Spring is springing at the farm!

As promised to the members of our Spring Club (receive weekly emails about what we have available for produce), I have a picture on here of some of our newest salad mix. First however, some scallions that wintered over nicely and will soon be setting seeds. They are a nice addition of green to the garden along with the garlic that's emerging.
Speaking of things emerging, our first planting of peas just poked through the ground. Look closely...two green shoots side by side in the middle of this photo.

We're trying several new varieties and cultivars this season. Below are some miniature head lettuce plants that just turned this brilliant red color over the weekend.

A quick shot of the greenhouse before I move it to another plot next week. The chickens are just beyond that door on the end working hard to clear the next plot!

Finally, a beautiful mix of micro-greens. Bianca Riccia Endive and Rouge d'Hiver Lettuce. I can't wait to harvest some for tomorrow's dinner!

If you would like more information about our Spring Club, please email me and I'll let you know the details and get you on the email list.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Just a few quick updates about what we've been doing around the farm. Here is Lizzie yesterday with her Easter Basket. She decorated these eggs last week with her Aunt Kate. Very pretty!
Here I am in the basement mixing up a soil block recipe. I don't know how I would get an accurate number but I would guess I move several tons of soil each season with this type of activity and then what I shovel in the garden. This mix will mostly go into potting on the tomato and pepper plants that I just seeded. Cross your fingers for a summer that isn't like last year!

Onions, onions everywhere!

As the season approaches we are constantly expanding our seedling area. Here Lizzie is in front of the newest addition, a low tunnel set-up over a planting bench. This is where all the onions are from the previous picture.

Finally, we got our first double-yolker from the hens the other day. It's a humungoid egg. When held up next to a regular egg it's just plain funny. Strong work chickens...strong work!

I've been working on getting many, many seeds planted and in the greenhouse to get started on the season. Below is a quick shot of some of the many tools I use in the process. Finely sifted soil mix covers every seed.
Yesterday, in the rain, I pulled all of the taps and collected the buckets from the trees. The weather got warm too fast to have much of a season and it doesn't show signs of being prime for sap anytime soon. Below is a shot of the sap boiling down on our wood stove.

For a couple of days the trees were really pumping out sap so I had to build a little 'sugar shack' to keep up with the boil. Our wood stove at the house can only handle so much! Here is the quick, improvised shack in all glory. It worked like a charm.

I constructed the 'building' of hay bales from the garden mulch pile, covered it with some old aluminum roofing that was headed to the dump after being blown off the barn roof and covered the front with a tarp to keep the wind and rain out. Straw and hay bales have been used for hundreds of years to build dwellings throughout the world. It's an amazing building material and could go a long way in solving many of the problems faced at the intersection of global warming and deforestation. This was my opportunity to utilize the technology crudely and ensure that it poses little to no fire danger (as is stated in nearly every book on straw bale building that I've read). No fires to report even during that very dry 'dangerous' spell we had and Em, Lizzie and I will be enjoying homemade maple syrup for some time to come!

Sun, chickens, rasberries and syrup.

The chickens got a new home today. Well, not really. I moved them back to the farm for the summer. I recently (yesterday) finished their new coop which is much bigger to house the entire group when the new chicks arrive. This morning Jim (a gentleman that helps me on Tuesdays) and I fenced off an area just adjacent to the greenhouse. The chickens will clean it up for me, I'll reshape the beds, install the track and move the greenhouse over it when the things in it now are more established.
They seemed to settle down after a while. They didn't care for the ride, or being put in their travel crate at 4 am today. (For those who don't know, when chickens are roosting for the night they become docile and very easy to handle. Nearly impossible to catch heritage breeds like these during the day.) I had to put up a sheet of cardboard on the north side to protect them from the wind.

A couple of weeks ago I went through and pruned the raspberry patch. I removed all of the old growth. This allows for more fruit and the air circulates better. This is especially important when the summer is like the one we just had.

I also moved our picnic table to the farm this weekend. Her it is in the sun. As you can sort of see (being there really does it the justice it deserves) it's the best seat in the house.

Finally, I tapped a few trees at the farm on Sunday afternoon. I brought home my first batch of sap tonight and it's currently evaporating on the wood stove.

In like a lion...may as well post a blog!

We've been very busy over the past few weeks and have a down moment tonight as some things opened up for me tomorrow as I don't have to go to Augusta to talk to the legislature. So I thought I'd post a blog. Here Lizzie and I are posing as Em takes our photo at the CSA fair I helped organize in Bangor Last weekend. We had a great turn-out and made all the local news outlets. You can barely make out our new tee-shirts. I had them partially designed (I designed the logo but they had to tweak it for screen-printing) at Liberty Graphics in Liberty, ME. This is the same company that produces the shirts for the Common Ground Fair every year. I wanted a local company to get me shirts that are organic cotton, made in the U.S. and printed with soy based inks. Liberty Graphics did great work.

Here is a shot of what we've been working on recently. Onions, onions, onions...and a few other things, have been started in blocks and put out in our new seedling house on our new heat mats. As you can see, I have already run out of room but I'm trying to cycle some things out. For instance, tomorrow I plan to put some of these flats into the ground at the farm under row covers or in the greenhouse. I actually have two tunnels within the greenhouse for added protection. I move things off the heat mats once the seeds have germinated. Below is a photo of the tunnel with the mats. It's very warm in this tunnel and I only open it to water things each morning. The other tunnel has no additional heat other than that generated by solar radiation.

Thought I'd give it a try. Why not when the end of February was like April this year. If I can keep it going it will be awesome to have early basil. We'll see.
Finally, since constructing the new tunnels in the seed house, the chickens have less space. However, that's ok because the weather is warming up so I let them out for longer periods of time each day. Here they are scratching around in a gully behind the house. Actually, the other day I let them out, went inside for a while, came out and couldn't find them anywhere after looking for an hour. Finally, Em got in the car and drove around the neighborhood. They had wandered over to the neighbors lawn. I took her a dozen eggs, apologized and walked them home. No harm, no foul but it was scary to be missing 4 chickens (one had stayed put to lay an egg!).

Here is Lizzie looking back at me innocently as I called to ask what she was doing. She wants desperately to touch a chicken. I can't seem to convince her that they are quick as lightening and the chances of that happening are very small. It's fun to watch anyway.

Warm weather spell.

Hi all. This little stretch of weather that is teasing us with thoughts of spring is an annual event around this time of year. It is a friendly and welcome reminder that the growing season is not far away! Below are photos of some of the things that we're doing right now to get ready. Trays of soil blocks are steadily multiplying in my basement. I'll be making quite a few of these little blocks over the course of the next few months!
We're also in the midst of receiving, cataloging seeds and planning our planting calendar and crop rotation. We will be expanding our variety selection on almost all crops this year as a result of last season. We want to work to be able to provide things even in an horrible season. That takes a lot of time, effort and experimentation to see which varieties might have a genetic habit that allows them to grow under stressful conditions. Luckily, I love the work!

Also, our new heat mats have arrived!!! Each year we try to make one large investment to further our goals. Last year's was the 6-row precision seeder. This year's is definitely the heat mat. (seeds don't count or they would always be the biggest investment) These are the best heat mats in the trade according to many farmers I know, including Eliot Coleman, Maine based worldwide organic farming guru. I've been wanting them for a long time and getting by without them. Hopefully they will give us a jump on many crops. The mats are heavy red rubber with electric wire running throughout to give even bottom heat to our seedlings. We were able to purchase 4 this year and one thermostat to control all of them. Onions are going in starting this Friday and we get to try them out. Can't wait!

Finally, our chickens are loving the warm weather. Whenever it's nice I let them out of their greenhouse to range around our yard. I let them out a little longer every day and I think I finally have them trained not to go in the road. Knock on wood. Here are three of them checking our our rhododendrons and saying hello to an elderly couple that walks by every morning.

"Off Season" - nealy ended

Well, the winter is drawing to a close. We've had a couple of nice days where temperatures actually reached into the 30's and the sun has been shining. I've been working hard to get our house projects done. To view some of the progress you can visit Em's blog at www.brinkleyparker@blogspot.com.
I'm also hard at work on things that won't get done during the growing season. Yesterday's nice weather gave me a chance to get into the woods to cut some of next winter's firewood. I pick away as time permits.
I've also been working on some administrative things over the past few weeks. This includes sending reminders and informational cards to our members who haven't yet signed up for the upcoming season. Another big project is the organization of the Bangor region's CSA/CSF Fair, which I volunteered to do this year. The fair is on Feb. 28th so the real work is just beginning!
I'm also doing some of the winter things that are essential to the growing season like painting the milk house after scraping the old peeling paint, cleaning it and organizing for the harvests to come, building bird and bat houses for the garden (hopefully I can get some photos on here soon) and beginning to work out our crop rotation/layout and planting calendar.
So much to do!!!
In other exciting news, I've been nominated (and accepted) to be the Chair of the Board of Food For Maine's Future, a small, grass roots organization that is trying to change the food system to reflect food sovereignty and local control values. It is an honor to work with the many people involved in FMF to make positive social change! To learn more about FMF and our work, please visit www.foodformainesfuture.org. I hope to post more frequently now that things are heating up!
Speaking of heating up. Lizzie and I were in the greenhouse today and the spinach I planted in late January is starting to come up! Wahoo, I miss fresh spinach. When the warm weather of March makes itself known we'll get some good growth.
Bye for now.