As many cavort and celebrate this unseasonably warm weather, I am grumbling. Why? I see why it is NOT good. And the list is long! Maple syrup – best if days in March are 40 degrees in daylight and 20 at night, sunny, no wind. Too warm and the sap stays in the tree top and forms buds and leaves Fruit. Apples, cherries, elderberries, grapes, plums and other tree or perennial fruit …
Greetings from the Garden! The box this week has salad mix, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, onions, garlic, carrots, and cabbage Field Notes. Ken continues planting for the salad mixes, and has been making pottery. Soon he will start full season crops like onions and celery and parsley. Then it will be one planting after the next. Soon after that Ken will be seeding and transplanting in green houses. This time of year …
Greetings from the Garden! This CSA box has salad mix, cabbage, potatoes, winter tomatoes, onions, garlic, winter squash, carrots, and beets Field Notes. Ken’s winter routine is to ski out to the greenhouses and check for deer and rodent damage. Soon he will be checking the inside temperatures in for planting! Ken continues planting in winter – he is planting greens for salad mix. People ask why we don’t do shoots and micro greens year …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has winter tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots or beets, cabbage, and salad mix Field Notes. Snow and cold. It feels like winter has arrived in earnest. And we are so glad to see the snow. It insulates the ground so the frost doesn’t go down so deep so quickly and preserves the microbial life near the top – otherwise the microbes die or go …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has salad and braising greens, potatoes, winter tomatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots or beets, onions or leeks, garlic, and herbs Field Notes. Well, We had an honest blast of cold after last harvest. Ken and I covered greens in both garden and mobile high tunnel, Ken got a hoopette over the carrots and beets, moved the chickens to winter quarters – …
After the last harvest on November 16th we saw that cold weather was coming. One of Ken’s late fall tasks is to move the hens into the garden for the winter. This year he has two groups of hens, and they seem happier in their respective coops, so he moved both portable coops to the garden. He also moved a portable structure I call teh hog hilton into the garden for the …
After a beautiful unseasonably warm autumn, cold weather and icy precipitation arrived Friday. Ken had been watching the weather and we went to the garden and covered some plants with fiber. Ken set up a long hoopette over the fall carrot and beet crops. Then as it neared dusk we changed hats and gloves and went to the mobile high tunnel. We covered …
Greetings for the Garden! This week’s CSA box has salad and braising greens, potatoes, squash, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots or beets, celery, winter tomatoes, and herbs Field Notes. What a season! We have had such a beautiful fall. Ken has finished digging potatoes and is wrapping up field work. The forecast is for cold weather later this week, so we will be getting the squash and onions to inside storage, hoopettes up over some …
Greetings from the Garden! this week’s CSA box has freshly dug potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, leeks or red onions, garlic, salad and braising greens, winter tomatoes, and herbs. Field Notes. The field is, unfortunately, too wet for Ken to use the tractor to dig the potatoes. So, he is digging some every day by hand. Today you get some freshly dug potatoes – when they taste best. And let us know what you …
Each Halloween we recognize the times between solstice and equinox. From a farming perspective, this is where the drama is – In February the days are lengthening dramatically and the earth is awakening. In May the seeds and plants are becoming established – some blooming. In August the plants are producing and the push of harvest is starting. In October the harvest is wrapping up and the earth is preparing to sleep. Each older, agrarian …
