The farm has been pretty quiet for the last four months. We've been spending most of our time working at our other jobs, traveling,resting, fretting over buying farms, and moving to farm. After the Thanksgiving Baskets and turkeys were sold and picked up last year, there wasn't much to do. Daily chores have been light, consisting if mainly feeding the pigs and giving them fresh bedding, feeding the rabbits, and feeding the chickens. Things are about to change.
Firstly, our sow and one of our yearling gilts are about to farrow. You can see some big bellies below
The vegetable plan for this year is to grow a large number of varieties of just a few types of vegetables well-adapted to our NW climate: onions, carrots, cabbage, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, and green beans. We've decided to forgo organic certification this year after receiving assurance from the WSDA that we will have no trouble getting certification next year as long as we document all our inputs to the farm to make sure we are still growing organically.
In addition to the Chuckanut Farmstand, we're also tentatively planning on going to the Mt. Vernon farmer's market on Saturdays, as well as participating in the Northsound Wholesale Market.
At this time, the rabbits are only for our own meat consumption, but I'm not opposed to selling rabbit in the future if I can figure out a legal, low-cost way to slaughter on farm. In the meantime, I'm always willing to sell live rabbits.
So, in summary, the 2013 plan is to sell half and whole pigs and to sell vegetables. The plan is also to make a profit, so we have to keep our costs as low as possible and minimize expenditures on equipment and infrastructure. Hence why we ultimately decided against spending the $500 on organic certification for the year. As always, we'll be completely transparent with the business side of things.
Here's looking forward to a successful 2013!