Horticulture checklist for January

Jan 16, 2020

Robert Spencer, commercial horticulture specialist at the Alberta Ag-Info Centre, has published a 'to do' list for the month of January.

Consider specific training courses for both yourself and staff, such as first aid, advertising, electronic bookkeeping, record keeping, etc., and book it!

Are all of your licences or certificates up-to-date?

Review your insurance coverage. Do you have sufficient coverage for your activities? Are all the items or activities that happen on your farm covered? Has anything changed?

Review your project to do/wish list from the end of last season. What are some of the things you identified?

Start thinking about and planning your field layouts for the coming season. Does your current set-up work for any new crops? Do you have sufficient space for everything you have planned, such as headlands, activities, parking, etc.? Consider field orientation, irrigation systems, shelterbelts and traffic movement – foot, equipment, vehicles, etc.

Have you ordered the plant material that you will need for the next season? Planning and ordering in advance can save many headaches in the spring.

Are you ordering transplants? Growing your own? Cleaning up the greenhouse might also be in order.

Update, tidy up and repaint sales sheds and signs.

Source : Alberta.ca

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.