Hobby Farms

These hearty and filling scrambled egg, sweet potato and black bean breakfast bowls come together quickly for a morning meal to warm you up and power you through a busy day. The sweet potatoes are precooked in the microwave to soften them before they are chopped and browned in a skillet with onions and black beans. Cook 2 to 3 more minutes, until the edges of most of the potato pieces are browned. Top with an equal amount of eggs (2 eggs for each person).

Lettuce is fairly easy to sell in the early spring when people are itching for greens, but it can also be a surprisingly easy crop to grow over winter for early spring with a couple of big “ifs”—if you plant it early enough (December or January for March and April); and if you have a way to keep it well protected from frost and snow. So late January is a good time as long as you have a covered place to grow it because, like lettuce, sturdy hoops and some plastic or heavy row-cover might be sufficient in places with moderate to low snow fall. Every year when we plant garlic we also plant a section very tightly for what is called green garlic—essentially under-mature garlic that looks very much like a leek but tastes like delicious garlic. I highly recommend planting a single round early (January or February when even radishes will take two months unless supplemental heat is provided) and under cover, then planting in small successions every week to guarantee a consistent harvest.

The female mosquito bites to obtain a blood meal in order to lay eggs. How to Keep Mosquitoes Away You can buy a bunch of mosquito-repelling devices, but few can control the mosquito population in your yard. Empty outdoor water toys, wheelbarrows and other outdoor tools that can hold water after a rainfall. It seems like some people are more prone to mosquito bites than others.

As I wheeled my cart past the bins of bulk bird seed, I heard the unmistakable peeping of baby chicks. A tank of golden baby chicks misidentified as Barred Rocks (Barred Rock chicks are black with creamy underbellies and a creamy white spot on their heads). A tank of sandy-beige chicks misidentified as Plymouth Blues (the breed/variety is Blue Plymouth Rocks; the chicks are very similar in appearance to Barred [Plymouth] Rocks). In addition to pointing out the incorrect signs, I patiently explained to her that the sales associate unpacking chicks had informed a little girl and her grandfather that the bantams she was unboxing would indeed grow up to be full-size chickens