Soil Test Results

Got our soils tests back from Spectrum Analytic. We did two tests one for what we call the top field, which is where the bulk of the market garden is (around 3.5 acres). And what we call the bottom filed the which is at the bottom of the 40' pitch

What we found is our soils need lots of improvement and that there are big differences between the top area which is listed on USGS maps as badly eroded. Probably due to the fact that the field is at the beginning of a water shed which means it is a drainage area and thus has lost lots of top soil over the years. Add to that the fact it is also a terminal moraine which means there was a glacier on that very spot about 10,000 BP grinding away the soil. And there was probably a huge flood at some point judging from the deep ravine running through the middle of our property (most of which is now a pond) that was obviously cause by some sudden scouring-like a flood cause by an ice dam breaking withing the glacier as it was melting/retreating.

Test results for the top field

The top area is good on pH, Calcium, Copper, and Manganese. It is high in magnesium and iron and low in Potassium, phosphorous, sulfur, boron, and zinc.

Test results for the bottom Field

The bottom area is good on boron, copper, manganese and zinc. It is high magnesium, Calcium, and iron. It is medium on potassium and sulfur. It is low on phosphorous. the pH is very high, almost off the charts so we need to get the soil a bit more acidic.

We also found the the organic matter is much higher in the bottom area than the top-2.5% vs 1.5% (and we are pretty sure we have greatly increased the OM in the top area over the past 5 years)

We thought we also had gotten a nitrogen test for both areas but it seems we did not. But still there are reccomendations for applying nitrogen and it seems we are good to a bit low.

It is real nice to know all this information about our soil. No longer are we just taking blind stabs at feeding the soils and hoping we are doing something good. No longer will it be a complete mystery why some crops do poorly and others okay. Now we have the information to start doing some real improvements to these soils. Boo Yah!

The Day After Thanksgiving

We had a lot of people come to the farm for Thanksgiving. My Cousin Jack Showed up with his niece (and my 2nd cousin probably once removed), her baby and her SO, Jeremy on Wednesday from the greater Detroit metroplex. On Thursday My Brother, Scott arrived (from the exact same place as Jack) and soon after my Niece Carrie and her SO, Ivan and her BFF Katrina showed up from Bloomington, IN. Than my Brother in law Dave arrived with the cranberry sauce and later Doreen and her SO, Thad, showed up with yams and Mac and Cheese. Hours later our friend Wyatt showed up with bread that no one wanted because we were all too stuffed on turkey, taters, mac and cheese, salad and wine. Wyatt left us several loaves and they were quite tasty.



These pictures are of the morning after thanksgiving after everyone but my brother had left. We took a walk around the farm and had a small bon fire in order to burn the last of the blighted tomato plants and a bunch of sisal bailing twine used to support the blighted maters.

Eugene and Scott looking at the pond

Nate running towards me

Still looking at the pond

Milkweed

Golden Rod on the 40' pitch

Frosty Kale. Scott thought this would be a great shot. I think the idea was better than the shot

After Scott left for Detroit we went to Trenton to pick up 6 gallons of raw milk at Double J farm and I took this shot of the dairy cows through the barn. Notice the pasture is very green for the end of November and that has translated into a lot of yellow cream on the milk, something I have never seen in the many years I have used raw milk. Usually this time of year the cream is thin and white, barely any different from the milk. But because November has been warm and sunny the pasture has continued to grow

Weather Rodeo

We had a weather rodeo last night. It was around 55F/13c at 9pm last night when the cold front rolled on through complete with heavy rain, thunder and lightening, possible tornadoes about 75 miles to the west and 60mph winds. Remarkably other than many row covers getting shredded and hanging on a fence and the grain bins being on their sides this morning, we had very little damage. None of the hoop houses were hurt, the roofs stayed on all the buildings. All good things.

What did happen was either a car hit a power pole or the pole hit a car about 1/2 mile north of us causing the power to go down for 10 hours (9pm to 7am) and a big traffic tie up with lots of emergency vehicles with their festive lights. I guess there were live wires all over US 127 causing southbound motorists to flash their lights like crazy at the northbound motorists. After 7 minutes I noticed that a state trooper had arrived on the scene and 20 minutes after that 2 ambulances and 2 fire vehicles arrived. one of the fire trucks was stationed just north of Kayler Rd in an attempt to stop more traffic from driving up near the mess and being stopped there for hours. For a while this worked until 2 semis were put into the mix.

There is no good way to turn a semi around by us. We have seen Kayler Rd stop many a semi that happened down the narrow lane. they could use our driveway/parking area but the last time some yahoo tried that he left some really swell deep ruts on our property and hit one of the cars (very lightly so there was virtually no damage and the car is ancient, but still...) so we are not trucker friendly at the moment. The truckers seemed to sense that so instead of taking the easy way out and turning around in our drive one of the truckers backed down the 40' pitch and up the other hill and curve. He had to be channeling my Dad who loved to drive backwards and told me he had many a dream where he was speeding down the interstate in reverse. When this trucker got to the valley between the hills he encountered another semi who saw the first backing up and decided whatever was up at the top of the hill was to be avoided so he got in the southbound lane and put his truck into reverse as well. It was quite a sight seeing two semis backing up 127, I gotta tell you. the other semi at the top of the hill decided to back onto Kayler Rd and turn around that way and was successful. He went down the hill encountered the two backing trucks as they had almost crested the second hill and turned off on 726. This obviously made a light bulb go off in the head of the second trucker (who was not doing a good job of reverse driving-he was not channeling my father). I saw the truck jerk as he hit the brakes and threw it into a forward gear and than the lights came on and the guy also drove off north on 726.

After all that I went into the dark house, blew out the 4 candles we had lit for light and went up to bed. I had just hit the pillow when I heard a truck coming up the hill fast and than hitting the brakes hard. He came within inches of hitting the fire truck and probably the two fire folk. After that I lay in bed with Eugene listening to the heavy winds make the metal roof boom and thunder. A rather unnerving noise. Eventually sleep came

Snowy Market

That's me at market in front of our stand
(Photo Courtesy of Deb's Key West Wine & Garden)

What a winter market we had on Saturday. It was snowing hard through the entire market making displaying our wares a bit tricky. We opted for keeping as much as possible in coolers out of the snow. we had a list of what we had for people to read and choose from. I was rather amazed at how many people showed up to buy. The Oxford Uptown market has quite a few intrepid customers who will come out in any weather.

The day started for us in the store packing everything into coolers and boxes lined with toweling. We did not want to risk bringing home frozen produce that would than have to be tossed on the compost pile. This happened to us last year-we went to a sub freezing market laid our wares out on our tables like it was warm out and lost all our remaining potatoes and winter squash to the cold. And the thing of it was we did not know the stuff had frozen for 36 hours as that is how long it took for the damage to show. So we thought we were alright when we unloaded the van. After figuring out we had lost about 3/4 of our winter's stock of food we vowed never again will we go to a winter market and allow our food to freeze. So now we take measures to keep things warmish.

Got things packed they way we wanted and loaded the van and got on the dry roads at 7:30 am so we could get down to the Streits for our milk before the market and the snow. Got to the Streits and got our milk and as we were loading that into the van I noticed a snow flake lazily drifting through the air. A second later i noticed a million of its' brethren and the snow storm was on. By the time we got out to St Rt 73 (3 minutes) the roads were beginning to become covered and all the black Angus cows we passed were white on top. We drove towards Oxford wondering if we should just continue north on 127 and go home as the snow was coming down hard and fast. But when we came to the fork in the road where 127 peels off of St Rt 73 we went left and on to Oxford and the Winter Market.

Drove up and down the hills and curves of St RT 73 (one of the most dangerous roads in Ohio) talking of other snow storms and all the times I had to deal with 73 in bad conditions (my family used to live in a subdivision that was on the highway). We were able to traverse the road with no problems though I believe if we had tried to drive it a half hour later we would have had problems what with our vehicle being a Dodge Cargo van with rear wheel drive and not the newest tires in the world. Granted, we did have a lot of weight in the back due to the produce.

So got to the top of 73 where it meets Patterson Ave in Oxford and turned right so we could get to High street and got up the high Street hill swimmingly and pulled into the snow covered parking lot where we hold the market. Eugene cursed himself for not bringing a snow shovel. But soon enough, several snow shovels showed up and people were clearing the snow away (or trying to, it was snowing hard so all progress was soon covered). The shovel crew was a mix of farmers, kids, customers and market volunteers and between them all they kept the footing in good shape for everyone.

Getting the way cleared for shoppers
(Photo Courtesy of Deb's Key West Wine & Garden)

Snow on the shelters over each stall was an issue unless you had an older and more expensive model EZUp. I noticed our EZUp and one other that is the same year and kind had no problems shedding snow but all the cheapo EZUps people buy at Sam's Club and Wal-Mart were having some snow issues and had to be continually cleared. The EZ Up knock offs were even worse. The good news is as far as I know no one lost their shelters due to the snow loads. And we needed the shelters, otherwise all our food would have been covered under 3 to 4 inches of snow (maybe more). As it was, there was a good wind so quite a bit of snow did drift onto everyone's items unless they were tarped. Scott Downing's apples were covered in a nice blanket of snow (which could not have been good for the apples. I suppose they will make then into cider if they did get frost damage) and his honey jars were getting drifted in. At our stand the cash drawer started to fill up with snow and I had to abandon our tally sheet when it got too wet to be written upon (the pen would go right through the paper). But other than the tally sheet and some wet bills we had things well covered so nothing was harmed.

I thought I was going to be cold at market. I had good boots and a hat but had forgotten gloves. Not an issue as it turned out. For some reason, my hands were toasty warm through out the market. Maybe this was because the day before I spent several hours washing the leafy greens in freezing salt water to get the dirt and slugs off of the food before packing and selling it (nothing like a 3" slug crawling out of one salad...) so my hands were used to the cold. I dunno. I do know I had no need for gloves which is good as they tend to get in the way for me and make it hard to pick things up.

Chicken was a hot seller. Sold out of all that we brought (2 roasters and 5 Cornish hens). Leeks also sold well but we still have a lot of them (I believe we brought around 100 of them and sold 3/4). Butternut squash is always a good seller for us. we also sold a lot of arugula, all the red mustard, about half the spring mix (I don't know why this doesn't sell better, its' great salad. So much better than organic mixes at the grocery), almost all the spinach (which I thought would sell out), most of the salad radishes but none of the cooking radishes (probably because they were displayed badly so no one knew we had them), a lot of potatoes sold but few sweet potatoes (again because they were displayed badly).

At 11:30 we quickly packed up, drove over to UDF to get some gasoline than we slowly drove home via the back roads we always take. We had a bad problem with the wipers icing over and becoming useless. We stopped 3 times to clear them between Oxford and Eaton. And cleared them twice while in Eaton buying beer and dog food and picking up the mail. Finally got home and unloaded the van and than watched the people sliding up the 40' Pitch. That was great as it became a communal event. As a vehicle got stuck on the pitch people behind them would get out of their cars and help push the vehicles up the hill. It was good to get home before the roads got really bad.

The rest of the day I napped-Once I got home and unloaded I found that I was pretty exhausted

Winter Storm '07

We got an, honest to God, Winter Storm yesterday. It started at midnight with a light dusting on the deck when I put the dogs out for the night and by 5am in the morning I could barely get the back door open to let the dogs in. There must have been 4" on the deck with heavy snow.

It snowed most of the morning than turned to ice for a short time (maybe an hour) than became sleet, which is ice that does not stick to much of anything. the sleet stuck around until after dark. it sounded as if tiny elves were pelting the side of the house with tiny stones.

The winds were not too bad in the morning but by noon they were cranking up and heavy snow warnings to the north of us turned into blizzard warnings. We have not had a blizzard in the area in years. The least one we had was when we lived at the old farm on Crubaugh Rd. We got 18" of snow which closed Crubaugh for several days due to heavy drifting (some drifts were well over 8' deep).

We kept the dogs in most of the day but being dogs they had to go out a couple of times to pee and poop. early in the day the snow was a minor inconvenience to them but by 4pm the snow was almost too deep for Danny to get through. Arlo and Nate, having longer legs, had a good time bounding through the 8 inches of crusty powder and making places where they could do their dooty.

The most amazing part of this storm to me was the fact people still insisted on driving. Granted, traffic was way down yesterday-probably off by 75%. But there were still plenty of cars, trucks and semis on the road. Fortunately no one had a wreck on the 40' pitch (yay!) though I guess that was not the case on I-70.

This morning the storm is winding down. It is still snowing a bit and the winds are blowing the snow into drifts and likely making some roads impassable. It will be interesting to take a walk around the farm and see where drifts have appeared. I suspect the hollow behind the bank barn has 4' to 6' feet of drifting snow in it. I am hoping the hoophouses are still standing. they looked in good shape at sunset yesterday but with enough wind and snow things could have changed overnight. the last snow did damage the hoophouse with salad mix and head lettuce growing in it. Too much snow weight and not enough supports = a cave in.

Later on today I will post pictures of the winter wonderland

Sledding

It finally snowed and so we had a sledding party and invited lots of people out to sled. Since it was Wednesday not many people could make it but some intrepid people did make it out around noon and we had a good time sledding down the 40' pitch and walking back up. It was a great workout and when the the first group left at 2pm it was all we could do to heat up some left over spag and eat. About 45 minutes after eating and about the time a nap was sounding like the most excellent idea in the universe a second wave of one person (not much of a wave) arrived for more sledding.

Since Eugene and myself were not exactly up for sledding we sat around for about an hour talking and drinking beer. Finally, we decided to go out and take a look at the sledding hill and did go down once and than took a 30 minute walk around the farm.

After the walk I was more tired than ever but had a pot of chicken broth that needed attention if it was going to be transformed into dinner so while the boys sat around talking I skimmed the fat from the broth and cut up veggies and took apart the stewing hen and made a nice chicken soup for dinner along with some biscuits.

It was a fun, though tiring day. I wish I had gotten some pictures of the actual sledding but I was concerned that sledding and the camera would not go well together. I did get a few shots of the apres sledding.

This Mornings' Events

A shot of the Boulder Belt sign with the skid marks that look like the truck missed the sign. It did not. At least this is fixable

We have had an eventful day. It all started before dawn around 5:45am when Eugene and I were awoken by a loud noise that sounded like a vehicle had crashed. We looked out all the upstairs windows but failed to see anything. Perhaps because it was pitch black, perhaps because all the windows were fogged up (old double hung with pitiful leaky storms on them). Whatever it was, we could see nothing so we both crept back under the warm womb like covers and tried to go back to sleep.

I could not go back to sleep so I got up and went downstairs and started on the dishes. I heard the dogs start barking and noticed that a cop had pulled up on our side of the road with his lights on. So obviously we had heard a wreck but I still could see nothing except the blue and red lights flashing in a festive manner (the irony of emergency vehicle lights, they are festive looking but rarely do they mean anything but trouble of some sort). Deputy Muncy got out of his car and started walking around with a flashlight and than I saw a whitish truck about where our yellow sign used to be. So I yelled upstairs that there was a cop on our property and there also was a truck facing sideways on our property.

Eugene got up and dressed and we had a small argument about whether or no the truck came off of Kayler Road, jumped 127 and landed on our property in what is at the moment a small lake (we have had a lot of rain the past couple of days). He thought that was the case and I thought he was north bound on 127 and slid into the grass and likely took out our yellow sign. So he went out to check things out and talk to the deputy and the driver. Turns out I was more right than Eugene. the truck was north bound on 127 . He got up to the top of the hill/curve at the 40' Pitch and lost control and went into a power slide and hit the side of our permanent white sign and took out a post (but missed the two small boulders that were no more than 24" to the west of the truck) and than broadsided the movable yellow sign and demolished it. It is now a tangled mess of yellow plastic, plastic stripping and iron with plastic letters distributed all over the yard. The good news is no one was hurt, just signs and trucks were damaged along with sod.

This is not the sign it once was. No fixing this one

Now we are waiting on his insurance people to get out here and look at the damage. We figure they will either show up after we have left for the Epiphany party/Christmas tree burning and drinking of beer fest we have been invited to this evening or some time Monday. Until they show up we cannot remove the heap o' sign

Welcome to my Blog

nAfter many years of being a netizen and having a website and having a lot to say about sustainable agriculture and my own farm I have a Blog of my own. I do have a blog of sorts at my website on the Farm Journal page but I do not keep up with the journal and sometimes it is a year or more between posts. Also this blog told the story of Boulder Belt Organics which was located not to far away from our present farm on land we rented for almost 12 years

Okay, a bit about the purpose of this blog. I intend to use this space to tell the tale of my farm Boulder Belt Farm near Eaton, OH. This is a brand new (to me and my husband) farm that we bought the 1st of September 2005. It is a 9 acre spread with both flat and hilly terrain, a pond, a big barn, a store front and house for all of us to live in.

Some History

The nine acre parcel that makes up this farm was deeded back in 1900 making the present farm a bit over 100 years old. The house and barns were built sometime after 1900 but before 1925. The store front and pond were added in 2002

The farm is located on the 40 foot pitch in Preble County, OH which has a lot of historic and prehistoric significance. It seems that the second (and last) battle of Preble County may well have been fought on our land. This was a battle that the Indians, lead by Little Turtle, won. They killed about 15 white soldiers and got away with over 70 horses loaded with supplies.


The Plan
The plan is to grow lots of produce and some poultry on the nine acres and sell the harvest right off of the farm at the farm store. For those of you new to Boulder Belt, we have been engaged in full time farming for the past 8 years or so, growing produce and poultry for direct local sales. We are planning on continuing the CSA in 2006 and we are planning on going to the Uptown farmers' markets in Oxford, OH in 2006. Though if the on farm sales take off we will be dropping the farmers markets because they cause a lot of wear and tear on both the equipment and out bodies which are not getting any younger.

We are planning on planting a lot of fruit trees, brambles, berries and grapes over the next year or so. This means we will not have much in the way of fruit for several years other than strawberries, and whatever we can get from the apple and pear trees already here. But that's okay because we will be growing a lot of vegetables like we always have (in past years we generally grow between 50 and 85 items) and by spring we should have our first batch of meat birds growing.

We also are planning on selling organic/sustainable garden amendments like fish emulsion, compost, rock powders, kelp along with tools and season extension items such as row covers and greenhouse plastic. And we will be consigning from local farmers things like vegetable seedlings in the spring.

It's an exciting time for us planning a pretty major expansion to our farming business.

Stay tune for updates