Tiny Farm Blog Organic micro-farming with two acres and some tools ~ a daily photo journal...

The days have warmed up now, mostly around 60-70°F (15-20°C), but the nights are unusually cold, dropping sometimes to freezing or a few degrees above. Frost burning off in the early morning sun is pretty when you don’t have anything in the field for it to kill, which I don’t… Let’s see: broccoli, cauliflower, radish, carrots, spinach, chard, beets, peas, parsnips, all-lettuce mesclun, tatsoi-mustard-arugula-bok choi mix… Nope, no worries there. (Funny thing, while pea plants are hardy, I believe the pods aren’t… I’ve never seen that in action, fall peas haven’t worked for me so far, and I don’t think there’ll be frost 40 days from now when this year’s first peas come in…). Meanwhile in the unheated greenhouse, although I’ve only fired up the kerosene heater once, just to be safe, row cover goes on all the tender stuff (toms, eggplant, peppers, and now, cukes, pumpkin, melons and squash, just about to poke up): on in the evening, off in the morning, better safe than toasted!

Bed preparation and first seeding continue. Today, Lynn’s tiny farming experience broadened to include rakes, and using them to spread compost. Moderately hard work in the heat, but it was a fairly small area. Overall, things are generally on schedule, but at least a week behind last year for the earliest stuff (and first peas were in last year on April 3rd!). Also, after the lingering snow, conditions changed practically overnight, but with the extremely hot, dry week, despite some watering in, the crops seeded so far are slower to germinate (we need rain!), and may come up a little thin when they do. So far, peas, spinach, beets, radish, all-lettuce mesclun and green onions have gone in over the last few days, and everything but the peas got one watering… I should have direct-seeded leek and parsnips in, but I’m kind of waiting for some rain. Also coming up in the next day or two, carrots and Swiss chard. And there’s a mountain of onion sets and seedlings ready to go, plus a few other transplants. And potatoes arrived today…

A good stretch in the field today. Harvested a bushel and a half of carrots (huge Danvers Half Long, enough to last through the winter) and a bushel of beets, a mix of red, golden and the Chioggia striped. Mulched another garlic bed, leaving just one uncovered. Did some clean-up with the compact tractor, moving empty barrels, turning crop remains into one end of the compost windrow. Took a trip down to the pond: it’s unfrozen, with only a layer of ice on top…

The pond is as full as it gets. Normal level is several feet lower, after the winter runoff evaporates, usually sometime in June. The barrel is a float that keeps the end of the uptake hose that leads to the pump suspended above the bottom.

While a bit of a tradition of leftover turkey crepes were being cooked up for brunch this morning, I was eying the leftover boiled beets. It was something about shapes and the muted, earthy shades of purple, and maybe the bowl helped along the effect. Soothing. Mesmerizing. I couldn’t stop staring. Guess I’ve got veggies on my mind… These were beets from the basement, roughly cut up as you can see, a mix of red (probably Scarlet Supreme) and white-with-red-stripes Chioggia, which were colored by the red beet juice. Boiling this time round was easier, though baking is the favored way to cook ‘em. Anyhow, possessed by the beets, I brought them out into the light to take a picture, grabbed the first suitable surface to stick in the snow (a wooden bushel basket, upended), and took a pic. The color is sort of as I saw it, but you really had to be there for the full effect. Stare into the beets… Like I said, veggies on my mind! :)

The fall season that wouldn’t quit has more or less come to an end. For the last few days, overnight temperatures plunged well below zero, we’ve had hard frosts and some snow, but the ground is far from frozen, and there are apparently warm days ahead (for more tilling, planting additional garlic, harvesting the last of the carrots and beets)! In the herb garden, there’s not much to do, except bring in the rosemary. Flat leaf parsley is in fine shape, doing better than the curly stuff. Sage seems indestructible, thyme and oregano are largely toast above ground, while the tarragon starters seem to be fine—I’ll put them all under a couple of layers of row cover, although the sage, oregano and thyme have come back no problem for the last two years after overwintering right out in the open. Some of the peppermint was killed off, although the roots may be okay. Apart from a few cold-burned leaves, the spearmint, in the picture, is right as rain… More »

And then there were two! For the last big Friday harvest of the season—it’s the 18th and final CSA share and second to last Saturday at the farmers’ market—the crew was down to Conall and me. It was a rainy one, with the ground soaked from a couple of days of showers, but it was all smooth. With the cooler, cloudy conditions favoring a little extra storage time, Conall did the Brussels sprouts and eggplant yesterday. And with the shortening days, the mesclun growth has slowed to a near halt, and there’s not enough for CSA shares, so that fairly time-consuming task was out. In fact, things went so well, we managed to take a couple of hours off and head into town to pick up some things, and were still done by 7 pm. In the pic: bok choi and beets up for rinsing, with carrots and Brussels sprouts already in the bins. In today’s harvest: the spicy greens mix (arugula, tatsoi, mizuna, mustard), about 20 lbs (9 kg) of mesclun, collards, parsley, beets, carrots, bok choi, kale, a few broccoli and cauliflower, plus potatoes, onions, garlic, pumpkins and winter squash from storage. Conall’s done for the season tomorrow, so next week for the last farmers’ market harvest, it’s down to one. Time flies…!

The veggie selection changes over the season, but it’s not necessarily reflected too dramatically on the stand at the farmers’ market this year. Compared to mid-August, the absence of snap beans and tomatoes is clear (with the mild weather, some vendors did have standard field tomatoes today). As for early June, well, more variety now is to be expected. Still, most of the cool-season crops for around here, like broccoli, cauliflower, and collards, also, winter squash, I have only enough of for CSA. On the stand, two types of radish (White Icicle, French Breakfast), three types of beet (Golden Detroit, Scarlet Supreme, Bull’s Blood, in smaller sizes here), two types of carrot (Nelson, Purple Haze), Red Russian kale, two types of bok choi (Mei Quing, Joi) and mesclun, plus Yukon Gold potatoes, Music garlic and Stuttgarter onions in baskets. The stand could be a lot bigger, offering more display space, and the harvest could be expanded (there are still herbs, summer squash, sweet and hot peppers, tomatillos, Brussels sprouts,…) but the marginal sales for many “secondary” veggies at this slowing down time of year don’t make it worthwhile. I’m still working on the balance between production planning, labor, harvest selection, post-harvest prep, and presentation… Sounds complicated, but it’s just…work! ;)

Something excellent and hard to pin down happened with the last planting of beets: they became HUGE. This was the fourth planting of the season, around mid-July (see them on the left), and the seedlings got caught in the near drought, although they were around the top of the irrigation list and got a decent share of water. In mid-September, the steady, plentiful rains started, along with continuing warm weather, but that was well into their growth (they’re all 50-60 day varieties). And thinning was good, though just the usual. Whatever the cause, all of them—Scarlet Supreme, Golden Detroit, Bull’s Blood, Chioggia—blew up, most weighing in at 1.5-2.5 lbs (700-1100 gms). Maybe I don’t get out enough (to check out other people’s produce around the country and the world :), or maybe more irrigation would do the trick, but to me it’s somewhat of a mystery how these got to double and triple size. I’ve tasted them all, raw and cooked: they’re firm, tender, with great color and flavor. Smaller beets are more convenient for some purposes, but these big guys are versatile and…easy to harvest and pack… Two to a beet!

After the long holiday weekend, I did a quick new harvest for the handful of usually-on-Monday CSA shares. We have three CSA pick-up days, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and harvest for the last two can be mostly combined on Sundays. With kinda cool and cloudy weather today, veggies could be left outside on the table for a few minutes—in full summer heat, they’d quickly start to get toasted. I’ve tried to reduce PLASTIC to a minimum (tiny farming has somehow made me averse to much packaging, especially with plastic). The tomatoes need to be kept together, they’d be crushed if let loose in the final shopping bag. And the greens, well, no other easy solution (I’m looking into reusable cotton salad bags that could be put in the fridge, another future project; I’ve moved to paper bags this year for potatoes). As for the shopping bags, I’m considering reusable tote bags, two per shareholder, that could be swapped empty-for-full each week, but the extra BAG MANAGEMENT I know would be fairly, let’s see…time-consuming. Details…