Last year we struggled in the heat to make some hay. This year I decided to try and make it easier for us all. One of the hardest parts is to rake up the hay and bring it all to the barn for hand baling. I decided to first of all, rebuild the baler so it was upright, to compress it easier and thus make more solid a bale. I then secured it to a pallet and then fitted sled runners to the bottom of the pallet. This way we could drag it with the lawn tractor and bale the hay along the windrows. This was a big hit with the family, and you can see a few pictures of this on my daughter's blog Two girls and a farm blog. The link is on the side. In the end we ended up with eighty five good looking bales.
The hay from last year is being used for rabbit litter under the cages. The rabbits are eating me out of house and home and do not care that all they are producing for me is a steady pile of manure for the garden. At the moment the buck is trying to do his part, but the two does are not recipricating.
The rest of the old hay will be used as cover mulch for a section of garden that we will be sowing winter cover crops, wheat and sumflowers. We have decided after breaking the tiller four times this year, that we will be practicing a no till garden.
We were recently given over thirty raspberry canes. I chose eighteen of these and planted them in the orchard. Tony's job each evening is to water these. Because of this, and wanting to set up an irrigation system for the orchard, I have been looking into using gray water from the washing machine. It would not be practical to fit a permanent system, so what we have come up with is to run a hose out to the patio, where we will have a barrel fixed to a cart. The cart can then be wheeled to the top of the orchard and connected to a drip irrigation system.
We have just started picking blackberries and this year I intend to put some by to make some wine. If we get as many as last year, we will have plenty to make wine, jelly and the family's favorite, blackberry cobbler.
