We expect to harvest over 10,000 onions this year.
Monday, February 22, 2010
First seeds of 2010 started!
The first seeds of the season have been sown. Onions! 5 trays of potting soil, sprinkled with tiny seeds-- we will keep them in a warm part of the basement for a week until they pop up out of the soil, then put them in a sunny window until the greenhouse gets heated. (Which hopefully will happen before March 7th, when a lot more gets planted!)
We expect to harvest over 10,000 onions this year.
We expect to harvest over 10,000 onions this year.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
CSA memberships still available!
Lots of folks have been calling & emailing lately, inquiring about the CSA & how it works. That's so great! I can't wait to meet all these new additions to the farm "family".
We still have quite a few openings for 2010 membership, so start asking your friends & neighbors if they'd like to join up with us this year! If you want to post fliers up at your office, yoga studio, library, favorite restaurant, etc., let me know!
Seed order update: all seeds have been ordered and are in the mail! I was happy to buy most of them from High Mowing Seeds this year, which sells 100% organic, and is located in Vermont not far from where Luke grew up. If you're interested in buying some seeds for your home garden, I highly suggest them, but also Fedco Seeds has some really interesting varieties too. Johnny's Seeds is the standard for vegetable growers all over the country, and they have an extensive collection of garden tools too, including these awesome lightweight hoes that I'm ordering more of!
Right now Luke & I are designing a more efficient way to heat the greenhouse tables in the spring-- studying solar greenhouse design & radiant heat systems. Can't wait to get everything started.
We still have quite a few openings for 2010 membership, so start asking your friends & neighbors if they'd like to join up with us this year! If you want to post fliers up at your office, yoga studio, library, favorite restaurant, etc., let me know!
Seed order update: all seeds have been ordered and are in the mail! I was happy to buy most of them from High Mowing Seeds this year, which sells 100% organic, and is located in Vermont not far from where Luke grew up. If you're interested in buying some seeds for your home garden, I highly suggest them, but also Fedco Seeds has some really interesting varieties too. Johnny's Seeds is the standard for vegetable growers all over the country, and they have an extensive collection of garden tools too, including these awesome lightweight hoes that I'm ordering more of!
Right now Luke & I are designing a more efficient way to heat the greenhouse tables in the spring-- studying solar greenhouse design & radiant heat systems. Can't wait to get everything started.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
2010 begins!
Well, the farm is fast asleep these days, under blankets of snow. The meadow voles have cozied up in their burrows with abundant stashes of beets, carrots, cabbage leaves & other field residues. I've been in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont for the holidays. No, I don't ski, but I do enjoy snowshoeing. Even more enjoyable is pawing through seed catalogs selecting next year's varieties of vegetables we'll grow! I can't wait to fire up that greenhouse... just 9 more weeks before it starts all over again. Happy new year.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Mud Creek Farm CSA Info Meeting this Sunday!
This Sunday, December 6th, 12pm - 1:30pm
@ the Artisan Church, 1235 S. Clinton Ave, Rochester, 14620
Mud Creek Farm CSA Informational Meeting
Come enjoy a potluck lunch, then hear Farmer Erin explain the benefits, costs, and rewards of personal involvement in locally grown organic produce.
This is a basic introduction to the CSA: new members & interested folks are encouraged to come, as well as returning members (although you are all experts in CSA involvement by now!) There will be a slide show with photos from 2009, and an introduction on organic food by Kristina Keefe-Perry, Food Justice Coordinator for NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association).
Tell your friends! This is a great way to get to know more about how Mud Creek Farm CSA works, ask questions, meet the farmer, etc.
See you there.
Erin
@ the Artisan Church, 1235 S. Clinton Ave, Rochester, 14620
Mud Creek Farm CSA Informational Meeting
Come enjoy a potluck lunch, then hear Farmer Erin explain the benefits, costs, and rewards of personal involvement in locally grown organic produce.
This is a basic introduction to the CSA: new members & interested folks are encouraged to come, as well as returning members (although you are all experts in CSA involvement by now!) There will be a slide show with photos from 2009, and an introduction on organic food by Kristina Keefe-Perry, Food Justice Coordinator for NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association).
Tell your friends! This is a great way to get to know more about how Mud Creek Farm CSA works, ask questions, meet the farmer, etc.
See you there.
Erin
December... still going!
Still some green left on the farm... we've been taking advantage of the nice days. Rolling up drip tape to reuse it next year...
Honestly I thought I'd be done by now, farm all wrapped up for the winter, me taking naps & dreaming of florida... But I'm still out there working! We are ALMOST done with everything-- just took the last crops from the field, really late stuff that took its time maturing & is finally ready. We are bringing them to the Brighton market (which is indoors, thank goodness!). Cabbage heads which were really wimpy back in October are almost perfect now-- Luke & I made over 200 lbs of sauerkraut & kim chi yesterday. We will ferment these over the winter & sell them at spring markets. We are selling some of our earlier fall ferments already.
We got a nice blurb in the D&C on Tuesday for our hot sauce line-- "Local Collaboration", it read. Indeed, when farmers & bakers get together, good things happen.
Next week: crop planning for next year!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Photos from the last few weeks of harvest...
Gathering the last leaves of swiss chard...
Farmer workshop about winter root vegetables, at Bejo Seeds in Geneva:
Mowing the field across the street, front loader held high out of the way of the 9 foot tall weeds:
Final broccoli harvest... going to market:
Oats & peas are our winter cover crop for the spring fields... these will be killed by a hard frost & provide a mulch to prevent soil erosion. Then we will till under & plant our spring greens here!
Driving Princess Rose III to Jack's barn, 3 miles down the road. He will do repairs on it this winter.
Luke and a whole bunch of muddy parsnips!
A broom that someone made out of our broom corn:
Lisa picking "dino" kale:
Angie & I picking kale on a glorious fall day.
A glowing distribution scene:
Farmer workshop about winter root vegetables, at Bejo Seeds in Geneva:
Mowing the field across the street, front loader held high out of the way of the 9 foot tall weeds:
Final broccoli harvest... going to market:
Oats & peas are our winter cover crop for the spring fields... these will be killed by a hard frost & provide a mulch to prevent soil erosion. Then we will till under & plant our spring greens here!
Driving Princess Rose III to Jack's barn, 3 miles down the road. He will do repairs on it this winter.
Luke and a whole bunch of muddy parsnips!
A broom that someone made out of our broom corn:
Lisa picking "dino" kale:
Angie & I picking kale on a glorious fall day.
A glowing distribution scene:
Monday, November 16, 2009
Post-Season Thoughts & Happenings
CSA distribution ended 2 and 1/2 weeks ago.
And while I probably should be lying on the couch watching movies & drinking tea, I'm actually still working almost every day! There's clean-up: both the shed & greenhouse need to be de-plasticked (for the snow load & we need to replace the old plastic anyway), so everything has to come out & be put in storage. I have to put all the equipment away, and store the tractors in my neighbor's barn. Then there's all the irrigation & row cover left in the field that needs to be rolled up... I built this pretty fun roller-thing that easily winds up the material onto spools for storing & using next year. If we left the drip tape in the field the mice & voles would chew it to pieces.
I mowed across the street, since landowner Bob was concerned about the small trees growing up in it. It hasn't been worked up in a while, there's blackberry brambles & twig dogwoods & cottonwoods. We probably won't need to farm there next year, as I have plenty of land on the other side, next to our fields from this year. The land is nice, though, with a 3-acre chunk next to McMahon Road, and a pie-shaped several-acre piece in the back, bordering the railroad tracks & the glaring white fence of the housing development. I'm sure the developers would love to get their hands on this parcel... you could make a lot of money building houses on that field. Right now there are thousands of rabbits, mice, voles, hawks, snakes, toads, groundhogs, and deer living rent-free on the lot. If only they could come up with the cash.
I wonder sometimes about how many acres one person requires to eat from. For vegetables on Mud Creek Farm, I calculate that each person needs about 700 square feet, or a 25'x25' box for their "season allotment" of all the veggies they can eat. If we include planting for the other half of the year (winter storage crops: roots, squash, hardy greens, etc.) lets double that to 1400 square feet, or 38'x38'. And no one can eat only vegetables: we need to include grain, meat, dairy, oil, fruit, etc. The land required is a lot less for vegetarians. I'm not sure what those calculations would work out to be, but I'm sure there's been studies. In any case, when new housing developments go up, I look at all those houses & think about where those people are going to get their food. If we cover all the fertile fields around us with roads, driveways, mansions, apartment buildings, parking lots, shopping centers, & drive-through fast food outlets, we'll have to continue to go further out into the country to get our nourishment.
It's true that there is a lot of land in upstate New York. But fuel prices will make it more expensive to transport that food into cities. And a lot of the land in New York state is forested, providing habitat for many critters-- including the endandered Eastern Cougar, and others (http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/263.html) that I believe have every right to inhabit, & eat from, this land too. So let's keep agriculture close to home, and leave the land too far away to the bears & the bobcats.
A good way to do this is to make sure that your diet includes as many local products as you can manage. Besides vegetables from Mud Creek Farm, you could buy flour & bread made from wheat grown in Palmyra. You could buy bacon & eggs from Branchport, honey from Bloomfield, fruit from Barker, black beans from Ithaca, chicken from Livonia, cheese from Aurora, sausage from Avon. And you can't buy these things in the grocery store.
All these vendors will be at the new winter farmer's market in Brighton:
I'll be there selling what's left of the vegetable harvest & helping Luke out at the Small World Bakery stand. Come sample our 13 varieties of hot sauce! Buy some granola, brownies, or date bars.
See you there!
And while I probably should be lying on the couch watching movies & drinking tea, I'm actually still working almost every day! There's clean-up: both the shed & greenhouse need to be de-plasticked (for the snow load & we need to replace the old plastic anyway), so everything has to come out & be put in storage. I have to put all the equipment away, and store the tractors in my neighbor's barn. Then there's all the irrigation & row cover left in the field that needs to be rolled up... I built this pretty fun roller-thing that easily winds up the material onto spools for storing & using next year. If we left the drip tape in the field the mice & voles would chew it to pieces.
I mowed across the street, since landowner Bob was concerned about the small trees growing up in it. It hasn't been worked up in a while, there's blackberry brambles & twig dogwoods & cottonwoods. We probably won't need to farm there next year, as I have plenty of land on the other side, next to our fields from this year. The land is nice, though, with a 3-acre chunk next to McMahon Road, and a pie-shaped several-acre piece in the back, bordering the railroad tracks & the glaring white fence of the housing development. I'm sure the developers would love to get their hands on this parcel... you could make a lot of money building houses on that field. Right now there are thousands of rabbits, mice, voles, hawks, snakes, toads, groundhogs, and deer living rent-free on the lot. If only they could come up with the cash.
I wonder sometimes about how many acres one person requires to eat from. For vegetables on Mud Creek Farm, I calculate that each person needs about 700 square feet, or a 25'x25' box for their "season allotment" of all the veggies they can eat. If we include planting for the other half of the year (winter storage crops: roots, squash, hardy greens, etc.) lets double that to 1400 square feet, or 38'x38'. And no one can eat only vegetables: we need to include grain, meat, dairy, oil, fruit, etc. The land required is a lot less for vegetarians. I'm not sure what those calculations would work out to be, but I'm sure there's been studies. In any case, when new housing developments go up, I look at all those houses & think about where those people are going to get their food. If we cover all the fertile fields around us with roads, driveways, mansions, apartment buildings, parking lots, shopping centers, & drive-through fast food outlets, we'll have to continue to go further out into the country to get our nourishment.
It's true that there is a lot of land in upstate New York. But fuel prices will make it more expensive to transport that food into cities. And a lot of the land in New York state is forested, providing habitat for many critters-- including the endandered Eastern Cougar, and others (http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/263.html) that I believe have every right to inhabit, & eat from, this land too. So let's keep agriculture close to home, and leave the land too far away to the bears & the bobcats.
A good way to do this is to make sure that your diet includes as many local products as you can manage. Besides vegetables from Mud Creek Farm, you could buy flour & bread made from wheat grown in Palmyra. You could buy bacon & eggs from Branchport, honey from Bloomfield, fruit from Barker, black beans from Ithaca, chicken from Livonia, cheese from Aurora, sausage from Avon. And you can't buy these things in the grocery store.
All these vendors will be at the new winter farmer's market in Brighton:
Tuesdays, 4-7 pm
1900 Westfall Road, Rochester 14618
Atonement Lutheran Church
I'll be there selling what's left of the vegetable harvest & helping Luke out at the Small World Bakery stand. Come sample our 13 varieties of hot sauce! Buy some granola, brownies, or date bars. See you there!
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