...they are doing WHAT now? | Winter Farming: Turnips & Chickens

06 Apr Winter Farming: Turnips & Chickens

Posted at 19:29h in Farm Fauna, Farm Flora, Farming, New Mexico, What we ate today, What we did today by sarah 0 Comments

The winter was definitely a calmer season for farming. We harvested the last of a summer crop – turnips! We dug up only the biggest of the field and filled a wagon with some giant turnips! We got very experimental with cooking turnips: turnip fries, mashed turnips, turnip kimchee, and put it in stir fries, soups, fried slices for sandwiches… it was Turnip Time!

: Some were 5″ in diameter, bigger than softballs.

: November harvest of turnips from our lower field

: Winter views of our mountains from the highway

Other wins in the kitchen included an epic Christmas Eve dinner, sampling Muna’s Bison Rib stew — made with a hearty dose of old fruit wine (vinegar) … so tangy, so tender!

: Christmas Dinner: Mashed potatoes, calabacitas, lemon pepper roast chicken, sourdough biscuits, cranberry salad

: Bison rib stew made with green Chile, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and peas

We gained several new hens in November and a new Rooster who we named Gavilán (‘hawk’ in Spanish) … as he’s got to keep watch over 17 hens! One of 10 near-identical Rhode Island Reds developed a respiratory issue and we treated her over the winter with medicine to help her regain her call. Lots of hens means more time spent on the care of the flock (feeding, watering, coop cleaning) but also means about 12-16 eggs daily!

: Aaron administering some medicine to our voice-less chicken

: She makes the motion to call but no sound comes out!

: We have 6 varieties of hens giving us a wide palette of eggshells!

Chickens, Snow + Rooster Crow

Automated chicken door to keep them safe from large predators dusk to 9am

Sowing projects began in February as some warm days crept in and melted all of the snow in town during a 3 week dry spell. We mixed up a ground cover batch of seeds including wild spinach, clover, alfalfa and grass to throw down where plants have worn away from wheel & foot traffic.

: Our host Muna teaching about sowing on some of the grounds.

: Cover crop mix with sand: grass, clover, alfalfa, wild spinach.

Next we got the new beautiful big greenhouse ready for planting season! We moved in some work benches, set up seed tray stations, made tool racks and a dirt-making station. My mom visited for a long weekend in March and helped us get planting on tons of starts during another snowstorm!