Tue, Apr 21, 2009 
Filed under Off-the-farm, Spring, Veggies
When you’ve seen one 20-foot trailer loaded with tiny farm gear, you’ve seen ‘em all?! Well, something like that… Headed back to the old farm today for the final move, and the only photos I ended up taking were of three buckets crammed with dug-up transplants: thyme, oregano, sage, chives, lovage, tarragon, rhubarb… It’s enough for a small herb garden start—we’re growing new herbs from seed, and may get some seedlings as well—but the feeling of continuity is cool. As for the rest of the load, it was mainly the dismantled farm stand (that is, lots of wood), more spare wood, and a few more hoses. The only more exciting item: the trusty old snowmobile trailer that serves as an all-purpose giant garden cart! And the move is complete…
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Fri, Jun 27, 2008 · Filed under Harvest, Summer, Veggies
Tiny farming has given me an extra appreciation for the color GREEN, in different shades, shapes, textures, combinations. Green on green. My favorite greenscape so far is probably row upon row of different varieties of bush beans, each with their own shade, deep and dark, to delicately lime-hued. Today’s small harvest of sage, oregano and flat-leaf parsley, stashed in a bucket of water and headed for small bundles in the CSA shares, had a great green look. The photo, especially at this size, doesn’t really capture the simple, entrancing effect, but I guess it’s the next best thing!
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Wed, Jun 25, 2008 · Filed under Summer, Veggies
A solo weeding day for me. There’s lots of mostly PIGWEED, shooting up faster than the crops, loving the rain and bursts of heat, with or without sunshine. So, a photo of WEEDS, or a random, up-close look at…oregano? I went for the oregano, which is doing great after thinning the three-year-old patch earlier this year…
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Fri, May 16, 2008 · Filed under Harvest, Market & Stand, Spring, Veggies
Tomorrow’s farmers’ market, the third of the season, will be the my first. This is the usual timing, although I made it on the second market day last year (our market starts on the first Saturday of May). The earliest harvest for field crops will probably be all-lettuce mesclun in a couple of weeks. But I do have the mesclun in the unheated greenhouse, a small quantity grown specifically for getting to the market as early as possible. So, today’s harvest-for-show: around 20 lbs (9kg) of lettuces-and-arugula mesclun. Not much. But, we also gathered about 10lbs (4.5kg) of “found” spinach (tasty new growth from spinach that made it to baby-leaf stage last year, overwintered, and started again this spring; green onion was last year’s early market found crop). Spinach and salad mixes are sold by the bag, and weight varies slightly depending on what and when: for this round, it was all 400g bags (just under a pound), around 35 units total. Also, collected an assortment from the herb garden: sage, thyme, oregano and chives. Plus, around 20 lbs (9kg) of Jerusalem artichoke. Enough to for a tiny spread! I love the market, for me, it’s as much part of veggie gardening as anything that happens in the field, certainly not a tacked on “business” end… Although cold, rainy weather is in the forecast, people always come out, and tomorrow should be fun!
Tags:
chives,
farmers' market,
herbs,
marketing,
mesclun,
oregano,
overwinter,
post-harvest,
sage,
spinach,
thyme Possibly similar posts:
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Sat, Nov 10, 2007 · Filed under Autumn, Veggies
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 »
Tags:
beet,
carrots,
frost,
herbs,
oregano,
parsley,
peppermint,
rosemary,
sage,
spearmint,
tarragon,
thyme Possibly similar posts:
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Sun, May 13, 2007 · Filed under Fieldwork, People, Spring, Veggies
One part of this year’s plan is to expand the herb area from a few beds into a real little herb garden AND to create a home veggie garden. Here is the starting point (along with my shadow). At the bottom of the photo in the overgrowth are sections of sage, oregano and thyme, all doing fine after overwintering with no cover whatsoever, other than the snow. They need to be cleaned up and I’m going to move some. Next, I finally transplanted the parsley from plug sheets started in February, two varieties, Plain Italian flat leaf and Green River curly. The open area is waiting for warmer nights—over the next couple of weeks, I’ll transplant dill, basil, and see if cilantro can survive the jump from tray to field, and direct seed a bunch of others. I haven’t quite figured out where cutting flowers will go, maybe some here as well. And then, in the top corner, marked by 6′ stakes for trellis netting, I’m doing a home veggie garden, 20′x25′, with a little bit of everything, a tinier version of the big garden… It’s a little crazy as far as making work, but the idea is to have a demo for farm stand customers who want to start their own gardens. The more veggie gardens the merrier! :)
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