Life in a Day of a First Year Farmer

I wake up at 5.45am. Sometimes I snooze once or twice, but I'm up by 6. The very first thing I do after waking up is let the chickens loose. Chickens are very excited to be out every single morning. They flap their wings and they run towards something they really like. It's all the bugs under the mat in front of the workshop, because they know bugs like to hide there. I pull the mat and they go bananas for the bugs. Feeding chickens is one of the most pleasurable things I do in a day. I mix down with the grains in the pitcher and they all follow. After feeding the chickens, I spare some time to myself. This is the time I use to watch the sunrise in peace. I find that morning is the most peaceful time of the day. I reflect on where I have been. I reflect on what has got me here and what I need to plan for the day. I used to have an IT job, a desk job. No windows, just a computer screen. I liked what I did and I really liked the people that I worked with, but I craved the connection with nature. One of my passions is photography and videography, so I would go on hikes, usually with my co-workers and my friends, and I would photograph nature. But going once a week or once in two weeks was just not enough. I wanted a lifestyle that's connected with nature, in balance with nature, on nature's way of life. After having breakfast, I feed the bees. I make sure that they have enough water because when it gets hot, they use the water to cool down their hives. And depending on the time of the year, if there aren't enough flowers around, I also give them a little bit of the sugar water so they have some food to eat. I put pebbles in the water just to make sure that they do not drown in the water. They like to sit on the pebbles and then drink up the water. In the morning, I also water my plants and my trees. To check the condition of my drip lines and to make sure there aren't any leaks, I fly my drone in the morning, usually every two to three days, and I fly on top of each one of the rows and make sure all the drip lines are okay and all the sprinklers are working fine. While flying my drone on each one of the rows, I can see the dabs made by the emitters on the drip lines. And I can also see any leaks. As you can see, there's a leak right there. Here's the leak that I saw from the drone, and it's made quite a pool of water. I found the nick in the line, put a coupling on there, secured it with some wire, and it's all good to go. I then go pick fruits and vegetables. We have lots of strawberries growing. We have 1,200 plants of strawberries in four rows. Well, look at the size of this one. That's a nice strawberry. And there's another one hiding behind, a little smaller, but these are really good eating. You know, there's nothing like eating a fresh, ripe strawberry right from your garden. Check out the inside. This strawberry is delicious, way better than any store-bought strawberry I've ever tried in my entire life. Then I pick the rest of the produce from our farm. We are growing okra, we are growing lots of tomatoes, we are growing cucumbers, and we pick a lot of produce every single day. The heirloom tomatoes that you grow organically, without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, taste absolutely delicious. These don't taste like water. They actually taste like tomatoes. I first started gardening back in 2008 when I bought my house. I wanted to buy a house with the biggest lot possible. So I bought a house with a quarter of an acre lot. I've always been interested in growing my own produce because my great-grandfather would tell me how he used to garden, how he grew tomatoes, cantaloupes, and cucumbers that tasted absolutely delicious. He never liked store-bought produce that were grown using conventional techniques, using chemical fertilizers, because he grew all of his stuff organically and he knew what it tasted like. He was too old to garden when I was little. He lived up to be 96. But he always used to say, a farmer only needs three friends, earthworms, honey bees, and ladybugs. I now know why. While earthworms make organic fertilizer, bees pollinate the flowers, and ladybugs control the pests. I thought to myself, why aren't we gardening or farming like this now? I make my own compost, and I add kitchen scraps to my compost pile, and usually turn my compost pile every three to four days. I also have earthworms in a worm bin, and I feed them kitchen scraps and also make sure they have enough moisture as well. I then go to our greenhouse and I water the trees that need to be planted, and I also water our seedlings. In the first couple of years of gardening, I made quite a few mistakes, but then I got a hang on how to grow food organically. In 2016, I created a YouTube channel, Daisy Creek Farms, to share the knowledge I've learned, and also to encourage others to grow organic produce. Now after 12 years of gardening, my wife and I have taken a really big step in our lives. We have bought a 20-acre farmland to build an organic you-pick farm. We are working on creating 150 different kinds of fruits and vegetables where you can come in and pick your own organic produce. Basically, it'll be like a grocery store that's all organic and it contains a variety of fruits and vegetables depending on the season, and you can come in and pick your fresh produce right off the plants. It has been my dream to build such a farm that is in harmony with nature, where chickens roam free and provide organic fertilizer, earthworms make the soil living, rich in organic matter, bees pollinate the flowers, and beneficial insects thrive. These fresh cucumbers are really good eating. All of this goes to the worm bin or the compost pile. I store eggshells, crush them, and use them in gardening as well. The eggs and potatoes go in the plate, all the stir-fresh potatoes, and then I top it off with some cheese, and then some salt and pepper. This is real food. And the taste is beyond this world. I usually spend my afternoon editing YouTube videos and planning for the farm. In the evenings, I make YouTube videos because the light is great and I take advantage of the golden hour. Hello everyone, this is Jag. In this video... I also do weeding, staking, and pruning in the evening as well. I check the health of the plants and make sure the plants are healthy. We planted four acres of stone fruits. This includes cherries, peaches, nectarines, plums, and apricots. I take my moisture sensing instrument and I make a strategy on how often and how much to water the trees. What do I fear the most? Well, it's something that I think about every single day, and that's the fear of running out of fresh water. Well, 70% of earth's surface is covered in water, but only 1% of that is fresh water. But most of the fresh water is either locked up in aquifers underground and is locked up in polar ice. So only 1-2% of fresh water is easily accessible. And looking at how much we are using fresh water and how little of an importance we give to conserving fresh water and how much we are wasting fresh water, I do fear that one day we will run out of fresh water. In the evenings, I also get on my tractor and it is a lot of fun to drive tractors. Since we are certified organic, I only use organic fertilizer. I'm either spreading cow manure, compost, or I'm spreading pelletry chicken manure. Here I'm spreading gypsum, which adds calcium to the soil and also makes soil more permeable. In the evening, it is time to feed the chickens again. They go for the grains right from the pitcher. Come on! Chickens are very calming and make great pets. There's one thing I do not skip in the evening, and that's watching the sunset. When my wife is not working, usually my wife and I watch the sunset together. This is the time I take to reflect on the future. What is to come? What do I need to plan? What kind of world do I want to live in? What kind of world do I want my kids to grow up in? That's the kind of world I want to work hard to build. If we all do a little bit every day to make this world a better place, to have understanding with each other and with nature, this world would be a far better place. This is the world we should be proud to live in because this is our home, our own planet earth.