Planting A Fig Tree

Compost in Snow w/ Betty!

The Compost has Finally Arrived

Back in late February we called up Dan Young and put in an order for 6 yards of compost. Told him we needed it by late March. Around the 3rd week of March he called and said he could send some down that day. We said we had plans away from the farm but we would be there the next day. He said he would send a load to our farm than. The next day came and went and no compost. A week went by and still no compost. A month passed and still no compost or any word from Mr. Young.

Than two days ago I find a message on the answering machine from Dan. He can deliver compost that day. So I call back and leave a message saying that would be great. The day passes and no compost arrives. Than around 4pm yesterday Dan calls back and says a truck is on its way and will be at the farm in 1/2 hour. JOY!.

The truck arrives

It backs up to the sheet of plastic that keeps the pile from leaching into the water system and dry during rains

Eugene and the truck driver loosen the tarp

The bed rises

Compost comes out

Soon we have a big ole pile of compost dumped next to the market garden on a big piece of plastic

Winter Farm Tour with Cub Scout troop 511

Yesterday we hosted cub scout pack 511. Their leader, Stacy, had called 3 weeks ago to set up a form tour so the kids can get credit for some ecological/green living badge they are working towards. So I guess they thought a tour of a sustainable farm would fit the bill. Unfortunately they had to do this before the end of this month. So we did our first ever winter farm tour and it went swimmingly.

Around 15 kids, ages 8 and nine and 5 or 6 adults came out to learn a bit about sustainable farming. it was a warm day (50F) but messy because of all the melting snow. Of course, the boys loved the fact it was wet and muddy and they could be in it. We gathered everyone on the porch of the store and than set off to look at a hoop house a compost pile (which Eugene allowed the kids to turn using a potato fork. I wish I had remembered to grab the camera because the grins I saw on those faces was priceless). Than down to the bottom field where Eugene talked about nature and stuff with the kids.

I was blown away (I always am) with how receptive the kids were to all this new information. And I was happy to see the adults were also very interested in what we had to say about sustainable farming.

At the end of the tour we gathered on the store's porch again and I passed out heirloom lettuce seed packets to the kids along with boulder belt brochures and card with the information of the Oxford winter market. That really thrilled the kids (I had forgotten how cool it is as a child to get stuff to take home). Eugene explained to everyone how to plant the lettuce and I have a feeling that most of the packets will be planted this spring.

I had forgotten how much fun farm tours are and having one for kids was even better than adults. I think we will do this again.

Autumn Update

Fall has finally arrived and with it a lessening in the work load and nicer weather in which to work. the market garden is pretty much done with tomatoes, we have planted a fall crop and they have tomatoes on them but there are only 30 or so plants vs the 450+ tomatoes planted for the main crop.

The peppers in the hoop house are about over for the year. Heat or blight or bacterial wilt or arm worms or something did a real number on them. We got one good one for every 5 to 10 on the plants that rotted in some way (and this is why green peppers are generally 50% to 75% cheaper than ripe peppers-it's easy to grow a green pepper but quite hard to get a pepper from green to ripe without problems). the 200+ pepper plants planted after the hoop house pepper have not done much at all. I am getting some beautiful green fruit from one bed and the jalapenos are doing okay but there are very few peppers ripening and those that are are very under sized. These plants should have had ripe peppers at least 4 weeks ago and they don't. Most barely have 1/2 grown peppers on them. Bad pepper year. But if it stays mild for another 6 to 8 weeks we should get some ripe peppers out of the main crop. There is always next year.

As we get away from the summer crops the fall things are coming in. We harvested the first spring mix (yes I realize it is autumn so the stuff should be called fall mix or something but changing names on a product don't work good for no one) this week. It looks wonderful but since it is selling well we have not had any yet. We also dug the first parsnips and they look fabulous! I don't believe we have ever grown such nice parsnips.

We have been pulling leeks for about 3 weeks and will continue to do so until we run out (sometime in March or April). I have been using a lot of leeks and they are yummy, much better than what you can buy at the grocery in both taste and the fact we take great pains to get long white shanks on the leeks and that means extra work hilling them numerous times during their long growing season.

The winter squash was a disappointment this year. Last year we had a bumper crop of butternut but not this year. this year the plants went in a bit too late (actually the went in about the same time as last year but the rains had stopped and it got hot) and they were not able to thrive and produce a lot of high quality squash for winter storage. Instead, we got rather small fruits and many had to be harvested too early before they matured because they were being badly attacked by squash bugs (like the bugs were swarming over the squash so you could not even see them under the insects). We did get a decent crop of delicata and sweet dumpling squash but everything else was just so so at best.

The pear tree was loaded with pears until Ike's winds came and knocked down 8 bushels of pears. We did go out and pick up all the drops (which is why we know that 8 bushels came down). We will sell and use the pears but will not be able to get top dollar for them because they are damaged. I supoose in about 5 weeks we will be making gallons of pear wine and pear jelly among other things out of the dropped pears. Despite the wind there is still about 5 bushels of pears still up in the tree. That tree must have had well over a 1000 pounds of pears hanging off it. That's a lot of pears for a single tree. I am very surprised that the tree did not lose several major limbs in the wind storm. It did lose 2 minor limbs. It is in a very protected spot and that is likely why it did not get more damage.


The barn roof has been fixed and it stronger than it was before along with far fewer holes in the roof thanks to a lot of silicone caulk being applied over the whole roof (not that the roof is covered with caulk).

The remainder of fall will be taken up with several fall tasks including the unexpected hand watering. We are starting water certain things daily by hand because the drip irrigation just ain't doing the job, especially for seeds and seedlings that have just emerged. Than there is planting crops for winter and early spring, putting up hoop houses for the late fall and over wintering crops, hoeing and harvesting and putting the beds to sleep for the winter. Which means taking up any mulch (we use landscape fabric which has to be cleaned of roots/weeds and than rolled up for winter storage), drip tapes (these we roll up onto garden hose caddies), planting cover crops in beds that won't be used until mid May and removing all debris such as tall weeds and the dead crops. We have found over the years that getting the garden cleaned up in fall is very important. If you don't do this you will have a bug and disease problem the following year. The plant corpses go on the compost piles and thus feed the soil next year.

The season officially ends with the garlic planting in late October/Early November. In reality, the work never ends it just ebbs and flows.

Feb. Winter Market Prep.

We have a farmers market this morning and that meant a 7 hour day harvesting and cleaning produce yesterday. I was surprised how much time it took the two of us to get things together considering all we harvested was leeks, mizuna, red mustard tat soi and spring mix.

The harvesting of greens was nice. It got sunny so the hoop houses warmed up to around 70F quickly. It got so warm I was working in a T-shirt and still pouring sweat. Kind of like working on a hot summer day (okay, a very warm spring day). We did the last major cutting of the spring mix. Eugene felt slow and puny because he is slow at greens harvesting and I am very fast. This is one of the farm, tasks where I am a lot better at it that he is and I think this bruises his ego a bit (but it strokes mine so we are all good and even.). So I ended up with two full plastic grocery bags of spring mix and he had 1/2 a bag. Together we got 15 bags of cleaned spring mix.

We also got 15 leeks from another hoop house. I believe I have mentioned how well leeks do in unheated hoop houses before. They are still doing fantastic and it was a joy to pull and clean them. They also have been very very tasty, perhaps the best leeks I have ever eaten (and I have been eating a lot the past month because we have them and they are sooo damn good). Pulling leeks is a muddy endeavour. You have to get over top of the leek in order to get a clean pull out of the ground. Otherwise, the greens want to beak off and if that happens the leek is ruined for market (but can be dug out of the ground for home use). For me to do this means having to put one foot in the bed (which is a big no no on our farm because walking in beds causes compaction, but sometimes you have to break a rule or two) so I pull straight up. Once the leek is out of the ground the dirt has to be shaken off the root ball and than the roots cut off. This means whomever is pulling leeks will get a lot of dirt on their body and I did. Normally I would not mind the dirt but I did not want to go back to the house, take off my mud covered boots and wash my hands and knife in order to go cut spring mix and not get the salad greens all muddy. But since we got such a haul from the leek hoop house (we also harvested kale, mizuna, tat soi and red mustard) we decided to take all that to the store before harvesting spring mix and that got me close enough to the house to go in and get somewhat cleaned up.

Once the greens and leeks were harvested we turned our attention to cleaning everything we had just picked plus several items that have been put up for winter such as potatoes. We store potatoes with their dirt on and clean as needed as they do not store nearly as well cleaned up. Washing the potatoes was interesting. They are stored in a couple of dead fridges in the barn and are kept naturally, almost at freezing in those fridges. So when we poured the dirty spuds into the wash water it was like pouring several pounds of ice into the water. It was stinging, numbing cold washing the spuds. Not at all fun. But soon enough the potatoes were washed and bagged and put into coolers (or should I say warmers) to keep them from freezing at market

Than there were the rutabagas we harvested a month ago into a couple of buckets and than put the 'bagas dirt, leaves in buckets into the fridge. The fridge has been smelling like rotting cabbage/rutabaga for a while so it was high time to take a good look at the rutabagas and see what's what. And what I found was a whole lot of beautiful 'bagas and few that had been damaged by cold in the field and were slowly rotting away (I believe the stinking culprits). I helped their cause by depositing them into the compost bucket so they can continue to rot and eventually help enrich the soil in which they were grown. For the rest I trimmed the roots and cleaned dirt and got them ready for today.

The final step last night was going through all the onions, garlic and winter squash and tossing out the bad ones. We lost a lot of butternut squash (we will cut them open, remove the seeds for roasting and cook up all good squash parts and freeze the puree for spring summer use) but the delicata squash seemed in excellent shape. The red onions are in sprouting mode. We are saving most to use as onions sets and for seed production (we grow several heirloom onion vareties). But we still have quite a few left. the yellow onions will be in major sprouting mode in 2 to 3 weeks it looks like. the garlic is still doing fine.

After going through everything we than started in on the second to last step before we will be ready to go. putting everything in coolers so they will not freeze at market this morning. In summer we use coolers to keep things cold and in winter we use them to keep things warm. Without them we would lose a lot of produce. So yesterday evening we filled coolers with winter squashes, onions, garlic and potatoes. this morning the carrots, radishes, turnips, chicken and greens will go into coolers. Than everything will be loaded onto the van and we will be off to market by 8:30am this morning so we can be all set up by 9:30am.

Hopefully the locavores will be out enforce and we will sell out.

Ah Garlic!

Planted the garlic this past Thursday. Put in around 1600 cloves of the stinking rose in 5 beds. like the past 7 years or so we planted three kinds: Persian Star, Chesnok Red (Shvilisi) and German White.

Planting all that garlic takes us a whole day. We start by carefully cracking open corms and separating the cloves from special garlic we kept back from the rest of the garlic that we are selling. Not all cloves are worthy for planting and those are set aside for making into garlic powder. Some have been ruined by onion maggots and have to be composted. I marked three paper bags with the names of the garlic to go inside, one for Chesnok Red, one for German White, one for Persian Star. I start with one type of garlic and finish that type before going on to the next type. this way we do not mix the varieties and keep them pure. After a couple of hours of opening up hundreds of corms the garlic is ready to be planted.

Planting consists of getting the beds ready by tilling, than putting compost, sul-po-mag and green sand on the beds and raking those items into the soil as well as flattening out the bed. Now the beds are ready for garlic placement. This year we did three lines of garlic per bed. In the past we did 4 to 5 lines per bed but noticed the garlic was getting smaller and smaller. So this year we decided since we have the room we could give the garlic plenty of room to grow big and strong.

Now I don't know what happened to us Thursday afternoon but basically the garlic planting broke down and did not get back on track until around 4pm, just 2.5 hours before dark. So at 4 pm I wandered up to the market garden and saw that Eugene had placed garlic in 2 beds and 2 more beds were all ready to go and the 5th bed was just getting its amendments put on and still had to be raked flat. So I grabbed a bag of Chesnok Red and proceeded to place cloves of garlic every 5 inches or so down the length of the 50' bed. After 15 minutes or so I had 3 neat rows going about 3/4 of the way down the bed. That done I grabbed the bag of German White and placed them in the bed to the east of the Chesnok and easily got a full bed with extra garlic still in the bag. While I was working on the German White, Eugene finished up raking and started placing the Persian Star in the bed he was working on. Than we both took the extra garlic cloves and found places for them such as the 1/4 bed that the Chesnok Red did not fill and that I filled up with Persian Star.

Once we were done placing garlic we went back over the beds and moved cloves around until we were satisfied with their positions. once that was done we were ready to put the cloves in the ground (always with the root end facing down). And it was a good thing were ready to plant because we were losing light fast. I can plant a bed with 330 garlic cloves in just under 15 minutes, Eugene is a bit faster. We had 5 beds to plant (we could not leave the cloves on top of the soil overnight as it was going to be frosty and they likely would not make it through 12+ hours of such exposure) and about 25 minutes before it was completely dark. So we got to work and quickly got them all in the ground before we lost 100% of the light. I gotta say the last 10 or so cloves were nearly invisible but we got them in.

Than it was beer :30 and we called it a day.

The next day, I cleaned the dried basil that was sitting in the dehydrator and filled the trays with garlic cloves and soon the house was filled with the aroma of drying garlic which is pretty damned pungent, I'll tell you what.

The garlic planting signals both the end of the current planting season and the beginning of the 2008 season as it is the first crop we plant for next year and, other than a few cover crops, will be the last thing we plant in 2007.

Tomato Hell Redux

One of the compost piles we are currently building. It looks so festive with all the colorful tomatoes in and around the pile.

So now the cherry tomatoes I harvested on Thursday, that did not sell at market Saturday, are beginning to soften and split. This is bad as it attracts fruit flies who lay eggs in the slurry. It also smells bad and drips foul smelling tomato goo on the floor or ones feet. So for an hour this morning I sat in a chair in the back of the store and patiently removed good sun sugar maters into a clean crate and bad sun sugar tomatoes into a compost bucket. The result was about 1/3 were keepers.

I still have around 6 crates of big tomatoes to go through yet this afternoon. I am sure I will get 4 to 6 buckets (5 gallon sized) of tomatoes to take out to the new compost pile to go with the other 20 to 30m buckets already there.

Compost in Winter

This is our slowest time of year. There is not much daylight so even if it is a mild winter (like it is so far this winter) and you have a bunch of crops planted in hoophouses, things still will not grow fast-crops or weeds. So there is not not much harvesting to do nor weeding to be done as compared to what will start happening in about 2 to 3 weeks when the day length gets longer and the sun higher in the sky. So we do not do much. But we are not completely dormant.

3 compost piles, the one in the foreground is still being built
and the other two have been freshly turned

One thing that can be done this time of year is composting. We have 4 compost piles cooking that were built this past fall and have been turned a couple of times since they were completed (one of the tricks to good compost is once you start turning the pile and letting it cook do not add more material) and should be ready to use by mid to late spring.

Eugene does pretty much all the compost turning because I have a bad rotator cuff in my left shoulder (from a riding accident I suffered on my 17th birthday during a 3-day event) that goes out after 1/2 hour of such work making my left arm useless for several days if I rub it down with arnica, longer if I do not.



Putting compost on beds is something we can do as long as the piles are not frozen and there is no snow on the ground (okay we can apply compost on top of the snow but if there is snow, generally the pile is too frozen). since we do not have a lot of compost right now Eugene in the photo is putting down a scant layer which will feed the critters in the soil that will in turn feed the plants.

Before we can apply the compost it has to be screened. Here we have Eugene carrying the tools of the trade (sans a wheel barrow to put the screened material into), a soil screen and a shovel (the dog is optional). Screening is simple-take a shovelful or two of compost, drop it on the screen and sift it through leaving the big uncomposted chunks and rocks behind. You are left with material suitable for putting on beds or for making soil for soil blocks and other seed starting.

Flock-Killing Planned if Bird Flu Found

Flock-Killing Planned if Bird Flu Found

WASHINGTON, Apr. 19, 2006

(AP) If deadly bird flu shows up in U.S. chickens or turkeys, the government will kill off any flocks suspected of having the virus even before tests are completed, officials said Wednesday.

At greater risk are free-ranging chickens and small, backyard flocks _ as many as 60,000 in Los Angeles alone.

If bird flu arrives, "quick detection will be key to quickly containing it and eradicating it," said Ron DeHaven, head of the Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Most of America's chickens come from big commercial farms that keep birds indoors and are well-protected against the spread of disease. Yet there are many flocks in people's backyards _ officials are unsure how many _ and free-range flocks that are outdoors and could mix with wild birds or their droppings.

Officials encourage those producers to bring flocks inside and watch for signs of flu _ dead birds; lack of appetite; purple wattles, combs and legs; coughing or sneezing; diarrhea _ and report them immediately to state or federal authorities.

"We can't afford for this virus to be smoldering six months before we find it," DeHaven said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Owners will want to report sick birds because they will be paid fair market value for destroyed flocks, DeHaven said. Stopping the spread of bird flu has been more difficult in countries that can't afford to compensate farmers, he added.

The virulent strain of bird flu spreading through Asia, Europe and Africa has killed 110 people and hundreds of millions of birds. Scientists fear it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, sparking a worldwide epidemic.

Authorities say it's likely to arrive in the United States this year. The government is testing more wild birds than usual, as many as 100,000 in Alaska and other migratory pathways. Chicken and turkey companies are testing nearly every flock for the virus.

"If the virus does arrive in the U.S., we think we'll find it quickly," he said. "We don't think that it would ever make it into the food chain."

Regardless, poultry is safe to eat if people cook it to 165 degrees and follow basic kitchen safety rules, DeHaven said.

If the virus turns up in commercial chickens or turkeys, the government plans to quarantine the farm, restrict bird movements within about two miles and boost testing within about six miles.

If screening tests suggest a potentially virulent flu virus is present, and the birds show signs of flu, they'll be killed immediately, even before more detailed testing is finished, DeHaven said. Flocks would be confined and killed with carbon dioxide gas, essentially putting them to sleep, DeHaven said. Authorities refer to this as "depopulation."

Disposal of dead birds is tricky, because they still may carry the virus. In the past, large numbers of birds have been buried, put in landfills or incinerated, but those things can be expensive and cause bureaucratic hassles.

Now, the industry intends to compost the carcasses inside houses where birds are killed.

To be composted, carcasses are layered with mulch, hosed down and left alone, inside, for four to six weeks, said Richard Lobb, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, an industry group. Intense heat generated by composting is more than enough to kill the virus, Lobb said.

The government has vaccines to protect poultry from the virus but is reluctant to use them because vaccinated birds can still spread the virus without appearing sick, said John Clifford, the department's chief veterinarian. Vaccines could be used in flocks surrounding the area of an outbreak, he said.

___

On the Net:

Agriculture Department: http://www.usda.gov

Biosecurity for the birds campaign: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/birdbiosecurity/



Okay, this plan seems to be against the small holder with healthy pastured poultry. I noticed that all outdoor flocks will be executed even before a test says whether or not they are actually infected while the factory farms will just be put under quarantine. it os nice that growers will be reimbursed for their dead birds at fair market value. I sell my birds for $4 a pound (and believe me they are worth every penny) and I even have a paper trail that says this has been the case for the past 5 years but I will be willing to bet if the feds come for my birds I will get nothing approaching what I get for a dressed whole bird and will more likely get the fair market value of a factory farmed bird. Likely around 30¢ a pound (which would not even cover for the feed they get over 7 weeks much less our labor or the cost of the chicks)
Lucy

Its cold and rainy today so I got the seed order together. Or at least most of it. I am still waiting on the Seed Saver's Exchange catalog to catch up with me. They always have interesting heirloom varieties no one else has.

But the main order is done for the most part. Need to double check that we are not forgetting anything important and than add up the damage and write checks and send the forms to their appropriate places. It's a small order this year maybe around $200 to $250. But last year we did a huge order and still have a lot of seed left over that will work just fine.

Now we have to start thinking about the perennials that need to be looked into. We need to order and plant before April or May:

strawberries (200+ plants)
asparagus (250 plants)
raspberries (100 plants)
blackberries (100 plants)
fruit trees (peach, pear, apple, saskatoons, pawpaw. Several of each)
grapes (1/4 acre)
rhubarb (100 plants)

Pretty big order but if the weather cooperates and we can get a bit of help we should be able to get everything on the list in this spring.

After lunch prepped a bunch of apples for drying. Had to peel the skin from each one than cut out the cores and slice them into thin slices, removing any brown spots (which there were a lot of on many of the apples), put the slices into lemon water than after letting the fruit soak for at least 15 minutes into the dehydrator. Added a lot of material to the compost.

After the apples were put into the dehydrator Eugene went on to cut up even more apples for apple sauce and now those are being turned into mush because of heat. later on I will get out the Victorio and separate the skin and seeds from the good stuff and turn the rough cut apples into apple sauce. I will add brown sugar, cinnamon to taste and let the flavors meld for a bit over low heat and than get out the canner, clean up some jars and lids and can the sauce. Unless I decide to freeze it instead which means getting many quart yogurt containers really clean and than ladling the sauce into them and putting them into a freezer.

The Eggplant Head

A photo of the Eggplant head taken in late October. It still looks the same in early December
My father, Bill and my step mother, Rebecca came to visit the new farm back in early October. They brought along a strange gift of an eggplant that had been grown in a mold so it looks like the head of a gnome or something. We took it to the farmers market several times and most people agreed it was one of the weirdest things they had ever seen.

The head spent much of November in the unheated barn and other than a bit of shriveling it was no worse for wear. It is now December and the head is sitting in the kitchen (heated but not very) still in good shape.

Yesterday I tossed the last one of our eggplants in the compost-It had been sitting in the door of the fridge for weeks (months?). It had gotten covered in mold and deflated pretty badly. Now, the question is, why is the eggplant grown in a mold doing so well at survival? Eugene thinks it is because no fungus or bacteria got on the fruit while it was developing in the mold form so there is nothing to attack it and make it rot. Sounds reasonable to me.