A Week in Photos

A photographic tour into our daily lives last week.  With my 90-hour week of animal care-taking, gardening, baking, cooking, cleaning, posting, researching, videoing, teaching, oh and yes, taking time to play with our rescued and spoiled pets....there's not enough time to photograph all the happenings so here's a snidbit.  I also took a number of videos we'll post on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/littleedenheirloom).  Most of the videos this week are ones to help you understand a bit of this region's garden pest examples, their eggs, a recipe to help kill and control fungus on tomatoes, running bean string for pole beans and more.

Let us know if you would like any Pindo Palm trees at $10 each, Organic Heirloom Yellow Four O'clock seeds $3 per 20+ seeds and guinea keets from 3 weeks to 10 weeks old - $10 each. 

Here's just a peak - enjoy!  

Ron and Annette Layton
Little Eden Heirloom Farm
Crawfordville, Florida 
850/274-7690
Email:  littleedenheirloomfarm@zoho.com
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/littleedenheirloomfarm
Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/littleedenheirloomfarm/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/littleedenheirloom
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/littleedenheirloomfarm/

Heirloom Yellow Four O'Clocks - Stunning and the flower scent is heavenly - $3 per packet of 20+ seeds

Birdhouse Gourds - Almost ready to harvest!

Harvesting Eggplant, weeding and planting!

Our Juvenile Delinquent Grow-out Pen - a menagerie indeed!

Young ducks and geese!

Unloading new chicken night pen - Thank you Carla!

Muggy, one of our Supervisors

Cutting tomato leaves and stringing beans

Beautiful sunset

A bit of the day's Bakings - Caramel Rolls and Cinnamon Raisin before baking

After Baking

Caramel Chocolate Chip Pie Before Baking

Caramel Chocolate Chip Pie After Baking - My original recipe - Yummm!

Happy - our newest hatchling duck!

A bad photograph of a leopard frog - with many inches of rain this last week, this water frog must be displaced and looking for a new home!

Moving Pindo Palms - Sale $10 each

Missy says Pindo Palms are awesome!

Pindo Palm

Pindo Palm - ripening fruit

Pindo Palm fruit - YUMMM!

Ron picking up Pindo Palm fruit

Baking goodness for customer orders!

Skipper Butterfly eggs - We'll show a video of this beautiful garden pest

Our Future Egg Layer Ducks

With eggs hatching nearly every week, we now have 20+ future egg laying ducks ….

and counting.  Not all are hens, I assure you but although it will be a while before we get our first eggs, we are on our way to a good start for our duck egg venture.  The sun was high when Ron did the finishing touches on their new night pen while I was busy mending a fence and transplanting cucumbers and watermelons so they can grow up and over their fence/trellis.  We have moved the ones that were old enough, about half of them, over to spend their first night as “adults” in their humble abode, complete with plush hay bedding (aka future garden fertilizer) that they enjoyed nibbling on until nightfall.  Aside from the fact that they are cute, yellow and fluffy when babes and as adults they’re great bug eaters and certainly contribute to our organic composting/garden fertilizer recipes, why the interest in ducks/duck eggs, you may ask?  Some folks are allergic to an enzyme that is in chicken eggs but is absent in duck eggs; some folks say duck eggs makes their cakes rise higher and their bakings more tasty. Others love egg drop soup, some may want a pet duck or two….

We put up new trellises, two down, three more to go in one of the gardens.  Each at about 70 feet long and currently being used to keep tomatoes off the ground, pole beans, as well as cucumbers, support for peppers, eggplant and more.  As organic growers we do not use treated posts due to chemical leaching so with these being bamboo, we’ll hope they will last for at least a couple years.  We were asked to help clear some invasive bamboo in trade for these welcomed posts and trellis material. 

Chicks and guineas have hatched, not sure how many as each week or two we get a new batch out of the incubator ranging from 5 – 10 depending on how many guinea and duck eggs are laid.  Our batch of chickens from February are beginning to lay…you can tell this by the tiny egg a newly started hen lays…Tiny, cute and without a yoke.  Nothing wasted, it goes into that morning’s omelet, bakings, etc., and the shell goes to be composted adding calcium to our fertilizer/soils. 

Only about 4 more weeks to try to keep the fungus off our tomato plants, we've planted more beans, okra, cucumbers, herbs, warm weather salad mixes, squash, flowers and more, we are now preparing for fall plantings hoping for another long cool, not too cold of a fall and winter.  Everyday something gets pruned, an area weeded, harvested, planted, planned, baked, and on delivery days, delivered!   

Thank you so much for being a part of our Farm Family, we thank you for your support of our Farm and our Mission.

Ron and Annette Layton
Little Eden Heirloom Farm
850/274-7690

Independence Day - Our Freedom

The Sopchoppy parade - I remember when there were antique cars, vintage tractors, horses, local businesses (without the screaming boombox music); now it's mostly politics, no horses, one antique car, love the old tractors!

After spending the day enjoying the Sopchoppy parade, the park, its arts and crafts, with family, just about to our driveway we met a convoy of every law enforcement vehicle going who knows where.

Drive a little slower folks, it's ok to be fashionably late.

Look twice for pedestrians and motorcycles.

Take a moment longer to make sure you turned off the stove, be careful around that gas grill.

Everybody is somebody's loved one, you may not know the person(s) that you hear about on the news that died, but someone does.

Have a safe rest of your Independence Day.

Take a moment to think about the freedom we have.

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed — else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

Summer is Here Folks

Just a few hours old...her's sleepy...

Welcome to summer.  Some plants and people seem to do well in this heat and others do not.  Ron and I are determined to get the job done, hot or hotter although now that the heat is here, we must do better at coming in when it gets hot and not trying to push our way through it.  We work and we work hard.   The sun was hot and high when we finished a larger pen to move chicks, ducklings and goslings in.  Butterfly nets aren't just for butterflies, they are also great for catching feathered babies.  They are happy in their new digs.    Our incubator never stops running.

Plants are looking great; along with planting for sprouts and micro-greens, we are busy planting seeds in flats for outside planting in September...yes, September is just around the corner. Outside we are still planting as well, plants that don't mind so much the heat, i.e., beans, Seminole pumpkins, etc.

Please contact us for chicks, ducklings and guinea keets.  Pre-order early as our incubator is always full.  Information and Prices:


Day Old Chicks - Large breed egg layers.  Mixed flock of Americauna, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, Buff Orpington, French Copper Maran, Black Giant, Sex-Link, and more.  These chicks my be purebred Rhode Island Reds, Americaunas, or Barred Rocks.  $3 each (10 or more $2.50 each)

Day Old Ducklings - White Layer Duck - This is a hybrid duck, it is created by crossing different purebred ducks with the best egg laying abilities.  These ducks are egg machines, they happily lay an egg nearly everyday.  Seven eggs per week per duck for weeks and then she'll skip a day or two.  Their molting time is short, seems to be every few months for a few days.  Heat, Cold doesn't seem to matter.  ... Hence the name Layer.  This is the second generation so I don't know if these babies will lay as consistently as the original, I'm sure they're egg laying capabilities will not disappoint.  If I had to mention a downside to this breed it would be that they may not be the best as backyard city ducks.  the hen....she talks and talks and talks...always got something to say....loudly...   $10 each (10 or more $7 each)

Day Old Guinea Keets - Mixed flock of colors!  These birds produce a large number of colors from regular speckled, to purple, tan, grey, pied; I'm always anxious to see what new color is popping out the shell!  Great bug eaters and security alarms.  $8 each (10 or more $6 each).


We thank you for your support of our Farm and our Mission.

Ron and Annette Layton
Little Eden Heirloom Farm
Crawfordville, Florida 
850/274-7690
Email:  littleedenheirloomfarm@zoho.com
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/littleedenheirloomfarm
Facebook group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/littleedenheirloomfarm/

Guinea Keets wondering about the new sights and sounds.

Hatchings - Guinea Keets and White Layer Duck - just a few hours after hatch!

Too Many Roosters

Anyone need a young rooster or two? We have a mix breed flock of large egg layers ranging in egg color from white to pinks, blues, browns and chocolates. Some are purebred Barred Rocks.

Two are about 3 months old - Barred Rock (crosses?) - $6 each
Five are 4 1/2 months old - Barred Rocks (crosses?), New Hampshire Red cross, Buff Orpington/Barred Rock cross - $10 each.

Total of seven available, buy one or all.

Located in Crawfordville, three miles from the Wakulla County Courthouse.

Call (850-274-7690), personal message us or email at littleedenheirloomfarm@zoho.com.

If you are interested in any tonight, they are still in the pen from their photography session I took just prior to dark, they are less stressed if moved at night but will happily catch the one(s) you want in the daylight.

FYI - We also take debit and credit cards.

Thanks!

Ron and Annette Layton
Little Eden Heirloom Farm
850/274-7690

Squash Bug Season

So how many squash bugs and leaf footed bugs did you kill today? I killed about 300 or so...mean devils plus numerous eggs. I put on thick gloves and mash the stinky (literally) critters. I spray the ground under each plant with a mixture of garlic, cayenne, castile soap and oil....they come running from their hiding places....and then I get'em. 

Yes, it's squash bug season here in the south.  We grow many different kinds of squash and some of the butternut, pumpkin, acorn, spaghetti, zucchini, yellow squash and other squash plants are not affected but some are. Building and improving our soils along with help from our resident ducks, chickens and turkeys is helping but we still share with the bugs and that is indeed no fun.  

Shhh, they haven't been hungry enough to bother the cucumbers yet....and we won't tell them where they are either!

Butternut Squash - Little Eden Heirloom Farm

Butternut Squash - Little Eden Heirloom Farm

Muggy the Mugrat - Little Eden Farm and Gardens Movie Clips

Good help is hard to find ... or is it? ... Muggy, a little "tail" of the ultimate Farmers' helper.