In the next couple of days we are going to have our first really cold snap of the year. Night time temps are expected to be in the low 20's for a couple of nights and the daytime highs are going to be in the 30's and low 40's. On the farm when we here temps that low our first thought goes to protecting the strawberry plants. For the nights in the 20's we are going to have to freeze protect the upper field of berries that we do not have row covers for. The lower field will be covered with the row covers which we will do on Sunday. We actually have to get more of the mesh drain sleeves that we use for rock bags to make sure that everything gets covered.
Our second thought goes to the farm animals and water. Today we spread out pine mulch in the chicken pen, filled the water tubs, filled the feed buckets, and gave them lots of extra greens cut from the greenhouse today. Tomorrow they will get more greens and hopefully this will get them good and full and add a little bit of weight to them to get them through the cold. We also picked up a heat light bulb that we will put in the lamp that hangs in their pen. Hopefully they will huddle together in the new mulch under the heat lamp and be ok.
As for the pigs they are pretty well set. Their shed is open only on one side and that is the least windy side. They too have been getting plenty of greens from the greenhouse to help bulk them up.
The only issue with both pigs and chickens that we haven't figured out yet is the water. They have 'heaters' to keep the water from freezing. But with the chickens we are kind of leary about those. Chickens will get into the water to warm up if the temp is right. Then they will get sick and die. So we will just have to get up first thing and break the ice in the tubs and possibly re-fill if it freezes solid.
The greenhouse is another issue that I am working on hard on getting ready. Even though the produce is IN a greenhouse and in some ways protected we will still have to cover the plants. So for the past couple of days I have been trying to get everything cut back and ready for the covers. This is why the pigs and chicks have been getting so much extra greens. We have alreayd stocked up our restaurants for the holiday weekend and no one will need anything again until the end of next week. So I can safely cut everything back to ground level almost without worries of killing it or having anyone be slighted on their orders next week. The only problem we are having right now is trying to figure out how to put the covers on. Last year we put the rows in horizontally and this year we did small beds horizontally. The row covers are cut for the long rows of last year. So we are still trying to figure out how to do this.
We have also got to check the anti-freeze in all the vehicles and the farm equipment. Heat lamp has to be put in the pump house and the heaters have to be plugged up and checkd for the little greenhouse.
We also have to put plastic up over the windows etc in the house to keep the wind and cold out.
So the next couple of days are going to be very busy!
No comments:
Post a Comment