Welcome to Our Quarter Acre Farm

Today I will start again and hope all goes well.  I had some silly but unresolvable problems yesterday with the new blog.   Today looks to be the same gray we have had too many days of this spring. I am desperate for some sun and warmth. I hope the weather holds with just rain and grey and we don't have a  freeze or random snow like we got last week, crazy. Otherwise this will a blog of how to salvage a home-farm.
Now that it isn't snowing or  currently pouring down rain I want to give you a tour of our place. We have a little garden space  and we will  be adding  raised beds  very soon . It is currently made up of two a patches one in the parking strip across the street. This garden was donated to me by our neighbor, thank you Jeff. In this 35' x 6' space I have managed to squeeze rhubarb, leeks, Yukon gold and Russet  potatoes in vertical cages, onions, tri- colour beets, broccoli, rainbow carrots, savoy cabbage, rainbow chard, Lacinato kale, parsnips, sugar snap peas, pole beans, butternut squash, pumpkins, raspberries, strawberries and zucchini. Quite a list for this small space. I have tried to plan well and use very space to its capacity. I have done well to carve out a lot from this "useless" parking strip. In our back yard there is even less space. And the second garden is a  8'x 3' devoted " the salad" .  I have filled it with green onions, fennel ,dill, pickling cucumbers, bloomsdale spinach, three kinds lettuce and nasturtiums. I consolidated all my really heavy watering plants into this one garden, since I have a history of being a little lazy in that area. I will have tomatoes and basil in pots on our deck later this spring.  
We also have 8  one year old hens (our second batch, we fed the raccoons with our first), our dearly departed honey bees (two new hives arriving shortly), our 17 year old cat Charlie, native cherries and an Italian plum trees.

 Yesterday I went out to the big garden and much to my dismay I found the signs of SLUGS!!  So, I did some internet research and put some ideas to use. This morning I checked  on my new slug deterring methods.  The straw and egg shells I spread around my plants may have done their prickly duty and the orange rinds have no slugs under them. We shall see if the orange rind method even works.  But as of today no new signs of nighttime snacking on my valuable veggie leaves. Yeah!!! I have many veggie starts in our window waiting to go out so, I had better get the slug's under control.
Hope you enjoy the pictures I have included of our place, especially its only tractor with pedal power (zero carbon foot print).