Small town,big garden(Hidden hare Homestead) in Webberville, MI

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So,who's ready for spring?

By: leera21
Mar 16, 2012
I am!!! Although I wasn't ready for 75 degree days in the middle of March,in Michigan..

We've been staying busy around here,planting seeds,setting up the new greenhouse,building a newer/bigger area for the rabbits,and just some general small projects around the house.
This winter was so much warmer than normal that many of the plants that would normally go dormant,didn't.The apple trees are getting ready to bloom,and it's about a month early.

I went out the other day and turned over a few shovels of soil in the garden beds,the soil is rich and black and full of busy little earth worms.We've been dumping the rabbit manure on the beds all winter,in hopes of keeping them well fed so that this summer and fall they will give us lots of good food.As soon as it's dry enough to run a tiller through it,we will till all that under,and let it set a little longer before we plant,giving it a chance to break down even more.

Keeping with my plan to be as self reliant as possible,we're raising rabbits both for meat and for the great fertilizer they produce.Now that it's nearly planting time,we will be putting all that into a compost pile,and in the fall,work that in before we tuck the beds in for the following winter.

We've got out first littler of kits(baby rabbits)due in a couple of weeks,so we're rushing to get the new rabbitry built,nest boxes built,and the cages all situated so that we don't have to move any of them around once the babies start arriving,we don't want to stress them out.

We are combing the way a friend has her rabbits situated,with our own idea of having nest boxes that are on the outside of the cage,and can be removed as needed.I'll post pictures when it's all set up.

I gave in and bought a small greenhouse (6x8) so that I can start as many of my own plants as possible and maybe extend a few veggies into the early winter.

That's all for now,gotta get back to work,I've only got today and tomorrow to get as much done around here as I can,then it'll have to wait until my next day off work.

linzelu100 replied about 1 year ago
Wow your garden is huge! Are you able to produce most of what you eat in the summer from it?
leera21 replied about 1 year ago
@linzelu100:Actually much more than that since it just my husband and I,Last summer I had to buy a second freezer because we were out of room to store it all.LOL...I canned a tomato product of some kind every day for two weeks straight,gave tomatoes away by bushels,and was tempted to start leaving zucchini on random door steps in the night too.I can,I freeze,I dehydrate,and make all my own salsa,sauces,jams,jellies,fruit butters,and pickles.I'm learning to pressure can as well so that I can safely home can low acid foods like green beans,carrots and meats.Last year we were able to grow more than 400 pounds of food from the four raised beds.We would like to double that amount this year.Although just for the two of us,we don't need nearly that much food,we've got a waiting list of customers this year who have requested produce from us.We've also got our first litter of rabbits,and many of them are already sold.We aren't planning on making this our main income or turning it into a CSA,but if we can sell enough produce to pay for what we put into the garden every year,it will reduce our costs a lot.The same with the rabbits,I only need to sell enough of them to make up for feed costs,which isn't a lot,rabbits are really cheap to keep.If we can reduce our own out of pocket costs as much as possible,we will basically be eating for free.In the long term,it will reduce our own grocery bill by filling our pantry with good home raised foods,and provide a few customers with the goodness of fresh,all natural,chemical free produce,and meat if they want to try rabbit meat.Our goal for 2012 is to reduce the need to visit the grocery store as much as possible,by growing our own,raising our own,and if we must purchase something,buying it locally from one of the many farmers around here.Ok,I've rattled on enough....maybe I should have done another post? :)

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