Hobby farming

🌿A New Year Begins at Summer Rain Farm Happy New Year to my fellow flower lovers! As we welcome January, the farm has settled into a quieter rhythm — one that invites reflection, planning, and dreaming of the seasons ahead. ❄️ What’s Happening Around Our Farm Flowers Sleeping Under Snow During this cold month of January, our tulip bulbs and daffodils are tucked safely beneath a white blanket of snow. This period of cold is essential — it allows the bulbs to rest and develop

Summer Rain Farm is looking forward to having plenty of honey available this year. As a beekeeper, we know everything depends on Mother Nature. The bees handle every thing from weather, flower availability, wind, pest pressure and of course help from the beekeeper with space. The brood boxes are on the bottom and are where the queen bee lays her eggs to build up the hive. Each year the hive goes from the over wintered bees of a few thousand to up to 60 thousand during peak p

The farm stand has been up and running since Mother's Day weekend! We started with just Friday afternoons and Saturday morning. We are now open most days of the week for flowers! Farm stand Wrapped Bouquets Our bouquets are a mixture of focal, spike, airy and foliage florals. We have dahlias, zinnias, sunflowers, gladiolus, sweet peas, cosmos, celosia and mints this summer season. The colours are amazing and the fragrance is delightful! Wrapped bouquets Honey, beeswax and li

Summer Rain Farm stand goals for this year are to have enough items to draw a crowd to our farm. I’ve had this goal in the back of my mind since we started having bees in 2015. We have 2 hives of bees that gather nectar from nearby wildflowers. Summer Rain Farm harvests the honey every fall making sure to leave enough for the bees to overwinter. Our honey is delicious and we put it in 1 kg and 500 ml jars. Now I’m ready to bring something of even more value to the farm. Summ

If you have raised meat chickens , you can raise turkeys! They take a little longer to get to butcher weight but they also grow to 15 to 24 pounds of delicious turkey meat. Turkey poults and meat chicks together Ordering your turkey poults We actually recommend you start your turkeys at the same time as your meat birds. The turkey poults will follow the meat chicks to the water and feed therefore this helps them learn faster. We start 5 turkey poults with our 25 meat chicks

Ordering We fill our freezer every year with 25 roaster chickens. We order rustic rangers in early January from a hatchery for a pickup in mid-May. By then the worst of the cold weather is gone and I can be sure the brooder in the barn will be able to keep the baby chicks warm enough. The brooder setup We set up the brooder in one of our empty stalls but a garage or shed with electricity will work. We use 12-inch corrugated paper to make a circle of about 3 feet diameter to s

First coop Soon after we had our country property we decided to get a few laying hens to have fresh eggs. We ordered 6 layer chickens and built a small raised coop, 4' x 8' and only 4 ft tall. we put in a roosting bar and feed and water buckets. This worked well for us for a few years but when we wanted a few more chickens we had to build bigger. First small coop 2nd coop This time we wanted a walk-in coop which is easier to clean and has lots of windows to let in the sunshin

When we decided to move to the country, a large reason for this move was to bring our 2 boarded horses home. We had boarded our horses where we took riding lessons and it was expensive. After 4 years of learning all we could about horsemanship and taking care of the animals, we took the first step by finding a country property. Why we call it a hobby farm We consider our little place a hobby farm because having horses for us is a hobby! We compare our hobby to other hobbies l

Our most recent acquisition of farm animals has been a gaggle of geese. We wanted something that would graze the grass and weeds around our small pond. We had previously raised muscovy ducks but they are not grazers and the area became a small jungle. Buy from a reputable breeder We got five goslings that were 1 day old from a breeder that was close to us. We ordered them in early winter and we had a choice of four breeds, Brown Chinese, Embden, Saddleback Pomeranian and Toul

We were a little slow to put in our orchard. We started this in our third year of ownership. we did have one fully grown apple tree from previous owners but it needed to be renovated slowly although we did get apples from it. Planning and research First, check your growing zone. It's no sense trying to grow something that doesn't work in your area like lemons in the north although that would be great to have! Find a reputable nursery to buy your plants from, either online or

My daughter and I had boarded our two horses where we took lessons for 4 years. We learned so much about taking care of them we found we were prepared to design our barn for what our family wanted. Barn in the distance Planning After going to our municipality and asking what we were allowed to build we had plans drawn up. This depended on our property size as well as where we could put it on our property. We had to have set backs and distance from our property line and neighb

Our property had some fencing for horses that the previous owners had put up and enclosed about 2 acres. We decided to devide this area into 2 pastures allowing us to rotate the horses as the grass grew. This was a good start. We added a third acre parcel later as well as another half acre temporary field. This is still an ongoing issue. Types of fencing We used wood fencing with electric rope, chest high to prevent the horses from chewing or pushing against the wood. The ele

When we decided to leave our suburban home we looked at real estate sites. We had 5 items to keep in mind. Our 5 requirements for our property To be within a half hour of the city where we worked. I would be working from home but my husband would be driving daily to his place of work. Weather would definatly be a factor as well since we live in the north and get a good amount of snow storms in the winter. We wanted it large enough to have our 2 horses live on it. This was o

So you've found your little(or big) slice of heaven. Congratulations! You've moved in and looked at all that space. What can you do with it now? I'm going to list some ideas for you to pick and choose what interests you most. A few things should be first if your looking down the road. These are just general suggestions. I will go more in depth for each suggestion in later posts. Check in the categories for updates. List of ideas Orchards should be planted first as they take a