Unity Farm Journal - 4th week of January 2015

The cold of late January has been hard on our living things and we’ve sorted all our produce to eliminate cold damaged fruits/vegetables in the hoop house, root cellar, and forest.  

The apples from this year’s harvest are still fairing well.   Empire, Macoun, Winesap, RedSpy, and Rome are still crisp.   The Spencer apples have softened and are beginning to mold.  We composted about half a bushel.

The root vegetables - beets, daikon radish, and turnips were kept in soil until late December.   At the moment, they are still crisp and fresh, ready to be turned into soups, salads, and canning.

The squash harvested in October has started to develop mold and soft spots.   The ducks and chickens enjoy them, so we split the squash and laid them out for the poultry.

All our seed catalogs have arrived and with last week’s seed planning, we’re ordering everything for our first planting in March.

As usual, we continued harvesting wood, splitting logs, and maintaining the property this week.   I look back on the past two years and I’m amazed at how far we’ve come, dedicating every weekend to maintaining the land.

We walked the property and planned our 2015 permaculture planting.   The new chestnut trees will go in along our northern border.   The paw paw trees will be planted in the understory behind the cider house.    The rice will be tested in a low-lying portion of the orchard.

This weekend will be focused on more indoor tasks - maybe we’ll get to the skirting of alpaca fiber so we can produce the yarn from our 2014 sheering.   A farmer’s work is never done.

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