Solutions for disposing of food waste

 Disposal of food waste options link

Photos of eggs hatched on the HHS Family Farm November 2020 Hatch BCM's

 Eggs Photo

Our goal is to create some unusual Egg colors at the farm. In October 2020 we purchased some BCM fertile eggs and placed them on the incubator. These eggs hatched on November 19th.  Of the hatching eggs at a total of 20 (19- one died the first week), nine were roosters and 10 hens.  Of the nine roosters, three were kept on the farm. The goal is to use the BCM's as a starter breed to work on exotic egg colors. The BCM breed is dark brown. Along with the BCM's two of the chicks should have olive color eggs and one should have grey egg color.  The hope is to combine the roos with some of BCM's and existing hens (green/blue layers) and attempt to get darker brown eggs and darker olive color eggs, true green, and true red colored egg.

Here are the eggs we started with.

Here is what hatched

The Babies

My son's Dear Aunt Sally visited the HHS farm today. Sally is a teacher in Tahoe USD. 

One of the BCM hens

Two of the roos 

Chicken Run created for the Chickens. - Thursday garden and Farm work -

 Students installed a fence around the coop to contain the chickens. 

The students also added 12 wheel barrels of soil to a raised garden planter and planted beans and cucumbers 

Planted Bean Pole plants and Cucumbers

 

Bean Trellis taking shape

 

Feeding chickens & adding compost

 

New Chicken Fence Installed today

 A new chicken fence was installed today to control the movement of the chickens on the HHS campus. With students being back on campus the curious chickens would migrate up into the quad.

Update in Garden ...Added a Door

 Door added for decoration and to keep chickens out.

Amy's Farm Info

 

EXPLORE

Sustainable Agriculture

Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals: environmental stewardship, farm profitability, and prosperous farming communities.  Sustainable agriculture refers to the ability of a farm to produce fertile soil and healthy livestock, without causing severe or irreversible damage to ecosystem health.

Learn the benefits of a polyculture farm. Growing a mixture of crops (polyculture) helps reduce disease or pest problems.  Cropping systems that include a variety of crops (polyculture and/or rotation) also replenish nitrogen and  also use resources such as sunlight, water, or nutrients more efficiently.

Building community by supporting local food systems

Learn the importance of supplying local markets.  The way that crops are sold must be accounted for in the sustainability equation. Food sold locally requires little additional energy, aside from that necessary for cultivation, harvest, and transportation.

Farm-to-Table Connection

Trace the story of a plant or animal from it's beginnings on the farm to your dinner table in your home Focus on sustainable practices.

Crop Rotation and Soil Amendment

Learn two of the many possible practices of sustainable agriculture:  crop rotation and soil amendment, both designed to ensure that crops being cultivated can obtain the necessary nutrients for healthy growth. Learn the long-term effects of various practices on soil properties and processes essential for crop productivity.  Although air and sunlight are available everywhere on Earth, crops also depend on soil nutrients and the availability of water. When farmers grow and harvest crops, they remove some of these nutrients from the soil. Without replenishment, land suffers from nutrient depletion and becomes either unusable or suffers from reduced yields. Sustainable agriculture depends on replenishing the soil while minimizing the use of non-renewable resources, such as natural gas, or mineral ores. 

Seasonal Planting and Seed Saving

Learn about planting according to the seasons and seed saving techniques.

Composting

Learn about alternate sources of nitrogen such as recycling crop waste and livestock manure and growing legume crops and forages that form symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria called rhizobia 

Irrigation

In some areas, sufficient rainfall is available for crop growth, but many other areas require irrigation.  Learn about drip irrigation systems and how they conserve water.

Companion Planting

Learn the benefits of companion planting.  When you plant different crops in close physical proximity, they assist each other in nutrient uptake, pest control, pollination, and other factors necessary to increasing crop productivity.

Beneficial Insects

Learn the importance of attracting beneficial insects such as pollinators and predatory insects.

Sustainable Animal Care

Learn ways to practice sustainable animal husbandry. Some of the key tools to grazing management include fencing off the grazing area into smaller areas called paddocks, lowering stock density, and moving the stock between paddocks frequently.  Raising animals and plants on the same farm creates a complete circle of life that allows greater sustainability.

Worm Farming

Learn the process of vermiculture (growing worms) and nurturing healthy microbes in the soil.

Garden Update: New Raised Gardens installed in Pumpkin Area

 For the past two weeks my students Tues - Thurs have been working on the installation of the raised garden planters. I spent parts of Saturday and Sunday filling them up with soil. The students left me the best job to do. I relocated one sprinkler shutoff valve so it was not in the way of wheelbarrows.

  

 

I used the old grape vine trellis pole to hang garden tools.

Created a U-shaped area in the old corn area. This area will not be used for vine growers such as peas and beans plus the blackberry bush that is taking over the corner.