We have been staying busy on 41 acres in the middle of nowhere since July 2020. Here are a few statistics related to living on the farm.
We do a lot of landscaping with a chainsaw. Last count was 11 chainsaws in the garage.We have been slowly turning our backyard into an oversized garden with Mosu bamboo, azaleas, and Japanese maples. My landscaping team (that would be Mr. Tree Planter) has planted 88 maples, 11 were planted twice for various reasons. We had a garden devoted to 25 tea plants in this back area. All 25 plants have been replanted twice since I thought they would do better in a different spot. The tree planter is a patient guy. Other random trees have been planted including 8 flowering cherry trees, two have been replanted.
I have high hopes for plenty of fresh fruit on the farm. To date, 46 fruit trees have been planted. 14 of these trees have been replanted since they were struggling in their original spot. The photo above is where 40% of the fruit trees are planted. Many fruit trees are planted closer to the house so we won’t have to walk too far for a fresh peach in the summer.
Gardening always starts out with good intentions and by the end of summer, the garden tends to be overrun with weeds. This year we decided that the vegetable garden would move from its current site to the small pasture. A new well was installed to be used for the vegetable garden, fruit trees and chickens.As you can see, the end of summer generally means that things are growing out of control. This year I have made 25 quarts of tomato sauce, a lot of salsa, and some pickles. The chickens have enjoyed a lot of extra veggies as well. Not a large crop of berries this year but we did have strawberries, blueberries, some blackberries, and maybe four raspberries.The koi pond is home to 26 koi. We have a drip system which puts in about 450 gallons of fresh well water into the pond daily. The overflow is sent underground to a gully in the back garden area.We recently had to have some maintenance done on our profi drum. Thankfully we live not too far from Kevin Colopy of Happy Koi, Greenville, SC. Kevin drove out, replaced the drum screen, reattached widgets that had fallen off – done in an hour. We plan to have him come out to maintain our equipment once a year. If you look closely at the photo below, I think that after the repair, our water was much clearer, fewer particulates floating around. Beekeeping is not going well; 0-2 for a colony surviving on our farm. Our hive had a massive die-off last week. I think we will try one more year and hang up our suits if we fail again.Chickens are much easier. We bought our first chicks in August 2022. We have bought a total of 46 chicks over three years. 11 never made it past one month (illness) and 4 were eaten by the fox. We are keeping our flock at 25 or less chickens so some of them have been rehomed this year. Our chickens started laying eggs in January 2023 and to date we have gathered 6166 eggs.You know you are on a farm when you see hay bales. Our hay fields are cut twice a year and it always looks so nice to see a field of rolled bales. This spring our fields produced 151 large bales. Each bale is about 6 feet in diameter.
So that’s the farm over five years. I’m predicting that another one hundred trees will be planted by 2030.
Great progress! You two need a farm dog. He/she will help keep the fox away!