Spring is here!

On this cold, windy, rainy day, we started up the greenhouse heater & pressed thousands of seeds into the soil. We turned on the hose & watered them in. We brought the onion plants from my parent's house (where they've been growing for 2 weeks near a sunny window), and the artichoke seedlings we transplanted up into 4" pots. Beth here is checking on the trays that we set on a germination mat at 80 degrees. The air in the greenhouse is set to about 55 degrees.
There is nothing like that shade of green in the spring, after months of seeing gray.
Luke helped me pull a giant durable tarp over our new shed we built over the walk-in cooler. It's actually a used billboard we got from the local billboard company!

The fields are indeed muddy. Mud Creek is flowing fast & high, and is living up to its name. The fields have a few soggy spots. I remember this from last year. As soon as the soil below thaws out, it should drain away soon. The patch by the garlic concerns me a bit, but the garlic is starting to push through the soil & grow now, so I think it should have enough strength to survive. I just hope the rain stops soon & we get more sun like last week! We'll need to plow soon...
Here's a few pictures from constructing the shed:


And from up in the greenhouse peak, working on plasticking the vents.
It's a great time to be out at the farm-- every day more and more bird songs can be heard, and all sorts of insects & critters are crawling out of their hiding places. The mud makes a slurping sound when you pull your boots out of it. The air is crisp & new. Hello spring!

Project: COMPOST

Compost is kind of my religion.

Everything that is alive composts eventually. It's how nature recycles. And the end product after decomposition is ultimately nourishment for another generation of living things. Organic farmers who are growing & harvesting vegetables rely heavily on compost to replenish their soil.


Compost is that step that brings dead things back to life. It's pretty miraculous actually.

This year I'd like to invite all our CSA members to be a part of the whole cycle-- by saving any kitchen scraps, etc. (see list below) and dropping them off at the farm when you pick up your veggie share every week. This keeps a lot of precious "waste" from going to the landfill, and it helps grow your vegetables too!

The best way is to collect scraps in a 5-gallon bucket, with a lid on it. You can keep it outside, in the garage, under the sink, by the trash can, etc. -- just make sure it's tight so that critters can't get in. You can get free buckets from the bakery & deli sections of grocery stores-- just ask them next time you're doing your grocery shopping. If you get a few, share with a friend. Keep asking-- we can always use more on the farm too, so start collecting!

We have a chef in the city (Natural Oasis Restaurant) who collects all his food scraps for us & sometimes even personally delivers them to the farm! He usually has about 10 buckets worth a week. If anyone knows other sources such as this that might be interested, let me know.

Here's a list of compostable items:
-all food scraps (peels, cores, tops, old moldy stuff from the fridge, meat & dairy ok too)
-coffee grounds, tea bags
-eggshells
-paper bags, black&white newspaper


Sound good? Once you get in the habit of it, it's kind of fun. You'll never go back.

A chance to be a part of growing new food by recycling old food. So go get a bucket & start!

Greenhouse almost ready for planting!

The last four days we've been out at the farm taking advantage of the gorgeous spring weather-- and after many frozen fingers & muddy knees, we've finally finished putting all the new plastic up & it's just about ready to go. First we had a little excavating job to dig out the sides of the greenhouse...
Then we pulled the 2 layers of plastic sheeting over the top of the greenhouse (by 3 ropes attached to the plastic around snowballs!)... securing it on all sides with a metal-rod system & bolts. This system is outdated & extremely time-consuming & frustrating. Next time we do this, we're updating to the "wiggle-wire" method. Boy, what a headache. Thankfully a few farmer friends came out to give helpful advice (they have more experience with greenhouses themselves). Then we stapled smaller pieces of plastic to the endwalls... on the north wall I was able to use the old plastic from last year, since we don't care too much about light penetrating through this side.As the sun set this evening, the greenhouse glowed as I walked back out to my car.
All day big "V"s of geese were squawking overhead... I like to say "welcome back" to them in the spring, even though I know that lots of them overwinter here probably!
Spring feels like it has arrived. The ground was thawing & the mud was making its presence known-- on our boots, gloves, pants, & everything. Glorious, glorious mud.

Thank you to all the enthusiastic volunteers who came out to help with breaking in the farm for the 2010 season!

I'm excited to get to know everyone-- all the new CSA members who'll be joining us this season -- as well as seeing old friends who are back for a second summer. Happy spring!

Muddy times...

An inspiring article... about communities supporting agriculture in a slightly different way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/magazine/28food-t-000.html

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.

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.

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.