Market Garden

Here is a picture of our market garden taken on Sunday (click on image for an expanded view). My wife and I (read my wife) are doing a CSA this year, and while a lot of the produce is planted up in our kitchen garden this large plot will provide much of the late season goodies. As you can see (or not see as the case may be) not all that I have listed is up yet, however as of Monday night all of it is at least in the ground.

Everything on the right hand side is Danielle's. My only contribution is plowing and tilling of the ground.

I planted four rounds of corn approximately each two weeks apart. The first corn should be ready in early July if the crazy weather hasn't effected it too much. Danielle is enamored with the native American method of co-planting corn, beans and squash the so called three sisters. The traditional way to do this is put all three seeds into a mound. She modified this by intermixing rows of the three crops. The brilliance of this planting system is that the beans fix nitrogen into the soil --which corn needs loads of-- the corn provides a trellis for the beans to climb, and the squash foliage shades the corn roots and crowds out weeds. This is our first year of trying this symbiotic planting so we will have to see how it works.

My other main crop is potatoes. We have three varieties planted in this plot. The Yukon Golds at the top were planted first and are thriving. I have hilled them up repeatedly and they are starting to flower. The Fingerlings were planted somewhat later but are coming up strong and have good looking foliage. The Red Nordlands are actually the result of a failed early crop in an upper field. Both the Yukons and Nordlands were grown from seed potatoes from last years harvest. I planted the Nordlands somewhat early and our cold wet early spring and hot dry late spring was not kind to them. The plants did come up but between the less than stellar weather conditions and the increased potato bug pressure --planted potatoes in the same plot two years in a row-- they were already dieing back. I thus took a gamble, harvested what I could and replanted the potatoes in the market garden. I just got them in the ground this weekend, much later than I would like to plant potatoes but I figured it was worth a shot.

I hope to take this same picture every couple weeks to really appreciate how the garden changes throughout the season.

Watering Pigs

We need to water a lot of things on the farm, but the pigs are the most fun by far. Our three Tamworth's spend most of the day sleeping in their shelter out of the hot sun, but two or three times a day we go out and spray them down with rain water collected off our barn. When they hear us turn on the pump they come out for a drink and a refreshing cool shower.


The pigs are really happy now that they are all together. Maya was lonely (or so I suppose) being by herself out on pasture. The boys (Grunt and Runt -- same names as our last two males) were real skittish in the barn but settled in quickly after they were moved onto pasture. The three never seemed to have any major problems getting adjusted but the boys were silly for a while. They would pester Maya and nip at her ears. She would put up with this for some time then growl and bite at them when she had had enough. Maya never did any damage to the boys, but they would get submissive and their tails would droop down. A minute or two later you could see their tails curl back up and they would come back and start pestering her again. It was all very amusing.

Pools Up

It is officially summer on the farm. We set the pool up yesterday morning and got a delivery of 2000 gallons of water in the afternoon. I was in the pool when we were filling it to help get out the wrinkles, but the water was too cold for anyone except a child. Sam in fact slept in his swimsuit so he would be ready to go as soon as the water was delivered.

Lots Going on at the Farm

We have been quite busy here on the farm. A brief recap of some of what has been going on.

Latte our Nigerian Dwarf goat gave birth to her first kid Dragon. Latte has been a wonderful mother taking good care of her little boy. Danielle has been milking her in the morning for the last week or so, and the two of them (Danielle and Latte) are just starting to get it all worked out. We now have our own milk in the frig.



The geese, ducks, broilers, poults and pullets are all growing like gang busters. They seem to like being out on pasture although it is tough at times keeping them stocked with water.



Our crops have had a rougher time of things. We were cold in the early spring and then jumped right to August type weather -- hot and dry. We fashioned a mobile water station from some freecycled barrels and a 12V pump. We collect any and all rain we get and have been watering the crops with it to make it through the dry patches.



We have recently received some much needed precipitation, and our efforts have seemed to pay off since the corn, beans and squash are doing well.



The kitchen garden is thriving, we have loads of fresh strawberries, peas, and all types of lettuces. Danielle has been busy making and canning strawberry preserves and getting the CSA up and running.


360 degree view from the center of the kitchen garden!
Click on image for larger view.

Did I mention that my wife picked up three Navajo-Churro sheep this weekend,



or that our Narragansett hen hatched out a brood of poults.



Like I said, lots going on at the farm.

Early Father's Day Gift

Danielle is horrible about keeping secrets, and thus when my Father's day present arrived last week she showed it to me right away. She bought me the grill for Father's day 4 or 5 years ago, so it only seemed fitting to get the matching rotisserie. You can't see it in this picture but there is a small electric motor that mounts on the right side of the spit and an adjustable counterbalance that goes on the left side. We defrosted a free range chicken and I have to say the it came out even better than my beer can chicken. Since it is always rotating the bird essentially self bastes. We had a salad with greens out of our garden as well as some homemade bread to accompany the chicken. We are already looking forward to doing one of our heritage turkeys and maybe even a suckling pig on the spit.