Vaughnshire Farm

Our first carrots…

We have never been successful at growing carrots….however, we were able to finally grow a few carrots this year.  Next year we will plant a lot more! 

Comparing tomatoes— one of the boys took some pictures of the tomatoes we had from our Beaverdam Creek veggie basket. 

The children harvested some of their corn today. 

 It was a very exciting site to watch.  The older ones picked and the younger ones shucked. 

I explained the art of shucking.  The 3 year old was the most intent.  She kept saying, “..but his corn hairs keep touching me…”

Corn shucking proved to be an excellent attention keeper for those 5 years old and under.

Never mind cooking…she ate a cob before we got it in the house…and took a few bites out of some other cobs. 

Contrary to popular belief around here at our house, CSA does not always stand for Confederate States of America!  It stands for Community Supported Agriculture in this instance!  We have so enjoyed our CSA groceries from our friends, the Lingo family, over at Beaverdam Creek Farm.

For the past few weeks, we have been enjoying a bountiful basket of fresh fruits grown off their farm — which has been a huge blessing this year being that we have been occupied with having a newborn.  This week we received corn, peas, tomatoes, green beans, okra, squash, peppers, herbs and flowers!  When Wednesday rolls around, we always look forward to our trip out to their farm to pick up our basket of CSA groceries!

If you are in the area, you should check them out.  They have wonderful pastured-raised chicken for sale as well.

We grow lots of rocks and weeds in our humble garden, but we are also enjoying some real food grown by the efforts of our children.  It is a challenge in self-restraint to ban myself from stepping foot into the garden this season–I am good so far.  The children have been working the garden this year and look what they brought in to me this week!

By the looks of things, you would not imagine such fruit could come out of such a patch of weeds, however, I am learning that some things, like a weed free garden, just don’t matter.  What matters is giving the children the opportunity to work on a project, like growing food for the family, by allowing them to experiment, learn, experience failure, labor and enjoy success. 

Earlier this week the 5 year old brought me two NOT READY TO BE PICKED zucchini and said, “MOM, are these ready to be picked yet?”  I told him, actually, no..they aren’t ready yet…but thank you…and don’t pick any more vegetables unless a bigger person tells you to. 

We enjoyed a meal last week with fresh broccoli and cauliflower from the garden along with some of our farm raised pork.  Not any great quantities of broccoli or cauliflower yet…but a simple start.

We have been busily working around here on the farm trying to plant our garden.  With me being 9 months pregnant, I am not gardening….I am trying my hand at managing.  It has given us a wonderful opportunity to delegate tasks to the children and stretch them beyond what they were doing last year.  And for me?  It has been good practice for me to let things go and not micro manage every little detail to my liking. 

My country gentlemen prepared and planted a garden spot for the heirloom variety of corn called Country Gentleman.  A while back they all planted potatoes, onions, cauliflower and broccoli that are thriving and growing beautifully.  This week they worked on planting warmer vegetables like green beans, okra, cucumbers, squash etc. 

Considering the season of life we are in currently, I am pleased with our progress, but I can’t help but be awed by the amazing gardens of history.  Gardening has lost much flair and importance to modern man.  Not too many years ago, gardening was an essential part of life.  Even those who lived in “neighborhood” type areas had garden plants or fruit trees planted in their back yard.  Historically, famous families such as George Washington,  John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Madison had extensive gardens on their land.  In the past, the White House was home to incredible gardens.  As President, Andrew Jackson built an orangery to accommodate indoor, year-round gardening.  That has since been demolished.

I love to visit gardens at The Hermitage and The Carnton Plantation.  Of course they have full time gardeners working in them, but they are beautiful and inspiring to say the least. 

Our garden here is absolutely nothing even comparable and may indeed turn into a jungle, but this year and this season in our life, a jungle that produces food, amidst the crooked rows and weeds, would at least be something. 

Maybe I should start a gardening apprenticeship here?

This week we have posted a lot of farm related material…that would be because it’s early spring (as of today) and there are a ton of things to do around a farm during “planting season”.  As one of my younger children recently lamented, “If only we had more children…we could have more help…” 

Today was a beyond gorgeous day.  I sat in a lawn chair out by the garden and gave directions on what I wanted done. We had cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, potatoes and onions to get in the ground.  By the days end, they had the garden planted with plants and had posted the poultry netting around the garden.   The garden would have been gone by morning if we didn’t do something quick because the chickens spotted the fresh young plants and started eating them. 

The boys also repaired the disconnected spring pipe.  Water was gushing out of the pipe into the creek (it is supposed to be connected to another pipe running into our spring tank).  The pipe was disconnected because of the amount of water and debris that rushed through the creek yesterday with all of our rain.  The boys cleared the debris and reconnected the pipe.  All is well. 

The cows and goats were also moved over into a different section of the pasture.  They enjoyed having fresh green grass as they had been grazing in another section for several weeks. 

So far the mother hen hatched out 3 chicks:  one died, two are doing great.  We aren’t sure why the other eggs have not hatched. 

This week, my husband and the boys also started taking out one of the driveways so we can run a fence across the front of the house.  They worked on clearing brush, filling in other parts of the land with fill dirt, leveling out other parts.  This is a huge project in the works. 

That’s all the farm updates.

With spring comes an increase in the amount of things to do around here on the farm as well.  The boys have all kinds of baby, toddler and laying chickens to manage and are scurrying around trying to put together plans for an egg-mobile.  We also just acquired a new pig.  I am not sure how old she is.  And then there is the garden…awaiting…  We have plants ready to be transplanted and seeds to sow.  We are waiting on a nice day without wind gusts and rain.  The guys have been doing their own spring projects like clearing brush, limbs and gathering compost piles. 

Cutting tree limbs

Part of our spring cleaning included me putting an ad on Craig’s list for our massive rooster population.  They were all gone the next day!  Wow…what a difference that makes.  We would have prepared them for the freezer, but circumstances with work and activities did not permit a chicken processing day. 

I still have a huge list of spring cleaning “to do’s” pertaining to the house that I will hopefully get around to doing. 

Several weeks ago, we ordered our garden seeds from Seed Savers Exchange.  You can check out their website and order a free catalog which contains beautiful pictures of all kinds of beautiful fruits and vegetables and herbs. 

Our seeds arrived, and several children prepared the seed trays.  Once everything was ready, we started planting some seeds to hopefully get a bit of a head start this year.  Next year, we will start earlier!  We were thrilled to wake up one morning, a few days later, and see our little seeds sprouting already!

With the ever increasing amount of food we go through and the cost of feeding a large family with health in mind–having a large productive garden is really going to be a huge blessing if we can pull it off!    We will see how it works out, being that mom will not be able to be head gardener this year due to her being very great with child.