A New Generation

Time to start thinking about replacing/adding to the laying flock. After the loss of 17 prime laying hens to the unknown dog, I have to get going on replacing the layers. I have 4 new chicks I incubated last month - but that is not going to cut it...and I have another 16 eggs in the incubator for a January 26 hatch date, but I am going to have to order another 50 chicks from an outside vendor. I have 4 breeding hens and 3 roosters here at the house to provide me with the fertilized eggs for my incubator. Pictured here is the Buff Cochin rooster, he loves to follow us around the yard, as he was doing during yesterdays walk. The other two roosters are a Jersey Giant and Barr Rock.

Winter's Little Treats

I love winter. It is time for regrouping and revitalizing. For planning and dreaming. And for taking long walks in the crisp, clear air. Today I grabbed the camera to see what little treats of color, texture and shadow I could find on the farm.

The Fabulous Caffe Marco

We had a wonderful day today learning more about the coffee roasting business. We took a trip to Paris. No, not France, but Kentucky (if you ever have the chance to go you should, it is a beautiful drive out Route 460 from I-75S, get off at Georgetown and follow the signs to 460. Past lots of horse farms, and then to Paris which has a wonderful, quaint Main Street). If you read farther back this month, Napoleon Ridge is looking to expand our home coffee roasting to commercial coffee roasting on the farm eventually, but probably in small storefront to start with.

Thank you to owner Mark Newberry, who performs all the functions within his company, coffee roaster, bean buyer, packing line and marketing...the whole bean, so to say. His store is just as you turn left off of Route 460 onto Main Steet. It is retail only, not a cafe for sitting and sipping, though you can buy a cup of coffee to drink while chatting with Mark and waiting for your coffee to be packaged if you are buying, or take a cup to go.

I spent three enjoyable hours listening, asking, and best of all, watching him roast beans. He has a beautiful Primo coffee roaster right there in the front room. He took the time to show me how the machine works, answer all my questions, show me his bean room - he was just so generous with his time. So make sure if you are ever in the Lexington/Frankfort/Paris area to either visit him or buy some of his wonderful coffee ( I took home several bags). Visit his website for more information and locations at : http://www.caffemarco.com/

I have developed and designed our coffee roaster logo in preparation...

Although now that I know how much the initial investment is going to be, I am going to have to get creative...coffee shares, anyone?

Broiler Chickens Added to the Farm

We have had people asking us about whether we would be providing any meats, since we offer the farm eggs. Up until now we have had to say no, but we will be offering our farm raised chicken starting in January. If we see the demand and we sell out of the 25 hens we now have, we will consider starting a two week rotation for the area.

The chicks are in the brooder now, at a week old, I predict they will be pretty good sized at the 6 week processing time. About 3-4 pounds each. They, like our laying hens, are on a diet of Purina Certified Natural grains, that have no meat-by-products, antibiotics or hormones, as well as all the other goodies we give them like lettuces and grapes; you will taste the difference in the meat. They will live their time with us with plenty of space and fresh air.

The hens will be processed at approximately 6 weeks of age at the USDA plant in Bowling Green. Customers will buy the whole chicken, but can choose to receive it one of three ways: Whole, for roasting; Broiler, in two halves for baking or grilling or Fryer cut, which is 2 breasts, 2 thighs, two drumsticks and two wings. Price per pound is $4.00. Those interested in reserving a bird(s) can email me at: tricia@napoleonridgefarm.com or call the farm phone at 859-643-FARM.

A Killer in the Henhouse

Well, yesterday was a difficult day at the farm, but it somewhat explains why I have been finding dead birds. When I arrived at the henhouse last night to tuck the girls in, I was greeted by the gruesome sight of dead chickens everywhere. At least 6 hens dead. And several badly maimed birds that will probably die, although I have to say I have seen chickens survive some very traumatic wounds. I was just at a loss as to what had happened, they had some puncture wounds, but were not eaten like they would have been if the hawk had gotten them. Well, it turns out there is a dog that has a taste for chickens that broke into the pasture. Fran's parents received a visit from our neighbor, Pete, who is adjacent to us. He apparently lost 5 of his hens yesterday, and had spotted some of mine dead in the pasture, and he saw the dog running up our farm hill. This is a terrible thing, as once the dog gets a taste for killing chickens, they will not stop, not to mention I have lost more than 10 of my prime laying hens. So, today the chickens spend the day inside and until we catch this killer, that will have to stay that way. Not to mention I need to find where on the fence line the dog busted through, or I will have hens getting out...3 or them were so terrified yesterday they got over or through the fence somehow to get away from the dog. My poor girls.

Little Napoleon Coffee

Little Napoleon Coffee Roasters is on the horizon! I have to say, that I like roasting coffee...and the house always smells great. We have a small roaster that I have been practicing with. This was the Mexican Organic Terruño Nayarita. It has a very nice flavor, light and interesting. We have been keeping a roasting log and tasting notes, so when we get ready for blends or to go commercial, we will have some notes to go by. The beans arrive green. I purchased a Nesco Professional roaster for home use, and it is easy to use. Here is the process in pictures:

Green beans, ready to roast.

Turning brown, mild roast.

Browner still, medium roast.

Done! Dark roast.

After the beans finishing cooling for another 10 minutes, they are removed from the roaster and left to "rest" from several to 24 hours before using or packaging. I have a great little Krups grinder that I use to grind the whole beans, but am looking forward to getting a burr grinder, which allows for versatility in grinding. There is definitely huge difference in flavor when the beans are freshly roasted. So now I gear up for selling custom roasted coffee, we'll start small and see how it goes...

Beans resting before using or packaging.

Heritage Apples

On Saturday, my new shipment of heritage apples arrived. I spent part of yesterday afternoon mixing together some organic soil and compost, and got all 17 grafts into pots. Then I had to fight with the 3 roosters and four breeding hens over the mulch pile, where I have been heeling my plants that I was not able to get planted for overwintering. I did get them in, after much shooshing and chicken chasing. My two varieties, which I ordered back in early 2008, are Fox, which will be used for cooking and our apple butters, and Golden Pearmain, an excellent eating apple. Here are descriptions and pictures:

Fox - This is one of the many apples once collected and grown by the late Henry Morton of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Henry was responsible for collecting dozens of rare and lost varieties in his many years of work and is most famous for preserving the many old apple trees which were once prolific in the valleys and hollows of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. During the creation of the park many long-time residents were forced to abandon their lands and homesteads including their prized apple orchards. Due to Henry's efforts many of these extraordinary varieties were carefully collected and saved for future generations. The Fox was one of Henry's discoveries. If you like a sour apple then the Fox is the apple for you! It is a medium to large, greenish-yellow apple with a very tart and unusual flavor. The tartness of the Fox may be too intense for many palates but it does make an outstanding cooking apple. Makes wonderful apple butter and is excellent for cider. Ripens in August and is a poor keeper.

Golden Pearmain (Clarke’s Pearmain, Yellow Pearmain) - A beautiful apple of obscure origin. Golden Pearmain is believed to be one of the original apples grown in Thomas Jefferson’s orchards in Monticello. The medium-sized, somewhat conical fruit has an attractive golden-orange skin, marbled and striped with red and bronze. The fine-grained, yellow flesh is firm, crisp and juicy. Ripens in October and is a fair keeper.

I will probably be getting a couple more common varieties for delivery next spring when we will get the whole orchard planted. Also going to get a few sour cherries. Mmmm. Apple and cherry pies!

The Winning Chili Recipe

As promised on Twitter, here is the recipe that won best overall, and hottest (even though it was NOT that hot) chili at my "job other than the farm that used to pay for the farm" chili cook-off.

Roasted Corn and Chipotle Chili

Ingredients:

3 pounds lean stew beef

4 tbsp. canola oil

1 large vidalia onion, diced

1 large red pepper, diced

3 tbsp. McCormick's chipotle chili powder

2 16 oz. cans pureed tomatoes

1 20 oz can kidney beans

3 cobs of corn, roasted on grill or under broiler, then cut off cob

In a large sauce pan, over medium high heat, add 2 tbsp oil. When the oil just starts to smoke, add the beef and brown all over. When the meat is finished browning, add enough water over the beef to cover, and place on burner at low for about 3 hours, until the beef almost falls apart and is tender. After the beef has finished, drain and finish the chili as follows. In another large pot over medium high heat, add the remaining oil. When it is just smoking, add the onion, peppers and chipotle chili powder. Stir until onions are translucent. Add tomato puree, kidney beans, corn and meat to the pot. Let simmer for an hour, add additional chili powder to taste, but the 3 tbsp gives it just enough kick without making it fiery. Enjoy!

From Dirt to Dinner

Phase one of the new education program for schools is under way. From Dirt to Dinner is meant to be an educational process that teaches children the value of understanding where their food comes from (and that doesn't just have to be the farm), what is dirt and how to keep it healthy, the process of planting (we provide seeds) and following the process through to planting, preparing, and eating what is grown. The book will contain the coursework, and includes a section on nutrition and some kid friendly recipes. We also hope to work with the schools to get their lunchrooms to purchase locally produced ingredients and incorporate healthy but delicious menus for their students. I know, it is ambitious, but we believe in the cause. Here is the book cover and design we will use for the marketing pieces. We are looking for sponsors of the project now.

The website is www.dirttodinner.com, and will be up soon.

Grape News!

Okay, after a very serious, and still relavant post, a little update of several farm topics. The wild grape jelly follow up... I picked lots of clusters of wild grapes, as you can see here:

Then I pulled all of the grapes off the stems into a bowl in preparation for making the jelly...thank goodness for mindless Sunday football. A big bowl ensues:

And so, after perusal of many recipes on the web to help me with my jelly making dilema, I chose one I thought would meet my ability level and got to work. I had to add sugar (organic, of course) and the pectin at the proper moment, but that was pretty much it. I had to make it in two batches, as there was so much juice. So one batch survived, and one, not so much. Lesson learned? Yes. I am not yet sure about the final result, except to say, you would NEVER think of this immediately as "grape jelly" by taste. Though the color is astounding, and since I had to squeeze the pulp through a cheesecloth and had purple palms for days - I can tell it would make a great natural dye.

One batch set, the other did not, so I tossed that one.

Sauerkraut finally emerged from the crock - and it was a huge success! I had to spread the wealth - and it was loved by all who tasted it! Next year we will do more! Mary, Fran, Cheryl, tell the folks how you liked it?

So, there we are, Sauerkraut and grape jelly...who knew?

Help Save the Farm

Dear friends of Napoleon Ridge Farm. We are in a bit of a dilemma, and maybe YOU can help us. Times are a little depressing just now, as we are going to have to think about losing the farm if we cannot find a way to make up the for the lost income that is a result of a huge pay decrease from my full time job that covered my farm payments. Yes, we know that times are tough out there for everyone - and that is so for us too. No, we are not asking you for money, just to take a few minutes of your time to help tell our story to Ellen Degeneres, who has a promotion on her show to help people like us who are going through a hard time. If you have been following this blog, you know the passion I feel for my farm, and how it is my dream, for now and my future. I am sure in the scope of things, there are far worse stories, but the thought of losing everything I have worked so hard for over the past four years, just as we are seeing progress really breaks my heart. So if you would like to help, stop by this link and tell Ellen about your part in our journey, and how Ellen can help tide us over until we figure out the next step. Our thanks in advance. Just copy and paste this link as it does not appear to be live:

http://ellen.warnerbros.com/show/respond/?PlugID=234

Tricia

The Grapes of Wild Jelly

Generally I would not pay any attention to the prolific wild grape vines we have here on both our properties, but this year was an exception. Last year, we really pruned down the fence grapevines, not really thinking to much of it. But, as luck would have it, wild grapes are like cultured grapes. That means this year, because they were on second year wood, we had an abudance of wild grapes. Now, I have always found these wild grapes to be very bitter and sour, though the birds love them. But this year has been an anomoly and I had a bumper crop of wild grapes I could harvest before the birds. And so I did... and will now make wild grape jelly...yum

So, I'll keep you posted, but I stripped all the grapes off the clusters, and have them ready to process this weekend in the fridge. After them, maybe some crabapple jelly, they sure look nice this year!

So much to do - more soon!

Sunny and Crisp

One of those days to savor, air is crisp and clear, the sun is shining and the temps are in the mid fifties. Yesterday we spent the afternoon/evening at the Gallatin County Pumpkin Festival. The farm sponsored the scarecrow contest, so Friday, after driving to Frankfort in the morning to pick up a friends wedding pumpkins, I spent the afternoon driving around taking pictures of scarecrows for the vote on Saturday. We also gave all the prizes for the winners of the vote, as well as giving away mini pumpkins to festival attendees...networking for the future. I had hoped to have more of my photography matted and framed, but only had three pieces to bring. Hopefully, now that I have no more markets or festivals planned I can get ahead for next year...ha! Getting ready to can today, stopped at Ayers Orchard in Ownenton on my way home Friday and picked up some KY apples, they even had my favorite, Mutzu. So apple cranberry chutney, apple butter and apple caramel sauce today. Also picked up a couple hundred pounds of black walnuts today, and about 10 pounds of pecans.

Un-shelled pecans

Pumpkin on the stone wall

Fall wildflowers

Busy week ahead as always, first delivery of eggs to Local 127 restaurant. Getting more hens this week, as our production is not keeping up with demand. Also working to get our products in Farm Fresh Delivery, http://www.farmfreshdelivery.com/, a wonderful new service for the local farmer and consumer.

The Joys of Fall

I absolutely love this time of year. Finally things are starting to slow down (ha!), and the air is crisp and clear. My old, faithful HP Photosmart camera finally bit the dust. So we have a new camera for the farm, and I must say I love the quality. The Nikon Cool Pix L100 is a small, managable digital camera with 15X zoom, at 10 megapixels, it really catches the detail. I was up early this morning just after sunrise with all the kitties trying it out, here are some of the results.

Goldenrod

Willie enjoys sunrise on the stone wall

Cleomes in the front garden

If you click on the photos, they open in a new window, and you can really see the detail! If you open the goldenrod and look closely, you can even see a cucumber beetle hiding in the foliage. Well, time to go and wash eggs, the hens have been hard at work. We will be at the NKU farm market on Wednesday from 10am to 2pm, then at Earth Mother Market in Fort Thomas from 3pm to 7pm. Next week will probably be the last week of Earth Mother Market. Next year we will be back starting May 5th through October, bigger and even better!

Pray tell...Sauerkraut?

It's that time of the year, there are not enough days, and certainly not enough time to get everything done. Today was full of things to do - made sauerkraut for the first time, pretty easy! I had purchased a beautiful old crock (2 gallon) at the World's Longest Yard Sale about two weeks ago, with just this purpose in mind. I also had a huge head of cabbage ready to go. Here is the a link to the recipe I used:

http://chetday.com/sauerkrautrecipe.htm

So my crock is ready to go into hiding for the next 5 weeks. I'll keep you posted how it turns out!
Now cookingon the stove is tomato sauce. Though we did not have any tomatoes of our own , as we all know, I purchased 50 lbs. from another fellow Certified Naturally Grown farm, Gretchen at Greensleeves in Alexandria. I have an excellent Italian countertop pureer, and after blanching, coring and seeding the mostly roma tomatoes (there are a couple in there from Dan Berkshire's farm too, the ones Fran and I set the same day as ours), I added the wine, herbs and spices, and now the whole house smells great. Tomorrow, homemade ketchup. Once you've had homemade, you'll never go to store bought again. I'll post that recipe...

And finally, here is a great shot from the garden...I spied Mr. Mantis on my agastache looking for his next meal. I have lots of them around, and make sure to not destroy any of the preying mantis egg sacks when I clean up in the spring so they stay around.

Summer in a Jar

Wow, it has been along time since I wrote an entry. I am still grieving the death of my garden, but - plants go on - and summers harvest is in full swing for other farms. And I mean to take full advantage of that. We still have some items we will be able to use. Garlic is ready to harvest. Elderberries if the birds have left me any...herbs, cantaloupe, watermelon and summer squash. Still have those left.

I did have peaches at the farm, and made natural peach jam, just peaches, lemon juice and organic sugar. Also peach and apricot jam the same way. Bought some pickling cucumbers, and made refrigerator dills, bread and butter and sweet pickles. Made blueberry preserves today. Tomatoes are next, with just plain canned and sauce. Need to make some salsa too.

This is the peach jam with farm peaches.

An array of already canned items.

Well, that's it for today. Just wanted to at least get something in and let everyone know we are still alive and kicking. Had a great time for the past couple days at the 127 Yard Sale where I had a booth. Other farm ladies from my area, Tonya and newly met Marlene helped the hours pass quickly. It is such a pleasure to meet other women in agriculture that have great stories and great passion for what they do.

Copper Death Day 6

I said before I wouldn't post any more pictures, but KDA said to keep taking them, so here is day 6 of copper death. I think you can see how pronounced the toxic effects are now. Still makes me sick to have to look at this.

On a less somber note, the new fence (yep, that's barn red!) that is at the entrance to the farm is only 4 boards and a little chainsawing away from being done. Another to do crossed off the list!

Disaster in the Tomato Fields

This post could also be called "There is no FUN in Fungicide" (thank you Fran). So, it happened last Friday, but the saga started on Thursday. Though our tomatoes were thriving, looking wonderful and just getting ready to start picking, I received notice from the ag extension it would be best to treat the plants for early and late blight. As a sustainable farmer, I prefer not to spray anything, but, as these tomatoes were under contract, I decided to go ahead and get a fungicide on them. I looked up organic solutions, and arrived at copper sulfate, which also goes by several other names. It is a water soluble fungicide, so I could get a couple small sprayers and Silver and Thomas could get it on easily. So after running some errands Thursday, I stopped at a local agricultural store (I cannot name it due to possible legal proceedings). I asked if they carried copper sulfate, yes. I asked how much I should get, was given a number for an acre, which was divided for a quarter acre, I arrived at getting ten pounds, so I would have some for another time if needed. I received the ten pounds of CS in a brown paper bag. Since there was no label, I asked the person what the product to water ratio for mixing was. I was told one pound to one gallon of water, I asked for a pen from another person that was there, asked the ratio again and wrote it on the brown bag, along with 5 pounds for quarter acre. Good to go. I headed home.

Bright and early Friday, Silver and Thomas arrived. Their first course of action for the day was to weed wack and get the grass mowed (this is our way of organic pest control), and by the time I arrived at about 9:30, that was almost all done. Next to the spraying. We assembled the new sprayers, and following the instructions I received from the ag store, put 2 pounds of CS in each sprayer and added 2 gallons of water. They sprayed, but seemed to run out long before we hit 5 pounds. We actually have more that a quarter acre, and 25 pounds would actually be 6.25 pounds to the quarter acre, so we finished up the 10 pounds. Silver and Thomas had to leave, so I ran errands, returning to the farm at about 6pm to collect the days eggs. I was just leaving when I looked at my tomato field. My heart stopped in my throat, tears welled up in my eyes, and I felt like I had just received a kick in my stomach. My tomatoes were dying. What had been a vibrant and green crop was now brown and as any observer could see, in dire straights. I had my camera with me, here are the first glimpses of what I saw:

I was paralyzed with fear, all the hard work that we had done, what happened? It had to be the spray - I had no other explanation. I immediately called our extension agent, David Hull, and told him what I was looking at. He told me he was on his way to the office, then would come right to the farm. In desperation, I thought that maybe I could wash the stuff off and undue some of the damage. Fran arrived and took over, and David Hull arrived. The news was worse than bad, it was deadly. The concentration that the ag store had told me for the product to water ratio was wrong. Not just wrong - poisonous. According to a generic copper sulfate that David had found on line, the proper way to mix CS is 2-3 pounds per 100 GALLONS. So I had used a mixture about 90 times more concentrated than it was supposed to be, in essence, toxic. Then other things started to come to light. First, it is not legal to sell chemicals in anything other than their original packaging. It should have had a label on it. If it had, I am sure I would have double checked how to mix - but as it was, all I had were the verbal instructions. Now here is where I kick myself in the arse for trusting that a store that has been in business for more than a half century would give me incorrect mixing instructions. My lesson learned? Trust no one.

So, where so we stand now? I have documented over the past four days the death of my money crop for the year. I will not be able to even sell the tomatoes that are just now ripening, as they too could contain toxic levels of copper. My land has been poisoned too, it will take years to make the soil healthy again. I am angry and hurt. I was counting on this crop to break the farm even for the year, and now I have lost that and my farm market crops which were also planted in that same field. My recourse? I have called the state about the packaging and labeling issue, they came out to the farm this morning and took my statement, pictures and a sample of the tomato plant. They were on their way to the store that sold me the product, I'll let you know how that worked out when I find out. Here are more pictures of the death of my tomatoes.

Day three after spraying:

Day four after spraying:

Today, day 5, they look even worse, so I am done with the pictures. Once the lawyer says I can rip them out, I will. Then till and add some composted material, and finally this fall a cover crop of buckwheat. I will pull soil samples next spring, and hope that at the very least I can put flowers in that field next year. This has been such a tragedy.

Fine Fencing to Greet Our Guests

One of the projects I have had Silver and Thomas working on is putting up a new fence and a gate. Previously, there was just barbed wire, so I had them rip out all the wire and old posts. Then they measure 8 foot to center for all the new poles, they got them in over the past week. Yesterday they finished tamping in the posts. I had a new gate delivered on Thursday, so they hung the gate yesterday, and painted the posts last night. Fran and I, being the oddballs we are didn't want a typical fence for our farm - nosiree - no black or white or brown fencing for us. We chose barn red. And the gate matches!

I arrived at the farm bright and early this morning. I am using the former hen area for our storage room, since it can be locked up. We have lots of tools and equipment I would not like to lose - so I worked on that until Fran arrived. The he and I got to working staining the 81 planks that will constitute the rails of the fence.

We got about half done, so Silver and Thomas, who did not work with us today, will be ready to go tomorrow. I will continue to stain the remainder of the planks while they hang what we did today. Tomorrow, I'll post the finished job - it will surely stand out!

Shazam

It has been almost magical - the lapse of time from my vacation to now - when I can get 15 minutes to put together this post. The magical part - as in "where has the time gone" is one of life's great mysteries. It only seems like yesterday - and then it is two or more weeks in the future, and I apologize. I really try to keep up.

There really has been an incredible amount that has taken place since I last posted - so here we go, in no specific order:

The sunflowers on the 1/4 acre I planted are all in bloom!

These are all black oil sunflower - so I am hoping to harvest enough seed to get me through the winter with my birds, and maybe a little extra.

At Horus Hill, everything is in bloom. The front gardens boast bee balm, coneflower, coreopsis, cleome and so many more.

Also, without pictures (coming soon tho), is the relocation of the hens. It was very much like the running of the bulls! But without the sharp pointy things (excluding beaks and talons). Fran and I were the Chicken Wranglers. Yesterday, we were ready for the move. We went to the farm and figured out how to get hens from point A - to point B. Doesn't sound too complicated, but if you've ever had chickens you'll appreciate this. After trying to grab one or two by slowly opening their henhouse door we realized it wasn't going to work. Nope, not even a little bit. So we let them all free, and I played St Francis of Assisi -I called the hens and they came running behind, streaming into the new pasture. Well that was easy. Only they were not interested in staying for long, so we had to shut the gate as they all started flowing right back out again. Trapping perhaps 2/3 of them in the official chicken yard, we set about collecting the remaing dozen plus. Except for every two we'd put in, we'd see four more coming from another direction. This continued for about 20 minutes until we realized they had to be getting out somewhere (d'Oh!). This was very disappointing as we had already spent a good 40 minutes patching some fence areas that we suspected they could push through. Turns out when you have enough chickens pushing on something for a while... its gonna give. And they had pushed out the fencing under the barn gate. So we fixed that with timber and concrete blocks and decided to just give up the chase for a while and work on moving the roosts. This went extremely well. They came out without too much fuss, and fit almost perfectly in their new location. Plus no blood was shed and there were no trips to the emergency room. Yay! We decided it would be easier to just wait til sunset and collect the remaining stragglers at that point. Which is what we did. There were 12 renegade birds in the old henhouse whom we collected and moved to the Chicken Mansion. We got every one settled down, gave them extra corn as a treat and called it a day. Mission accomplished! Then, this morning.... there were 3 eggs in the old henhouse. (heavy sigh) Farming's fun.

Another Day on the Farm

Well, the week of full time farming is quickly coming to a close. Someday I hope I can do this full time - it's what I work all my other jobs for. Today we continued with the construction of The Chicken Mansion or Le Manoir de Poulet (Fran was wondering what it would be in French). Yesterday and today saw the remainder of the windows put in, two on one side, one on the other. And on those windows on the outside, we placed heavy duty wire over them so our friends the racoon and weasel could not rip through to the girls. We also finished the floor, and George got most of the garage door in. This will be the chicken's entry to the pastures, which we are in the process of now reallocating and fencing in.

Silver and Thomas were able to make it over today after two days of setting tobacco with Johnathan. Silver and Thomas had laid in the new posts and today got on them the first line of chicken wire fencing. We then moved into the tomato fields to get started stringing the second line of tomato twine to hold the very fast growing plants up. I watered on Tuesday, using for the first time our fertilizer - a new one for me: Organica Plant Booster.

http://www.cgorganics.com/Organica/Organica-Plant-Booster-p-26.html

They got about a half a row strung when in rolled a thunderstorm, and we had to move into the barn for a bit. It soon rolled over, and they got about 4 rows of the 12 completed today. If they cannot make it tomorrow, I will have to do it myself, as these plants need the support.