April First Photos...

The greenhouse is my morning & evening chore, every day the sun comes out-- I have to open up the doors & vents, check the trays of plants to see if they need watering, and then close up at night before it gets cold.
It's a satisfying thing to see the tiny seedlings hold themselves proudly up, just a week ago they were still seeds. Now they're on a journey...
We put buckets of water in the sun to soak up the day's heat-- at night they radiate out that heat to warm the plants, so we need to use our propane heater less.
Celeriac seedlings... these little ones have almost the longest lifespan on the farm-- we won't pull them out of the field until October! And they are one of the first to get seeded in the greenhouse.
The cotyledons (first 2 seed leaves) of the brassica family always look like little butterflies to me. Brassicas include cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, bok choi, and many others.
These are the artichokes, already they have several "true leaves"... they are in fact thistles, so they kind of grow like weeds.
Yum, Red Russian kale!
Onions growing inches every day!
Colorful Swiss Chard:
Here's the greenhouse with the curtain down for the night-- we heat only 1/3 of the space right now. Soon though, we'll be moving the curtain to include more tables!
I've been doing lots of organizing of tools & supplies-- here's some of our hoes:
The walk-in cooler not only has a new shed around it (with a used billboard for a tarp on top), but now has the potential for hanging tools off it.
The fields still have stalks from last fall-- I left sunflower stalks for a windbreak & bird perch... soon though, I will till them under & plant a spring cover crop on this ground.
The garlic has come up really well! (Weeds too!)
I covered it up when it got down to 17 degrees... but now it should be in the clear.
It's refreshing to see dew in the morning instead of frost.
Lots of projects...
The spring peepers are making noise in the pond up front. The blackbirds are squawking, the hawks are circling, the bees are exploring, the whole world seems to be awakening.

Warm spring = busy spring for farmers!

A nice rosy sunburn on your face is not something you expect in the middle of a Rochester march. But we are managing to get lots done in this amazing weather.

I started tilling today. The first few rows, for peas, carrots, spinach. I'm glad I got it in before the rain starts & it turns cold again.

In the last few days we've done a general farm clean-up, moving sandbags & fenceposts, checking the fields for dropped irrigation parts, etc.
We put up a deer fence around 10 acres, turned it on, and baited it with peanut butter. The fields are dimpled with so many hoofprints that it looks like a herd of moose trampled through. They fertilized for us, it was actually pretty convenient. They enjoyed grazing on our lush winter rye. Now they will learn to respect our boundaries (hopefully)! They could absolutely jump over our one-strand line, but the tactic is pychological.
New farm-hand Don helped show us how you can put fence posts in with the front loader of the tractor-- we got the job done a lot easier than pounding them in by hand with a post-pounder!

We also met a new friend who has horses & needs a place to get rid of their manure--- we were more than willing to take it, especially if she drops it off! It will need a few years to decompose before we use it probably, and we will turn it with the loader to make a rich black compost. I may decide to spread it on fields that we won't be growing in this year... that way it will compost right in the field, building organic matter as we let the fields rest & recoup with a cover crop.A new member of the Mud Creek family was just purchased at an auction in Canandaigua. An Allis Chalmers "G"... one of the few tractors with the engine mounted behind the seat. This makes it an excellent tractor for cultivating rows of vegetables-- you can see everything in front of you & below you, as you scrape the weeds out but leave the broccoli! It's a late 1940's model, but it starts up fine, steers okay, and has 3 gears + reverse, and working hydraulics!
Luke & I have been toying with the idea of converting it to electric--- this has been done on the "G" model tractors by many small vegetable farmers. (www.flyingbeet.com/electricg/)
For now though, since it runs, we will probably use it as-is. I'm trying to decide whether I will buy a set of basket-weeder cultivators to go underneath it. They cost more than the tractor... (and it cost $2000!) Jack says that our other 1940's tractor, Princess Rose III (a Farmall Cub), will be fixed up & ready to cultivate by mid-April. A name for this one? Maybe something with "snail" in it... any suggestions?

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.