Nightshade Ranch

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Roy, WA
Nightshade Ranch

A small farm and nursery near Roy, Washington.

07/28/2021

Another day in bunny heaven. We have some apple trees that tend to over produce. It weighs down their branches and can cause them to break, and the fruit doesn't develop as well. So around this time of year, not only do they have sweet cherries raining down on them from huge trees, they also get any unripe culled apples and pears. As well as any overripe fruit that falls to the ground in their run. Or anything on a low enough branch to reach on their tippy toes! No wasted food, no bad apples.

This is Freedom, a retired breeder, and one of my original rabbits.

07/24/2021

Fingerling potatoes! Still small, but a few "big" ones larger than what I planted. These were just a few grocery store fingerling potatoes that didn't get eaten fast enough, so I stuck them in the garden. Now they're going to be Saturday lunch! We had a few with some rodent nibbles, but not enough to worry about a far as I'm concerned!

07/21/2021

No filters! Some of these nasturtiums are almost painfully vibrant! My camera doesn't even fully pick it up.

07/06/2021

My tricolor buck, Spot! 9.6lbs, purebred. Wishing I could get some more babies out of him before I gets hot again! Last 5 photos are from his last litter. He'll be having more this fall.

06/27/2021

Another great little perk of such intensive planting. Lots of cool, shady shelter for my best garden helpers. No filters on these pics, this little pal is just the perfect shade of green to hide in the shade of these nasturtiums!

Stay cool tiny comrade!🐸

06/21/2021

This is my first year starting with regenerative gardening. This 13x37' space was prepared mostly over the last year. We tilled the space to get rid of rocks and loosen the soil. Then covered with rabbit compost (pine pellets, hay, rabbit p**p), and turned over well by chickens until just before planting. The growth is absolutely mindblowing!

I'm doing a lot of interplanting this year, also a first for me! It's addictive, I want to fill ALL THE SPACE! The beans are coming up in the 3 Sisters mounds. There's some in with the potatoes too, but the foliage is so dense, they're pale and hardly getting any light 😅. Onions are in there too, and doing well.

My tomatoes will almost certainly be a flop this year... or will they??? They were an experiment this year, started from seed in the unheated greenhouse, planted out when still very tiny. They're still tiny, but they're starting to put on flowers! They're indeterminate. A few cherries, some other various medium to large. I'm hoping to find a variety l can grow from seed right in the ground here in zone 8b without fiddling with them through the winter. Between all of my sad little tomato plants are basil and garlic. I need to get that space filled in!

I will never stop suggesting rabbits to new homesteaders, first animals at the same time as chickens. Even if you don't eat them, the value they add to your soil is well worth keeping a few. And there's so many things you can grow for them to reduce (or possibly even eliminate) your feed bill.

06/09/2021

I always see people asking, "how can I have free range chickens and still have a nice garden?", and the most common answers generally equate to "you can't!".

But here I have a few nice little creeping perennial plants that not only have stood up to chicken destruction, it's actually helped them spread!

This is a clover (trifolium repens) variety called "coco mint". It's a hardy perennial that is easy to get spreading. Just cover a node with a little dirt and a little rock, and you're off! This clover is one of my favorite plants ever! Very frequent four (or more!) leafed clovers. 🍀

The bright green mossy stuff is "scotch moss" (Sagina subulata), which is not really a moss at all. It's been extremely hardy, even in the worst places we've put it. And if a chicken (or escaped rabbit!) beats up on it, each of the little shreds that come off can root, and start a new plant! It's a bit slow growing, but worth it.

Creeping thyme. I don't remember if it's technically "red" or "purple", but it makes a beautiful, tough carpet. Not much in the way of fragrance or flavor with this thyme, but a great hardy ground cover.

There's also a few varieties of sedum that have been kicked around, scattered and replanted by the chickens! These were from assorted sedum flats planted last year. Most of them got destroyed, but these are the survivors!

05/31/2021

Exercising the chubby bunny. Belladonna the Flemish Giant will work for pets! She'll be back to a healthy weight in no time.

05/16/2021

Big thanks to Belle's Bunnies for my new English Lop beauty, Tiana!

05/13/2021

Skittles is certain she's going to have babies, so she's building a nest. She's not pregnant, but you can't tell her that!

05/03/2021

Sunny spring afternoons in the big colony. Mature does and a couple of neutered bucks.

05/01/2021

Nightshade Ranch is a small farm and nursery near Roy, Washington. We currently breed rex rabbits, and will be adding more breeds in the future! The nursery focuses on permaculture landscape plants for zone 8b, as well as bold sparkly houseplants such as rex begonias and tradescantia.

Address

Out In The Woods
Roy, WA
98580

Telephone

+13462985806

Website

https://www.instagram.com/nightshaderanch

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Another day in bunny heaven. We have some apple trees that tend to over produce. It weighs down their branches and can cause them to break, and the fruit doesn't develop as well. So around this time of year, not only do they have sweet cherries raining down on them from huge trees, they also get any unripe culled apples and pears. As well as any overripe fruit that falls to the ground in their run. Or anything on a low enough branch to reach on their tippy toes! No wasted food, no bad apples. This is Freedom, a retired breeder, and one of my original rabbits. . . . . . #homestead #homesteading #rabbits #rabbitry #rabbitcolony #bunnies #meatrabbits #farmtotable #washington #summer #pnw #apples #orchard #feed #natural #naturalliving #organic #meat #treat #spoiled #livestock #colonyrabbits