While urban farming is a year-round pursuit, the fall and winter months bring a slowing of backyard farming activity. By now our gardens are harvested and ready for the winter. If you want to plant a cover crop, we do have some buckwheat left. But if you want to let your garden sleep for the winter, try turning it over to your chickens for the next couple weeks. They will eat the unharvested veggies, till up the soil and add some valuable compost. Once they have turned the whole garden over, come in for a bale of straw to spread over the surface.
Of course while many chickens slow down or even stop their laying, they still need to eat all winter. We are open year round to take care of your backyard flock’s changing dietary needs.
We are busy planning for next spring by looking at which chicken breeds we will make available. If you have any special requests, please let us know. We now keep ducks at the store and are enjoying them so much that we will sell ducklings in the spring.
And we are happy to announce that we will be carrying top bar bee hives. By the first week of December we will have several top bar hives to choose from including Warre and Kenya style hives as well as suits, veils, gloves, smokers hive tools.
What was once an auto repair garage is now growing into an urban farming supply store. The joys and benefits of growing our own food can be enjoyed regardless of whether we live in the country or in the city. The Eugene Backyard Farmer wants to make urban homesteading as accessible as possible.
While backyard farming is not a new idea its popularity has grown over the past few years. Concerns about the quality of our food and how food gets to us has forced us to ask a lot of hard questions. Now simply buying organic may not be enough to bring about the type of change in food production that we need. Growing your own is becoming the answer more and more.
Backyard farming can take many forms and can consist of several aspects. Gardening, composting and raising chickens is the easiest and most enjoyable way of building a backyard farm. Our gardens produce healthy and fresh produce and the remains are feed to the chickens. The chickens give us safe and delicious eggs as well as manure. The excess garden and chicken waste is then composted to give our garden the strength it needs to continue to give us fresh and healthy produce. And the cycle continues.
For The Eugene Backyard Farmer, it all starts with chickens. The popularity of backyard chickens is so strong that we see the need for an urban feed store. We simply have all you need to raise the most healthy eggs possible. Baby chicks are sold between early February and mid September. We have a wide selection of feed including local, sustainable, organic and affordable. In addition we have equipment, treats and even household decorations to help you enjoy the life of a backyard chicken farmer.
We are a small store and will take the time to answer your questions. We want your urban farming experience to be as successful as possible so we make the commitment to help you with some of the challenges you might have.
Whether you’re an old-hand homesteader, or new to it and curious, we hope that you will visit.
