Spring Market Garden Tour: See our farm and hear our plans for this season!

It has been many months since we did a tour of our farm and market garden. We thought we would take a few moments on a beautiful afternoon to show you our farm and share with you our plans for the season. Of course the wind had to pick up mid video but we manage to continue shooting! Hope you enjoy!

#marketgardening #upperpeninsula #farming

Thank you for watching!

Music – None

Follow us on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yoopercountry

Mail:
P.O. Box 64
Eben Junction, MI 49825

Hola Farmsteaders! We are Mac and Jose and we operate a 20 acre market farm and homestead in the beautiful upper peninsula of Michigan. We have 1 acre of mixed vegetable production, 1/2 acre orchard, laying ducks and chickens, as well as meat chickens and rabbits. Our channel is a weekly blog that shares with you what we are doing here on the farmstead and what we are doing here in the Upper Peninsula! We love this life and sharing it with you!

good afternoon good afternoon I’m Mac and Jose and we are upuper country farms up here in the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan yeah we’re a 20 acre Market Farm we started in 2021 MH and so this will be our fourth operating season and I we haven’t done a tour in a while yeah so we thought we would share with you what the plan is here on the farm it is gorgeous here it’s been kind of rainy so let’s hope the rain stays down but it’s warm is uh uh I think uh 62 right now wow yeah it’s beautiful out here so we’re just going to give you a tour around talk about our plans for this year and what changed from last year uh we’re down here right now in our apple orchard so I thought we would start since we already had the camera down here we’ll start down here uh over the years our goal has been to have a huge fruit Orchard and uh fruit bushes and all of that so right down in here there’s just over 30 apple trees uh several varieties maybe two to three trees per variety we also have some out front of the property and uh this is kind of a low area on the property it stays a little wetter a little bit cooler uh so we also have strawberries uh intermingled in the trees down here and last year we had a pretty good harvest off of strawberries but this season we are putting in a whole bunch more we’re going to plant 1,200 strawberries right here behind us let’s just flip the camera around take a look so this is 12 beds right here 100t by 30 in and we’ve done the last couple of years we did corn down in here we did our melons and our squash down in here last year which they were beautiful down in here and produced really well but because it’s kind of low it’s a little bit cooler uh we think the strawberries will really love it down in here so we’re doing 600 uh everbearing and 600 June bearing uh down in here just to mix up so it’s going to be we’re going to be busy they’re already arrived so probably next week we need to get planting we’re in panic mode I think here on the farm uh but things are great so then you can also see our two uh High tunnels behind here yeah yeah we’re good yeah they got toist the brand new and the other one is yeah exactly so this one’s our new one right here it’s a 14t by 100 foot on the other side is a one we got got off another farmer we bought our first year and it’s also 100 by4 and it’s just the regular style uh caterpillar tunnel so this will be our this first one will be our Tomatoes this year so Jose just finished putting in the trellising for that we’re going to build solid end walls on these cuz it’ll be pretty permanent down here for these two uh hoop houses and then the other one will be more of like our uh cucumbers our summer squash that kind offf stuff will be in that other one uh as long as we’re down here that’s our grapes in the back there we can walk over there and take a look but we have a lot of varieties it’s the one thing we’ve done horrible on every year we get so busy the grapes just kind of fall to the Wayside so again this year I ordered in the grapes to replace the grapes out there and we’re going to try to do better hopefully someday somebody comes in and saves us and says let me help you out with some grapes because we could we could definitely use the help yeah and then down in here is kind of a low area where you see those bushes and we plan on eventually doing cranberries down in there So eventually we want to clean this area up uh it stays even wetter than this is and I think cranberries would do really good down in there yeah the other thing we did this year is we ordered a lot of trees that will help out like native bees and uh native animals because we really you know it’s important for us for the farm to know be feeding people but also to be feeding the local Wildlife so we’re picking those up uh pretty quick here yeah um and I’m excited those will mostly go on the outskirts of the property like on the outside of these fences just it gives the animals a place to live it gives them a place to keep an eye on what’s going on inside of the garden like we have very little insect uh pest pressure because I think part of it is that we have a lot of animals moving around and when you walk around in the garden you will literally see a spider at the top of almost every plant yeah we have um spider uh garden snake yeah a lot of snakes yeah we a lot of frogs a lot of toads hanging around so there’s just a lot of things going on I think that keep the bug levels down but I think that tells you how healthy the farm is how healthy the soil is we try to keep the soil as covered as possible uh not let it be exposed and I think that helps us out a lot all right so then up on the hill here you can see we have two more hoop houses and these two will actually be being moved this year yep so this these are going to become High tunnels we got two grants this year which we’re very excited about um and so these we’ll be replacing these and moving them the bigger one is either going to come right here and go where the everbearing strawberries were we haven’t decided yet I kind of like the idea of our tunnels being lined up otherwise it’s just going to go over on the other side of the aisle from where it is we haven’t quite worked out the details on that but I know for sure the two high tunnels are going to go right here we want them close to where we’re working because there’ll be a lot of crop turnover and we’ll be using them a lot when it’s cooler we don’t want to have to walkway out for them uh plus watering and those kind of things will be a lot easier if they’re closer yeah so yeah that’s exciting for uh the the two high tunnels we’re very excited to be the recipient of those grants um so that’ll there be a lot going on right all right what do you think’s next let’s come open let’s come open I don’t know um these two hoop houses are already fully planted out y uh it’s really the only plants we have going except for in the heated Greenhouse we already have a lot of greens that we’ve been harvesting for members already and uh yeah just amazing lots of good stuff there’s a lot of water this is our seasonal Pond down on this side and our ducks are already super happy down in there last year surprisingly for the amount of snow we had over the winter we had almost no water in there and then this year we had almost no snow and it is very full it’s interesting how Ground Water Works uh around here yeah all right let’s uh let’s move up all right so we have this was our uh potato bed last year and we covered it to do our winter carrots on this year so winter carrots are still quite a ways out from being planted that’ll give this a lot of time for the GR to grow up and die we have a huge problem because this was pasture getting rid of the grass that’s and the other thing is you know we like the grass and other things that are growing because it helps provide nutrients it helps protect the soil so we kind of have a LoveHate where we try to kill it back but we also want it to grow we also tried planting clover in a lot of these aisles last year and it’s coming up amazing this year I know for sure we’ll be doing clover in more of our aisles uh to help help keep the soil from eroding to make the walkways cleaner and hopefully it’ll hold back some of the weeds fingers crossed yeah cuz we have a lot of weeds all right so this is our Vineyard as you can see we have the trellises all set up it looks really good but we are having trouble growing grapes yeah we’ve tried to select uh cuz we we want to do a lot of juices here on the farm as we get going so apple juice grape juice um so we’ve did a a lot of varieties that we thought would do well up here uh but it seems that they’re struggling a little bit so we’ll see we’re going to try replanting some and a lot of that is us like we get so busy in the spring we should get planting them and then we don’t plant yeah so you can’t be mad at the grapes wow very it got really windy it was so beautiful earlier I thought time to make a video you’re just going to have to put up with the wind now all right let’s keep moving so this is kind of our raspberry patch here we have two rows I think maybe 50 plants in each row we have twoot spacing on them two red varieties over here black and then golden berries down there raspberries are my favorite thing we have another 100 plants planted down there yeah same mix black raspberries golden raspberries and red raspberries and then this year we’re planting two additional rows of just red raspberries and I think for a while that’ll be it after this year we’ve really been in a growth phase we have pushed very hard we spent a lot of money to make this Farm what we want it to be this year we’re adding another 70 fruit trees to the mix which I’m going down to pick up the rest of them next Tuesday and it’s going to be a very busy couple of days planting trees but after that we’ll have the bulk of our production trees in we’ll probably add some specialty trees that we if we find varieties we really like but other than that I think we’re going to slow down a lot on trees maybe add some bushes um this year we’re adding some seab berries that a member brought us I’m very excited to be adding those to the farm they’re really neat little fruit that I think uh will be a fun addition yeah so yeah so we’ll be busy planting trees here in a couple of weeks I’m very excited about that all right keep moving keep moving keep moving all right so it’s very very early here still for the trees to be buding out but they’re starting to yeah um we’re still our last average frost date is not until May 29th and today’s the 27th of April April I think so we still have a month and already some of our pear trees are starting to bloom yeah uh we got a hard Frost the other night though that’ll kill back probably most of that uh it’s just way too early but it’s been so warm up here the trees have no idea what’s going on they’re just like what a we we’re clueless confused and then this area is going to be most of our I can’t believe how much that what you picked up this area is going to be our regular carrot Harvest uh and then some of our lettuce are going to go here and then go ahead no oh and then behind us is the newest addition to the farm oh yeah we already run rabbits and we run chickens and we run Ducks uh but we wanted to start adding some larger livestock and we have a neighbor that runs hair sheep Y katadin and so I thought we would pick up four Rams to butcher out this fall and so they’re here on the farm and we are in love with them are we not yeah they’re just going to get moved around on pasture all summer and live the good life here on the farm uh right now they’re a little afraid of the dog but we’re learning we have two Border Collies that uh aren’t quite yet good hurting dogs but we hope after having these sheep on the property they will be what what we have behind us yeah this is our garlic bed here this year we did four full beds of garlic like I think our first year we started with two and a half last year we did three and a quarter and we it’s the one thing we ran out of over the winter that I wish was still in the pantry we sold every last bit of garlic so this year we did four full beds and I think next year we might add a fifth full bed of garlic just cuz it’s so popular and easy to sell we have no trouble at all selling it people come in and buy large quantities uh and we want to make sure we have enough for our members yeah so then the covered area is going to be our onions mhm and then on the other side of the onions is our we have six beds of asparagus which we put in last year so it won’t we may Harvest a little bit of it this year uh but won’t really be ready for Harvest for the next year or two yeah so very excited about that and then down the hill from that is our raspberries we have the two uh 100 foot beds we’re going to add two more 100 foot beds down there this year and then all of our cherry trees skirt around here so it’s all sweet down in there and then we have sour cherries on either side and sour cherries definitely do better up here but with temperatures being quite a bit warmer than they used to be we are just trying some sweet cherries to see how they work out and surprisingly we lost one last year when we planted but all of them appear to be coming back this year um so we’ll see how they do long term so that’ll be nice we’re also trying some peach trees this year we tried them two years ago with not very good luck I think we’ve got maybe two survivors but of course I mean we’re glutton for punishment so we’re going to try another batch this year if they don’t work out this year we’ll probably lay off the the peach dream for a while um because it is we are Zone 5A so peaches are very iffy up here even the cool season varieties but H we like trying some stuff out and seeing what happens behind us are our plum trees and our pear I think the first ones here are pear trees and then plum trees this year we’re really focusing on plums that’s what we’re putting in a ton of I think we’re planting maybe uh 25 plum trees I’m not sure on the exact number but it’s close to that and then we’re also adding just a few peirs and next year if we focus on anything it’ll probably be a few more pear trees yes uh but like I said before we’re really going to slow down after this year we have the bulk of our production in and that’s really what we care about and we have pushed so hard it’d be nice to slow it down a little bit uh for next year and just go with what we already have and see if we can start actually making a living at this because this will be our last big spending year and next year we’re going to say it’s time it’s time to make this the numbers work okay so this is our pasture we have about 11 of Acres of pasture on the property about half the pasture here is ours the other belongs to our neighbors but he doesn’t care if our chickens run down in there so it’s nice we don’t have to worry too much about fencing uh and he also said if we ever got cows or anything uh we could also so that be kind of if we do that uh so this is going to be our big expansion this year that has me a little bit panicked the first year we ran 40 beds the second year we ran 80 beds now these are 100 foot x 30 Standard Market garden bed size last year we up it to about a 100 and this year we’re going to push it to 150 which is a lot I think I think after this season we’re going to know if that’s going to be too much or I believe it’ll be probably about the right number I hope anyway so we’re going to do three more plots here our plots have uh 12 beds each so it’ll be 36 here and then we’re going to do one more over on this side where the Sheep uh currently are those are going to be our potatoes so yeah a lot what we have to do though is fence this off because there’s a lot of deer movement they don’t come so much through the front of the property they prefer to stay on the tree line so they tend to be back here on the back side of the pasture we’re definitely going to be running our chickens way out there on the other side of the fence and the Sheep will be out there on the other side of the fence yeah uh and this area will be designated for uh for our garden bed in close to the house cuz that’s the most wor wow this wind is nuts yeah it’s been some windy days yeah recently okay so this is where we’re going to add one more bed I think we have a low Spa right in here that uh we can’t use for garden beds but I think we’re going to plant our plum trees down in there and then over this hill on the other side that’s where that low spot is I was talking about where we’re going to do the Cranberries but at the top of that hill or close to the top that’s where we plan on putting the Peaches I think it’ll be a good spot down out of the wind um yeah so I think it’s going to be a nice spot not at the bottom of the hill and not at the top of the hill but mid Hill where hopefully the cool air leaves him alone we’re going to run the fence all the way way match up to the fence that’s there by the cherry trees it’s going to run out about another 150 200 ft across the pasture this way and then down the tree line over there our eventual goal is to open up the areas where we have mostly fruit trees and allow uh for silvo pasture which we would run probably sheep in our chickens can be down in there you know the chickens do amazing things for the trees we were shocked last year on the difference in the trees from where we ran chickens and where we kept the chickens out out of and we had much better growth and much better looking trees where we had allowed the chickens to to feed down in there and you know we put them in for a couple of weeks in the fall it was incredible the difference yeah so anything else you want to say about the pasture uh no yeah we’re hoping eventually most of this pasture will be planted out I kind of want to do a neat thing where we do like a little sections where it’s trees around the outside and then a central pasture area uh we hope in the fall we usually have a big party here for our apple cider press and it’ be really cool if our friends could pull their trailers back here uh and park for the weekend it would be a lot of fun yeah So eventually we want a big driveway out here that runs the pasture that people can drive around the farm and see everything uh # Farm goals big Dream Big Dreams this is Jose’s pride and joy this is our chicken Tri trailer where’s the name theow this yeah we may not be able to post this video you may not be able to hear us it was so gorgeous when we started this good thing I said we should be putting uh plastic on the hoop houses instead of making a video yeah but I think the universe was smarter than we were wow all right let’s see we hi buddy hi I know you I know you’re so dirty oh my goodness all right all right so this is our chicken trailer we move this around the field it works out pretty good Jose just brings the tractor out and skirts it around and you can once the grass starts growing you can really see where the chickens have been it actually becomes difficult to mow it because the grass is so thick and green and Lush and beautiful and we use that grass actually to um fertilize our fields or our our vegetables so we come out here we mow and we dumped the grass on the beds and I’ll tell you what it was life-changing last year it takes a lot of time but wow we’re trying to use as little inputs as as possible and we feel like that’s really the way to go we need probably a better system long term but for right now it’s working out yeah we also run on pasture our rabbits we have four rabbit tract or three rabbit tractors that we run and we have four meat chicken tractors that we run none of them are operating right now it’s uh but it’s about to we’re about to move the rabbits out here and there’s a group of chickens that’s about a week from being moved out here yeah yeah they’re just getting their feathers uh so they’ll be coming out too oh Tronics down in there I was wondering what’s going on this is our dog tronic hurting the chickens and you can see he does a really great job so this is the area we want to run the peaches down in and we have you can see it’s not our lowest spot on the farm but there’s a hill up here yeah and then there’s like this little table here and then it goes down even lower M so this is good draining yeah uh it’ll be out of the North Wind quite a bit and I think it’ll be perfect for the peach trees so we’re going to try doing them right down in here and the fence line will run from the corner of the fence there up along this tree line and we’re going to keep about 10 to 15 feet on the outside where Jose can run the chickens in the tractor like park it along there and leave the chickens on the outside of the fence during the right times of year sometimes we have too many predators right now we just have our dog tronic much better yeah we’re out of the wind okay so these this is our heated Greenhouse uh right now we’re keeping it at about 50 before that we were keeping it at about 40 30 yeah right around 35 and now because we have tomato starts on the other side we’re keeping it about 50 uh over there but it stays a lot cooler here because of the plastic in the center yeah so these ra raised beds double uh for the pallets that hold our seed starts and we’re about to have to pull all these plants out of here it crushes me cuz look at how gorgeous everything is in here but we really need the space for our warm season crops and Market is now 3 weeks away from today and so all of our starts that we take to sell that’s a big way we make money the first six weeks of Market yeah and so we need to have this space available for that uh but I mean we already have been selling greens like spinach and kale Swiss chard uh um B choice these cabbages these little uh minuette cabbages are gorgeous we love them um so yeah it’s been great in here we love this space has been lifes saving and I’ve been shocked at how much we were able to harvest out of this little T at first I thought wow this isn’t even going to be worth our time but I come in and I harvest and a few days later I’m harvesting again and it you could almost not tell I touched anything probably we should be building another oh yeah I well and I think with our high tunnels that’ll really help if we have those heated uh we’ll be able to do it but maybe expand this space eventually out behind this way who knows again hash Farm goals all right let’s check out the barn my guy oh you try to get down it’s so cute let go let go [Laughter] no don’t start we got to make a video yeah this is our um this is ched or one of our barn kitties oh all right goodbye all right so we’re in the barn now our barn is pretty good size 40 by 48 yeah and we’ve been putting the animals in here but we’re eventually hoping that either build another building for crop uh post production or to clean this building completely out put concrete on the floor and utilize it it’s this a really nice building so right now we keep uh Silver Fox rabbits in here and we breed and butcher uh throughout throughout the summer it’s way too cold here in the winter hopefully eventually we have a heated rabbit Barn would be nice and we could breed a little bit further into the shoulder Seasons we also have two large brers here at the back that we keep our birds in as they get bigger we have two smaller brers that we use for the first two weeks yeah um and a lot of times we teaching the chickens that it’s okay to leave the Bruder we’ll just open those doors and let them run around we keep the bulk of our lame Birds on the other side during the winter yeah this side is mostly for rabbits and young birds um yeah yeah we love this space it’s a beautiful Barn huge upstairs in it chicken and chicken and cats oh he’s so sweet so this is the last place we’re going to show you for today I think on the farm tour so right now we’re in the process of building out our farm store that’s this little front area right here uh last year it was just this little tiny area right here we had a a wall and a door here um but we took all that out yeah and so now it’s expanded back to where we built this wall that’ll be storage on the other side eventually hopefully a large walk-in cooler uh cuz we’re going to need it yeah right now we’ll keep refrigerators and freezers for that purpose but we’re getting to a size now where that just doesn’t work and then on this other side here is our washack station and we also do a lot of canning so canning is on the back side against the wall the W wash pack station is here because we’re in and out a lot more when we’re doing uh from the field Jose does a lot of the root vegetables outside but all the greens get cleaned and done inside of here so this year we because we’re getting so big we wanted to enclose it cuz last you know this was a door to the house and so the dogs were coming through and the cats and no more that that we now have a private entrance on that side so no more animals intermixing with anything we’re doing on the property now that we’re getting uh as big as we are all right I think that’s the farm tour we’re hoping it wasn’t too windy so this may or may not get po posted we’ll see what happens it may just have been way too windy yeah if we know we will make another one in yeah in a couple of days it seems like though whenever we start them we’re like it’s beautiful and then it gets windy so it may just be what it is but hopefully it wasn’t too bad so yeah that’s our big plans for this year a lot of expansion I think it’s going to be our last major Garden expansion year as far as trees and garden beds I think we’re just Jose and I are tired of growing and after this year it’s going to push us I think right to the of where we’re capable but next year with everything in place and set up I’m hoping that that will be our first uh big money-making year our goal was always five years uh and next year is the fifth year so I think closed we are closed yeah I think after this year we’re there yeah all right well we better get back to work by work I mean probably won’t do anything all right thank you so much for watching yeah thank you again we are Mac and Jose and this is Yer country farms thank you