Acreage Reboot Contest

Early in the spring of last year, we decided to once again try to grow loofahs. We have tried to grow them in the past, but the season was just not long enough. This time we planted the seeds in four-inch peat pots and started them under grow lights.They are easy to start from seed, and we soon had a flat full of lush loofahs. Trying not to get too excited — after all, we had been at this point before — we installed four cow panels into an arch. The baby loofahs were nestled in cl

One thing we were good at growing last year, besides beans, was kale. The wacky summer weather kept our plants producing all summer long. With a new baby in the house, sometimes I had a hard time keeping up! We don’t yet have a dehydrator, so I popped it in the oven to dry for the winter. I’ve stored it in an airtight container, and we’ve been pulling some out throughout the winter to put into soups. Especially bean soups! We hope to have some cold frames next winter to exten

We sometimes receive wide-eyes or raised eyebrows when we answer the question “how much are your eggs?” Our pasture-raised, free-range, organic-fed hen eggs, we reply, are five dollars per dozen. Since supermarket eggs can sometimes dip below $2 per dozen, it may indeed be hard to comprehend how there could be such a price difference – they’re more than twice the price! Nor is it uncommon to know of a neighbor or road-side sign advertizing a dozen eggs from a backyard flock for two to three do

Of all the animals we have raised (cattle, sheep, goats, poultry, dogs and cats), we like the swine the best. They are inquisitive, unpredictable, industrious creatures that also happen to be easy to fence in if you know what you are doing; and they are efficient little meat producers, having the highest carcass yields of any 4- legged meat animal. We used to raise hundreds of them each year but have now moved to a much smaller scale due to our new land situation, lack of local markets, and gen