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We'll leave this blog up so our friends and customers can access the old posts. Wheeewww! It's finally done. We started our hoophouse in the middle of Winter, excavating the drainage trenches. We then spent most of Spring dumping ton after ton after ton of gravel into the trenches. After a road trip to Missouri, we returned with a trailer full of metal framing. It took over a month to pound posts into the ground, build arches and lift them into place, and attach bracing. Once the metalwork was complete, we constructed the endwalls with lumber. And finally in the last few weeks we attached all the plastic, with the help of our friends! Check out more of our pics on Facebook!
Argh, I can't believe how long it's been since we last posted. We've been updating our Facebook page, but we haven't had time to update our blog! Well, as the title suggests, we've been hard a work on our hoophouse that we purchased from Zimmermans. If you've been following our blog, we've been installing drainage for our hoophouse (also called a high tunnel). A couple of months ago we drove to Zimmermans in Missouri to pick up our hoophouse and got a flat tire on our trailer along the way! Since then we've been busy:
*Note: End walls, side walls, and plastic not shown in pictures. We'll hopefully get pics of those shortly.
As many of you in our local area know, we've had some severe thunderstorms recently. Well, we were unfortunate enough to get hit by straight-line winds about 2 weeks ago. 80 MPH gusts! It sounded like a train was going to hit our house. Unfortunately our greenhouse, which Ben built just a year ago, took the wind head-on and lost. See below for before and after. The winds lifted our greenhouse, tossed it about 100 feet, before it crashed into our creek! :( But we try to make lemonade out of lemons. After salvaging the lumber, paneling, and the intact door, we reused it to build a tall chicken coop. (We know; it looks a bit like an outhouse!)  On a brighter note, a friend of ours raises rabbits and donated a ton of rabbit poop to fertilize our future hoop house. Literally, there was over 1 ton of rabbit poop weighing down Ben's truck. Don't you wish you had friends like ours. :)  40 bags of rabbit poop We're staying busy here at Four Flags Farm! About a month ago Ben rented a mini excavator to start digging the drainage for our future hoop house. Unfortunately about half way through the digging, the drainage trench collapsed on one side, sending the excavator into the trench! We called the excavator owner, and he was able to break it free (sorry no pics of it getting stuck). Below are pictures after digging the 2.5 foot deep trenches. Two 72 foot sections (the sides of the hoop house) and one long 420 foot section that drains to our creek. You might notice that the 420 foot section has a couple of bends in it. That's due to a last second realization that the sides of the hoop house were 72 feet, not the 70 feet we originally thought! You might also notice that there is standing water in our trench. This is the normal depth of our water table, which is addressed further down. Here are the PVC pipes and the FIRST load of gravel (30 tons). We have a helper in one of the photos! The pictures below are the same trenches with a bed of gravel to just above the water table. Additionally, a 4 inch perforated PVC pipe was laid on top of the bed of gravel. In other news, this past year was a success for firewood processing and collection. We had 23 ricks of firewood at the beginning of Winter. (A typical rick in this area is 16 inch long pieces stacked 8 feet long and 4 feet high. A full size pickup truck bed is also about one rick.) One of our biggest challenges for us is finding a flat location on our property, in the sun, that is not going to be used to grow food. Since we have excess dirt from our trench excavating, Ben used the opportunity to enlarge our firewood area. It's now about 50% larger! We're always looking for new products to grow or make on the farm. Ben recently got a chance to work on his crafting skills by taking two metalsmithing classes! The first was a tinsmithing class in Indiana, while the second was a coppersmithing class in Ohio. There are substantial differences between the smithing techniques. Tinsmithing involves taking sheets of steel that are electroplated with tin to prohibit rust. Great care must be taken when forming the tinplate to prevent scratches that would cause deterioration of the underlying steel. Coppersmithing starts with sheets of solid copper. The copper sheets are continually beaten into shape with various hammers. This hammering causes the copper to become hard and brittle, so periodically the object is annealed by heating, usually with a torch. If the copper object will hold food or drink, it must then be coated with tin on the interior to prevent a metallic taste from being imparted on the food or drink. For those interested in taking classes or just learning more, the following website is a good resource: https://www.tintinkers.org/ Below are fruits of Ben's labor (left to right): tin cup with straight sides, tin candle wall sconce, copper "moscow mule" cup with curved sides, tin handheld candle holder with punch pattern, tin cup with sloped sides and beading   Maple syrup season is here...well, actually it's been here since late January. We've been so busy we forgot to post about the beginning of the season. Sorry! Anyway, here are some pics from the start of our season! Many of our readers probably wonder what farmers do in the "down season". Well, between our main growing season (late Spring to early Fall) and our maple syrup season (late January to early March), we find time to relax, catch our breath, and work on something else! For the last couple of years, Ben has been spending some of his downtime building Little Free Libraries for the Greene County Literacy Coalition. For those that don't know, a Little Free Library (LFL) is a way to expand the reach of local libraries by providing a book exchange in underserved communities. This allows patrons to borrow books and return them for new books at their convenience. Periodically, the library replaces the books within the LFL. LFL #1 The first LFL that Ben created can be found on the LFL website map and is registered as #53380. The LFL's destination was in front of a church, so it was made to look like a church as well. Features include: lapped cedar siding, sheet metal roof, and faux stained glass windows. LFL #2 The second LFL can be found at the same LFL website map and is registered as #53379. This LFL was inspired by farming, so it was built to resemble a barn. Vibrant and contrasting colors were chosen. Additionally, the LFL is double sided; a partition divides the interior in two and both ends have a door. LFL #3 The third LFL was just recently completed and hasn't yet been registered with the LFL website. It is located in front of the American Legion in Lyons, IN. This LFL features a large front door and paint scheme to match the surrounding buildings.
As you can see, downtime for a diversified farmer simply means putting down one tool and picking up another! Welcome back for the fifth and final part covering the Armed To Farm training! During our last day, we covered one final topic: Social Media. Social media provides several opportunities for farmers. But first, what is social media? Social media provides a means to interact with customers over the Internet by allowing farmers to tell their story, promote their products, spread brand recognition, and address customer feedback. This interaction can be telling stories about the farm (blogs), providing short and frequent updates about the farm (posts), or visually using pictures or video. Additionally, Social Media allows your customers to follow people and organizations (like your farm), forming groups of people online with a common interest. They can then post comments to each other or the farm. By far the largest Social Media website today is Facebook. Facebook is a general purpose Social Media website allowing users (customers or farms) to set up a profile, post news updates, send instant messages, and post photos. Twitter is another popular Social media site focusing on short, frequent posts, called tweets. Yet another popular website is Instagram focusing on sharing visual content like photos and videos. Other popular Social Media websites include Pinterest, Etsy, Snapchat, Periscope, and LinkedIN. The rest of the training covered creating content for your Social Media profile, posting eye catching visuals, linking your Social Media accounts and scheduling posts, and interacting with online customers in a professional manner. Armed To Farm was a great experience for Ben, allowing him meet other military veterans (and transitioning military) who are interested in starting or continuing to build a farm. All of the presenters were very friendly and knowledgeable. The farm field trips were a great way to demonstrate what other veterans are doing, and probably more importantly, that it can be done! Helpful Links: Armed to Farm website https://www.ncat.org/armedtofarm/ Armed to Farm Intro videos
Farmer Veteran Coalition
https://farmvetco.org USDA site for new farmers (including links for Veterans) https://newfarmers.usda.gov National Resources Conservation Service: Part of the USDA that provides technical & financial assistance for conservation work https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/national/home/ National Ag Law Center: legal considerations https://nationalaglawcenter.org FTC: free annual credit reports https://www.ftc.gov/faq/consumer-protection/get-my-free-credit-report Farm field trips: Four Seasons Shannon Family Farms Purdue Student Farm Crowl Cattle Farm Blue Yonder Organic Farm King Bee Welcome back! While visiting Blue Yonder Organic Farm, the Armed To Farm veterans heard a presentation from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The NRCS provides technical and financial assistance to private landowners to promote environmental conservation practices. Although the NRCS provides several programs, one of the most utilized is the EQIP program. In fact Four Flags Farm has just been awarded several EQIP contracts including invasive species mitigation, pollinator habitat, and a 30' x 70' hoop house. One of the main points the speaker mentioned was that EQIP contracts need to address a natural resource concern related to an existing agriculture practice. A few examples include: removing invasive species from an existing forest, adding internal paddock fencing to an existing fenced pasture with livestock, or adding a hoop house to land already growing crops. In other words, the contracts enhance an existing agriculture practice, not creating from scratch. After hearing from the NRCS speaker, the veterans toured the rest of Blue Yonder Farm, before retiring for the night, in preparation for the next day. At the start of day four of Armed To Farm, we began with branding for our farms. Branding consists of several things including:
If you're looking for help designing a logo, a couple of resources mentioned include: Note: Four Flags Farm has not used and is not endorsing these websites. When considering your Visuals, a farm/business needs to consider all of the different ways in which the visuals may be used including:
Whether your farm produces it's own website, uses social media, or both, the content (stories, pictures, etc.) need to focus on three activities to share it's story:
After all that classroom time, it was once again time for a field trip! We visited King Bee in Rockville, IN. Stevie King hosted the Armed To Farm veterans and gave a quick introduction on bee keeping and the equipment used. King Bee offers a variety of equipment for all ranges of beekeeper from beginner to experienced. The pictures above show both a Langstroth hive, as well as a Top-bar hive. The silver tanks are honey extractors.
For those interested in beekeeping, the best resource is to visit their local beekeeping club. In Indiana, please visit The Beekeepers of Indiana to find a local club near you. Four Flags Farm is a member of both The Beekeepers of Indiana, as well as the Greene County Beekeepers club. We highly recommend visiting your local club for advice before making any beekeeping purchases. Up next is the fifth and final post on Armed To Farm, where we'll cover Social Media, provide a quick overview of the previous topics, as well as links to farms/businesses we visited. |
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