would be spent on other household tasks and routine summer activities. Once the end of the summer started to creep in (sometime around the middle of August), beans would be picked and maybe canned, tomato sauce was made, and pumpkins were counted in anticipation of their late September harvest. We’d clear the garden once the plants died back after the first frost in October, and I’d wait for the next growing season to start.

But now I know I was wrong. Well, wrong for me and what we do here on the farm.

For me now, the growing season starts before the snow even melts, with tomatoes and peppers and sometimes flowers under grow lights. When the snow has melted, the cool weather plants get direct sown in the grown- typically peas, radishes, kale, and beets. Those are tended, and if we’re really lucky, maybe we have a quick harvest before May even comes. But then there’s succession planting. More radishes and beets to ensure a later harvest. Then come the warm weather crops. Beans, cucumbers, all varieties of squash, and moving the tomatoes and peppers outside in the middle of May.

As I have now learned, beans, summer squash and cucumbers should probably be planted at least twice, to avoid pests and hopefully to extend the harvest. The cool weather plants are harvested and replaced with a round of warm weather plants. Harvest can start as early as June with some varieties, and some plants will continue to produce throughout the season, or can be replaced with a quick turnaround plant until the end of July. In August, as the green beans and zucchini are coming in regularly, the cool weather crops can be planted again. Some in fact do better in August than in April, and may produce passed the expected early October frost.

Even after September, when the pumpkins are finishing up and everything is dying down, I begin planning the following spring’s plantings. I make note on what did well, and where it was planted. I try to keep crops rotated to avoid nutrient depletion.

What I used to think was a few months of work is nearly a year-long process of preparation and maintenance for us on the farm.

While my vision was once rather relaxed and idyllic, I love the yearlong pattern of it all now. Picking out a few new varieties to try among the old favorites that have done well for me for the past 4 years, writing out harvest and planting plans. It is all some form of work; we are never really at rest, just different stages of labor. But definitely a labor of love.

Bless the Rain

What a spring and early summer we’ve had! Here, on this last week of June, just days away from July, we got quite the bit of rain after over 5 weeks of dryness. It will probably not be enough to correct the near drought we’ve been in, but we are thankful nonetheless.

The late May and early June heat wrecked our spring vegetable plans. I always was under the impression that plants loved sunshine no matter what, but there are a few plants that prefer the cooler days, and actively dislike the heat. Peas and spinach have been two plants I wanted to harvest, but disappointingly, a bunch of nothing. Both plants I will reattempt in a few weeks to see if we can get a fall harvest from them.

May is always the month of end of school madness, with different activities honoring our graduating seniors (at the school where I teach), and for my just-finished-3rd-grade son. Both Evan and I have been putting in long hours on the farm as the school year wound down, and into the beginning of summer ‘vacation’.

We’ve been tracking the rain that finally came down today for over a week. Things we never thought we would include in our job descriptions: weather-watchers. It’s really challenging and discouraging to watch your crops fail due to lack of rain. While we are not as bad off as some, it was agonizing to wait for rain. Despite the lack of rain, we still expect a vegetable harvest throughout the summer, just not as soon as we had hoped.

No matter the weather status, there is always plenty to do on the farm. Follow along on Facebook or Instagram for more day-to-day farm happenings.

Waiting for Better Weather

After a week of heat, we didn’t want snow.

It felt like we jumped from winter to summer this week. From the cool temps to sunshine and hot. Beautiful weather makes me want to plant everything outside, but the future-cast said that I needed to hold that thought for a little bit longer. Because we dropped again to the cold and snow.

My daffodils are in the beginning stages of blooming- one of our first signs of spring. Buds are developing on the trees. Chickens are hatching in our kitchen. So far, this April has been a great improvement on last year’s April, not too hot, not too cold- with the obvious exception of this past week in the 70s and sometimes 80s.

Peas were planted on Good Friday, as tradition sometimes dictates. Usually I don’t put much stock in those sorts of superstitions, but this year, it happened to line up with when I wanted to plant anyway. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, this tradition can be traced back to both the Southern United States as well as Ireland. When Easter is celebrated in March, Good Friday is often too early to plant any seeds, even if the plants are cold hardy. I planted radishes, lettuce, peas, and kale the first week of April, but with limited success so far. I hope between this week of heat and the rain we’re getting next week, more success will come.

Livestock acquisitions typically happen in April and May. Our March/April chicken hatch was wildly successful, with almost a 95% hatch rate on our fertile eggs. As this is our first year incubating, we will likely take a break as we approach our mid-May planting season. If all goes well, we may try for an end of June hatch for the birds we want to keep for ourselves.

We are also still working on some larger livestock projects, and may add feeder pigs, sheep, or goats into the equation this year. However, our main focus is a successful garden.

As April turns into May and summer approaches, our busy farm season will soon be upon us. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook for more snapshots of our farm life, as well as vegetable and flower availability as we start our early summer harvests!

Soil Blocks and Seedlings

After unsuccessful false starts last year, I made the decision to push back my indoor sowing by a few weeks. The length of cold spring in 2022 was discouraging, and it was hard to keep plants alive long into May under grow lights.

I started sowing my tomatoes and peppers the last week of February. This year, after reading about soil blocking from several sources, I took the plunge and purchased two soil blockers. Why use soil blockers? Some of the benefits include less plastic usage and less need for storage space. I had a lot of fun “playing in the mud” making my blocks this year.

Tomatoes are typically the first to sprout. I’ve already moved 4 varieties from their tiny ¾” blocks to 2” blocks, and I’m hoping to move more this weekend. My peppers are a little slower, but I expect they will be thriving in a few more days.

Also on the early train are small peat pots of herbs- basil, chives, oregano, and lemon balm. If you’re wondering why peat pots- I’m using a mix of them and soil blocks this year because the pots were available. I don’t want to put all of my eggs in one basket, so to speak. The herbs are definitely slower to start, but I’m hoping to include herb cuttings with our early CSA boxes.

After this next snowstorm we’re predicted to get, I’ll be watching the weather and temperatures to plan out the early spring vegetables. Radishes, kale, spinach, lettuce, and peas all appreciate the cooler temperatures, and make good early spring crops. We still have a few weeks before we are out of frost danger.

Winter Blues

What do we do on the farm in the long winter months? Oftentimes, the brightly colored seed catalogs litter the coffee table, taunting us with thoughts of sunshine and warmer weather. Many nights I can be found flipping through a catalog with a pen and notebook next to me, sipping a cup of hot tea. Dreaming of summer harvests helps, but it can be hard to fight the monotony of the cold winter months.

It can be especially bad in January and early February, when it’s too early here in Michigan to start sprouting seeds. Earlier in January, we had been on something like 3 straight weeks without sunshine, and it might have been the worst.

This year, we stumbled upon an alternative to brightening the winter months: baby chickens! With a small tabletop incubator in hand, we have started the process. Part biology class experiment, part life lesson, we are working with a few of my teacher coworkers to hatch chicken eggs from our farm.

Diving in head first, I have been researching the genetics of chickens, trying to find a potential combination of parents to get a sex linked chick. I’m learning quite a bit about the color patterns of different varieties of heritage birds and making lists of potential birds to buy down the road. At the present time, we are just working with our current three chicken varieties- Ameracuanas, Australorps, and Plymouth Barred Rocks. They are great for laying variety, as we currently get both brown and blue eggs. I would love to eventually have a breeding group of Marans, and we may likely end up with a batch of “Olive Eggers”.

Hatching our own birds offers us more opportunity to grow our chicken flock without worrying about potential supply issues. We are able to collect and hatch our own eggs without any delay. Really the only problem we are left with is when do we upgrade to a larger incubator.

2022: A Year in Review

Our year was clearly quite busy, as evidenced by our radio silence these last few months. Between the garden harvest and the early winter weather, our schedules have been quite full. Here’s a brief review of our 2022 on the farm, as we gear up to do so many new cool things this year!

January– Many woodshop projects, including a number of beer flights and cutting boards

February– Trying out our hand at wood burning as well as the creation of new benches for different spaces around the property.

March– Seed starting! Many varieties of tomatoes this year.

April– Getting started on the new 1 acre garden. Abnormally cold temps led to slow growth on the early spring veggies. Pigs came home at the end of April and really filled our days!

May– We brought in a new batch of laying hens. The hops started to establish themselves again.

June– Finally our spring veggies produced something! And we ordered more hens!

July– The veggies start rolling in– first turnips, then the first harvests of zucchini and beans. We harvested our first pig late in the month.

August– The flower season is at its peak in August. So many blooms! Tomatoes think about producing, and zucchini is giving us a bummer crop.

September– Apples start to roll in, and our first batches of applesauce are processed. Veggies continue to roll in, and the flowers still look amazing. We had a surprising harvest of watermelon too. And we dealt with escapee livestock, as the remaining pigs got out several times.

October– We added several new tools to our meat processing arsenal, and had a successful attempt at bacon curing after the first too salty batch.

November- Settling in for the cold weather- early snow hindered our clean up process.

December- Weather turned mild again, and we were able to do more yard clean up. Our youngest birds laid their first eggs.

The second half of the year is full of busy tasks that don’t always seem worth talking about. As per usual, you’ll catch a bit more from us through our Instagram page.

Thanks for sticking around, if you’re still here!

Rolling into Summer

Busy with vegetables, pigs, and chickens.

After an unseasonably cold April, May hit us like a ton of bricks and we scrambled to get a huge variety of projects done quickly. From the vegetable garden to the pig pasture, we ran all over the property this past month.

Our one-acre garden plot is way more than I anticipated, and it took all month to slowly get plants and seeds in the ground. In the end, I accepted defeat, and we seeded half of the acre for green manure. That still leaves us with nearly two thousand linear feet of vegetables, a giant undertaking after my 100 foot plot of years past. We have multiple root vegetables- new to me this year, three new varieties of beans- plus three from last year, 6 winter squash, 5 summer squash, 3 watermelon, and assorted peppers and tomatoes. With the new produce, I’m hoping that we’ll be able to preserve a variety in addition to sharing the bounty through our roadside stand.

We added some new chickens to our flock to offset the decline of our older hens. They are a great source of entertainment to the kids, and make short work of the compost we generate in the kitchen. The chickens are still all enclosed- several coops with outdoor access via a covered, fenced run. It’s not a perfect model and we are working toward more of a free range style to help with soil improvements, but it is a long term project that will need regular reassessment and adjustment. We are still working to determine the role of our chickens in the cycle of farm life, and that will dictate how we develop our chicken systems in the future.

The pig acquisition was an adventure, and continues to be a learning experience. They are really friendly animals, and their tilling abilities are unparalleled. Following the pasturing model from Out of Ashes Farm, who followed a scaled down Joel Salatin model, we realized quickly that our field is relatively inadequate for feed supplementation. However, the electric pig fence has proven to be an invaluable investment, and we are slowly working on pasture improvements. This lesson is helping us realize the healing that still needs to take place on our land, and we are making other adjustments as we go to speed up the process.

We are excited for the summer ahead of us, and watching how all our projects develop.

Sprouts

When spring starts to creep closer, we start thinking about the summer vegetable garden. Last year was my first year starting seeds indoors with a solid game plan. I sprouted peppers, tomatoes, squash, and a few flower varieties inside with the hopes of having a head start on several of my plants. This year, I have done more research and have a better plan of attack for the sprouting and transplanting of my early plants.

One of my big errors last year was mixing trays. Something that wasn’t immediately obvious to me was the variance in germination rates between different plants, leading to some early issues with my tomatoes. For my zone, and for the varieties of plants I am growing, it is most beneficial to plant a full tray of a single plant, rather than trying to maximize space. Peppers and tomatoes get the most benefit from being started early, both plants needing heat and a longer growing season than sometimes is available in Michigan. I’m starting my peppers first, and tomatoes will be a few weeks down the road.

Another issue I had last year was the hardening off process. Seedlings grown indoors need some exposure to the outside world before being planted in the ground for the season. I struggled with gradually moving plants outside, not to mention the transition from part-time outside to full-time outside. I am working to set up my growing space to better kick start the hardening process with an oscillating fan (simulates the wind) and up-potting the bigger seedlings as May approaches.

My peppers and tomatoes did alright last year, but I’m hoping with the correct adjustments this season, the harvest will be more bountiful. Sometimes it is hard to wait to try new things, and I’m finding that a large part of farming and growing is trial and error. As I work to solve the problems from last year, I’m sure there will be a different set of problems that come out of this growing season.

As far as the varieties themselves go, I more intentionally planned my choices around our food needs and the probability of our CSA launch. The kids really enjoy pasta sauce, so I needed a few heavy paste/sauce tomatoes. On top of that, two of our three enjoy snacking tomatoes, which necessitates the inclusion of some cherry and grape varieties. I also am trying some early producing varieties, so that fresh tomatoes are available all summer long. In regards to peppers, I applied similar principles- snacking varieties for the little kids, spicy peppers for making salsa. I hope to narrow down my options going forward, but I’m also excited about all the different colors my garden will hopefully produce this year.

In this third year of planning and tackling a garden, I’ve come to realize more and more that my own ideas of ‘what I like’ and ‘what I don’t like’ have matured and grown. As a student, I loved reading and history. As a teacher, those same things still apply. However, as a gardener, I’ve come to appreciate and understand more of the applications of “real math” and “real science”. The stuff in the textbooks never comes close to the lightbulb of comprehension when considering the life cycle of a pepper plant or the geometry involved in building a fence.

Stay tuned for updates on the sprouts via Instagram or Facebook. We’ll have a seedling sale in early May, and hopefully our cool weather veggies will be ready to go too!

-Mary

Daily Tasks

I run my life with patterns, and I have found that doing the morning chores really is my favorite time each day. Waking up and working through the sleepiness is the hardest part of the process, but greatly helped by having the same thing to do.

Each day starts with pouring coffee (as one does) so it has a chance to cool as I make breakfast. Eating the products of the farm is the point and breakfast is the easiest. About the time I finish the dog is eager to take her walk and the chickens start making noise the moment they hear us outside. Weigh and pour the chickens food, open the garage door for the wife to take kids to school later, and shovel the snow. The dog has decided it’s too cold by then and its back in to get the second cup of coffee goodness. Then clear the breakfast dishes, make lunch and then it’s back outside to go to work.

The afternoon chores are not as patterned but it is the same list every day. Check for eggs, and make sure the chickens are ok. This is usually when we find we are missing birds from predators (counting birds in the dark is a struggle). The kitchen scraps are taken to the compost or to the chickens and finally back inside for chores there.

If the night is due to be particularly cold or there have been predators taking chickens or any other particular concerns there may be a final late evening trip out to the coop to shut the door to the chickens run, give them a extra serving of cracked corn, or turn on the heat lamp. The cracked corn helps the birds keep warm and we haven’t had any birds freeze with some corn and the heat lamp (even in -10 F).

While this sounds like a lot, all three combined less than 30 minutes– unless there is a heavy snow. The days I don’t have to leave for work and can work outside while the sun rises have been a true source of peace. Slowly moving around in the predawn dark while the animals (domestic and wild) wake up around me is an experience increasingly rare in our modern world.