Author: Hawkins Homestead Farm

Hello Farm Family. Brandon and I would like to thank everyone for your prayers, patience, understanding, and support during our downtime as we grieved the loss of our son. We’ve been trying to figure out how to navigate this new normal for quite some time now and to say it’s hard is a gross understatement! We know that this process of grieving will take a long time, but we are PRAYING and pushing forward in the best way we know how. So many of you have reached out to our family and to me personally. You have provided meals, sent cards, text messages, emails, and made phone calls.

THANK YOU!

For me, I have to say that to see the outpouring of love has been overwhelmingly beautiful and even though I couldn’t express it at the time, I appreciate it more than I could ever say! One of my good friends reminded me that our son was known for spreading love, peace, and happiness. “Out of all people,” she said….”you are the last person he would want to be sad.”

So that leads me to this Newsletter. I have been supplicating my God for the strength and courage to get back to doing things that make me happy. Things that will help me to be ok, and things that make me, me. If you know me personally, you know that a huge part of that is having my hands in the soil, raising animals the way they should be raised, and watching God grow food as He allows me to tend to it……also known as farming.

I am excited to tell you all that we are officially back open for business!

Our first step in re-opening our farm has to be us taking care of our CSA members. So we have begun the process of praying, planning, preparing, and planting for the upcoming Kith & Kin Spring CSA season. It begins in one month on April 3, 2023.

To our members from last season, we can’t thank you enough for everything! Brandon and I appreciate your continued trust and support despite our hardships. We are looking forward to connecting with and feeding your families again.

Over these past few months, our farm has received so many inquires for eggs and organic pastured birds. I wish I could say that we can accommodate everyone, but we are still rebuilding our flocks.

Just the other day my Dad and I made a day out of it and went to pick up some beautiful chicks from Bazan Paradise Farms. They raise goats, poultry, and more. Plus they’re family owned and operated and you know how I love to support small farm families! So please click on the link and follow their page on Facebook.

Being on their farm filled me with joy as I carried around a baby goat and reminded me of how much I really do love farm life. You can check out the some of the pics below.

So back on our farm, we do have a few hens that are laying, but priority is given to our family first, our regular egg customers, and CSA members. With that being sad…. eggs are back, but they are LIMITED! So if you see them on the site, grab them quick. I will try to keep them updated each week as the girls lay more. You can find them here.

In regards to our organic pastured birds, their infrastructure is being built this weekend and I know of at least 2 people (myself and my Dad) who are eagerly anticipating their arrival into our stomachs. For all of you that are looking for a better poultry option, we are now accepting deposits for a late Spring harvest. You can find them here!

Speaking of animals…..we have added just a couple more to our farm. Meet Ham and Wally (Yes I know they have their faces in a bowl). They are Kune Kune piglets that were bred from registered stock. You may remember our first attempt when we raised Piggy from farm to table a few years ago.

Now before we all get too attached, only one of them is staying and the other is being raised for food. I struggled with the butchering part of Piggy last time, but having him as a food source during the height of Covid, proved to be a wonderful blessing. Since then I have purchased pork from the store and been more than disappointed so I am thankful that Brandon and I are able to raise meat for our family again. If all goes well, we hope to be able to offer Hawkins Homestead Farm pork soon!

In the gardens, the name of the game is build up the soil! My Dad went out to our former location earlier in the week to grab some supplies and all he could talk about was how beautiful the grass was and how fertile the soil is. It made me both happy and sad because it took years to build up that soil to what it is and to see it as a backyard now instead a place where we grew our food is bittersweet.

The list we have over this next month is very long to say the least, but just a few of our priorities are to finish installing the fence on the animal side of the property, purchase and truck in compost to install into our permanent no till beds, lay weed barrier to protect the soil, and plant our berry bushes to their homes before Spring officially arrives.

Later into Spring, we hope to establish a perennial garden. That makes me ecstatic just thinking about it and although it’s been a long while since I’ve planted flowers, I’m examining the area for a flower patch as well.

All in all, with the space that we have here, starting from scratch is proving to be a labor that I am trying to love. Brandon continues to remind me that it will be worth it and I know he’s right, but I guess I just need those reminders for now. We are currently growing specifically for our Kith & Kin CSA members, but we have planted in abundance and will continue to do so as the Spring comes in so there should be plenty for all.

We learned in the Fall just how much pest pressure there is here and we are sure there will be even more as everything awakens in the Spring, but this time we are ready! We have loaded up on insect barrier and have already began covering plants that need no pollination to grow. Additionally we are armed with our pots of boiling water, cayenne pepper, and cinnamon to ward off the millions of ants that we find ourselves fighting with almost daily.

So that’s it guys. I typed that with tears because things that were once easy for me are now difficult, but these are happy tears because I got this Newsletter done!

The last time I wrote a Newsletter was on November 3rd and it was also that evening we found out that we lost our son. So to complete this one four months later makes me truly thankful!

I am healing. Slowly, but getting there and I am so grateful to share and connect with all of you again. So thank you!

Let’s chat soon. Until then…….

Hello Farm Family. How are you guys? Did you make it through those unseasonably cold nights a few weeks ago without issue? Typically weather patterns in October don’t lead to freezing or near freezing temperatures so you guys were probably just as surprised as we were.

After the big freeze we lost a lot of crops that we would normally have through mid or late November. Of course it was an unexpected circumstance, but after much prayer, watching the temps rise, and seeing how the plants reacted to those temps, we decided not to immediately pull everything.

Instead we tried pruning to see if these plants would bounce back and some of them have done just that! We know they won’t last for too much longer, but as long as they continue to grow……we will let them!

Fall

Fall is a favorite season for us and now that we have moved, it feels more Fall like in our neck of the woods. Maybe it’s the trees or perhaps the environment, but it’s really beautiful and it reminds me of growing up in New York where we truly had all four seasons.

November is usually when we begin to have a couple of cold days as the days get shorter. I am all for getting rid of that Summer heat, but the shorter days I could do without. Do you feel like that too?

Pest Management

Since we moved I have seen quite a few bugs that I could not immediately place. One that has really hit our produce hard is a beetle with a red top and a black bottom. It’s a variety of a flea beetle, but not one that I had ever seen before.

I shared with you guys before that we like to take an out of the box approach to pest management. This can be simply picking the pest off the crops or using items found in nature to control well….nature. This is sometimes an arduous task, but totally worth it!

Growing Now

Growing on the farm now are mostly cool weather crops. Those that laugh at freezing temps and can take the heat as well. Just a few of them are below.

We absolutely love being able to grow and cook with Asian vegetables. This is especially true with our son, Joshua. He affectionately refers to Brandon and I as “geriatrics” because most of his cooking is just too spicy for us to handle. Joshua and our older son are both the main reasons why we started growing the hotter varieties of peppers on our farm. Now that his older brother is out on his own, Joshua gets to have most of them all to himself.

If you’ve checked out our shop page, you will find that we recently created a category dedicated especially to our love of Asian vegetables. We’ve name it Asian Gardens.

Poultry News

We’ve received more than a few inquires for those of you looking for eggs and pastured raised meats. We wish we could accommodate everyone, but this year we will not have any more eggs, whole chickens, or turkeys due to our recent move.

We are literally rebuilding our farm from the ground up and that takes tons of time, hard work, and money to do so.

A few months ago we put out a call to action for anyone willing to add a helping hand and/or a donation to our farm. That offer still stands! You can reach out to us through our contact page to help locally. There is also a donation box located at the bottom of our home page.

A Look Ahead

This month we will finally be planting our trees. Over the Summer we purchased a good variety of fruit trees and have been fighting hard to keep them alive. Most have survived and we are planning to rent a machine to assist in breaking up some of this red clay. Once that’s done, it will be a planting party from there.

Additionally, garlic will go into the ground and we are building out more spaces to made permanent beds to house the many plants that were started from seed and are ready to get to their final home. Our biggest issue is that we NEED so much compost and since everything has gone up in price this year, it’s taking longer to get it.

All in all it will be a busy month for us as we build out better infrastructure for our chickens to make sure they are safe as well. We’ve found more than a few hawks out this way, raccoons, and we’ve seen an owl up close and personal. If that’s not enough, just the other night we heard howling that we could not place so we want to make sure our birds are protected.

We have so much planned and loads more to share as the months continue into the Spring, but for now we will stop there as we don’t want to spill all the beans!

Available Now

If you’re shopping for some Certified Naturally Grown produce, there is quite a bit over on our shop page. We even brought back our ever popular Seasonal Farm Boxes!

In closing we say thanks for being the best part of our farm. Thanks for supporting us and sharing our little family business with others. We appreciate each and every one of you and hope to see you again next month. Until then…….

Oh Em Gee!!! Our favorite season has come in with a bang and we are loving this weather!

October is a month of new beginnings. We started to harvest our first crops in our new space, the Fall season with Kith & Kin CSA began just a few days ago, new birds will be arriving soon, and we are building new infrastructure for the farm. All of that in the middle of a home renovation. (Yes! We are a little crazy)

Part of getting the homestead ready is developing the land. We thought this was going to consist of a lot of tilling, but once we began to do so we found that the virgin soil here is very much hard clay. Our hope was to mix those truckloads of compost we told you about last month into the soil, but that went out the window very quickly!

So what are a couple of farmers to do when a plan fails? Pivot! We prayed, took some time, and formulated a new one.

Our next move was to plant on top of the virgin soil, but we needed to kill off the grass and weed seeds. Out came the flame weeder!

You can see Farmer Brandon in action below as he carefully prepares the space. He really deserved a hand for all his hard work! It was around 93 degrees that day.

To keep up with the work that we’re putting in to rebuild our space follow us on Instagram. Much of it is being documented there.

Starting over takes time, money, hard work, and patience. We’re no strangers to hard work, but we find ourselves having to re-learn what being patient really means. Plus money and time are always an issue!

We know that many of you are patiently walking this journey with us and we thank you for being here. Soon you will be able to click on the shop page and order your fill of eggs, produce, reserve your meats, and more.

Yesterday we went over to visit our sister farm, Bain Home Gardens. They have long been a trusted source of produce and eggs in our area. It was nice to meet the bunnies, see some familiar hens, and all the new chickens they now have. They are a little low on produce, but if you’re looking for eggs…..check them out!

Cooler temps mean cool season vegetables are coming back. The guys were putting together garden boxes not too long ago in anticipation of heavy planting and transplanting. You may have seen the photo of my Dad and Joshua on our social pages. Their hard work is very much appreciated!

Growing now on the farm are both Summer and Winter squash, greens galore, roots, salad greens and more. We found out yesterday that our organic garlic shipped and will be arriving in a few days. It’s always exciting to plant garlic because that usually means that Fall is in full swing.

Peppers are still hanging around and from the looks of it we will have at least one more batch before the frost sets in.

In the next few days we will be making jams using the local blueberries we picked and froze earlier this year. Some of which will make it to the shop page, so be on the lookout.

So much is in store for us as we finish out the year. We’re thankful you’re here to support and follow along. We will see you next month if not before. Until then……

Hey farm family! It’s June and our apologies because this Newsletter is a bit late. There is just SO much happening both on and off the farm right now. Life has been a bit crazy and we have a lot to catch up on. Even our social pages have been quiet over the last few weeks, but let’s start by getting caught up here.

Bad news first…Some of you may already know this, but I injured my back and that definitely put a strain on things. The good news is that my guys stepped up to the plate and did what needed to be done to keep our home and the farm rolling. Thank you both SO much!!

This season we’re very thankful because over this past month the farm has been very fruitful! We literally harvested hundreds of onions and potatoes. Yes, we do grow these crops every year, but this abundance allowed us to tuck away a little extra for ourselves, our family, and friends…all of which are very important to us! Plus with the rising costs of everything….having food that we grew definitely helps!

The whole reason we began to farm was to feed our family clean food and every year through prayer and hard work we get better at it. We couldn’t be more grateful!

Right now in both our home and farm gardens we have loads of tomatoes in all shapes, sizes, and colors. This is a win for us because it’s literally the most tomatoes that we’ve ever grown. Even the tomato trials are looking very promising. What is a trial, you ask? Well we love adding new items to the farm and running trials is how we see what will grow well in both our soil and in our area.

Sadly, when you have an abundance there is usually a failure somewhere and this season it was eggplants. Last year we took a cross country trip in the Summer and ended up with way too many eggplants that we could not sell. So we decided to cut back. That decision looks like we won’t have very many eggplants to offer, but farming has so many factors and sometimes the best thing you can do is just simply try again.

We planted a late crop of corn in our home garden and so far it’s doing well. We ended up having to fence around it because someone in the area has a rouge chicken who thinks she can come over to eat. We think we know where she came from and have attempted to catch her, but she is a fast one. For now, we’ll just keep shooing her away.

In poultry news, our flock is getting a much needed refresh. This means new chicks are on the way and there will be eggs in abundance just in time for Spring of next year. I know you must be thinking that is so far away, but hens take between 4-6 months to mature and began laying. Since that puts us right in Winter, the abundance of eggs will be here in the Spring.

Coming up next month we will begin to order and advertise our Turkey Day Birds. These go quick and we have customers who reserve more than one. We order based off of what we can handle and what our family will need so they are very limited. If you would like to support our farm and have a delicious pasture raised turkey for your big meal, be on the look out on our social pages and here as well. Then order early!

In addition to turkeys, we will be welcoming back our pasture raised meat birds as well. Our next harvest is due in the Fall and we will open up pre-orders for those in July as well.

Did you know that Kith & Kin Fall Season dates have been announced and membership is open? Well now you do! This really is the best way to eat local and fresh by having the farm brought to you.

Last month we mentioned that we would be setting up at The Enterprise Farmers Market and I want to give you an update and say that is still in the plans, but we are trying to figure out dates while I heal. So stay tuned.

We did get to go and support Bain Home Gardens this past weekend at the local Market in Dothan. They have been cooking up some new items and have just recently became Certified Naturally Grown for their chickens too! It’s only right that since they were the first farm in our area to become certified for their produce that they were for their flock as well. We applaud them and will continue to support them. We hope you will too!

Alright, now that we are all caught up as always I want to thank you for being the best part of Hawkins Homestead Farm and we hope to see you soon. Until then…..

Hello Farm Family! Wow! Today has been a busy day! (Originally started this segment on 4/30). Thankfully, it was the kind of busy that we actually enjoyed. Can you guess why? Ok…..we’ll tell you. We participated in our first Farmers Market in over 2 years! It was absolutely amazing to be back out in the community and we quickly realized just how much we’ve missed it. We were both so excited that we completely forgot to take pictures, but we did share a quick live video to our page before the rain came in. We made our crowd pleasing lemonade and were delighted to see some familiar faces who came to get a cup or three!

A huge shout out goes to Louis at 2 The Olive Fruit for inviting us. We want to say thank you him and to all who came out and supported this Market. We look forward to many more this year.

So the next logical question is where right? Well we know for sure that we are planning to participate at The Enterprise Farmers Market, but dates are TBD. Today we learned about many other events and the plan is to fill our calendars up.

Speaking of Enterprise, we learned from the market manager that Thursdays are one of the days that are available for us to choose from. Our question is would we have the support needed to make the drive and spend the time there? Of course its been a while, but if our customers up that way would like to have us, we would love to do so!

As a matter of fact, a new Summer Share was just announced with Kith & Kin CSA, and we could open up membership to Enterprise residents who would like to pick up during the Thursday market. If you’re a family who would love to join, drop us a line using our contact page.

Last month we about talked how ”April showers bring May flowers” and our home garden as well as the farm are just beaming with blossoms. Admittedly, some of those blossoms are crops that have gone to seed, but we don’t mind. Allowing crops to seed gives us the opportunity to feed the bees and add to our growing collection of saved seeds. This is something we’ve grown to love because we are collecting heirloom varieties that can be planted for many years to come and doing so also helps us save money in the long run…..which is vital to small farms like ours.

Speaking of saving money…..Have you started your garden yet? If your answer is no, It’s not too late to start now. With the rising prices of groceries, everyday necessities, and gas one way to save money may be to grow your own garden this year. Remember that the key is to start small. It’s very easy to get over excited which always leads to being overwhelmed when it comes to growing. So with the hot weather on its way think about what plants love the heat and plan on planting them. Of course your local farmers have your back if you don’t have the time or a green thumb to get it done, so don’t sweat it. We do still have a few plants available to help you start your garden and throughout the season and we will be starting more.

On a sad note we saw our very first garden pest of the season the other day while irrigating the farm. It was a pretty good size stink bug hanging out on our tomatoes and that means there are more on the way. With my chemical sensitivities and our farm being Certified Naturally Grown there are limitations on what methods we use to control garden pests. One thing that has been very effective for us has been the use of essential oils in the garden. This is a subject that we’ve studied up on and it’s been both mind blowing and cool to learn about how nature can be used to control….. nature.

OK so let me tell you all about what’s growing. In both our home and farm gardens and we have many tomatoes, peppers, okra, squash, and beans.

This month we will be harvesting both potatoes and onions. At our house we go through onions super fast so we are stoked about being able to have a fresh batch of our own again this year. The ones shown below are from previous years.

Potatoes never seem to last for long so we are planning to run a trial in the late Summer-Fall in hopes to harvest more this year. We are currently running trials on some new tomato varieties and will be doing the same with peppers over the next month. It’s always our goal to bring something fresh and new to the Wiregrass plus we like a challenge.

Do you have a favorite that you’d like us to grow? Please sure to let us know! For now we say thank you for being here and well see you soon. Until then…….

You know the saying ”April showers bring May flowers?” I feel like it specifically applies to us here in the Wiregrass. I say that because April has really proven itself to be the month of rain. Now please don’t misunderstand, we love the rain. It is absolutely necessary for everything to grow, thrive, and be beautiful on the farm.

The issue is when the rain becomes excessive. Too much water can lead to all types of problems for farmers. Think of it this way…..many of us have had house plants right? You know the one’s that we’ve watered to death. Well in the same way excessive rain could lead to pests, disease, and death.

In previous years we’ve had to secure both our crops and our flocks from excessive rain by setting up rain barriers. You probably read “rain barrier” and immediately went to something elaborate or expensive. Well the good news is that it doesn’t have to be.

If you’re growing a garden this year, our suggestion is to start small. With just a few pieces of PVC and a tarp you can create your own simple rain barrier. These items are especially beneficial for crops already planted in the ground. Do you own a tent? Well set it up and put your plant babies under it. This is not a long term solution, but it will temporarily protect plants that you want to prevent from taking on too much rain. We go through so much to get this food to grow and the point is to eat it, not see it and all your hard work go to waste.

From the looks of recent news reports, growing a garden will be especially important this year. Fuel is high, materials are higher, and it will likely only get worse.

We would like to thank everyone for coming out to our Plant Sale. We enjoyed meeting you and appreciate your continued support. More plants will be listed over on our garden page soon. So stay tuned.

It’s Spring and for us that means root crops. We are expecting potatoes, onions, and more. Most of which will be stored and saved for use throughout the year. The onions we grew last Spring nearly made it to this season. We were pleasantly surprised and can’t wait to see what this crop does.

Since we farm small, it’s important that we farm smart. This means keeping costs low. Last year we purchased a few pieces of beautiful cedar that we were hoping to utilize for our sweet potatoes. Long story short….the potatoes never arrived and although the box was put together, we have yet to use it. Our hope was to convert all the boxes to cedar as our current ones have ran their course, but of course the cost of wood sky rocketed and we were faced with a real dilemma. After much consideration we decided to convert the boxes into a permanent no till garden space. We are proud and excited to tell you that this is the second one on the farm!! We converted our main garden a few years and its worked out so well. Removing the boxes has not only opened up more space, but the benefits of no till gardening are outstanding and we couldn’t be more happier about that.

We recently said goodbye to collards to make space for Summer crops. We’ve began transplanting cucumbers and will soon begin to add in many squash varieties, herbs, and tomatoes.

We previously shared with you that our flock is older and we weren’t expecting many eggs this season. Well to our surprise, the hens have so far proved us all the way wrong and are laying better than expected!! We will not be posting them on the site just yet, but you can be sure that we will have eggs at any events we participate in this year.

Speaking of events……we hope you will join us along with a few other vendors for Farmers Day at 2 The Olive Fruit on Saturday April 30th. The times are TBD, but please keep a watch here and our Facebook page for updates. This will be our first real event in over 2 years so we’re excited and nervous all at the same. We hope to see you there!

If you happen to be on the search for farm fresh goodness, we have some goodies in store for you with our Seasonal Farm Boxes. The best part about these boxes is that not only are they Certified Naturally Grown from organic seed, but that they are local! This means that you are keeping your hard earned dollars in your community, your farmers in business, and getting what’s in season. Every box we deliver is harvested to order. so it’s always fresh. Not to mention, the less produce has to travel the more taste and nutrients it retains.

As always we appreciate you being the best part of our farm and we will chat with you soon. Until then……

Helllooooo farm family! Are you all enjoying this switch in the weather as much as we are? It’s like Spring has pushed Winter out the way and decided to show up and show out. I say Spring, but really some of these temperatures really feel like Summer.

On the farm there is so much going on. We have our home garden, but over this past year we have began farming another location so we’re so thankful for. Of course, a new year means a new planting season and ours is currently moving along very well. Are you planning to grow a garden this year? Perhaps you’re just starting or maybe you’re seasoned, but would love to expand and grow even more. Well we are super excited to tell you that not only are we bringing back our plant sale, but we will also be offering compost as well. The sale will be ongoing throughout the month of March beginning with tomatoes. We will be updating the site weekly with peppers, herbs, and more as the month continues. You can find what we have available here. We may have a local pick up option, but that is to be determined. If you do decide to purchase and have paid for home delivery, we will gladly bring the plants to you.

This year, we are looking forward to getting back out in the community. I cannot say for sure exactly when this will be, but we are praying about it and will continue to do so. Farmers Markets and vendor events have always been something we’ve enjoyed and so we are stoked to be getting back out there. We will still be taking basic safety precautions such as hand sanitizing and wearing a mask, but we will keep you updated on when and where you can find us as the year progresses.

In chicken news I have to confess and tell you all that I love my birds and I have kept them way too long. As a result, egg production is low so you may not find eggs on our site this season. We are in the process of developing a new flock and are excited to bring the variety of birds and egg colors we have come to be known for. Sadly, the private breeder we’ve used in the past moved on so finding non hatchery birds with good genetics has been more than difficult to say the least.

As far as our pastured birds go I can tell you that no one is more excited than I am to be able to eat our own pastured meats again! We will be running a trial to see how these birds do in their new space, but if everything goes well we will begin offering our birds once again and accepting deposits for them.

Did you know that today is the last day to become a member of Kith & Kin CSA? Membership closes early to allow for us to have the opportunity to plan and grow exactly what we need for our members. If you’re interested in learning more, you can find the information here and purchase through this link.

We thank you for being here with us. Whether you enjoy these articles, the photos, our social, are new to shopping with us, or have shopped with us for years. We hope you will continue to stick around.

We will chat with you again next month, if not before. Until then……