Our first time planting a real garden was years ago. I started a very small corner garden only big enough for 2 or 3 tomato plants and maybe a squash. That was also the first year I learned how far tendrils would reach. Now with a thousand square foot garden, I still manage to screw up with one plant or another every year. Last year I planted over 100 seeds in the little pots on a pretty little greenhouse that i could roll in and out with the weather. I planted far too early, and a gusty late march wind took all my work and threw it onto the floorboards of my porch. This year Erick found me a place that sold flats of the plants I was interested in. I ended up spending hundreds last year going to lowes. This year we've spend less then 50 on most of the plants that we want. Lots of tomatoes, squash, herbs, more asparagus and strawberries. We focused on getting perennials in anything that we could. I love being in the garden in the spring, but love harvest far more. Mary Washington Asparagus comes back for over 20 years, and the whole family loves it, so it earned a permanent 3 beds in there this year. That makes for 30 plants overall, and I see it being more in the years to come.
Our pigs have successfully grown to slaughter size. Or so we thought. The smallest pig came in at only 143 pounds. based on the conversion from hanging weight to live weight, that would make "pork chop" only ( 143*28% = n; n+143= live weight) 193 pounds alive, or about 40 lbs small for the slaughter kill zone of 220-250 live weight. But we learned ALOT. first, never pick up piglets in a car. the smell only gets worse as the travel goes on. secondly, Come October here, it is still warm, great for piglets but horrible for their feed. We did a mixture for 5/6 months we had them. 50 pounds cracked or whole corn, 50 pounds sweet feed and 50 pounds hog starter. each 150 pound barrel lasted about a week until March, when they were eating an easy 2 barrels a week. in addition to feed, we had a bucket or two of bread and kitchen scraps for them. We heard that giving the sweet feed and bread would make for sweet pork; as long as you go straight to only hog finisher at the 30 day before slaughter mark. we'll be picking up the meat tomorrow, so I'll let you know how true that is.
There's much more to say, but never enough time in a day. I'll post again soon.
