Herbs can be a great addition to your cut flower farming. Odds are your mind goes to zinnias, sunflowers and dahlias. These are classics among the cut flower world. But while focal flowers are great, every cut flower garden needs a bit of greenery! Greenery adds texture and intrigue to cut flower bouquets and arrangements, and is an absolute must for your cut flower garden.
Thankfully, growing greenery can be simple. You might already be growing some wonderful cut flower foliage in your garden without even realizing it. My trick for amazing bouquets? Herbs! That’s right, herbs can make excellent cut flowers and are a wonderful addition to flower bouquets. Not only are they easy to grow, but they add a wonderful fragrance to your cut flower bouquets.
Fragrant Mint
Mint is perhaps the easiest herb to grow on this list, but you’ve got to be careful planting this one. Plant mint in pots, raised beds or in an area in which it cannot spread, as mint can quickly take over if left unattended for too long.
This herb comes in countless varieties such as orange mint, chocolate mint and pineapple mint, each with a unique look and delicious fragrance. A well-established stand of mint can easily produce towering stems that will last and last in a cut flower arrangement.
Herbal Blooms: Dill
Nothing says cut flowers quite like the classic scent of pickles! Okay, I know it sounds odd, but this wonderful herb brings a fresh airiness to any flower bouquet.
Dill, as we all know, is tasty in the kitchen. But when you let it bloom, the umbrella-like blooms are perfect in a cut flower bouquet. Bouquet dill specifically makes an excellent choice.
And don’t worry about that pickle smell. The interest and unique freshness often is a good selling point. It’s something different, and people love a little bit of intrigue!
Fragrant Herbs: Lavender
No herbs-as-cut-flowers list would be complete without lavender. Lavender is a beautiful and fragrant cut flower that can be utilized fresh or dry. This is a major benefit to growing lavender as you can extend your sales window and there is less pressure to move the fresh product.
Pollinators love lavender, and so do people! It’s edible and can be used in baked goods, beverages and in cosmetics.
Blooms & Scent: Basil
Basil is my personal favorite on this list. The annual is easy to grow from seed and perfect in both the kitchen and in cut flower arrangements.
When you’re not harvesting every single leaf to make delicious pesto, you can easily cut these stems and add a fragrant note to any bouquet. You can also let the basil bloom to add yet another texture to your bouquets.
Furthermore, basil’s vase life is incredible, and the herb will even begin to root in the water. You can replant it from the vase to begin the cycle all over again.
Herbal Greenery: Rosemary
Rosemary might not be as readily known for use as cut flower foliage. But the delicious scent and long-lasting vase life make it a wonderful addition.
These shrubby bushes can get very large and put off decent-sized stems that can easily tuck into your arrangements. The unique foliage adds a lovely texture and is a wonderful complement to wreaths and garlands as well as market bouquets.
This story about herbs that make great cut flowers was written for Hobby Farms magazine online and is regularly updated for accuracy. Click here to subscribe.
Vegetable gardening in the colder regions of the United States means you might not have the luxury of a 100-plus-day growing season. You’re working in a shorter time frame, and if you want your short-season vegetable garden to produce abundantly in the available days, you have to choose the right varieties.
But we know you want more out of your short-season vegetable gardening than 30-day radishes and arugula. Luckily, you have plenty of short-season vegetable options, and here are 10 all-stars that are sure to shine in your garden.
Miniature White Cucumbers
A brief description of these will suffice because their name says it all: They’re small (3 inches) and white. But moving beyond their physical description, Miniature White cucumbers are nicely prolific with good flavor, plus they produce quickly, putting cucumbers on the table in 50 to 55 days.
And while they are admittedly smaller than your typical slicing-type cucumber, thanks to the volume that Miniature White produces, your harvests will be impressive. Miniature White cucumbers have a crisp texture that’s delicious in salads or sliced for snacking.
Here’s an added bonus: Miniature White thrives happily even if you’re vegetable gardening in containers, which is a nice option if you’re limited on garden space or want to be able to bring the plants indoors on cold autumn nights.
I used to try growing beautiful large tomato varieties such as German Pink, but even though my garden did its best, the growing season here is just a little too short to reliably produce large tomatoes in abundance.
I can grow the early-season varieties and cherry tomatoes all day long. But I sometimes just want the fun of growing a big tomato.
Last year, I tried Emmylou and was pleased with my vegetable gardening results. Emmylou produces gorgeous red tomatoes that are surprisingly large for the speed with which they mature (75 days from transplant). I liked that they were resistant to cracking, and they also exhibited disease resistance, which is another plus for this extra-special tomato.
Neon Pumpkins
Just because we live in colder climates doesn’t mean that we don’t want to grow pumpkins. Now of course we can plant miniature pumpkins, like the charming Casperita, which is adorable and matures in about 75 days. But sometimes you just feel like growing a jack-o-lantern-sized pumpkin, right?
But large pumpkins are slow to mature, and that’s why you need Neon. It’s a very pretty, 8-pound pumpkin that has a reputation of being perfectly ideal for carving up at Halloween. With its brilliant orange color, useful size, great productivity and lightning-fast maturity (ready in approximately 80 days), Neon has more than earned its place in my garden.
Bonus features: It’s prolific and stores well. What are you waiting for? Your search for the perfect pumpkin starts and stops with Neon.
(P.S. In your quest for larger pumpkins, don’t overlook the fun of the miniature pumpkins, like the aforementioned Casperita. They’re a lot of fun to grow, and they make delightful decorations, too.)
Yaya Carrots
I don’t have the greatest track record with vegetable gardening and growing carrots. I can recite all the reasons it’s difficult to grow them: They’re slow to germinate, the soil has to be just so, you have to thin at the proper time, and if you don’t follow the magic steps correctly, the carrot fairies revolt.
Carrots
For a while, I tried growing carrot varieties such as Thumbelina, thinking that—like cherry tomatoes—the smaller types would be better suited to the north, maturing more quickly. But the joke was on me!
The diminutive Thumbelina, while lovely, still requires up to 70 days to mature. And I wanted to grow full-sized carrots. Enter Yaya!
Yaya is a gorgeous, 5- to 6-inch, Nantes-type carrot that’s everything you could want in a carrot. Early maturing? You got it (60 days). Deliciously sweet? It’s among the best. Easy to grow? I’ve never grown carrots that did as well as Yaya.
Just think: You could be harvesting beautiful, super-sweet carrots in just 60 days!
Vegetable gardening with snap beans in colder climates is no problem. Plenty of early-maturing varieties are productive, tasty and colorful. But I like growing dry bean varieties, and that can be tricky.
Take Mayflower, that gorgeous dry bean variety that has a legendary connection to the ship. It’s beautiful, and I’d love to grow it, but it’s a 100-day variety. The good news is that there are other dry beans that require fewer days to grow, such as Orca.
Now Orca has several aliases, including Yin Yang and Calypso. But all refer to a stunning black-and-white bean that’s as eye-catching as it is delicious. Another bonus: Unlike most dry bean varieties, which are pole habit, Orca beans are bush habit, which eliminate the need for trellising.
A dry bean that’s user-friendly and matures in just 75 days sounds like a winner to me.
Sweetness Corn
I probably don’t need to tell you much more than that Sweetness is the most accurately named vegetable ever. An impartial panel of seven family members unanimously agreed it was the best corn they’d ever tasted! (And they’ve tried some not-so-great corn over the years.)
It’s difficult to know where to start when describing just how excellent Sweetness is. It matures really quickly, in less than 70 days, produces a nice quantity of ears, and is quite beautiful with its bicolor kernels.
But the flavor! It’s beyond delicious. The plants reach approximately 6 feet tall and produce 8-inch ears of corn.
Little Snow Pea White
I know there’s nothing extraordinary about growing peas when working with short-season vegetable gardening. It’s easy to grow peas, right? They don’t mind cold weather, and they don’t take long to mature.
Daniel Johnson
But Little Snow Pea White takes everything you knew about growing peas and says, “Hey, I can do it even faster.”
Little Snow Pea White grows at a lightning fast rate, with peas ready to harvest in as little as 30 days. In my zone 4a garden, it took closer to 40 days, but we had a cold spring, which may have been a factor.
Once it started producing, Little Snow Pea White kept at it for weeks, filling our harvest baskets with abundant quantities of tasty snow peas. They’re quite elegantly pretty, too. So if you’re looking for a great way to kick off your gardening season and an addition to those early garden harvests of radishes and arugula, give these peas a chance.
Candy Onions
Following on the heels of Sweetness corn: How about Candy onions? An ideal choice for short-season gardeners, Candy hybrid onions are an amazingly large, simply delicious, day-neutral variety. They’re always reliable, beautiful and ready in approximately 90 days from transplant.
(Yes, this is on the longer end of the range, but you can set out onion plants earlier than tomato seedlings. So there’s never an issue with onions having time to reach maturity.)
To add to the fun, Candy onions come in red and white, both equally beautiful and absolutely yummy. Candy onions aren’t a superior storage variety, but they’re so tasty that you’ll probably eat them all before long-term storage is an issue.
All Blue Potatoes
These may not be the largest or the most productive potatoes in the whole world, but I can say this: These potatoes are simply the most fun to grow. I mean, they’re blue potatoes! What’s not to like?
Daniel Johnson
All Blue is an heirloom variety that has somehow been eclipsed by the more popular potatoes such as Yukon Gold, but if you’re willing to think outside the box, you won’t be disappointed by these gorgeous potatoes.
They appear brilliant with an unexpected shade of blue-purple inside and out, and they hold their color when baked. They’re truly a delight when short-season vegetable gardening, in the kitchen and in your tummy.
Lunchbox Peppers
For me, growing peppers can be like growing carrots: occasionally unpredictable. Here in the north, the sun just isn’t sunny enough sometimes to satisfy the requirements of sweet peppers, and I’ve tried a lot of varieties over the years in a quest to find peppers that produce reliably and in a short time.
Then I met Lunchbox peppers. Before I knew it, I was picking more pecks of peppers than Peter Piper himself.
These charming little peppers are “snack-sized” (3 inch) and packed with sweet flavor. They’re colorful (red, yellow, orange) and delicious either fresh or cooked. Lunchbox peppers are productive and quick to mature (about 80 days at the most), a truly excellent choice for short-season gardeners and anyone who wants a little fun in the garden.
Short-season vegetable gardening might sound limiting, but with so many wonderful heirloom and hybrid varieties available from seed catalogs and garden centers, it’s easier than you might think to harvest a diverse and delicious assortment of garden veggies all season long.
This article vegetable gardening originally appeared in the May/June 2022 issue of Hobby Farms magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Cornell Small Farms Program director Anu Rangarajan talks about supporting farmers as whole people, making farming communities more welcoming spaces, life as a strawberry farmer and a game-changing reduced-tillage technique.
Hear about how the Cornell University Small Farms Program free classes and resources can support your farming—whether your farm in New York or elsewhere—and how they differ from and work in conjunction with Cooperative Extension resources. Anu emphasizes the importance of building networks and utilizing local knowledge in building farms that are socially sustainable as well as sustainable in every other sense of the word. Learn about the Reconnecting with Purpose, Be Well Farming Project and other programs meant to support farmers as whole people and farms as whole systems. (If the concept of “listening like a cow” intrigues you, this is an episode for you.)
This episode is recorded just a week after the first Northeast Latino/a/x Agricultural Community Conference, and Anu asks the question, How is it that we welcome and create a sense of safety for people who are not from traditional white farmer audiences? As a woman of color working in production agriculture for a couple of decades, this is a question that’s been on her mind. Anu explains how the Cornell Small Farms Program is working on answers to the question from supporting farmworkers to cultivating pathways to farming.
Get to know how Anu went from being a kid in Detroit to a premed student to a greenhouse employee to a vegetable specialist at a land-grant university. She talks about her organic U-pick strawberry farm—her experience “on the other side” of the research-production relationship. Learn about Anu’s research in small-scale vegetable production, minimum- and no-till system, and soil health. Keep listening for great info about using tarps in the garden to increase nutrient levels, reduce weed populations and more.
Baby chickens are a rite of passage in spring, but the preparation starts long before that. Here are some tips to help you start planning and keep your growing flock healthy and happy.
1. Order Early From Hatcheries Near You
Most of us want specific breeds for particular reasons, whether it’s for ornamental reasons, egg-laying capabilities or meat of a certain flavor. To ensure you get the chicken breeds you want, order as early as possible. As chicken keeping continues to grow in popularity, breed favorites disappear from availability quickly.
For the sake of the little birds that will be shipped to your post office, seek out a hatchery in your region of the country. U.S. Postal Service shipping of live animals is always an expedited service, as is reflected by the shipping price that’s higher than the cost of the spring chicks. However, the longer the day-old chicks remain in transport, the more stress they will endure. Weak chicks that might struggle to survive under the best of conditions aren’t likely to survive a stressful trip. The shorter the trip, the more likely your chicks are to be thriving upon arrival. Sourcing chicks locally is also an option.
2. Construct the Brooder Before Hatch Day
Whether you build your own brooder or purchase a brooder kit, a brooder is essentially a nursery for baby chickens, and it must be ready the moment chicks arrive.
Be sure the brooder protects your chicks from other animals in the house, garage, shed or barn, and be sure that chicks cannot escape.
Warm an area of the brooder with a heat lamp or a safer, ambient heat source made for chicks. Cooler areas should also be available in case chicks feel too warm.
Provide soft, warm bedding, like straw or poplar shavings. Avoid slippery material, like newspaper, to prevent splayed leg.
Keep chick feed and water clean and plentiful at all times.
3. Educate Young Children
Kids tend to squeeze chicks. Practice holding baby chickens with your kids—a hard-boiled egg, a nectarine, or something else small and chick-sized will do the trick. Chicks should be held firmly but gently. Kids should also know that the chick should escape their hands than it is to prevent their escape with a squeeze.
4. Open the Box of Baby Chickens Alone
Chirping boxes are irresistible, especially for kids, but when your baby chickens arrive, insist on opening the box alone. In the rare event that a weak chick didn’t survive the trip, you need to know first so you can break the news gently to young children.
5. Move Baby Chickens to the Brooder Immediately
It’s tempting to play with baby chickens when they arrive, but they need to be moved to their brooder immediately once they’re in your care. Be mindful of how long the chicks have been in transport. From the time they hatch, they need food and water within the first 72 hours of life. While transport through the mail is safe, shipping can be stressful for some chicks. Getting them to food and water, and assessing any health concerns has to be the first priority.
6. Monitor Baby Chicks for Pasty Butt
When chicks’ droppings dry to the outside of the vent, it creates a plug. We call this pasty butt, and it’s deadly if the plug isn’t removed. Check for pasty butt when you move each chick from the shipping box to the brooder. If you find a pasty butt, hold the chick firmly, and soak its bottom in warm water. The poop will dissolve quickly, and it will dissolve right off. Do not rub the area as the skin a fragile and you can hurt the baby chick by ripping its skin. Instead, pat her dry and then place her under the brooder’s heat source so she doesn’t get cold. Chicks that get pasty butt are prone to develop it again, so be sure to check it often. Continue checking the entire flock for at least the first week of life.
7. Have the Coop Ready
Chicks grow astoundingly fast. Soon, they’ll outgrow their brooder and will need to move to the coop. If you’re building a coop, complete it before your chicks arrive, even if it will be several weeks before they move in, to avoid setbacks or predator vulnerabilities caused by rushing the job. If you’re ordering a coop, make sure it arrives before your chicks do, not on the same day.
8. Understand That Chickens Are a Commitment
If your chickens will be egg-laying pets, and if you care for them well, some can live up to 10 years or more. Bringing home backyard chickens isn’t very different than bringing home a new puppy or kitten, except that chickens are harder to re-home. Visit a farm and learn how to care for chickens, or get nitty-gritty chicken-keeping tips from other chicken keepers before you place your hatchery order.
This story about preparing for baby chickens was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe.
Raising ducklings is fun, cute and endearing. Backyard ducks can make a good flock along with chickens. They’re often seen together on farms, but chicks and ducklings do not make the best brooder companions. It might be tempting to house the two types of babies together. Yet multiple reasons exist why this pastoral pairing should be avoided, at least until the birds are fully feathered juveniles or adults. Read on for four of them.
1. Relationships to Water
Even when they’re just a day old, ducklings are drawn to water. They might not swim yet, but they can definitely splash. Not only can they thoroughly soak the shavings, but they might also douse any chicks wandering by the waterer. Getting drenched or nestling down on wet bedding can chill a baby chick and lead to hypothermia, as the bird is too young to regulate its body temperature.
While baby chicks do seem to grow up right before our eyes, a duckling’s rate of growth exceeds that of a chick’s. Ducklings at three weeks of age dwarf standard-size chicks, with ducklings from meat breeds such as Pekín and Rouen easily three times the size of a chick. Because of the size difference, ducklings can accidentally step or sit on their smaller brooder mates, causing them injury. When raising ducklings, their quick growth rate also means that a brooder can change from spacious to overcrowded within a week.
4. Natural Defenses
Ducks have few natural defenses; their main way of escaping predators is to swim out into bodies of water where land-based carnivores can’t reach them. While baby ducks can nuzzle and nip with their rounded bills, that’s about the extent of the damage they can do. Chicks, however, have sharp beaks that, during the first few days of life, feature the hornlike egg tooth used to break out of the shell. Armed with these pointy natural weapons, chicks can peck eyes, puncture webbed feet and cause other unintentional injury to defenseless ducklings.
This story about raising ducklings was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe.
Pears on tree in fruit garden. Adobe Stock by Africa Studio
Pollination by hand is not uncommon. It is often used for better crops like squash and melons. This year, I’m going to be using a paintbrush to hand-pollinate my pear trees. The goal isn’t to create paintings of my farm (though that would be delightful). The goal is to improve the pollination of my pear trees and generate a better pear harvest. My humble paintbrush is going to become a creative addition to my arsenal of farm tools.
Pollinate Plants
A few years back, I planted two types of pear trees in my young orchard: Early Gold and Ure. I’ve read varying reports on the fertility of the Early Gold; some say it’s self-fertile, others say it does better with a pollinator and some say it definitely needs a pollinator. I was told at the nursery that Early Gold would benefit from having Ure as a pollinator, hence their pairing in my orchard.
I enjoyed a few pears off the Early Gold in the year of planting, for the trees were already of decent size and the Early Gold had been pollinated at the nursery. The Early Gold has blossomed beautifully every year since, but the Ure pear has been slower to mature, contributing anywhere from zero to a handful of blossoms per year.
The lackluster flower show from my Ure pear has left my Early Gold pear without pollination for its numerous blossoms, and it hasn’t produced any pears since that first year. I’m hopeful my Ure pear will burst into glorious full bloom this spring and solve the problem on its own, but whether it does or not, I’m going to take matters into my own hands and pollinate plants with a paintbrush.
Pollinating squash flowers with a paintbrush.
Pollination Power
Last year, my mother was having trouble in her garden with the pollination of squash plants. There were honey bees around, but they were focusing on other plants and neglecting the squash flowers. So my mother took an ordinary paintbrush and used it to transfer pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers. The resulting squash harvest was abundant.
I plan to replicate my mother’s success by using a small watercolor paintbrush to pollinate my pear trees. Pear trees have bisexual flowers with both male and female parts, so the key will be transferring pollen from one tree to the other, rather than from male flowers to female flowers. Assuming I get at least a few blossoms on the Ure pear, I’ll gather pollen from those blossoms and deposit them in the blossoms on my Early Gold pear. And I’ll repeat the process in reverse, transferring pollen from my Early Gold blossoms to the Ure blossoms.
It may take a little bit of time and effort, as the two trees are planted 90 feet apart, and it’s my understanding that pollen must be transferred multiple times to each flower to ensure pollination. When you pollinate plants with a paintbrush, you might not get a masterpiece the first try. But if I can get even a dozen Early Gold and Ure pears to grow, I’ll be happy.
And if my Ure pear doesn’t blossom this year? Well, I won’t be deterred. There’s a very old, very large pear tree growing on a different part of my farm, and it blossoms abundantly every year. If I have to take a handful of paintbrushes, gather a bunch of pollen from the old pear tree, and transfer it to my Early Gold blossoms… so be it! Inspired by my mother and her miracle-working squash blossom paintbrush, I’m definitely going to enjoy a pear harvest this year.
This story about hand pollination was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe.
German sauerkraut recipe—utter these words and your mind is filled with images of cozy kitchens and yummy food. Sauerkraut has a culinary heritage with recipes from plain cabbage-fermented sauerkraut to gingery beet kraut and Hawaiian kraut, that have been passed down for generations. It’s a dish celebrated for its tangy flavor and health benefits.
German Sauerkraut Recipe
Yields: one to two quart jars of sauerkraut
Ingredients
1 head of green cabbage (about 2 to 2½ pounds)
1 to 1½ tablespoon kosher salt
6 bay leaves
20 whole black peppercorns
Preparation
Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage and discard. Wash the cabbage with cold water. Cut in half lengthwise, and remove the core from each half. Shred the cabbage into thinly sliced shreds, about 1/8-inch thick. You can also use a mandolin or cabbage shredder for this step. Try to keep the shreds uniform in size so that they ferment evenly.
Collect shreds in a nonreactive bowl, such as glass, plastic or solid stainless steel. Add salt and mix well. Use clean hands (remove nail polish and jewelry or wear food-safe gloves) to mix the salt with the shredded produce, squeezing and mashing with your fists to tenderize the cabbage. You can also use a wooden tamping tool for this process, but be intentional about not over-mashing the produce or it will turn into a mushy ferment.
Massage the cabbage mixture until you can pick up a fistful and squeeze liquid from your fist. Once the liquid drains out, you’re ready to transfer the cabbage shreds into a clean quart jar. At this point, mix in the peppercorns so that they’re evenly spread throughout the kraut.
Jarring Sauerkraut
Transfer the kraut into a clean quart jar, and gently stick the bay leaves within the kraut and the side of the jar, careful not to break the leaves. Leave one to two inches of headspace (room from the cabbage mixture to the rim of the jar). Use your fist or cabbage tamper to tightly fill the jar. Pour any excess liquid from the bowl into the jar(s) as well. This liquid is the brine that the sauerkraut will ferment in.
Once filled, there should be enough brine to cover the kraut shreds. If there is not enough liquid, check again in the morning, and often, enough will be produced overnight. You’ll need some weight to keep the cabbage pushed under the brine. Keeping the shreds submerged under the brine is the key to a successful ferment. There are weights specifically made to fit jars, but you can also get creative – see the “tips section” below for alternative options. Wipe off the rim of the jar, add the mason jar canning lid, and tightly screw on the ring.
German Sauerkraut Fermentation
In this traditional German sauerkraut recipe, fermentation will happen for two to three weeks and can go up to six. The temperature of the space where you are fermenting will determine how long it takes. The warmer a room, the faster it will ferment. Ideally, you should ferment between 60 to 75°F. Keep out of direct sunlight.
Burp the jar daily, especially at first when the ferment is very active; unscrew the lid briefly and tighten it back on to allow any built-up gas to release. At least once per day, you’ll have to use a clean utensil to push down the weight and submerge the cabbage again. Scoop away any pieces of food floating on top of the brine to avoid mold.
Taste test the ferment after the second week. If it still tastes of raw cabbage, allow it to ferment another week and taste again. Some people prefer a very sour and soft sauerkraut and therefore will ferment closer to the six-week range. Once fermentation in this German sauerkraut recipe is complete to your liking, transfer the jar into the refrigerator, with the brine and all.
Fermentation does not stop once the ferment is transferred to the refrigerator, however, it does slow the process down. The taste and texture will continue to change; therefore, it’s best enjoyed within six months.
We enjoy this German sauerkraut recipe with many meals in our household and view it as a finished veggie side dish that can be added to a variety of meals; it’s not just for bratwursts and pork chops.
Sauerkraut Tips & Tricks
If you don’t have a glass jar weight, you can improvise by using an easily removable small food-grade glass dish that fits inside the jar. If you have a smaller glass canning jar that can fit into the mouth of the jar you are fermenting with, you can use that to keep the produce pushed under the brine.
You may substitute fine sea salt instead of coarse kosher salt. Consult a salt conversion chart.
Expect foam-like bubbling, at least in the first week of this ferment. It’s completely normal.
Baby chicks are a springtime staple at feed stores and farm supply stores. A visit to the store is usually accompanied by the unmistakable peeping of baby chicks. Here’s a look at what you may find and how to get what you want.
Baby Chicks in the Store
In the center of the store, under a sea of heat lamps, there are usually stock tanks with assorted levels of peeping. Common varieties like amberlinks, golden comets, black sex links and red stars, are all hybrids with an excellent track record as backyard birds. These fluffy babies bring smiles to shoppers.
Unfortunately, though, just because a store sells something, that does not mean its employees are experts on the inventory. Most staffers are simply trying to earn a living wage, with little or no knowledge of everyday animal husbandry. Ask about the different breeds of baby chicks, and, well, caveat emptor: Let the buyer beware.
Here are some mistakes I have witnessed…
A tank of chocolate khaki campbell ducklings mislabeled as Pekin ducklings (which are sunshine yellow).
A tank of easter eggers mislabeled (and misspelled) as “Americanas, a common barnyard bird.” (True ameraucanas are not common barnyard birds.)
A tank of golden baby chicks misidentified as barred rocks (barred rock chicks are black with creamy underbellies and a creamy white spot on their heads).
A tank of sandy-beige chicks misidentified as Plymouth blues (the breed/variety is blue Plymouth rocks; the chicks are very similar in appearance to barred [Plymouth] rocks).
Mislabeling like this is sadly common. Not a single Chick Days event has gone by without my encountering at least one incorrectly identified set of baby birds at a local feed store or farm supply center. While I’m well versed enough in poultry breeds not to be misled by erroneous signs, not everybody is. Avoid coming home with cornish crosses when you were planning on buff orpingtons by following these suggestions.
Shutterstock
1. Know Your Baby Chicken Varieties
Determine which chicken varieties you want before you head to the store. Having a specific variety of bird in mind keeps you from being overwhelmed by the assortment of chicks your store might stock. Going in knowing you are looking for silver-laced wyandotte chicks, for example, keeps you on track instead of melting over every bit of baby fluff you see.
2. Know What Different Chicken Breeds Look Like
Familiarize yourself with the appearance of your desired breed’s chicks. If you want Rhode Island reds, recognize that these chicks are auburn with pale-yellow chests. Looking for white-crested black polish babies? Those pale-yellow chicks look like they are wearing little black vests and cream-colored pompom hats. If you can, save a photo of the chicks you want on your smartphone as a reference to use for comparison while you are at the store.
3. Know What Baby Chicks Your Store Carries
Call the store to confirm which breeds they have in stock. Ask whoever answers to check the inventory list provided to the store by its supplying hatchery. This master list is frequently set aside and forgotten when it comes time to unbox the new arrivals, which is why tanks are often mislabeled or just marked as “assorted pullets.”
4. Know Your Chicken Breed’s Desired Traits
If you haven’t decided on a specific breed or variety of bird, make a list of the traits you want in your backyard flock. Bring your list and a chicken reference book, such as Storey’s Illustrated Guide to Poultry, with you to the store. This way, you can narrow down your in-store selections according to the characteristics you desire, such as which breeds are cold hardy, which are active foragers, which are docile, which go broody and so on.
5. Know Your Store’s Shortcomings
Assume that the staff members at your farm store could just as easily be stocking cereal at a supermarket as they are stocking chick and duck grower feed. If you’re lucky, your sales associate will readily admit to having limited knowledge when it comes to poultry. If you’re not so lucky, be polite as you thank your salesperson for inaccurate (or flagrantly incorrect) information, make your intended purchases, and then let the store management know what transpired.
This feedback is crucial because it might help your fellow flock-keepers down the road. You don’t want to discover six months after your purchase that your assorted bantam chicks are bobwhite quail. Why wish this on anyone else? Keeping a store informed and responsible for its poultry stock can prevent future mixups on the floor and in the barnyard.
This story about buying baby chicks was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe.
Tractor belts are the unsung heroes of farm equipment maintenance, often overlooked until a breakdown occurs. Having spare tractor belts on standby can be a game-changer when this happens.
Routine Farm Maintenance
I take good care of my garden tractors. I stay on top of oil changes. I regularly clean and/or replace oil and air filters. I top off other fluids (such as hydraulic fluid and coolant) when needed. I change the mower blades, and I clean leaves and grass clippings out of the mower deck regularly.
This care extends to the snow blower attachment I use with one of my garden tractors. I make sure the gearbox stays filled with gearbox oil. I’m careful not to scrape up gravel from my driveway when clearing snow. And I keep spare shear pins on hand so I won’t be out of luck if something causes the snow blower to break a shear pin, disconnecting the blades from the power of the engine.
Tractor Belts & Snow Removal
Even the most diligent farmer can occasionally overlook an area of maintenance that requires attention, such as the tractor belt that transfers power from my garden tractor to the snow blower.
My garden tractor with its snow blower, had been hooked up to the snow blower the previous year, and at the start of winter, I’d gone through a maintenance checklist and concluded everything was in order.
I hooked it up and cleared a couple of passes up and down my driveway when the snow blower abruptly stopped working. A quick visual survey revealed the problem: the tractor belt had snapped.
I’d never thought to check the condition of the belt because, in all my years of mowing with garden tractors, I don’t believe I’ve ever had a belt wear out. A little lawn tractor wore out a belt once, but that was a long time ago. Mower belts, in my experience, go for years and years without issue, and I wasn’t expecting anything different from the snow blower belt.
Then again, I’d purchased the snow blower used, so I can’t say for sure how many hours had been put on that belt. It didn’t strike me as worn the first time I installed it on my tractor, and the belt went through one winter without issue. But the strain of its first job back in action proved too much to handle.
Fortunately, there wasn’t so much snow as to be unmanageable, so I was able to get by with a smaller self-powered snowblower while I ordered a new belt and waited for it to arrive.
Tractor Belts: Lessons Learned
Suffice it to say, I’ve learned a lesson. It can be easy to forget about belt maintenance since they often go for years without issue and there isn’t a regular schedule for replacing them. But from now on, I’ll visually inspect the condition of my snow blower belt before winter each year, and I’ll always make sure to have a spare on hand. Who knows, next time, it might snap when there are 18 inches of snow in the driveway and I need to get it cleared right away. And I don’t want to be stuck without a replacement at a time like that.
This story about hand pollination was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe.
Herdwick sheep are domestic sheep from the mountainous Lake District of England, raised for carpet wool and meat. Lambs are born all black and then mature into their distinctive white face and legs. Their name comes from Old Norse “herdvyck” which means “sheep pasture.” Here’s a close-up look at a flock of Herdwicks and their owner…
Moving to the Countryside
Nestled in the Dutch countryside, Dagmar tends to a flock of Herdwick sheep on the hobby farm she oversees alongside her husband. “My dream of having my own small farm has always been significant,” Dagmar says. “After living in Hong Kong for five-and-a-half years, me and my husband were fortunate to fulfill our dream and buy a house with a little land in The Netherlands.”
Having secured the land, Dagmar has been building up the farm to branch out from Herdwick sheep to include chickens, ducks, rabbits and a couple of miniature donkeys.
Taking a moment from caring for her flock, we spoke to Dagmar about researching breeds of sheep and her early farming influences. We also got to know an adorable sheep called Sear.
Growing up, Dagmar’s parents didn’t live on a farm, but they did find a way to keep some cows and sheep.
“We had land near our house where the animals grazed in the summer,” she says. “In winter, they were kept in stables. As a young girl, I loved accompanying my father, especially during lambing season.”
Furthermore, when lambs were rejected by their mother, Dagmar would help to bring them into the homestead. “I enjoyed taking care of them and walking them on the street,” she says.
When Dagmar and her husband began to plan their hobby farm, they started out searching for miniature donkeys alongside a “robust and strong” breed of sheep that also “looked sweet and cute.”
While browsing Pinterest one day, Dagmar came across Herdwick sheep in the Lake District of the United Kingdom. She instantly fell in love.
“I searched for a breeder in The Netherlands,” she says, “and in September 2018, I got my first three Herdwick lambs: Saar, Julie and Noor. Sheep are just fantastic animals; they are really important to me and I enjoy spending time with them every day!”
Sear is one of the stars at Dagmar’s hobby farm. “She’s a very sweet, calm and amusing little sheep,” she explains. “When I have a treat for my sheep, she’s always the last to arrive. She also has this way of looking around as if she’s seeing something extraordinary; she’s just a very relaxed sheep. It’s just hard not to fall in love with Saar’s adorable little face.”
Looking back at 2023, Dagmar says that she noticed many of her sheep seemed to be shy. “They wouldn’t let themselves be petted or even let me come close to them,” she says.
However, by investing a lot of time in them and demonstrating a large amount of patience, Dagmar managed to gain their trust. “This makes me very happy!” she says.
Reflecting on her hobby farming journey so far, Dagmar says that she takes joy from knowing that she can provide her animals “with a beautiful happy life.” She adds that whenever she feels like she’s having a grumpy day, her animals “always bring a smile” back to her face.
“Life on a farm allows you to spend a lot of time outdoors and enjoy the nature around you,” continues Dagmar. “We try to do everything as organically as possible to further increase our biodiversity. That’s why we hope to buy more land in the future, so we can give the animals more space and give the land back to nature.”
This story about Herdwick sheep was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe.
