Learning about Farming

When I started talking about retiring last year I had just raised up my 26 chicks and felt inspired to go one step further in farming by contemplating putting in raised beds for small vegetables.  From there it was a leap to calling my venture “sustainable farming” and as I read up on the ways to be ecologically friendly I realize that this is indeed a huge leap from hobby farming (i.e., putting in a vegetable patch).

It’s interesting to learn which vegetable, herb and flower complement each other in a garden, and by compliment I mean nurturing each other with the nutrients in the soil, known as companion gardening.  Who knew that marigolds go well with potatoes, peppers or eggplants and that sunflowers are great with squash, pumpkin and melons?  Both mint and parsley work well with tomatoes (and tomatoes has always been my retirement challenge since I find them incredibly touchy to grow).

While waiting at the book store for a friend last week I also picked up a magazine on beekeeping.  It’s not like you can just buy a hive of bees and hope for honey, there is a lot to learn about apiculture including how to accept getting stung by your little honey bees!  One must learn about the bees themselves, how to recognize the queen bee and how to ensure that the hive accepts the queen.  How to set up the hives, how to take out the various “combs” to extract the honey, how much do you leave for the bees, how to overwinter the hive.  The list goes on and on.  It’s a little daunting but then the magazine had a huge article on mentoring and I thought ‘what I need is a mentor”.  Apparently there are bee clubs and I just need to find one close by so I can start learning firsthand what I would be up against and I am up for the challenge?

I think I would prefer the beekeeping over handling larger livestock such as sheep or goats since in the long run they are going to be much higher maintenance.  Once a person has learned about bee keeping then it ought to be fairly straightforward.

Much less complicated is building raised beds, adding compost material and good soil.  Planting seeds and bulbs and watering regularly.  I’m fortunate in now having plenty of compost from cleaning out my chicken coop all winter, I should have a good base for my vegetables.

Spring’s around the corner and I am excited to get out doors to begin my first year of “farming”.