Category Archives: Garden & Animals

Strawberries and Onions

We have planned our strawberries and onions. Strawberries we are planting is type Kent. Onions are red onions and spanish onions. We still need to clear more bed for other veggies. We use spruce 2x6x8 as border but it is expensive so we are searching for scrap lumber or use 1x6x8 if we can find some.

Chickens

The baby chicks arrived last Friday (May 18th). 12 of them altogether from 4 different breeds. They are all brown egg layers. Kay made a coop out of cardboard of 12 inches high. We also bought a 1-gallon waterer, feeder and Purina chick starter for them too. I have hooked up a heat lamp to privde the required 90F temperature. The kids love holding and touching the chicks. We have to clean the waterer everyday and add new wood shavings. We are waiting to build a compost bin to hold the soiled shavings.

Fruit Trees

treetree2treeFinally we finished planting the fruit trees. We bought 4 apple trees and 2 pear trees from Siloam Orchard in Uxbridge. It was pretty tiring digging the holes to 2’W and 2’D. But the kids enjoy finding worms hidde in the dirt. After planting, I made some tree gaurds from hardware cloth and placed it around the root. Now I need to get some wood chips for mulching. I could have used the free hay on my farm but mice likes hiding in hay. Well, now we need to wait 3 years for our first apples and pears. Hopefully we can cope with all the pests and birds that will compete with us.

We bought a Garden Tractor

These days I am busy going through review on the Internet about lawn and garden tracotr. I look at the consumer reports, look at the newsgroup and a couple of people who have riding lawn mowers. I was going to buy the Craftsman brand because review says it has less repair and our friends have them too. However, some ppl say the service provided by Sears is unacceptable: slow and confusing. I like the John Deere one but they are very costly. I also like the Kubota because John Deere and Kubota are the top 2 players in tractor industry. So I went to Keswick Rental and talked to the salesman there. I was also thinking about the Toro GT2100 because it has Kohler engine, which supposed to be better than Briggs & Stratton. The salesman, Rob is very friendly and he says John Deere is better than Toro (they are dealers of both). He suggests if I don’t want to spend too much money, get the JD LA130 for 2579. He then showed me the difference in frame, belt, axles among different tractors they have. Then we came to a Kubota TG1860. It is 2 years old with 385 hours on it. It is priced at 3200. Obviously for a 2 year machine 385 hrs is a lot but Rob told me the seller was in landscape business so the hour is high. Mower deck is 54″, engine is 18HP Kawasaki liquid-cooled. The frame is solid. I asked for some price reduction and he gave me 3100. Devliery is 60 and they would serviced it before delivery. It was a hard decision because my budget is 3000 including tax. However, I know this model is much more durable than the LA130, which is the cheap version that John Deere manufactures for Home Depot. I hope I am not making a mistake buying a used tractor but the new TG1870 will cost close to 5500.