CSA Deliveries

As part of our CSA, on Wednesdays I deliver some shares to members at work. Normally I bring in two shares, but today due to some surplus and other arrangements there were four. Danielle, who does the vast majority of all CSA related work -- I am in charge of corn and potatoes -- picks the shares Wednesday morning before I go to work so that everything is as fresh as possible. This morning when my alarm goes off at 5:45 AM I look out the bedroom window to see a headlamp in the garden. The shortening days mean that Danielle is often out in the dark picking produce so that I can beat the traffic. The fact that there were four shares to pick and the drizzling rain did not make this endeavor any easier on her. The produce looked so good all laid out on the kitchen table right before she packed it into the coolers.



Danielle puts a tremendous amount of work into the CSA and our farm in general, all so that we can eat the healthiest most sustainable food possible. I try to make sure that I acknowledge all her hard work and thank her for all the great food we get to eat, but since I am sure I don't do it enough I thought I would say it again here.

I love you honey!

Market Garden -- Update #3

Here is what the market garden looked like last night. We were lucky enough to get over an inch of rain last Thursday on top of the half inch or so we received over the last two weeks. Thanks to the rain things are finally starting to green up a little. We are still in drought conditions but at least the plants are growing some and the pastures are starting to recover. The rain also has the weeds growing again, so we need to get on top of them before they start to take over.

The first two plantings of corn had good yields, however the corn worm pressure is increasing so we will have to try to stave them off to save the last couple of plantings. We are leaving the stalks in place until they dry out, then we will harvest them and put them up in the barn for winter feed. I have hand dug most of the Yukon Gold potatoes and while they still taste great their yield has been abysmal. I need to get the tractor in with the potato plow to get the rest this weekend.



For comparison here are the photos from July 21^st



July 3^rd



and June 19^th

Severe Drought

It's official, as of Tuesday we are in severe drought conditions. We are located in Washington County which bridges between Pennsylvania and West Virginia to connect the two western counties to the rest of Maryland.


It is bad across much of the South East with Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee fairing the worst. You can see the drought conditions for the entire country at the US Drought Monitoring website.

Market Garden -- Update #2

Here is how the market garden looked on Saturday. You will notice that the corn is continuing to come in and the sunflowers are also coming up. Unfortunately the Red Nordland potatoes are no where to be found and if you look at the surrounding pasture you can see what a toll the drought is taking on everything.



For comparison here are the photos from July 3^rd



and June 19^th



Best I can remember we haven't had a decent rain since Memorial Day.

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.

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.

Fields Plowed

The last two evenings after work I have plowed up two plots for crops. The larger, where the pigs were paddocked, will be planted with corn, beans, melons, pumpkins etc. The smaller plot is up at the top of our property where the potatoes and first round of corn are planted. I plowed up a wedge shaped area next to the original plot which we will use for transplanted berry plants. We hope to some day have a pick your own berry operation with strawberries, blackberries and raspberries. We already have all of these varieties in the kitchen garden and will be transplanting the suckers and daughter plants as they spread.

Garden Tilling and Corn In

Spring is definitely moving on although we are still getting some cold snaps, and may even get some snow flurries later this week. We picked up a walk behind tiller this weekend and turned over the kitchen garden. Danielle had a bunch of seedlings in a makeshift cold frame which we needed to get into the ground. I am pleased with the way the garden soil is developing. It was much easier to work this year and all the organic matter from our composted kitchen scraps and chicken bedding that we worked in has really helped to break up the clay. Maybe in a couple more years we will be able to skip the tilling altogether.

After work on Tuesday (April 3^rd) Sam and I carted the tiller to the upper field, prepped the soil and put in some rows of corn. We had some White and Bi-Color super sweet left over from last year. Not sure how successful the germination will be on this seed but figured it was not going to do us any good sitting in the barn. If we do get some to grow from this planting it will be a nice early crop of corn. We are going to plant new seed down where the pigs have plowed and fertilized for us after they are shipped off to the butchers next week.

Potatoes In

Over the last two days I put in our first round of potatoes. The seed stock are leftovers from last years crops. We have some fingerlings on order but for now I got in three rows of Red Nordlands and two rows of Yukon Golds. I still have more of each in the cellar, we plan on planting a couple different rounds to maximize our yield and storage ability. Last year we only did the one early planting and got an excellent crop, but over the last month or so the Yukon Golds were getting mighty soft. We had stopped eating the Nordlands in the early winter. The Nordlands will be harvested early as new potatoes, but we will let the Yukon's fully mature. After a long winter it felt good working the soil again and getting our first crop in.