breafast Time

Week old chickens at breakfast

The Education of the Chicken

I was out feeding and watering the chickens, who are all 4 days old as of yesterday, and I noticed they had figured out that insects are good to eat. This is a good sign that this batch of chickens will do well on pasture. That they will eat more than the grain they are given 2 to 3 times a day. That they will eat various bugs and lots of greens such as red and white clover (clover is amazingly high in protein, around 18%). That they will move their bodies around.

Most chickens raised on pasture are in a brooder house for the first 4 to 5 weeks of their lives. they are not outside on pasture and thus miss out on that important window of opportunity to learn to eat things other than chicken feed. From watching hens raise chicks I have figured out that the first 5 or 6 days are an important learning time and again at around 2 to 3 weeks they have another big learning spurt. Chicks brooded indoors miss both of those opportunities and when they are put on pasture for the last 3 to 4 weeks of their lives they do little more than sit around in the shade until grain is brought to to them. Than they slowly waddle over to the chicken feed and gorge themselves.

Ours, because they are out on pasture from day one (we rig up a heat lamp in one of the tractors to keep them warm enough) they are physically active throughout their short lives. They eat a lot of natural food (up to 25% of their diet is bugs and pasture-because they are a hybrid they really do need the rest of their diet to be the 25% protein feed ration they get or they will start to die).

It is fascinating to watch them learn how to be chickens. It is amazing how much seems to be innate behavior. The pullets, even though they are only a few days old, know to scratch in the dirt to find bugs. The boys are not as quick to catch on to this behavior but they will in another few days. I have also seen them start learning to fly (an idea that will be aborted in a few weeks when they get too big for their wings). They seem to be at their happiest when trying to fly (though eating is a close second). for the next 2 weeks they will have fully fledged wings that will allow then to get a few inches off the ground for up to 2 feet. That reality will come crashing down and their bodies will get too big for flight (but they will still extend and flap their wings and run around like children pretending to fly).

I had forgotten how much fun having chickens is. Of course, with the threat of NAIS Looming I doubt we will get laying hens again and we may have to resort to killing our own birds in the future so we can fly under the NAIS radar. Since we do not intend to raise poultry for public sale that may work for us. Slaughtering chickens is not the nicest job in the world, especially when you do not have all the equipment such as plucker and the proper knives. I would really like to avoid having to do my own killing and cleaning but the fact is that all processors will be requiring NAIS ID numbers in order to start a job and if we do not get our premises registered and the chickens ID numbers that we cannot get them processed at any state or USDA inspected plant. So it will likely be home processing in the future.

Perhaps NAIS will become such a white elephant the gummint will dump the whole idea and we will not have to be so hassled. But I am not holding my breath.

Chickens!

We got chicks today. This is the first time in almost two years we have raised poultry. Here is a video of their first day on Boulder Belt pasture

Now We are Merely Whelmed

Yesterday was overwhelming but today was merely whelming.

We had a lot of help from Sarah our twice a week volunteer for the next 3 weeks. She has an excellent work ethic and helped us get more garlic out of the ground and put up in racks to cure. We also got nearly 40 half pints of raspberries picked, all the shallots harvested, all the tomatoes tied for the second time, a hoop house frame removed from the tomato/pepper/basil beds it was covering about 7 weeks ago, catnip harvested and now Eugene is weed eating around garden beds and where the chicks will be come tomorrow afternoon. He'd mow but the mower is still without a belt and now is covered in drying garlic.

Oh yeah, and got a bunch of stuff harvested for the farm Share members. Boy, they got a nice share this week. Lots of nice food including green and wax beans, garlic, cabbage, zucchini, arugula, scallions, oregano, tarragon, snow peas, raspberries, strawberries and kale.

I would not say we are exactly caught up. But only because from now until sometime in September we will never feel caught up as there are always a 100 things to do, it seems. But things are under control and no longer overwhelming

Overwhelmed

Life is getting overwhelming. Lots of big harvest jobs have all come in at once. Lots of mowing needs to be done so a belt on the mower had the excellent timing to break this evening. Though Eugene did get about an acre mowed before it broke. But now he will have to run into town to buy a replacement.

The raspberries are going nuts. I picked 20 half pints and that was maybe 1/3 of them. There will be more to harvest tomorrow. Along with beans, cucumbers, zucchini, strawberries and other things to harvest.

There is the farm share to deal with-A news letter needs to be written tonight or early tomorrow (tomorrow morning is looking more and more likely). I do have a food list in mind. hopefully the market garden is in agreement.

There is food to be put up for winter. I did get snap peas frozen but raspberry jam needs to be made ASAP and that takes several hours to do. I will likely be freezing beans in the next several days if I can find the time.

Beds need tilling for fall crops. Eugene says there are about 35 beds that need crops taken out or tilled in and than prepped for carrots, rutabagas, beets, etc,.

Tomatoes need tying. Fortunately I was able to get 2/3 of the tomatoes tied this morning-around 300 of them. They do look good and one already has a tiny mater on it.

To make life more overwhelming we are getting chickens tomorrow. 50 day old peeps that in 6 to 8 weeks will be in our freezer for our personal use. At least we are prepared for them. Have feed, a brooder tractor, feeders, waterers, etc.. The chickens will suck at least an hour a day from other tasks (but they are fun to have) which will continue the overwhelmed feeling we are having here.

At least the hot humid weather has been replaced by crisp cool weather. And we have a lot of good things to eat (If I ever get the time to cook)

Raspberry World

The raspberry season has begun. As usual it starts small and slowly builds until my life is consumed by red raspberries for about 6 weeks.

Today I picked 1/2 pint, tomorrow it will likely be 3x that amount and by this time next week I should be harvesting about 10 to 20 1/2 pints a day. By the end of the month it will be about 50 1/2 pints a day. Maybe more as the plants are a lot bigger this year and are loaded with berries that undoubtedly will get big because now that spring is just about over we have lots and lots of rain, which the berries need in abundance to be big and sweet.



I took this photo in early May. At this point the canes were about the same height as they were last year. Since than they have put on an addition 2 feet of height and back towards the middle (where they already had started to lean into the aisle way) the canes have pretty much collapsed for about 25 feet. I have tied them up with bailing twine but it is still a mess back in there and will be a bitch to harvest but by no means impossible. And hey, they are thornless canes so no biggie.

I have been amazed at the variety of pollenators on these plants. Every kind of bee we have around here (at least 10 species) has been busy collecting nectar and pollen along with various moths and butterflies. I have noticed that the squash vine borers love the raspberry flowers and seem to get drunk on the nectar making them very easy to grab and squish. Normally it is hard to catch these moths as they are very fast and agile. This is something I really love about harvesting raspberries is watching all the activity in the canes. Spiders, daddy Long legs, flies, plant pests, preying mantids, wheel bugs, bees, moths, butterflies all either live there or come by to visit. I find evidence of great drama that has happened in the raspberry world. Husks of bug and spider bodies, a Daddy long legs sucking a plant bug dry (okay on that one I got to witness the drama), wheel bugs lying in wait for their next victim. For a bug nerd such as myself it is a fascinating world.

We have a small amount available at the store today and certainly will have a nice amount for the Saturday farmers Market in Oxford. The farm share members will start to see the raspberries in their shares starting next week.

What doesn't sell will either be made into raspberry jam (which will be available at the store eventually) or frozen for later use-mainly frozen rum drinks and yogurt smoothies.

May Farm Share Pot Luck and Farm Tour

Glenn Platt, Patricia Platt, patty Latham, Jim Latham (behind Patty) and Eugene Contemplating the beer in his hand.

We had our first Farm Share Potluck and farm tour on May 24th, 2009. 4 of the 13 member families showed up so we have 12 people for the event.

The weather was iffy. Dark clouds threatened to rain on our farm tour and dinner (and this would not have been a bad thing as we really needed the rain-still do). But the rain held off.

At 5pm most of the people had arrived and we did introductions and set off to look at the market garden. A lot of member were impressed that we get so much food out of just 4 acres. This makes me think of the very first CSA farm tour and dinner we did about 12 years ago and everyone than was impressed with how big the market garden was-we were doing just over an acre and our members had it in their heads that were farming a much, much smaller space (like the size of a largish home garden).

Lots of good questions were asked and the Platt's son, Duncan, fell in love with the asparagus beetle larva as only a 7 year old boy can. He asked if he could collect some and we said take as many as you want. So he got a lot and later wanted to take them home-they stayed here.

After the farm tour we all sat down and ate the food everyone brought and drank apple cider and some of Eugene's home brews. Dinner consisted of a big salad I made, garlic mustard pesto over rotini, a nice paella, cheeses from a small place in Wisconsin and cookies.

Genevieve O'Mally at the table, Duncan and Eric playing on the swing and Glenn looking off in the distance

There was lots of good conversation-we have an interesting and well educated bunch. The main topics were the farm, organic growing and local foods. But we talked about other things as well.

The Lathams, Art and Nancy Glidden and Eugene

After Dinner, Nancy Glidden did a short but sweet herb vinegar demonstration using our tarragon and her chive flowers. She supplied everything so we could all make a small jar of each kind of vinegar. it was fun, educational and amazingly simple. Now we all have yet another way to put up herbs for later use other than drying and freezing.

Nancy Glidden giving her herbed vinegar demo. Genevieve, Patty and Jim are making their own vinegars

Our next farm share potluck and farm tour is June 21st, the summer solstice. If you want to join us for such an event all you have to do is join our farm share program

The Basset Hound

Interesting day.

had a stray basset hound show up in the morning while we were foliar feeding some of the crops and weeding. He crossed 127 and almost got hit several times before making onto our farm, driving our dogs nuts. He was not a stranger to us as yesterday a couple of women drove up with him and asked if he were ours. They said they stopped and picked him because he was trying to cross 127 going towards us so assumed he was our dog. We told them to check out a couple of farms on Kayler Rd and they did and the dog was gone until this morning.

So the basset somehow got behind the fence with our dogs and seemed to have a whee of a time with them all morning and a good bit of the afternoon. Finally we decided he had to go and through a series of events he ended up going to the PC Humane Society shelter with a concerned woman in a black truck.

We thought that would be the end of it until around 6pm the dog's owner shows up looking for her basset. We told her he was at the no kill shelter. She was not happy about that. But we told her we did not know where he lived, that this was the second day he had visited us and perhaps she should confine the animal. She told us Willie (we now have a name) was a rescue (we could see he had been badly treated recently) and she felt bad about chaining him up as that is how he had been treated. But if she does not tie Willie up or put him in a kennel he will continue to follow her out her driveway and get on the highway and will likely get hit. or live with us part time, something we do not want as we really don't want to deal with training another dog to be a Boulder Belt dog right now. Or at least Eugene doesn't as he seems to think 3 dogs is more than enough (he is forgetting how much protection those dogs give us and the garden against all sorts of critters and the fact we have two old dogs that will not be around for much longer and they will do a lot to help train a youngster). Me I could easily have a couple more dogs, though I think I would like at least one to be on the small side.

Where is Boulder Belt? Or Why Geography is Important

I am more and more amazed at how bad Americans are at geography. Over the years because our farm name has the word "boulder" in it I get a lot of hits on the Boulder Belt Farm Website (not so much on this blog) from Colorado. I understand that when you Google "Boulder farm share" or "Boulder Organic" or "Boulder Farms" you will get links to Boulder Belt Farm. That said, in the Google description it clearly says that BBF is in SW Ohio and yet they still visit looking for local food information for Boulder Colorado. Okay, but when I get emails and better yet phone calls I have to wonder if people have any clue exactly where in the USA Ohio is. I wonder because every page of the website says at the top Eaton, OH.

-Yes I realize the above paragraph will drive Coloradans to this site-

Today I get an e-mail via Local harvest from a person in Lexington, Ky (which is about 1100 miles closer to us than Colorado) wondering about joining the Farm share Initiative. I wrote back to the person and told her we are 3.5 hours north of her and that she would do better to look for more local food venues-a closer CSA or farmers markets. And in the past 2 or 3 weeks I have had a couple of queries from Colorado about the farm share initiative.

This would not be bothering me so much except Dear Abby today was all about Americans not knowing where the 50 states are located or even that states like Minnesota, New Mexico or Delaware are states. I am a bit of a geography nerd-give me an atlas and I am happy for days or even weeks on end. I was the lone person in my field archaeology class who thought that learning to use a transit and than after we used to transit learned how to plug the raw numbers we got into equations (and I have a math phobia so I should have hated this part but loved it) in order to make a topo map was fun with a capital F. As a kid I would sit and draw maps of places (including a legend and a compass rose) that did not exist. I learned my states and capitals early in life along with how to read a map and use it for navigation (I am the person you want with you if you are driving in a strange place-I do great navigation).

So this whole deal with people not knowing apparently zip about basic geography sorely vexes me. And GPS systems ain't helping out one whit. Now there is no real reason for people to have anything approaching a sense of direction. No longer do people need to know how to read a map, much less how to use a compass. Of course, if the system fails I suppose there will be masses of people wandering around completely and utterly lost.

And here is the irony (I really love this) Boulder Belt Eco-Farm is not in the GPS system. We do show up on Google Earth, though the photo is old and very poor resolution. But we will not be found if you use a GPS system to find us. GPS (and Map Quest and all the other such services) will send you to a non existent address south of Eaton.

So if you want to buy food from us you better bone up on your geography skills and learn where Eaton, OH is and how to read and map

Planting Celeriac

Celeriac on the cart ready to be planted

Eugene laying out the celeriac plugs

Eugene (and Nate) inspecting his work, making sure all the plugs are lined up correctly so the are evenly spaced and have enough room between rows for a hoe.

Lucy finishing up planting the celeriac plugs

St Alphonso's

I see the number one search to this blog right now is "Saint Alphonso's".

The 31st edition of St. Al's will be held Saturday May 16 2009 at Hannon's Camp America
More information at the Face Book St Alphonso's Group

The Boulder Belt 2009 Tomato Roster

I just finished pricking the main tomato crops and here is the run down of the different varieties we plan on having this summer

Paul Robeson-a black beefsteak, name for the actor and activist Paul Robeson. I have wanted to grow this for at least 5 years and finally found seed. We got this seed from Baker Creek
Green Zebra-Green-a medium sized green mater with yellowish striping. This heirloom seems to be all the rage. We grew this about 8 years ago and stopped because of bad sales. We got this seed from Baker Creek
Glick's Pride-We have been growing this Heirloom red for about 14 years. This is one we always save seed from.
Yellow Taxi-this is the tomato we have been saving seed from the longest. It is also our earliest tomato. A nice medium to small bright yellow mater with a pink heart when fully ripe.
Yellow Pear-This was almost a failure. 50% of the seed did not germinate and I was able to prick 7 into large soil blocks. This means if we are lucky 5 will be alive when it is time to transplant them. We grew these from saved seed
Black Krim-Another black tomato. I believe this was the first heirloom tomato I ever tasted. back in the early 1990's when I worked at DiPaolo's these started appearing in the kitchen for a few months than disappeared and I thought no more about heirloom tomatoes until I moved to the farm. These are a medium sized black mater that hails from the former Soviet Union. We grew these from saved seed.
Nyagaous-Yet another black mater. Originally got the seed from Seed savers Exchange 2 or 3 years ago. A small black round tomato that almost never cracks. very good flavor. We grew these from saved seed.
Crinkovich-A pink Beefsteak from Yugoslavia, IIRC. Like the Nayagaous these originally came from SSE and we have been saving them the past couple of years. This has great flavor though the fruits tend toward ugliness
Costoluto Florentine-an Italian red tomato that is beautiful and delicious. The fruits are medium sized, flat and fluted. About the best tasting red I have ever eaten. Seeds are from an outfit called Gourmet seeds. This is an heirloom and I will save seed this season as I used the last of the commercial stock.
Opalka-A great sauce tomato I believe from Poland. The fruits are oblong and can be up to a 1/2 pound. The flavor is very good raw and excellent when cooked into a sauce. they tend to get blossom end rot and can be low yielding but the flavor keeps us planting them year after year. they also will cross with other tomatoes pretty readily.
BB Striped-A cross between Opalka and pink Brandywine. This is one of our own varieties we have bred here at Boulder Belt. Years ago we planted what we thought were Opalka. When the plants started to bear fruit what we had was not Opalka but a variety of different shapes, colors and sizes of tomatoes. So I selected striped fruit and saved seed and replanted the following year. The second year we planted and the plants came up and this time about 45% were striped. I again selected striped fruits and saved seed and did this over and over again until about 90% of the plants were bearing striped fruit. I am hoping this year it is almost 100% striped fruit. At any rate, this mater is a blocky fruit, a lot like the German Johnson but with better flavor (we grew GJ 2 years ago and found BB Striped out produced it and had better overall quality)
Matina-This is the best saladette sized red tomato I have ever eaten. I was disappointed that scant few of the seeds came up but that's okay because we have an early crop of these in a hoop house. we grew these from saved seed
Cherrywine-another Boulder belt original. A cross between )we think) Pink Brandywine and Sunsugar cherry tomato. dark pink cherry tomatoes with a great flavor. prolific fruiting with little cracking
Green Pear-this seed comes from a sport we found last year in with the yellow pear. I cannot figure out what the yellow pear crossed with, not a green tomato because until last season we had not grown any green tomatoes in about 4 years. In another 7 years or so we should know if this is a viable variety.
Green grape-I thought this was an ancient heirloom but Carolyn Male corrected me and said this was developed in the 1980. This is a large cherry tomato that ripens to a mottled yellowish green. flavor is A-1. We grew this from seed we saved.
Dr Wyche's yellow-This is one of our all time favorite tomatoes. Huge orange/yellow beefsteak tomatoes with excellent flavor. We originally got the seeds fron SSE as a replacement for Russian persimmon and found the two to be almost identical except that Dr Wyche's was about a week earlier and did not catface or crack as badly. So we eventually abandoned the Persimmon for Dr Wyche's Yellow.
Sun Ray-Our Friend Wyatt Jones gave us several sun Ray plants 3 years ago. We saved seed and planted them last year and really loved this mater. Nice big, smooth, sunny yellow fruits with great flavor.
Early Girl-I was told this was a hybrid but I have grown this out successfully for the past 2 years from saved seed. Nice red round mater with really nice flavor for an early tomato
Amish paste-Several years ago our Opalka seed got too messed up with foreign genetics and we could not find pure seed. So we decided to try Amish paste as out canning tomato and I gotta say, while I love Opalka, this is better. Great taste, heavy Yields, very little blossom end rot. We grew this out from saved seed.
Red Grape-I believe this is seed from the hybrid Santa and we get all sorts of wierdnesses from each seasons' planting. Frankly I don't know why Eugene keeps saving seed from this. Nor why I continue to start these seeds. if they come at all true to type they will be small red and oblong with so so taste.
Sunsugar-one of the few hybrids we grow because these are the best cherry tomato ever! Nice round orange fruit that is sweet and tangy. Seed comes from Fedco Seeds
Red Saladette-another homebred. These come from the red grape tomatoes, I believe. Smallish round red or pink tomatoes with really nice flavor.

That's the Boulder Belt 2009 Tomato roster