Pictures from the Seed & Poultry Swap Event!

We made the paper! Mary Reid Barrow highlighted the farms free seed & poultry swap event happening at the farm - in the SUNDAY paper no less... :)

Yes, fellow farmers, brace yourself. I traded my "mud for mascara" briefly for a cover shoot :) haha. Thought it would Only be fitting to Hold my handsome-est New Hampshire Roo for the chicken swap picture. (Photo by Mary Reid Barrow). Here is her write up:

http://hamptonroads.com/2012/03/chickenandseed-swap-yes-you-read-correctly

The entire week after the article came out, the phone was ringing off the hook with gardeners and chicken lovers were wanting to attend the swap. Everyone was so exciting to see one hosted here locally in Virginia Beach.

I had no idea what to expect for turnout but with weather looking clear - certainly was hoping for the best. I would never have dreamed of what happened in a few short hours.

Here was a picture of the stand before the swap:

Calm before the Storm! The sun was out and gardeners and homesteaders started trickling in by the car and truck load a few minutes before 10. I spent alot of time trying my best to meet and greet everyone in the stand and had much fun just talking about chickens - alot of people wanted information on how to get started with backyard hens.

Also was having alot of interest from people looking to come to sign petition to allow city dwellers to have backyard hens. Collected hundreds of signatures. If you would like to sign online click this link! www.virginiabeachchickenoutlaw.com

About 30 minutes into the swap I looked out and - the parking lot was full. Kinda felt alittle overwhelming as I saw a line of cars were stacking up on our little country road! omg!!

The chicken swap began promptly at 10:15 as people started walking around to check out the assortment of breeds and tail-gating with their feathered friends.

Beautiful pets - Silkies were a hitChicken talk!

Love was in the air as Chickens and their new owners were finding each other. This little girl had a box full of stuffed animals for her baby chicks to cuddle with for the ride home.

These two redheads - My friend Liz and a Rhode Island Red hen...fell in love at first sight. It was a proud chicken swap moment :)

Lotsa plants and seed swapping were happening as well. Nothing says spring like daffodils and lil lambs!

heck...I couldnt be sure but they might have been swapping kids by the pair too! (lol!)

Quite the display of handsome roosters were had most- throwing out their best cockle-doodle-do's. My friend and neighbor Melissa went home with this stunning Lavender Orpinton fella.
Even caught a glimpse of a beautiful Heritage breed bunny hopin' around.
Goats and sheep - always a hit.
Little guys - Warming up in the stand under some heat lampsThe baby duckies showed up and stole the show. (Khaki campbell type I believe? They had these precious little webbed feet and were spoken for in the first few minutes). awww babies with babies... what's not to love?

Everyone wanted to show off their feathered friends and I took one look out of the stand and realized what a hit this event really was.
Before the first hour - we had cars stacking up on the road to get into the farm...Estimated 250-300 people were at this free networking event!

Here is a pic of a Polish Rooster raised by a very talented 4-H'er.

What a hairdo - I couldnt say no -This punk rockn roo now adorns my coop!

We lucked out It was chilly but brisk sunny day to enjoy the company of all the attendees and get motivated for spring! Hugs galore.

My lil'wayne hanging with melissa's - paul the lil' lamb

All the rent-a-chick kids showed up to pick up their brooder kits and chicks. The new blackboard paint really came in handy for me to write notes on during the chaos and excitement of pickup time.
Throughout the activities - People were filling up the lines - signing the petition to show support for changing the vb ordinance for having backyard hens in Virginia Beach (not roosters though!). I think we made a huge difference in awareness and education at the event...
Funky chickens -
Oh yeah there were more plants and seeds swapped as well! Blackberry canes, garlic bulbs, irises to roses. I had packed 200 seed envelopes of dill and zinnias to pass out but completely ran out within the first half hour! Luckily there were tons of plants and cuttings available.

It was one of the most rewarding days for me thus far.

Taken so long to get to this point - and so nice to hear all the feedback from all age groups and experience levels. Everyone expressed an interest in having the seed and poultry swap on a regular basis.

All in all - The seed and chicken swap was just the type of event I had originally hoped I could host here on farm. Lots of education and networking with like minded individuals who share the same passion for small scale and backyard farming. Haven't stopped thinking of new ideas to prep and improve the event for next year. Pretty sure I wont be able to wait that long! - In June - once the flowers are blooming and chicks are all grown up - there will no doubt be another!

Thanks to all the helping hands that pulled this event together. Parking attendants, photographers, greeters, swappers and Mary Reid for the great article. It was a blast!!

Spring Planting Is in Full Swing!

Picture of my Zinnia transplants grown from seed, in the greenhouse ready for the next stage - planting out! Finally it's that time. Shifting gears from starting seedlings mode - to crouching down to get the plants in the ground mode.

I forgot planting season = please pass the tylenol season.. But the pain is surpassed by the excitement of the many more varieties going in this year.

A clean slate:

I title this pic - Farmer - Self Portrait. (ha!)

We did wait a good 2 weeks after the last frost date to plant, and after a major wind storm blew by us, we finally felt safe to shift gears to installing the babies.

Special rush delivery from the mail man. You know how excited some ladies get about their shoe collection? - I have the same fetish about seeds!

Last years irrigation lines have been re-installed and Dumplin charging full speed ahead with the seeder. Boat-load of new varieties to test this season. probably alittle too many. Bachelor Buttons, tons of different type of bouquet fillers, Sunflowers galore, and of course zinnias. Mr. Kitty - Ready to get his farm on !

One of my favorite plants in the whole wide world is Buddelia aka Butterfly Bush. While they do look a little on the scrubby side when they get big, but boy are they the #1 butterfly magnet ever. Its not uncommon to see 10 different varieties of Butterflies just cover one big bush in bloom.

I've got 150 of these baby bushes to plant! The cuttings only took a month to grow fabulous root system. So impressed.

They will be the driving force behind getting more butterflies in the gardens this year and give height and spike-type flowers to our bouquets. They do have a sweet flora fragrance as well. A new Coreopsis experimenting with this season. From the "Incredible!" series. Healthy babies but Notice the lack of soil blocks :( Compared to last year. kicking myself. Cosmos - 3 varieties ready to go in the ground. I did make a terrible mistake this year. I had started out my normal soil blocking methods, but having to start 4 times as many plants this year, I quickly ran out of enough trays early on - My Bad! - I couldn't find the trays I wanted in bulk so I folded under the time crunch pressure rush of spring and decided to use the traditional plastic pots to save myself time (oh, so I thought!). Boy will I never do that again!

With the soil blocks I could hang off the back of the tractor and plop the blocks in very quickly as chris drove the tractor down each row as he would make each planting hole. With the plastic pots this time. I could NOT do that. Rows were made first, then I had to carefully remove each plant from individual cells, or plug trays - before plopping them in. All this while crouching down these never ending rows, to fill the thousands of holes. What it took to do in a few minutes last year - took daaaaays this year...And my back and hips- oy - I feel like a 95-year old lady to boot. hahaha - Lesson learned. No more shortcuts for me. Soil blocks are the bomb y'all!! Plastic pots have their place for starting cuttings or selling plants, but not for the labor intensive work of transplanting seedlings. Soo not worth it. good that I learned this now at least.

Well gardening and farming is all about this learning and sharing process - so we did alot of that at the annual Seed Swap hosted here on the farm. Here are some pictures from the great event.

Couldn't believe the enthusiasm and willingness to share everyone brought with them. Seed Swap was a total success. Had people bringing accordian files full of seeds to swap, pictures and scrap books to show off their gardens to others, and lots of seedlings, everything from heirloom purple tomatoes to - hairy balls?! lol. yes that is the name of a plant, and after a few beers, it made me laugh too. that's gardener humor for ya.

Met so many cool gardeners. Everyone had their speciality - from tomato aficionado, to collector of all varieties of butterfly host plants.

We brought the egg-mobile up to the stand to visit and the kids did get to enjoy hanging out on the farm.

I got alot of ideas if we are to host one again. One of the guests was fellow blogger Erin and her family. She is a Virginia Beach Master Gardener and has a kick butt back yard. She does a great blog about gardening, cooking, living in small spaces and to my amazement knitting and quilting too. Gotta love how she incorporates her two boys into gardening. I'm sure I will torture my children equally with blogging once that day comes! Oh yeah.

Check out her blog "Garden Now - Think Later!" (april's/easter 2011 post) and get a view of the farm from her kids prospective: http://www.gardennow-thinklater.blogspot.com/

Leaving you with the view out my back window. First day of May and the Butterfly garden is in full bloom with view of the coop. With more bugs around, its entertaining to watch the girls perfecting their stealthy bug catching antics. One of the hens will find a bug, squawk, and take off running - then all the others assume she wants to share her bounty and start chasing her around. Imagine the chickens version of duck-duck- goose.

Ah, spring time at the farm - It is a good place to be a chicken- Next week our batch of 30 chicks arrive!! Yippy!