A day in the life of a farmer!

That’s a big statement within itself! Where did this all start? Well, it was all by chance and the pandemic! Yep, Covid-19 was part of the reason for us starting a garden. Due to lock downs and empty grocery shelves were just a couple of reasons to start a garden. Another was due to health issues for both my wife Kate and I. Kate suffers from several types of food allergies along with other health scares she has been through, made the decision to start an organic garden quite easy to make.

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2020 was our first garden that was a 2000 sq ft layout and was a huge learning year for me. Before I even put a pencil to paper to layout the garden, I knew I needed some knowledge. I found myself searching for good books, articles and of course Youtube videos to help me with what I wanted to create.

After an initial design, I finally broke ground with the help of my neighbor Ken who has been very gracious in tilling our initial plot of 2000 square feet. We brought in a dozen yards of organic compost to amend the soil to be satisfactory to grow produce successfully. With more sweat I hand shoveled a 60′ ditch to put a pipe in for water to be ran to the garden. I think I lost 5 pounds that day!

Starting seeds was another learning opportunity. I needed a fan inside to help the plants harden off and become stronger. We had a great harvest even with my little knowledge about gardening. We had ample amounts of tomatoes, peppers, butternut squash, onions, Swiss chard and many other items. I learned how to do canning that year too!

For the most part 2020 was a great start to the journey we are now on. I sold over 100 jars of homemade pickle and other produce to co-workers which led us to 2021! I expanded the garden to 3000 square feet thinking it’s big enough now but surprisingly it wasn’t. My small group of customers bought me out weekly which is when Kate asked if I was saving any produce for us. I had to rethink everything we were doing. I quit my job to do farming full time and to do this food blog. Not because I’m making enough cash to support me yet, but we are going to give it a good run on this farm to see what we can do with it.

Now It’s 2022

We have tons of new projects going on this year on the farm! We are installing two new water field hydrants along with a new high-tunnel and greenhouse.

This year I hope we are hoping to be bigger than last year. Simply because we are concentrating on a lot of head lettuce, Salad Mix, over 100 tomato and pepper plants each, green beans, pickles of course, 3 types of squash, zucchini and watermelon just to name a few. Life on the farm has been more rewarding than I ever thought it would be. I can’t wait to start cooking some Simply Delicious Recipes with this year’s produce. If you want to follow along, check out Life on the Farm at Fat Hen Farm Ohio!

Other posts you may enjoy

Healthy Turkey Cottage Pie – Chef Dave’s Table (chefdavestable.com)