first year growing purple potatoes. two crates out of one small field. inside they're marbled purple and white, some almost fully purple and taste absolutely amazing. been weighing everything this year and potatoes came in at 17 kg total.

We are seeking advice for what our best remediation options could be for this poor unfortunate access road. It came with the farm so we can’t take credit for the horrific placement, but it is our problem now.

The curve around the barn becomes a mud pit after any rain. And the barn is at the bottom of ~100 foot, ~10 degree slope down from the road.

We’ll be talking to excavation companies, but I want to have some ideas about possible solutions or pitfalls. A French drain for example?

It seems that just about everything about the set up of the current road is working against it. Can’t say we love the location of the Dutch barn either, but I don’t think moving it will be an option. We are considering trying to move the smaller barn on the left to elsewhere on the property.

Thank you for any advice or recs for other subs to ask in!

Hi everyone! We are a small family farm. Since 2021 we have planted and cared for more than 1,000 blueberry bushes in containers, all by hand. Growing in pots lets us control the soil acidity, but it also means the plants depend completely on us for water, especially in hot summers.
Our biggest challenge now is irrigation and protecting the bushes from heat and hail. We are slowly working on it.
Happy to answer any questions about growing blueberries in containers: soil mix, pot size, watering, pruning. Ask away!
If anyone wants to follow or support our little farm, the link is in my profile.

I moved into my dream acreage a few days ago. 5 acres with 3 fenced pastures. The property sat vacant for a while so there’s lots to do. My garden area will need to be cleaned up for next spring. I need to figure out where to store hay and if the heated water pipe works. I’m not sure if my fencing works for a cow. There’s a huge chicken coop and run that needs to be cleaned out. I want to have egg layers and in the spring do meat birds. I also want a dairy cow.

I’ve read all the books and watched all the videos but now I’m here and not sure where to start! Wondering how others got started with animals. Please share your experience

I’m curious your experiences, tips, etc if so.

We are raising a new flock we hatched from eggs, 17 in total. we have a mobile coop for them in a big patch of trees. So far they are great foragers and seem fairly predator aware. We’ve not seen the tree nesting we hoped for yet but they are young still. We are feeding them (not from a feeder, it gets thrown out in the trees to encourage their foraging skills) and they will eat it, but it’s obvious they prefer to forage for themselves.

Not sure what to expect over winter. We can get anything from zero to 5 ft of snow. It'll be interesting to observe how they do, and even more interesting to see how their offspring do. Our long term goal is 100% free range, with little to no feed. We are putting in nesting boxes to gather eggs and culling any abundance of roosters for meat.

It’s all an experiment though so we will see how it goes in reality. I have high hopes and very low expectations. lol

I planted these carrot seeds in February. They were in a five by five raised bed filled with about six inches of fully processed compost on top of native soil in dappled sunlight. The compost is a combination of cardboard, garden and kitchen scraps, lawn clippings and partially composted straw from my chicken coop using the deep litter method. They were watered all season on a schedule. Why are they so tiny (large seed packet for scale). Any tips or tricks are appreciated.

are they healthy?

I'm planning to build a 10x20 ft building using light straw clay with 6-inch-thick walls 9 ft high and clay plaster on the inside and outside.

Assume:

• All materials are already on-site.
• The framing is completely finished and ready for filling.
• The walls will be filled with light straw clay.
• Both sides will be finished with clay plaster.
• I'm doing all the labor myself, with no helpers.

Realistically, how many full days of labor would this take one person from start to finish just to finish the walls completely? I'm looking for an estimate of actual working days.

I'm trying to decide whether this is a reasonable DIY project. If it would take around 60 full days of labor, I'd probably skip it and use a different building method.

I'd appreciate estimates from anyone who has actually built with light straw clay!

I just wanted to share my experience of having free range chickens. This term gets thrown around often and i’m definitely not the free range sheriff. The difference to me is just stark comparing how this rooster turned out vs. how store bought chicken looks in my area. This rooster was ≈ 10 months old and not fed much feed at all, foraging its own food. Swedish flower hen derived but this specific rooster was a mix of SFH and Ancona, so a very flighty bird.

Ive raised chickens for a while and recently decided to start my flock from scratch using some new breeds i wanted to try. That left me with, at the moment, 8 older egg layers that are already past their time, ive already butchered 5 of them and 2 old roosters, and usually since all the meat is extremelly dark and tough i use it mostly for stocks, soups, ground meat paste/pâté or dog snacks, but i wanted to see if any of you guys have some tips of recipies to process the bulk of the meat in other ways that might make it edible without the need to shred/grind the meat. Thanks in advance!

Edit: currently tending to the garden, dont have the time yet to reply to the comments, but thank you!!! Already see a bunch of nice recipes and tips

I work in a school cafeteria and help with our berry patch in North Carolina. Mom spent a morning picking with me, then had to walk uphill to the house while I pushed the berries back in a wheelbarrow. She was tired, and I started looking for a way to give her a ride back to the house and bring the trays along.

I borrowed a neighbor's cart and rented a small utility vehicle for a weekend. We tried both with Mom riding along and our usual load of trays. The utility vehicle had plenty of cargo space, but it needed more room at the turn beside the beds. The cart made that turn in one go.

The grassy shortcut was still soft after rain. We kept both vehicles off it and tried the longer gravel route around the end of the patch. That got us back to the house without crossing the wet ground, so I chose that as our regular route.

I eventually found a used golf cart that fit our needs. Luckily, the previous owner had already upgraded it with a Vatrer lithium battery and a compatible charger, so I didn't have to worry about replacing the batteries myself. I just added a rack for the berry trays and got it ready for use.

On its first morning in the patch, I still used the wheelbarrow between the rows. We loaded the cart where the rows met the gravel lane. The trays went on the rack, Mom took the passenger seat, and I drove us back to the house.

Im setting up an enclosure with plans for keeping goats. My problem at the moment is grounding I believe. I have the 5 mile solar charger from tractor supply. The perimeter is about 350 feet. I have 3 8foot ground rods spaced about 12 feet apart. I do have dry sandy soil (mid west south Carolina). That's why I added so much extra grounding. But still even after meeting the charger sit in the sun for days before use I am only getting the lightest little tap. I decided to add additional wires and turn it into a earth return system. With that if you touch both wires you definitely get a solid zap, so I don't believe the charger is the issue. My question is, is there anyway to ground the system better so that I don't have to rely on both wires being touched to deliver a decent shock. Will the location of my grounding rods affect performance? Like is it better to drive the rods in going into the enclosure or does that matter? The area I have the ground rods is fairly close to my septic drain field. Would driving another rod into the drain field help as it may stay more moist or if the ground the goats will be standing on is so dry it won't really matter? With the earth return system could I add grounding rods around the perimeter connected to one of the negative wires to increase the shock of only love wire is touched or something to that affect? Or am I just chasing an impossible goal and should just stop wasting my money.

Oh and before it's suggested the ground rods were driven in a hole filled with bentonite clay and have tried leaving a leaky bucket on the rods. Neither seemed to have any significant effect

South eastern quarter is almost completely rotted, but the whole northern portion of the roof/barn is nearly perfect (aside from listing 1-3°) , and the south western side is still okay, tho it’s degrading fast. Is there any way to save it?? I’m a new market gardener and chicken farmer with almost no money I can sink into the project, just a tractor and plans to build a pto driven sawmill. I would love to have a few dairy cows someday and think it would be so cool to use the same barn as the last owner/operator used. His name was Perry Miller and he used it in the 60’s and 70’s, until he was gored by his own bull and had to shut it down.

Anybody have a recommendation for a heated hose that will last at least one season? It seems two months is the maximum life. We are able to get out of one. I follow the instructions and I’m assuming it’s just we’re not spending enough to get a quality hose? I need 50 feet. Otherwise, tell me what you all do? I can’t keep spending money on these.
Appreciate all recommendations.

Can anyone who has a smallholding, plus works full time plus has a kid give me some perspective?

My husband and I have been together 20 years married for 7, we moved to a small holding just after we got married away from family so it's just us two. We love our life, our marriage and manage well with everything both working full time from home, we have a dog a vizsla who fits into our lifestyle very well as we love hiking and camping. The time has come to discuss kids or no kids. I have very real concerns that it's just too much to ask and we will end up not being able to live this life and will have to sacrifice too much of our lifestyle to bring up a child.

Has anyone got a similar life and they've made it work and having kids actually adds to the fun and adventure rather than detracting from it considering we have no family support?

On the other side anyone choosen not to have kids for this very reason?

Believe it or not, New Jersey is more than what you see when you land at Newark airport. Our 140+ acres in beautiful Hunterdon county 💚🤠🐓

As per the title;

Property has a well. Considering getting 4-6 laying hens.

How far from the well would you want a coop?