The Joys of Farming

I was going to post a bunch of pictures of the farm but have decided that I need to vent instead about various things having to do with my profession-market farming.

First off our season is pretty sucky. The weather has been either too wet or too dry and always too hot and humid so we can get less done in a day than is needed. This means getting weeds under control has been herculean task. Even the crops planted on mulch need to be weeded. Today i pulled about 200 pounds of crab grass and purslain from 2 beds of peppers. Still have another 7 or 8 to go. Eugene has been using the wheel hoe to weed the beds that are not cover with landscape fabric whenever it is dry enough to use a hoe but before the ground resembles concrete. I believe we have 4 days with those conditions in the past 6 weeks but, of course it was very hot and humid on those day with highs in the upper 90's.

Because of the hot humid conditions we have loads of Japanese beetles eating and copulating. I have become Ms Coitus Interruptus as I kill any mating JB's I come across and can get my hands (AKA deadly weapons, as far as the past bugs are concerned). We also are getting hit with various soil born diseases on the tomatoes. I did hit them with grapefruit seed extract a week ago and that really did a number on the various fungii attacking the maters but the rain early this morning made whatever was not destroyed by the GSE bloom abundantly so now there are many yellowing mater plants where yesterday there were 3. By many I mean around 50 to 75. At least most the plants have fruit on them so we should get a lot of maters in another 2 to 4 weeks. And I am not too worried about this as we get this blighty ick that is neither early or late blight but still kills the plants by September problem every year.

On top of that our tillage equipment is broken and Eugene so far cannot figure out what is wrong and the BCS manual is of little help other than the fascinating photos of various parts exploded so you can see the individual parts but absolutely no explanation of what they are, do or where they should actually go in order to make the machine run. I would say this is the polar opposite of a Chilton's Manual. Maybe this is Italy's revenge for losing WWII and any other complaints they have towards us Merkins.

So for the past month we have been using hand tools to keep beds weeded and prepped for planting. At some point Eugene will give up on trying to figure the problem(s) out himself and push the 450 pound 2 wheeled tractor up a hill and into the van and take it to the Arcanum Hardware store where they have a guy who works on BCS equipment. Hopefully that person can figure out what is wrong and order the parts needed and than we will wait 2 to 4 weeks for the parts to come in as they come from Italy and it always takes a while for them to send the parts to us.

Betty has been good for a dog her age which means she has not destroyed all the market garden but she is trying. She did in a lot of green beans killing a young raccoon who was doing a huge number on the Latham raspberries the past week. Since the bean patch was the first one of the year and old and we have 5 others just about ready to bear fruit this was not a big deal. And we would rather lose 20% of a green bean bed than 50% of our raspberry canes (and God knows what else) to a coon. But than again the raspberries have been a bit of a disappointment. various things are killing them and we have lost 100' this year to borers, fusarium and perhaps pythium. so that means the raspberry harvest is way down. but it turns out that is not such a bad thing because our sales, despite having the only raspberries in the region and dropping our price 33% are way down this over the past 5 to to years. I guess people just don't want poison free red raspberries anymore, I don't know. But I do know that in the past, the raspberries were one of our main revenue generators for this time of year.

And that bring me to our marketing. our sales are down across the board. we don't get a lot of people coming into the store and more and more the ones who do come buy nothing because the think the prices are too high (and generally are pretty damned rude about it too). If we lower them any more we will be back to making around $2 a hour and will no longer be able to pay the mortgage, gas and electric and will have to get rid of the farm. the CSA is beginning to get more members and it seems that most seem interested in doing it again next year but we have less than half the members we had at this point last year. I really think the fake CSA-companies that buy and resell food, claim to offer local food but rarely do and even when they do it is less than 15% of what the sell-have taken a large share of our market. And the sad thing is I personally know people who have joined them and have told me proudly the are CSA members. Sorry folks, but if you buy food from one of those fake CSA you are not participating in a CSA that grows all of it's food, and the members share in the risk and bounty of their CSA farm. It distresses me that people who should "get it" do not. Some of the people I know who use these services work closely with farmers markets and local farmers. Just makes me shake my head. Such disconnect. But I guess price and convenience always trumps the real deal of picking up food freshly harvested at the farm and getting to talk to the people that grow the food you will eat.

The positive thing about this season's CSA is our members. I really like all of them and I really enjoy puytting together the shares and news letter for them every week. Oh and despite issues with weather and the garden we have had some really great shares this year (pretty much all of them)

The farmers market in Oxford is taking a turn for the worst. Overall our sales are way down despite the fact we were able to harvest 1/2 of our asparagus full and the other half 30% this year meaning we had about double the asparagus we have ever had in the past. We also grew and sold a lot of lettuce which made May a good month for us. But June and July have not been so good. I think there are several factors going on. 1) there are 2x or 3x as many farmers and no increase in customers walking through the market, because 2) they banned dogs from market which has lead to a marked decrease in customer traffic the past 3 weeks (a lot of people were royally pissed off over this decision by the market board which I agreed with at the time, and I believe are boycotting the market.) 3) The market is getting too crafty/artsy and the farmers are losing importance. It seem that the Oxford Farmers Market Uptown is more of a social event than a place to buy locally raised foods. 4)There are more and more people selling prepared foods at market which is great for the customers but I do not believe many, if any, are sourcing the ingredients locally from us growers so that too is cutting into our bottom line. And finally, 5) we seem to be in an economic depression and people percieve farmers markets as places where food is very expensive. And This is true for some things (usually things you cannot get normally at Kroger's or Wal-Mart, like 45 different kinds of heirloom tomatoes, or other heirloom fruits and veggies that cannot take the handling to be sold at any chain. But for most things the prices are the same or even less for food that is a whole lot better.

These are just some of the joys of farming.

Crop Mob

Last Saturday we had a crop mob of sorts. 8 people from Earlham College who are joining the Farm Share Initiative for April and May (and maybe beyond) showed up at 2pm ready to work. And what work we did!

A crop mob is a group of people who get together to go and help out for a day or half day on a small farm. they work for no money but often the farmer will give the group food fresh from the field or cook dinner. This new movement is based on the old idea of the barn raising, get a lot of people together with tools and do a big project. Our crop mob arrived at 2pm and we planned to weed asparagus, mulch asparagus, raspberries and blackberries plus move the hay wagon. We got everything but the blackberries done and Eugene did those a bit after they all left.


We started out with weeding as many beds of asparagus as we could. Eugene and i figured that the northern most beds would be too wet to weed and we were right. But we still got 8 or 9 beds weeded out of 12.


Nate and betty helped with weeding. But soon enough Betty had to be tied up as her idea of weeding was either digging holes in the asparagus beds or lying in the middle of the bed. Nate, on the other hand was a good boy, stayed out of the beds and got the bulk of the attention.

weed, weed, weed

Eugene shows a crop mobster the intricacies of weed pulling

Many hands make for light work. We all had a good time enjoying the war and sunny day, talking about stuff ranging from politics to farming.

Once we got as much weeding done as we could it was time to put down the straw mulch

Betty helps mulch

About half way done here. It took less than a half hour to leisurely mulch 12 asparagus beds. Weeding and mulching these things would have taken the two of us about a day. But when you have 11 people the work goes much more quickly.

After we got the asparagus all done we moved the hay wagon that holds things like row cover hoops, irrigation pieces that are not in use (which right now is 90% of the system), hoop house parts, etc.. The wagon has not been moved in a couple of years and has become quite delicate. Now it lives about 50 feet to the east.

Taking the last of the straw which was loose in a big ole sheet of plastic over to the raspberries in order to mulch them.

Here Eugene and Tory are bringing back the plastic sheet used for loose straw and behind them are many mulched beds of raspberries.

Beautifully mulched beds of asparagus. In 4 hours with help we got 20 beds mulched and ready for the season. We ended the day with local cider made with hierloom apples that we bought at the farmers market last weekend. And they want to come back and bring even more people. How cool is that?

Summer Summary

Fall is here which means the summer of 2009 is officially history. It was a really good summer growing and marketing season for us. the weather was cool and for the most part dry. but when we did get rain it was generally a lot and at just the right time. Still we are down over 4" on rain for the year but perhaps this fall will be wetter than normal and we will make it up.

We grew the best melons ever (and Eugene is an excellent melon grower). Maybe 2% of them were not absolutely excellent. we had several customers (and these are people who's opinions about such things I respect) tell us that our water melons were the best they have ever eaten.

The alliums out did themselves again this year, meaning they are better this year than last and last year they were incredible. Sublime garlic, gigantic leeks (and so far, all we have harvested are the small fall leeks, the winter leeks which should be 2x to 3x larger won't be ready for another month or so), beautiful onions and wonderful scallions.

The tomatoes, despite the plants succumbing to some sort of local blight (not late blight but rather something we contend with every year) fairly early, still produced a lot of huge fruits. Or at least most of them did. We did have some failures such as Black Krim which gave us few very cat faced fruits. I believe we got about 4 usable maters from 15 plants. I do not believe we will grow these again. The Paul Robeson did not do well for us but when the plants did produce typical fruit it produced some gorgeous tomatoes. I saved seed early on and this will get a second chance. The Green Zebra was something else-I believe a small red saladette type mater, something we have far too many of already. Baker Creek messed up on that and as this was about the 7th time they have messed up with us, we will not be ordering from them in 2010. I do like their philosophy but they will have to do far better with selling us correct seed, good seed and getting orders to us in a timely fashion. There are several other seed houses that do heirlooms that give us better service such as Seed Savers Exchange.

Ah enough ranting, back to maters. The great White tomato, while a bad seller, was a great producer of beautiful ivory white fruits with a good acid bite. they came on early and produced longer than just about anything else except early girls which, while early and prolific were a bit of a disappointment this year. The early girls were not as big as last year and found the flavor lacking. fortunately we had GL-18 (AKA Glick's Pride) as our mainstay red mater and they far exceeded our expectations. they were far bigger than they have been before. The shape was about perfect and they rarely cracked and had zero cat facing. It would have been nice if they could have held on a week or two longer but they got us through most of September and we had big red maters when no one else did at the farmers market, cha-ching!. The other reds we grew-the canners did really well for us but I don't think as well as last year (or was it two years ago?). We grew Amish paste and Opalka again. The Amish paste out produced the Opalka about 4:1. We grew enough of these to make and can ourselves plenty of tomato sauce, ratatouille and salsa plus we sold about 300 pounds to others so they could put up tomatoes.

The cherry tomatoes were only so so (which is actually a good thing since when they do really well that means someone has to spend several hours daily picking them and than we have to figure out what to do with the excess). We have decided never to grow green grape again since it does not sell. This means it will produce hundreds of volunteers all over the farm in the future. It is hard to get people to try the green maters. Though it seems when I can get someone to try a green grape they get hooked quickly. they are a very nice mater but for most it is hard to get past the color. The yellow pear barely produced and a lot of them were green again this year. I think it is time to get new seed. the Sun sugar did well for about 3 weeks than quit producing much and the plants now look like hell. This is good as everyone at the farmers market(s) grew this kind this year so the market was flooded and sales were way down. I think next year we will cut back a lot on the cherry tomatoes. We do not need all that many for the farm share-maybe 20 to 30 plants and it seems they have become passe at market. that will free up beds for something else next year.

Unlike last year, we have a lot of ripe peppers. Last year the peppers were very late and we got a killing frost before they got ripe. It did not help that on Sept 14th 2008 we had hurricane force winds for about 6 hours that knocked down all the pepper plants. This year things are completely different. We have a lot of huge bell peppers and they are getting ripe well before it gets cold. I have also learned to take them off the plants when they show color and they ripen up just fine indoors away from pests and diseases that tend to ruin about 50% of the ripe peppers (which is why red, yellow and orange (ripe) peppers cost twice as much as green peppers).

the raspberries out did themselves again this season. The Lathams, our early summer raspberry, was spectacular again. Heavy production and excellent quality. My only complaint was we did a piss poor job of pruning in the early spring which made parts of the raspberry patch almost impossible to harvest. Next year I am cutting back a lot more than Eugene will deem necessary (he has a problem with thinning out plants and wants to leave a lot more than should be left). The Heritage raspberries, which we mow down in early spring, had quite good production and the flavor has been sublime, far better than the Lathams (which, as I said were excellent). Eugene has this crazy notion that we should let the heritage grow and produce in spring. I have this crazy idea that he can do all the harvesting as well as tilling, seeding, transplanting and other spring chores if this happens. You see we do not need a second kind of spring raspberry when the Lathams are pumping out over 30 gallons of fruit. As it is we do not sell all the Lathams produce (we come close but in order to get rid of them we have to sell in bulk and drop the price 33%). We do sell pretty much 100% of the Late summer berries and if we allow the Heritage to have 2 crops we will lessen the fall yield by about 60% and not have enough for the FSI, store and farmers market in August and September. In other words, Eugene's idea of more spring/summer berries is a bad one on many levels.

The strawberries have not been the best. I don't think we have them in the best place and they need to be replaced this fall with new day neutral berries. the yields have been down and disease problems up. We did get a very nice crop of April may berries because we put a hoop house over them. Granted, the hoop house got nailed twice in the winter-once by heavy wet snow and than a month later by high winds. But neither incident seemed to have any effect on the berry production. it is ironic that the first year the berries have been less than great we do a farm tour and in November a workshop on sustainable berry production. I will say the farm tour attendees did not seem to care what kind of shape the berries were in. Next season we should have a new crop of berries in a new and better spot and hopefully we will be swimming strawberries all spring summer and fall next year.

The greens have been around all season. In spring we had lots of lettuce, spring mix, arugula, kale and various Asian greens. Summer we lost the lettuce-we did try to grow some several times because it was cool most of the summer but every time we started lettuce we would get 5 to 8 days of heat and humidity, always a week or two after germination and that would cause the baby lettuce to get bitter and bolt to seed. now that it is autumn we have several beds of nice lettuce growing as well as volunteers coming up around the market garden. the same thing happened with spring mix. After late June it got impossible to grow it though we did try. We did get several harvests of arugula for our efforts through the summer but nothing else from the spring mix beds. Kale and chard were the summer mainstay greens, they always are.

Broccoli did badly for us but we did get some decent cabbages. I dunno why we have such problems with broccoli, perhaps we should quit growing it. Spring radishes were hit and miss and the early red meat radishes were a complete failure. But we do have a 1/2 bed of them now that are very nice. We got really nice early rutabagas as well as red turnips. the fall red turnips are ready to harvest and store for winter, though it will be early next week before that will happen.

Finally, the Farm Share Initiative has been a great thing for us. It allowed us drop a farmers market and make more money while being allowed to stay home and get more work done. Definitely a win, win for us and the fact very few people seemed to notice there is no longer a Tuesday evening market in Oxford (maybe 10 people have asked about this this summer) tells me that we would have made less money this year than last at that market. So it is good that we are doing the FSI.

I think I will change a few things on how the FSI is run next season. This season I allowed members to sign up for the entire season but pay monthly. That will stop as it is not fair to the members that ponied up the cash for the entire season upfront. And the members who did this have all dropped out for the last month, not good. They also got a few extra weeks as I was treating them like the paid in full members as I expected them to go through the entire season. I think the monthly farm tour/pot luck will go as well since we only were able to hold two this year mostly because of a lack of interest on the part of most of the members. I think a once a year farm tour/pot luck will suffice. I am having a hard time getting it through to the members that farm visits are a very important aspect of the farm share/CSA experience. This is how one connects to their farm and without farm visits one might as well buy their food from the farmers market. I also think it is time to drop the month to month deal. This has the potential of getting very confusing which will lead to mistakes -especially when the FSI grows to more than 30 members. It will be replaced by what I used call "Share Cycles" where I break the season down into 2 or 3 month increments for those who cannot do an entire season for whatever reason.

Well, that's the summery of our summer

The IFO Farm Tour

Tour goers gathering in front of the store before the tour commenced

We hosted a farm tour today in association with Innovative Farmers of Ohio. We talked about sustainable strawberry and raspberry production. Around 20 people came out for the event and a good time seemed to be had by all.

We got started at 3pm with Sharon Sachs introducing us to the tourees. We spoke about what we would be discussing on the tour than everyone was invited to introduce themselves and tell us what they wanted to do with berries (market farm or backyard gardener) Many were backyard gardeners though there were several farmers there as well

After the introductions we got started with the tour and took everyone behind the store and out to the market garden.

This is me explaining how to get bigger berries by pulling certain flowers off a fall

talking irrigation and ground covers

Now we are all done talking about strawberries and we are starting towards the raspberries and pointing out things as we go.

part of the tour group by the raspberries


talking about pruning raspberries

Look! Over there!

Enjoying the farm

Tour is almost over at this point and Eugene is showing off a cold frame

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.

It's Pruning Time

Things are heating up here at the farm. The snow is gone and, at least today, the weather is warm and that means we are getting busy pruning trees and raspberries. Pruning is amazingly important, without proper pruning trees and brambles cannot produce as well as they do when pruned. Pruning gets rid of dead and diseased material as well as branches that cross each other and opens up the plants to sunlight and air. After we are done pruning than we will spray dormant oil on everything to kill scale, aphids, mealybugs and other pests. Than lime sulfur is sprayed on the trees to control various fungi. After that we quit spraying and wait for the trees to flower and the bees to come and pollinate the flowers. Than we hang sticky traps which we make from orange plastic sleeves our in which daily newspaper is delivered covered with this waterproof sticky stuff called Tangle Foot. These sticky traps catch coddling moths, curculios and other fruit pests (we also use them for keeping arugula and eggplant free of flea beetles). they also will catch beneficial insects such as bees which is why we wait until after the flowers are gone to hang them. We even will bag some of the fruit (Martha Stewart had a segment on bagging fruit). It is the most effective organic way to keep everything off of the apples but it is also amazingly labor intensive so we never do more than about 5%. We simply do not have the time to bag several thousand pommes and pears and plant 3 acres in produce in the spring. And since apples are not our main crop, by any means, we get a bit slack with the bagging.

Eugene does most of the tree pruning. I have a fear of heights so will not climb way up into the trees (and we have 2 old apples that are 30'+ tall) and because i am not a man and do not have the upper body strength of one I cannot use the saw and cutters on the long extension for more than 10 minutes at a time. Nor can I control the extension well so it takes me several minutes to make a single cut. in that same time Eugene will make about 10 cuts.

So I get bramble duty. I started in on the red raspberries today and got about 30% done before my hand got too sore and stiff to use the pruners. I have applied arnica and heat and by Friday I should be able to continue my task. I would continue tomorrow except we have a big vet appointment in the morning that should take a few hours (3 dogs and a cat all going to the vet) and it is supposed to rain all day on top of that. I think I will need the time to heal my hand.

We grow two kinds of red raspberries, Latham, a summer bearing plant and Heritage, an everbearing type that we make into a fall bearing crop by cutting down all the canes in late winter. The Latham are a bit more complex to prune but by no means rocket science. What I am doing with the Latham berries is first going in and taking out all the dead canes and any live canes that have crept too far out of their bed. If I leave these in they will by summer grow into the aisle way making raspberry harvest difficult as well as making it difficult to deal with the crop in the beds immediately to the east of the raspberries (4 of them). I cut the canes as close to flush with the ground as I can with a pair of anvil pruners (I do not like the offset kind as much). After I get the dead stuff out, I look at the canes and remove any that are not straight and any that are crossing other canes. The goal is to leave 5 to 7 canes per foot. The cut canes are removed from the area and either will be composted or burned. We are leaning towards burning now that we have found mealy bugs and some sort of white scale on some of the canes.

Once the raspberry canes have been cleaned out we will go back and take out any small, misshapened or crossing canes we missed before and also cut about 10% off of the top of the canes (between 4" and 7" depending on the size of the cane) as this allows the plants to make larger fruit. After that they will be sprayed with dormant oil and mulched with cedar chips (these are acidic and raspberries like an acid soil) and either straw (expensive) or grass clippings (free). than we wait for the canes to leaf out, bloom and than make berries. Last year we had an incredible bumper crop and were when the season was over for the Latham we had harvested over 26 gallons, one 1/2 pint at a time. I really doubt we will have such a great crop this year, but you never know.

So for the next couple of weeks we will be pruning trees and brambles. Than it will be about time to start transplanting onions and leeks which is pretty much like planting several thousand blades of grass one blade at a time. It's a pretty Zen job if you have your head in the right place.

What We are Doing: Early Feb.

It is mid winter but not to early to start planting things for the market garden. So far we have planted several kinds of onions and 2 kinds of leeks (I am waiting on the seed to arrive for the Musselburgh leeks, an heirloom am excited to try). We also have started White Russian and Winterbor kale.

Soon we will start lettuce for head lettuce (I do not mean iceberg lettuce. All lettuce comes in heads be it leaf, bibb, buttercrunch, lollo or iceberg) inside under lights along with broccoli, cabbage and chard. Most of these things will go into a hoop house for a few weeks until it stops getting really cold at night. Than the hoop houses will be removed and they will be under row covers for the rest of their lives.

In March we will do a lot more seeds. More broccoli, lettuce and cabbage will be sowed indoors along with early zucchini, tomatoes and peppers. We will also start celeriac, parsley, rosemary (which takes about 3 to 5 weeks to germinate and has very low germination too boot) and early basil. Out doors we will start transplanting the onions and leeks and will sow seed for spring mix, arugula, scallions, spinach, parsnips and plant shallot sets. I believe we also have plans to open up more beds so we have more planting room.

We prune fruit trees and deal with the raspberry and blackberry brambles in late Feb/early March. Pruning is amazing important. Without proper pruning the quality of fruit goes way down quickly as does yield. The first year we were here we were faced with 3 apple trees that had not been properly pruned in at least a decade (if they ever were pruned correctly). the fruit was small and full of bugs and disease. the trees themselves were less than healthy and had a lot of kind of dead wood on them. So Eugene did what one should not normally do-he took off nearly 50% of the trees. You generally do not want to take more than 1/3 in any given year but these trees needed major help so they were well pruned. Since than the apples have been much bigger and much higher quality and Eugene has not had to prune more than 25% of the trees since than. The brambles are much easier to deal with because we put them in.

The heritage raspberries get mowed down in late winter because they are an everbearing and we have found the do best if they are not allowed to set fruit in the spring. The Latham raspberries have to have all the old canes removed along with any canes that cross other and canes we don't want. You want to end up with no more than 6 canes per linear foot. Last year these berries went nuts and had a bumper crop (I have never seen so many berries in my life!) so there is a lot of stuff to remove this year. Once we remove everything we will also remove any perennial weeds (dandelion, thistle, etc..) and than put on a nice 6" layer of mulch which is generally a mix of straw and cedar chips to feed the berries, keep the soil on the acid side and keep the weeds down (not that many weeds can compete with these brambles)

The other thing we will plant sometime in March are nut trees. We ordered something like 10 nut trees and when ever they arrive they will go in the ground. We have a fantasy of developing a nut grove. I'll bet the local squirrels will love us for this idea

The Canning Jar Ordeal

I want to make and can some rhubarb/raspberry jam today. I have the fruit, sugar, pectin, lids. But what I do not have in abundance is 1/2 pint and pint jars. I have a lot of quart jars from an auction I went to about 10 years ago where Eugene and I bought something like 35 cases of canning jars in various sizes, brands and ages for $5 (and made $10 on the deal selling the zinc lids to people who wanted the lids only and not all the jars that filled the bed of the pick-up truck we had at the time). At the time, I thought I had a life time supply of jars. I was wrong. Over the years I have broken some, free-cycled some and sold a lot of them full of things like tomato juice, apple sauce and jams and jellies.

So now I am really really short on 1/2 pint and pint jars. You are probably saying Lucy, go out and buy a couple of cases of small jars and be done with it. I wish I could. Last night after the Tuesday farmers market in Oxford we went searching for such jars at Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Kroger's. Not one of these places had small jars. They all have wide mouth quarts and Wal-mart also had small mouth quarts but that is not what I need. This really bummed me out.

Went home and looked around the kitchen to see if I had any small jars and did find 4 pint jars not being used and a couple of 1/2 pint jars with old food in them that are now empty. Later this morning I will go out to the barn and look through the wall of jars and see if there are any 1/2 pint jars out there that I missed. I also will make popovers for breakfast in order to use up the last of some raspberry jam in a pint jar. Hopefully I will find 14 or so small jars and will be able to do this jam project this morning.

Incidentally, if you are a local reader of this blog and have any canning jars you do not want i will gladly take them off you hands. I can use any size, any make.

What to Do with All Those Raspberries

When life gives you raspberries it is one's responsibility to do something with those raspberries and this is what I have been doing with the bounty.

The overwhelming majority has been sold. I know we have sold around 200 1/2 pints (that's 12.5 gallons if my math is correct).

I have made raspberry jam with commercial pectin. So far I have done two batches which has yielded 20 pints. 3/4 I am selling and the rest I am keeping for winter use

I have frozen 5 pints and will freeze more today and tomorrow. I put the berries on cookie sheets and than into the freezer and when frozen completely put in marked bags. if you put them into bags unfrozen and than freeze you get a mess-the berries will turn into a block and are not very usable. I will likely sell most of these this winter when we need product and it is easy to sell frozen items outside at the winter market.

Raspberry Pancakes

Put a 1/2 pint of raspberries into your favorite recipe, my favorite is:
2 cup flour (I like to do a 50/50 mix of white to whole wheat
2 cups milk (you can use soy milk or you can use a mix of milk/soy milk and fruit juice, or yogurt or butter milk)
1tbl sugar
2 eggs
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1tbl melted butter (or vegetable oil)
1/2tsp salt
1/2 pint raspberries

Mix the flour baking soda and powder, salt, sugar together. Add the milk and eggs one at a time and than the butter. Mix batter a bit (it should be a bit lumpy) than add the raspberries and mix again. pour onto a pan over medium to medium high heat and cook until full of bubbles, flip and finish. I like to make extra pancakes, cool them on a cooling rack and freeze for future use. just reheat in a warm oven or microwave

Raspberry Walnut Brownies

I made these last night because I was making brownies for company and had raspberries so I said, what the hell, toss 'em in. They were excellent. I use the recipe on the baker's Chocolate box but I think any would work

Use your favorite browning mix and in a separate bowl mix together 1/2 pint of berries and 1/2 cup white flour. Coat the berries in the flour and than carefully fold in the coated berries into the brownie batter. Coating is important. Cook about 5 minutes longer than normal and you have some incredible gourmet brownies

Well, those are some of the things I have been doing with the raspberries

A Short Tuesday

Yesterday, being Tuesday meant we had a farmers market in Oxford. So we got up early and did a lot of harvesting, washing, bagging and bunching in order to get various produce items ready for market before 2:30pm.

Around noon a woman stopped looking for berries. She wanted to know if we were open and I said no. She wanted to look around the store to see what we had to offer and I told because we are not open on Tuesdays I did not have the sales floor set up. that most things were stored away in the back but that I could still sell her what ever it was she wanted. She wanted strawberries and red raspberries so I grabbed her a box of each and she went on her way. I continued getting things ready for market.

It was good she stopped and bought some berries as we have a lot of raspberries and they are showing no sing of letting up. every day dither Eugene of I go our to pick the berries and we say "well tomorrow there should be less. It looks like they are beginning to slack off." And the next day we go out and pick more than the day before. We were thinking when the Japanese beetles exploded, which they have done in the past 5 days, they would damage most of the berries and we would have less to pick. That has not happened yet. I am not complaining, the raspberries have been great sellers and will likely allow us to either buy another vehicle (we only have one-the market van and that does not get the best gas mileage in the world) or put a new roof on the barn so it quits leaking when it rains. maybe both if they keep on keeping on.

Any way, at 2:45 I go up to the garden to see what Eugen was doing and to tell him it is time to wrap up his project so we can go to Oxford for the farmers market. he's picking raspberries and still has 6 empty 1/2 pint tills (what we call the berry boxes). So I pick up a till and start to fill it with the biggest and best tasting raspberries we have so far harvested from these bushes (it seems every day they get better). 20 minutes later we have the the 6 tills filled and go back to the store to wrap them and put them in the fridge. Than I quickly load the coolers and crates in the van. I run into the house to change and notice it is after 3pm-we are officially running late. I yell at Eugene to stop whatever he is doing (piddling around) and come in the house and get some dry and clean cloths on (it was hot and very humid so we were both sopping wet after picking berries). We get dressed and in the van and are about ready to leave when Pekar stops by to tell us about his upcoming Birthday party this Saturday. This is a party I have gone to for at least 15 years but over the years it has drawn in more and more people I do not know or want to hang with (a lot of neo-cons and cops). Add to that that our buddy Chuck is having one of his annual parties the same night and he has a pool and a lot of old hippy liberals, most of whom I have known for a couple of decades. So we had to tell Pekar we probably would not make his party. Chuck's party is a lot more fun, better food, better conversation and a pool.

So we got rid of Pekar and got on the road and got to Oxford right around 4pm (so not late). The weather was becoming changeable and the winds were gusting up to 30mph. this was making it hard for Kim Traylor to keep her jewelry from falling to the ground and the Ison's had their shelter damaged when the wind caught it and moved it several feet. We got set up and started selling produce to the public all the while keeping an eye to the sky. Around 6pm, just as our business was really picking up, the sky was looking pretty black and officer Butts, one of the OPD, came by and suggested strongly we close up the market as there was a severe storm coming towards Oxford and was about 15 miles west of us. So everyone packed up their stuff and we all traded food. We got some Lamb and an orange bread and gave out boxes of raspberries in exchange. I dunno where the other went after the short market but we went to the Smokin' Ox for a draft beer and light conversation. while we were there it started raining and the winds came up a bit and it even thundered a little but looking at a weather radar we saw the big storm missed Oxford. it went about 1/2 mile to the south. So it turned out we did not need to tear down early. We justified doing so by telling ourselves it was just rainy enough to keep everyone indoors and we would not have sold anything. After the beer we left the restaurant and headed home and had an early night.

Berries

It's raining today and likely tomorrow as well (and why not Saturday morning, after all we have a farmers market than and so far this season we have had maybe 2 rain free markets on Saturday). This means suddenly we are not busy today. Yesterday I spent a lot of the day harvesting 41 half pint boxes of raspberries while Eugene did weeding/hoeing and waiting on customers.

Today I processed some of those raspberries into jam. Some I will sell and some I will keep for use this winter.

I have a feeling the first raspberries are about over. I won't be able to pick them for a couple of days due to rain and the Japanese beetles are coming out enforce and they will do a lot of damage to the berries. I am sure when I can harvest again there will be some but it won't be like the past 7 days or so of 40+ boxes picked every 36 hours. That's a lot of picking. But raspberries are a great seller so well worth the effort.

In about 50 days the late summer/early fall raspberries should be ready to harvest. Until than we will have blackberries and strawberries.

Farm Pictures

The onions, garlic and leeks in the foreground and row covered crops (carrots, broccoli, beets, etc..) in the background. This is what you see first going up to the garden from the barn or store

Early tomatoes, about 2 weeks from being ripe. We transplanted these into a hoop house April 15th and it looks like we will have ripe tomatoes by July 4th. I believe these are Yellow Taxi, an heirloom that we have been saving seeds from for over 12 years

The raspberry beds looking north. we have around 300' of these things. two kinds latham (which is pictured in the fore ground) and heritage which you can kinda, sort of see in the distance. the latham are loaded with berries. I have never seen as many raspberries as we have. this is scary and exciting. as long as nothing major goes wrong (disease, hail, large flocks of fruit eating birds) we should have a bumper crop of berries to sell. The berries have been very very good so far this year and they have just started to ripen and the weather has been about perfect the past 5 days or so for raspberries and strawberries to develop the best flavor they can.

Pruning Raspberries

March 1st was the first day of meteorological spring and spring does seem to be here. Today it got up into the mid 60's and I saw my first black vultures-3 of them wheeling around the sky. Yesterday it was in the 50's and sunny and I saw a small flock of male red winged blackbirds. Both good harbingers of spring.

Warm weather also means it's time to get one's hands dirty so this afternoon we got into pruning the raspberries. Eugene did the Heritage which are an everbearing. He hacked half the patch to the ground and the other half he pruned away the old canes. We have been told that cutting the heritage berries to the ground in the spring will mean huge harvests in the fall instead of a piddly harvest spring and fall. Worth a shot.

I did the summer bearing and got 1/4 of them done before it started raining. I was cutting out dead canes and any canes that looked diseased or were crossing other canes. Doing raspberries with no gloves is pretty damned painful, I gotta tell you. I had to stop frequently to pull as many thorns out of my hands as I could and go on. When I quit I had a lot of tiny thorns poking my hands and a lot of abrasions and cuts on my forearms (it was warm so I pushed up my sleeves, not the smartest move) and a big pile of canes on the wheel barrow. I pushed the wheelbarrow over to the apple trees where I told to dump the canes. I made it with 100' and big gust of wind from the south pushed half the pile on the ground. Raspberry canes are not fun to have to pick up and put back in the wheel barrow. But that is what I had to do so I could go the last 100 feet and dump them.

Now a cold front is coming and it is raining. Tomorrow winter will be back enforce. But the birds tell me that, soon enough, warm weather will be back and spring is indeed on its' way. I'm thinking that the groundhog just might be correct this year.