Fodder

I really resent bagged feed.

Buying those convenient pellets is just irritating.  But since my friends stopped buying whole grain feed in bulk I have been at a loss for what to do.

Fodder is all over blogs and livestock forums.  Basically it is growing grass from purchased grains.  I read about it here and here and here.

But the local feed store didn't carry grains for sprouting.  (rolled oats and cracked barley were not going to work)

I ended up driving 25 minutes to a small feed store up north and buying 3lb bags of wheat and oats to try.

Following the directions from the above websites I soaked a 1/2 cup of seed and ended up with 4 containers growing.  I read later that oats take forever to sprout compared to other grains - the wheat took 10 days to reach 6 inches and in that time the oats had barely sprouted.

Wheat ready to feed the hens this morning

I fed the girls with the first container this morning.  They went for the leftover cornbread muffin first, not sure what to do with the grass and seeds.  But it was gone in 10 minutes.

They will get their regular layer pellets in the afternoon.

root mat

Early numbers:
3lb wheat seed was $5
1/2 cup of wheat = 3.5 oz = 38¢
3.5oz dry seed = 10.3 oz fodder
Fodder is 3¢ an oz

50 lbs layer pellets is $15
2 cups of pellets = 12.6 oz = 23¢
Pellets are not quite 2¢ an oz

Wheat on the left, oats on the right.  

 You can really see the difference between the 10 day old wheat (above) and the 10 day old oats (bottom right in the blue bin)













Since the fodder does not need light for awhile, I cover the bins with tomato and cabbage starts.

The dark days before spring

Ooooo!

That title sounds so ominous.

It's not ominous here, just, well, slow.

The garden is planned for the most part.  (there will always be a few last minute "Where the hell do I put these collard greens?"  That we did not specifically plan for.

It is truly to early to plant seeds, even under lights (spoiler alert - we did it anyway, like the aforementioned collard greens.)

The new Seed Savers Exchange yearbook was delivered yesterday (680 pages with no pictures)  I plan to order a few seeds from that, but mostly I am reading it.  (Introduction of Thumbs Heath was inspiring)  In fact we have all the seeds we need this year so I am not quite as excited as usual by the catalogs that have arrived.

But March is just around the corner.

(Early) spring cleaning

Being an urban farm has quite a few difference from your average hobby farm.  Many are obvious (lack of a tractor for one)

To thrive in a community that does not necessarily encourage such behavior, the look of your property is very important.

We are not there yet.

We, as usual, have many 1/2 done projects around the 'ole homestead.

Today, Chris did one of them.

I wish there was a before picture.  There was about 3 wheelbarrows full of detritus - some from the surrounding plants and some from passerbys.

view from our driveway to the neighbors.  

The sad Charlie Brown thuja

And he discovered a thuja.

If you look closely at the above picture you can see it behind the large bare shrub.

We have lived here for 6 years and have never seen it before.

The green on the soil is vinca major and by summer it will have completely filled in the bare spots.  But first I will be able to dig up the dark double lilac and the white lilac to transplant into the backyard.  The black locust above them allows very little light or water to penetrate the soil, so here they are small and stunted.  In the backyard, by the deck they should do much better.

Now onto the berm in the front yard.