In this weekly vlog, Victor (Speaker A) provides a comprehensive update on his small‑scale homestead as part of a "100 Days of Growing Food" challenge. He begins by sharing a disappointing soil test (rating 17 out of a healthy >25) and explains how the kitchen garden is being rebuilt with fresh soil, compost tea, and new planting. He discusses compost pile issues, noting that it was too dry and is now breaking down with help from chickens. Poultry management is a major focus: the brooder chicks are not yet ready for the open‑air coop, a pastured poultry pen is being designed, and the lack of a mature goose is delaying full pasture use. He details goat Violet’s health concerns (runny nose, possible fescue toxicity) and the use of a Countdown 7000 supplement to improve her condition. Victor outlines the structure of the weekly update series, plans a 100‑day time‑lapse of the farm, and reviews crop progress: asparagus, strawberries, potatoes (mulched, low‑maintenance), raspberries, blueberries, and cover‑crop experiments. He mentions weed‑control tactics (cardboard, mulch) and the success of mulching on the potato beds. The vlog also covers seed and seedling losses to rodents, broken metal sawhorses, and the rescue of sprouting pumpkins from rats. Finally, he promotes free training videos on raising chickens in 51 days and a "10 Steps to Growing Most of Your Food Working Less Than 10 Hours a Week" series, inviting viewers to follow the challenge on YouTube.
Chapters
We got our soil test back. This actually— the kitchen garden actually happens to be the worst. It got a rating of like a 17. 25 is good. I forget what optimal is, but it's more than 25. So no wonder we're struggling. We're rebuilding this. This has been field dirt in the past. And so we're having to rebuild with new soil. The spinach is jamming. We've been eating that for a couple of days. The kale is coming back. Mom's been pouring compost tea on it and it's been working good. Her herbs seem to be doing just fine. The kids have gotten to Grandma's last night, so I'm alone doing the chores. Rebecca and I, they're hunting their food. Jonah so thoughtfully used his contraptions, his feed storage contraption keep feed overnight. Rats out. There it is, right on spot. He was so very thoughtful. That boy. Hang on, Violet, we'll get you in a second. I'll spread it out for you guys. Let's put it down here where you'll look at their till job. You lack some areas, some more difficult areas. Let's put feed in it so you'll be encouraged to scratch it. You might be wondering how this compost pile is doing. Well, not that great. I don't think I kept it wet enough. It's taking forever to break down. It is finally starting to break down. The chickens are taking more and more interest in it. It's been like— I, I lost count. It's been like 8 weeks. So next time I need to monitor it better, make sure it stays moist. Let's not give up on it. Let's give it some love right now. Let's repile it. Chickens have spread it out pretty good and wet it down. Well, notice they're in the brooder. They're not ready for the open-air coop. Well, they're ready for it, but our guard goose are not. This is what happened. Well, it was a good run even though it lasted only about 6 hours. I believe a crow got this one. I've put the sea monsters back in the brooder. Gonna try to fix up the pastured poultry pen, put them in that. One major problem with this system: we don't have a goose yet. I mean, we've got a goose. We gotta get that goose grown up. In the meantime, we're gonna do a covered pasture poultry pen. That means we're gonna also have to come up with something for these guys. Hey, geese, geese, can you grow a little bit faster? No? Okay. Take your time. You might wonder, why am I willing to take this risk? Why am I putting them out? We lost one. Well, because I think overall they're gonna be much happier, much better off if we can get this to work. How you doing, Bear? What? He's almost tall enough to look over this thing. You're a fast grower. All right, buddy, let's go see Mom. Come on, big guy. Look at his little— look at his little horns coming in. Violet munching on some alfalfa and apple cider vinegar. She's not shedding her coat. She had a runny nose. I think we've cured that. And she's breathing a little heavy. Rebecca thinks she might have— she doesn't have a temperature, so she doesn't have pneumonia. She might have fescue toxicity, which is from a lot of the Fescue in the area. I think we're gonna try to diversify more with our grass, you know, maybe spread some different stuff behind the cows. But there's no way we're gonna get away from fescue, so we're gonna deal with this. Another thing we're doing seems to be working. I don't think she's got her cold anymore. The Countdown 7000 by Synergy seems to be working. She didn't have her cold anymore. 2 ticks on that. She doesn't like this part. She's about like Gideon in this. Getting used to it. A little more used to it. Well, good morning everybody. Sorry it took me so long to say that. This is a special— we're going to plan on doing this every week. This is an update since we're in the 100 days of growing food. It's hard to keep everybody updated with everything. So this is the way we're going to do it. Once a week, Saturday, an update on how everything is doing. Folks loved it last year. It's actually easier for us to make, so it gives us a little bit of break, and it's a win-win for everybody. Oh, and another thing, I want to try to get an epic 100-day time lapse of the farm. I'm going to go every day to certain areas— the crop garden, the lambs, the kitchen garden right here. I want this angle on Bear to see how much he grows every day. Imagine 1 second over 100 days, how much it's going to change. That'll be neat. Let's start with shot number 1. Oh, but maybe it would be cool if I was milking. Okay, this time we'll pretend like I'm milking. 1, 2, 3. That's good. Piece those together in 100. That'll be so cool. Well, she gave a low amount of milk for Violet, probably only a gallon, but we did— when we brought Bear in last night, he had just nursed, so that— come on now. Our little asparagus strawberry patch is doing great. I see some of the strawberries are starting to bloom. The asparagus has come up. Do have some weeds in here where we couldn't mulch. We need to go in through and do some fine weeding. And in our case, we weed, we just put a little cardboard over it and some mulch. Here on our potato patch experiment, I really like— if you have mulch, I really like how that's turning out. We haven't had to do anything since we started, just put the potatoes down, mulched it, no weeds. The second path that we're hoeing, it's thriving. It's a little more work. We've probably, uh, weeded it with a hoe 3 or 4 times. Takes about 3 minutes each, so 12 minutes. This aisle, uh, we're letting it grow in amongst cover crop that was already started. It seems to be doing okay. We're gonna see if cover crop overcomes it. It might. I'm tempted to just hoe it, but we're just— we're gonna stay true to the experiment, see what happens. This stuff is doing amazing. It's so amazing how you set it up, you wood chip it, and you don't have to do really anything the rest of the season. Everything's jamming. Well, there might be 6 raspberries that haven't made it, but we planted them close because we knew that would happen. It's going to be just fine. The blueberries are doing good. I don't see any blueberries, so maybe we won't have blueberry pie this year, but we'll see. You know what, scratch that thought. Look at these. That's blueberries, y'all. That's blueberries on this plant. Blueberries here, blueberries there, blueberries there, blueberries there. Oh my, lots and lots of blueberries. Oh, what? Blueberries. Never mind. One last thing to do. I need to get the chicks up here in the yard so they can have the green grass. Just a reminder, will you hurry up and grow up so you can guard our chickens? We're in the midst of the 100 Days of Growing Food. We're gonna see how much we can grow in 100 days. How much in the last 2 weeks can we eat from our land? 2 years ago, it was 75%. Can we beat that? You know, I want you to take this challenge with me, and you can follow along on YouTube, but I've got a little bit more. I've got a free training series. A couple days ago, we put one up on how to raise a year's worth of chicken in 51 days. Today we're putting one up, 10 Steps to Growing Most of Your Food Working Less Than 10 Hours a Week. We go over the steps of the crop garden, of putting together soil blocks, using chickens for the garden. It's worth checking out. It's like 30-ish minutes long. It's amazing. Check that out. I'll leave a link for it down in the description. What kind of crazy lady are you now?
I'm the crazy plant lady.
You are.
I'm the crazy seed lady.
Hundreds of plants right here. Why aren't these in the greenhouse?
Because something— I don't know what it is. It's a mouse or the vole that's living in our garden or whatever. I don't know, but something got our acorn squash the first day. I came back, they got the spaghetti squash the next day and the sunflowers.
Seeds. Our metal sawhorses are no longer working anymore to get them out. Well, keep them outside for a bit.
I also saw one of those rat-type mice that, uh, Josiah caught.
Ah, um, it's big boys. Yeah, it's not a miracle mouse, it's a rat. Yeah, dude, it's already sprouted. I know, you just started this yesterday.
No, I started them 2 days ago.
Okay, good job. Way to save them.
These are my field pumpkins, so they're coming. And this one's already sprouting.
So when we're eating those, that pumpkin pie, it's gonna have a story. Mm-hmm. You rescued them. You rescued— yeah, you rescued it from the rat, brought them into the house, got them started. They won't eat it once it's green. Yeah, they like their grains.
What's that? Did it get that one?
I don't know. You could— all right, just leave it unless you're gonna replace it.
Well, I think I might replace the ones that are missing. But see here, look, this is my acorn squash. It just cracked them open.
