Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has onions, garlic, winter squash, sweet potatoes, cabbage, celery root, carrots, black radishes, rutabagas, winter tomatoes, and greens Field Notes. We have some greens in hoopettes in the garden, and we will see just how they do! This has been a season of extremes – 80 in October and a low of 5 in early November and this week may see the 60’s! Ken has moved poultry …
Ken has been moving portable shelters and coops to the garden. Why? Well, it is not only easier to feed everyone in one location fairly close to the house all winter, but also each of the poultry breeds by their nature will help us grow vegetables more easily next season! Geese will take out weeds. Chicken also take out weeds and weed seeds and any remaining insects. Turkeys will scratch the soil and …
Greetings from the Garden! This CSA box has pie pumpkins, garlic, onions, peppers – some hot, sweet potatoes, winter kohlrabi, Napa cabbage, greens and parsley. Field Notes. As the prior blog entry indicates we have had a 70 degree temperature shift in three weeks. October was unseasonably warm and last week was unseasonably cold. We are working with and around the weather. We need temperatures above freezing to harvest greens or they simply turn to …
This fall has presented challenges. We had some unseasonably warm weather – 73 degrees in October. This meant it was tough to keep the root cellar cool enough for the roots. Too warm and vegetables will either rot or start growing. Neither helps flavor of nutrition! Once it cooled off, temperatures plummeted. this made harvest tough. The weather needs to be cool but above freezing or the vegetables thaw and turn to mush. This week …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has salad mix, braising mix, stuffing tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beets, winter squash, salad turnips, onions, garlic, and herbs Field Notes. The “Big Dig” as I call it is well upon us. Spring and fall are the busiest times for a farm. In spring it is planting and in fall it is harvest. This year we have some help. Last Tuesday it was beets, carrots, …
Each fall there is a period of frost, but days with enough heat so plants can survive and remain alive. Ken erects what he calls hoopettes over crops that will take some cold weather. The season can continue for quite some time. It all depends on the weather! If the snow falls and covers the soil like a blanket, and the frost does not creep in and freeze the soil in the hoopettes, …
This fall has been warm. The root cellar is now cool and the crops need to come out of the fields and into the yard. We cover them with tarps as I fill the root cellar for winter. Here is this year’s winter kohlrabi, rutabagas, and cabbage. Thank you, Suzanne for all your help.
Each year near the first frost I get the onions that have been curing on the racks off the racks in time to put the winter squash on the racks to cure. Ken picked all the squash up, stacked in piles and got into tubs. He hauled the tubs by the racks for me. He looked tired! Then I teased him for a photo and he perked up! …
Greetings from the Garden! This CSA box has lettuce, mixed mustard, salad turnips, carrots, winter squash, onions or leeks, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, and herbs Field Notes. The big dig has begun! Each year we await a light frost and then Ken gets digging and harvesting. Carrots and winter squash taste sweeter if they have been in the field for colder weather. While Ken is harvesting from the garden, I am cutting tops …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, garlic, potatoes, peppers, radicchio, a mustard green mix, kale or chard, parsley, and grapes Field Notes. As I draft this Monday morning frost is forecast. Frost signals the end of a few crops – basil for example. This afternoon I will close up the greenhouses and it will be a question of how cold for how long. Frost also signals …
