Starting the Farm Year off

Debbie and I just sat down and filled out the planting part of our farm calendar. If you have never used a farm calendar before I recommend it. We haven't had an official farm calendar in the past but we have used some form of calendars in the past to map out the year for us to some extent.

This year we hope to do a lot of planning instead of running around in a rush. Here is an example.

We know the average last frost (ALF for short) in our area is June 1st. Last year we think it was June 15th. but we can't remember for sure. This year it will be put on the calendar for next years reference. From the ALF this year we count back by weeks and that will let us know when we need to start some plants indoors. Like tomatoes need to start 6 weeks before the ALF, and be transplanted into the garden 2 weeks after the ALF.

WE also know the average first frost (AFF) is October 1st. That gives us a 122 day growing season (on average) So we count backwards form the AFF to the ALF and we can see how late we can plant something. A 90 day corn needs to be in by July 3rd or we have a good chance of losing most of the crop. Better to plant earlier of course but planting later will be a waste of time.

The Farm Calendar will also have all the ordering, moving and butchering information for our meat chickens. When to harvest crops, move the laying hens into a new part of the garden and so forth. Basically anything we need to remember to do needs to end up on the calendar. That way we can look and say, "Oh next week we need to get the ______ in the ground"

We are using a large desk calendar and putting it up on a central wall in the house where we can see it and add to is as necessary. I don't recommend a regular wall calendar. the boxes are too small to write everything down that needs to be there.

I'll let you know how the calendar works for us. This type of organization is new to us. Hopefully we keep up with it.