07.18.10
Posted in Projects at 6:48 am by Farmer
Thursday is our favorite farm day of the week all because of Diane! Diane is our yoga instructor who comes to the farm to lead us through an hour long special session geared specifically for farmers. She takes our “season” into consideration so that she can have us stretch those parts of our body that have been overused since her last visit. This past week we have been harvesting beans and onions so she had us do some yoga stretches that would help our thighs and lower backs. (I really can’t remember all the body parts that we stretched, she tells us, but it just doesn’t register in my brain memory.)
After yoga I feel like a new person. Diane is so special, because we are an hour out of town, so it would be nearly impossible for us to drive to town for yoga, which is why it is a blessing to have her come out to the farm. I need to take some initiative and begin doing some yoga on days other than Thursday.
Thursdays Yoga is our favorite farm day! Diane in front and us in the back following her! Photograph compliments from Sabrina.
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07.11.10
Posted in Projects at 7:20 am by Farmer
One thing about the lack of rain is that we think our yield for our onions is the best in a couple years. We didn’t harvest gigantic onions like we have in years gone by but the Candy onions are delicious and they are, for the most part, consistently sized.
On Thursday we harvested around 1500 – 2000 lbs of onions that are now on drying racks and we are hoping for non humid weather like we have had the last couple weeks so they cure out nicely. We won’t know the exact weight until we pull them down because once they have cured they will be a little lighter in weight.
We are also irrigating. It has been hot and dry here in the mountains so we have been running our irrigation every couple days. Our humidity level has been unusually low so our crops aren’t getting any moisture from overnight dews. We try to have lettuce for our CSA each week, and to keep the lettuce from bolting and also so it is a little less bitter flavor in the heat, we like to give it the much needed moisture. In addition, the corn loves water and needs about an inch each week.
Look at our overhead irrigation! It is such an amazing sight to see all the sprinkler heads raining on the crops. My photo does not do it justice.
The question from everyone is when will the corn be ready? Corn, like tomatoes, tastes so much better when eaten just after harvesting! It definitely ranks up there with tomatoes as something that should be eaten seasonally and only when it is fresh from the garden or area farms. We think the corn will be ready in a couple weeks. It has tassels and it is beginning to form ears.
Our first succession of corn. It has tassels and the ears are forming. We are praying that it forms decent ears for our CSA and tailgate market customers.
WATERMELON CROP FAILURE. Our watermelon plants just plain died a week or so ago. We think due to it being too hot in our greenhouse. We only have a single layer of plastic and the only ventilation are the sides which we rolled up. For the past 3 years the crows ate all the watermelons in the fields. We will keep trying because we really want to figure out how to grow watermelons here in Spring Creek. Do we shoot all the crows are learn how to grow them in a greenhouse?
Cute Harmon! We call him "Lover Boy" because he just loves people. He especially loves Sabrina and every time he sees her he gets so EXCITED because he knows he will get some good lovin from her.
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06.24.10
Posted in Production Gap, Projects at 7:21 am by Farmer
Carl is back home (THANK GOODNESS) and last week he was able to connect our drip irrigation, and then after drip irrigating our crops for a few hours (these crops being peppers, basil, eggplant, winter squash and melons), it rained almost an inch that evening! In addition, he figured out why our irrigation was not watering all our runs while he was gone. I left an end cap off one of the irrigation runs so the system wasn’t building up enough pressure. We figured this out because I stayed by the tractor while he walked the lines and it was a big learning lesson for me because I just assumed we had too many lines/sprinkler heads connected to our irrigation system. We are pushing water approximately 75 feet in elevation for a distance of 600 feet in 4 inch pipe for our “mainline”. Then, connected to our mainline, we have 5 runs of 3 inch pipe for our distribution runs - all approximately 300 feet long - with approximately 7 sprinkler heads spitting out water on each run. It is simply a miracle to see the tractor/pump push that much water up into the fields.
Now it has been over a week since we last had rain and thankfully our sweet corn got the much needed precipitation for it to flourish. We are not yet sure if our corn will form tasty ears for our CSA and market customers because it is teaseling a little early. We hope and pray that in a couple weeks we can provide our CSA with sweet corn.
I am thankful that Carl is back because that allowed us to dig our garlic so it can begin curing. Most of our garlic looks pretty good this year and I think we will have plenty of good quality garlic for market sales and for the CSA! In addition we dug our first bed of red potatoes, the variety being “Red Gold”, and they are lovely and delicious.
It is unusually hot here in the mountains and being in our little singlewide trailer is probably similar to being in a sweat lodge. So last night we grilled out rather than heating our house up further with a little oven/stove action and let me tell you we had a fabulous dinner! We grilled bulb fennel, yellow squash, eggplant, zucchini, a foil package of beets and new potatoes, and Italian sausage from Spring House Meats. We marinated the fennel/squash/eggplant in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, white wine, fresh garlic, salt and pepper.
Summer just doesn’t get any better than grilling out!
Our house the "sweat lodge" during the summer. We decided to farm rather than have a nice house. Not sure why. Someday we are gong to build us a nice house.
PRODUCTION NOTE TO SELF: Need some “fluff” in our CSA Boxes for the end of June/July. Our boxes were valued a $29 this past week but they didn’t look full without greens. Ideas are fennel, more beets, swiss chard. Our swiss chard is not growing in this heat. To harvest enough for everyone we would need a “Summer Succession”. Seed beans earlier.
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06.20.10
Posted in Alvin, Projects at 8:47 am by Farmer
Carl went to Maryland to be with his mom because she just went through brain surgery for hemorrhaging in the brain. Over a month ago, she tripped over a chair in her house, and went to the hospital then and they did scat scans and mri’s (I think). They thought she was fine but she must have had an injury in her brain that didn’t heal and kept bleeding. This is the downside to being on coumadin (aka rat poison). THANKFULLY she seems to be recovering from surgery and becoming more cognoscente each day; however, we need to figure out where she will live as she can no longer live on her own. It is a big deal making these type of decisions for someone else. These decisions not only affect Carl’s mom, but also us since we will probably be one of the caretakers.
I’m here on the farm. Thursday night I went out to irrigate discovering that the freak storm last Monday blew a tree down right on our irrigation intake pipe crushing it. Friday I called Alvin to see if he could advise me as to the best way to saw this tree and he went and got his dozer and pulled the tree out of the creek. The pipe is ruined.
A tree blew down crushing our irrigation intake pipe! No irrigating until I solve this problem and our crops need water.
Saturday afternoon Alvin helped me rig up our irrigation using his intake pipe. We have all the irrigation connected and all lines were watering except for a few clogged sprinkler heads. I turned the tractor off to unclog the sprinkler heads with plans on irrigating around 8 PM so that we have less evaporation. Saturday night when I came back out the tractor wouldn’t start.
Now I am in the process of trying to figure out how to pull the tractor that won’t start out of the way so that I can irrigate using our other tractor. I am the only one on the farm today so this may be a little difficult. We have had an entire week without rain that is NOT GOOD for our CROPS!
Alvin with his dozer pulling the tree out of the creek. I want a dozer! Can't afford one.
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06.15.10
Posted in Projects at 6:48 pm by Farmer
Just yesterday, Carl and I had just finished weeding some bulb fennel and flowers, after which we went up to our trailer around 6:45 PM, when the sky suddenly turned very dark. I was outside petting Kaiser (who is our NOT livestock guardian dog) when I said to Carl that the clouds over Bluff Mountain are very dark. So Carl went to his computer and checked weather that had a WARNING for “SEVERE THUNDER STORMS AND HIGH WINDS AND WIND GUSTS UP TO 70 MPH”. So Carl and I literally ran down to our greenhouses (interesting since we are 50 years of age) to close up our greenhouses and gather row cover blowing around in the fields.
Our paper mulch, that we have layed between our beds of winter squash and pepeprs, and the paper mulch being held down by rocks, went flying everywhere! Our paper mulch is approximately 275 feet long covering 8 beds which is around 2200 feet of paper. (Some of the mulch is still down but most of it flew away.) This is the second time this season that the paper mulch, used to prevent the weeds from overtaking our squash and peppers, went flying in the wind. Carl said he is not laying down paper mulch again this year. Paper mulch worked last year. I guess we had less wind.
After rescuing our row cover from being blown into the trees, our greenhouse plastic nearly blew off on the tomato greenhouse because the wind was blowing apart the wiggle wire channel that was holding down the greenhouse plastic. Carl and I were holding down the wiggle wire channel so that it didn’t blow our greenhouse apart. Then Noah came and rescued Carl so that Carl could get his self tapping screws and impact driver. Sabrina then came to help Noah and I hold down the wiggle wire channel while Carl was off finding the tools. We SAVED the TOMATOES! THANKS BE TO GOD. I was praying the entire time that we would not lose our pepper and winter squash plants that have just recently been transplanted so they probably do not yet have strong root systems. I was praying that our tomato house would survive.
Noah offered to feed the pigs. Carl said he had enough of farming for the day and was very appreciative of Noah for feeding the pigs….
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06.10.10
Posted in Projects at 4:36 pm by Farmer
One of the many luxuries here in our valley is that there are not many “Safe Shine” lights, which those lights are provided by the electric company so they can earn money during non peak hours (wasting valuable fossil fuels), so our valley is GEORGOUS at night. On a clear night the sky is filled with a gazillion stars and planets which makes we want to spend more time at night identifying those amazing star formations other than the big and little dipper. From around the beginning of June until mid June the fireflies are out in mass trying to find a partner which to do their thing and procreate. It is an amazing site, one which we have been enjoying as we sit outside each night for the past week, and we look forward to this season each year!
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06.06.10
Posted in Projects at 8:52 am by Farmer
This post is NOT for the folks who think that all beings can co-exist in harmony. PLEASE READ NO FURTHER if you have issues with shooting semi domesticated animals.
Carl has been keeping his guns in our truck so that they are accessible should our neighbors dogs visit the farm. A couple years ago while out working on the greenhouse Danny, our neighbor with uncontrollable dogs, said to us, “If you see my dogs and their bothering you just shoot them. Don’t call Animal Control because I don’t have the money to pay the fines.”.
I did say to Danny, “We aren’t in the habit of carrying guns so most of the time we are unable to shoot your dogs if they are bothering us (us meaning our chickens, goats, pigs, dogs and cats), not to mention your dogs are very sneaky.”. Danny’s comment was that we should consider carrying a concealed weapon. Periodically he stops by the farm letting me know of classes so that we can obtain our “concealed” weapon permit. I am always telling Danny that I feel completely comfortable living here in Spring Creek without a concealed weapon. That was until just a couple days ago before our pigs were attacked by what we think are his dogs.
So…. Saturday morning while I was at market Carl heard two of what we think are Danny’s dogs behind our barn. He waited near the barn, then checked on the pigs, but the dogs never came out of the woods. A little bit later Carl was on the way to the mail box when he saw what we think are Danny’s dogs running across one of our fields. The dogs stopped for a minute and Carl was able to sight one in with his riffle and take it down. I AM THANKFUL CARL IS A GOOD SHOT.
Will this solve our problem? Probably not. Mainly because we are almost certain the dog that escaped was the alpha so the alpha dog will probably partner with another of the 25 dogs that live up at Danny’s and continue hunting for food. I can’t blame the dogs because they simply want to survive which is why they are hunting the animals in the neighborhood and domesticated animals are much easier to catch than wild. Madison County is large with little money which is why I guess Animal Control does not remove his dogs. Animal Control removes others pets so I am not sure why not Dannie’s. Perhaps it is something I need to look into.
This dog will no longer be bothering Peter (our pig), Harmon or Kaiser (our dogs), Inky or Nadia (our cats) or our goats!
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06.03.10
Posted in Projects at 9:06 pm by Farmer
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Tuesday Morning, around 5:30 AM, we were in the house drinking coffee when I heard a horn honking outside. I went to the door and found our neighbor, Jay Green, who said “Wild dogs are killing your hogs”. I yelled to Carl, “Get your gun wild dogs are killing our pigs.”. Carl grabbed his glasses and gun and went out the field, which is a bit from the house and Jay had to drive him because our truck was at the barn, then Carl took a couple shots at the dogs but unfortunately missed. Poor Peter is pretty badly hurt but he is hanging in there and has more energy today than the day he was attacked. Peter is the smartest pig and the one who leads the others around so we think Peter might have been protecting his buddies. (Thank goodness pigs have a LOUD SQUEAL and our neighbor heard them from his house!)
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 Thankfully Peter is eating! If you look closly, you will see his wouds in his hind quarters. He is moving around a little more today and as you can see he has been rolling in the mud to keep the bugs at bay! |
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The next day, Carl described the dogs to Dean, who lives up in the holler, and Dean assured us that they are Danny Keeners dogs.
A few years ago, David who is part owner of land in the holler and visits on weekends staying in his camper, found a bear dog named Princess who had been missing after running a bear. David called Princess’ owner and while the owner was on his way to get Princess a couple wild dogs appeared out of the woods and in just a couple minutes those dogs skinned Princess alive. So David called Animal Control, after having seen the dogs, and animal control found the dogs at Danny Keeners place. Danny just lives across the road and up the mountain a bit. Animal Control fined Danny for the cost of Princess and gave him two weeks to “contain” his 25 dogs. (Danny does not neuter his dogs. I guess they just keep breeding with each other.) Animal Control never enforced the “containment” requirement and to this day Danny’s dogs still run wild.
After the incident with Princess, Wilson, who lives in the holler above Dean, found the dogs in Dean’s chicken coop attacking the chickens, so shot at the dog and injured it. Once again, Animal Control was notified, then Animal Control confronted Danny who denied it was his dogs. I don’t think Danny ever compensated Dean for the chickens.
Our neighbor Angela’s son Tyler also had a dog attacked and killed by Danny’s dogs. Ken and Mary had a dog attacked and killed by Danny’s dogs.
The Frisbee boy, who has some bear dogs on run lines, had one of his dogs dragged up the creek and killed probably by these same dogs.
Etta, Alvins sister who lives next to us, had a dog that was attacked and killed while another of her dogs escaped and returned home a few days after the attack mangled and kind of looking like Peter.
Shortly after the situation with Princess, we had a border collie named Lucky, who we had for 9 years and who suddenly disappeared into the woods never to return. We are not sure what ever happened to Lucky but we have suspicions that it was these same dogs. In addition, we had a plott hound dog for a couple years who disappeared around the same time as Lucky. We assume the hound dog was also attacked by these same dogs.
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 Sweet Peter. I certainly am glad that he is moving around pretty normal! |
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This week Carl has not been getting any sleep because he has been staying out until 10 PM, then getting up at 3 AM, trying to protect the pigs from these wild dogs. What do we do about the pigs? It is such an investment in purchasing the pigs, feeding them, watering them, only to have them destroyed by wild dogs. So we are not sure if we should take the pigs to the butcher before the dogs return or just hope we can shoot the dogs before they kill the pigs.
These dogs are smart and have been shot at multiple times so they are survivors and I am not sure of our chances at catching them. Carl can’t physically stay out each night waiting for the dogs to return because farming is hard work and he needs his sleep!
What to do…. Do we take the pigs to market, keep the pigs and hope the dogs don’t return or keep the pigs and hope we shoot the dogs?
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 Peter fending for his food which is a good sign of his strength after being attacked by wild dogs! |
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05.31.10
Posted in Projects at 10:47 pm by Farmer
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From around mid May into the first or second week of June we HAVE SO MUCH WORK TO DO. Unlike “Peak Oil”, “Peak Workload” will disappear only to reappear next year at this time. It is at this point in the season when we need to transplant those warm loving plants, those that must stay inside the greenhouse until after our last expected frost date which is May 15th, and most of these crops are transplanted by hand onto black plastic mulch because they are in the fields the entire season. In addition, we must maintain (mostly trying to keep the weeds at bay) all the crops that have been transplanted/direct seeded since the beginning of April. On top of these chores, we are harvesting, packaging and selling produce (We definitely are trying to grow more than we should on our small scale.)
It certainly feels great to be harvesting, processing, packaging and selling produce because it is at this point in the season that the farmer has already paid out money for supplies then to FINALLY have some cash to offset those expenses! (Supplies purchased at the beginning of the season include: seeds, fertilizer, labor, parts for equipment maintenance, a new seeder, row cover.) WE ARE THAKFUL for the MANY CSA Members WHO PAY for their PRODUCE at the BEGINNING OF THE SEASON which helps OFFSET OUR EXPENSES!
So why is it Peak Workload? There are only 4 of us farming full time (we just hired, Chirs, another part timer who will save our bodies from being over-worked!
Here is a typical work week for us:
(a) Tuesday and Friday is spent harvesting, processing and packing produce
(b) One of us goes to market Wednesday for most of the day
(c) Two of us goes to market Saturday
(d) One of us has a half day off on Wednesday (because we worked extra hard at Market the previous Saturday) leaving 3 of us for half the day on the farm in the morning and 2 of us on the farm in the afternoon
(e) So that only leaves Mondays and Thursdays when all 4 of us are on the farm for doing all the work outside of harvesting, packaging and selling.
So WHAT are we doing from mid May until June????
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 We pressure washed our black landscape plastic, we then burried the edges under the soil (by hand), and finally HAND transplanted around 1400 plants of basil, peppers and eggplant. The eggplant is covered until it begins growing to prevent the flea beetles from destroying our crop! |
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By the end of the week we hope to transplant field melons and winter squash. (That requires us pressure wash/sterilize black plastic mulch, place the plastic it in the bed and burry the edges so it doesn’t end up in the trees and then HAND transplant over 500 plants to the field.)
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All the while doing the above mentioned jobs, we must maintain existing crops, which requires us to hoe/hand pull weeds from approximately 3800 bed feet of crops. We normally like to hoe, but some weeds got away from us so yes we are hand pulling weeds!) These crops are: green cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, swiss chard, beets, and onions!
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 Chris did our first pass at trellising our greenhouse pepper crop. We use the stake and weave system and it works fairly well at keeping the plants from breaking once the bell peppers begin ripening. |
 Carl, Noah, Sabrina and I transplanted our first succession of corn right before a light rain shower this AM. We have tried direct seeding our corn only to have the crows eat it. It is risky transplanting corn because if it stays in the greenhouse too long it might bolt (tassel) without forming ears. We are praying that this succession forms ears for our CSA! |
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So YES we are SUPER BUSY. Once these warm loving crops have all been transplanted to the fields it is just farming as usual except we have a great sense of accomplishment to have these crops out of the greenhouse and growing in the fields!
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05.24.10
Posted in Veggies at 7:14 am by Farmer
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It is about time that we finally made ourselves pull the kale and swiss chard out of our greenhouse! These crops fed and nourished us all winter long and into the spring which is why it was so difficult for us to pull these crops up. The kale and swiss chard finally bolted (when a plant is very near to producing seed) and once these greens go to seed there is not much leaf production anymore thus not much edible crop! The kale and swiss chard should have been pulled up weeks ago to prepare the soil and transplant watermelons earlier. Not to mention, we are now eating greens from our spring crops planted in the fields which are so much more tender and tasty.
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 Our watermelon was transplanted 10 days ago into the greenhouse! If we are lucky and they produce fruit, we will need to keep the rodents away, which can be very tricky! |
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We have followed the kale and swiss chard crop with watermelons. Last year the rodents (probably rabbits and rats) ate the melons from the greenhouse but a tailgate market customer recommended a spray sold at Tractor Supply that is a mixture of cayenne pepper and rotten eggs which works fairly well in keeping rodents away. We simply need to spray once a month to keep the scent on the plants. (The crows eat the watermelons out in the fields which are why we are trying to them in a greenhouse.)
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May 12th was our first CSA harvest of the season. We had hoped for Strawberries but they just aren’t yet ripping in mass. Our first CSA share consisted of: salad mix, spicy greens mix, spinach, arugula, tatsoi, baby boc choi, radishes and zucchini. We were able to provide the Saturday CSA members with Strawberries! We think that strawberries are among some of the tastiest fruit of the season.
(We were ecstatic that we were able to provide the Wednesday CSA members strawberries for their second box of produce for the season that was delivered last week! In addition, Monday the 17th,, we transplanted our final spring crop of broccoli, boc choi and napa cabbage.)
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 A Sugar Snap pea plump, sweet and ready for eating! (We hope our crop yeilds enough for the CSA.) |
 Sweet Peppers transplanted to our Greenhouse April 26th. We trellis using a stake and weave system and so far Noah has 3/4 of the stakes driven into the ground! |
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