I am so excited to see the latest catalogs. Most of my farm type catalogs are a year or more old. I only get new catalogs when I buy new stuff, and that is not often. I am cheap, or thrifty, whichever term tickles your fancy. Anywho, I got the Burgess, Burpee, and Johnny's seed catalogs in the last week or so. I would love input from Zone 5ers as to what grows best in this area. We will be doing some corn, potatoes, greens, peas, melons, carrots, radishes, broccoli, cukes, zucchini, and some others I must have forgotten.
This year we grew our garden size a bit. I planted a garden, and it grew!! We should be able to grow enough this year to supply our veggies for the whole summer and a lot of the winter, too. I pruned the apple trees at Sara's parents house, so this year we should get some better growth there, with less obstacles to deal with. We will also be planting pear and apple trees here, and harvest our wild raspberries that grow quite well out back.
We spoke with the code enforcement officer here in town and asked about specifics on raising animals and selling food. He said we would have to get a permit to sell chickens, even live, and that they would come out and talk to the neighbors. We were on the fence about selling anyways. We have a client lined up that would buy a lot of chickens, but we would have to pay $100 for a permit to sell off site, the town would be involved(we all know that can be a pain) and we would rather be homesteaders that provide for ourselves more than a chicken farm. We don't really have the room, so we decided to just grow our own, some extra for bartering, but none to actually sell. We may raise some for a friend, but not on a scale that makes life difficult for us.
This will leave us with more time for something else. We want a sheep or two, maybe a goat this year to see which we like better. This will be our first run at raising goats and sheep. I like eating lamb, but have never had goat meat. Gotta try it sometime, and if I hate it, we will have had a good time learning about them. The kids are always wanting to do some new animal project. They want a dog, but I want a useful critter, and I don't need anything guarded.
I am not quite so prepared for spring as I once thought, but I am excited to see what will come of it all. When the "pasture" is good enough for a cow to raise 3-5 months for a baby beef, we will be able to raise all the meat we will need ourselves. Guess it is time to go walk around, making plans in my head and re-figuring my figures to see where I can save a buck or two. Should be fun.
Mark
