We’re still digging potatoes! Ryan, Corrie and their youngest, Hannah, came out today to salvage some potatoes. There are still a few 50′ (15m) beds of Chieftan and Kennebec. With all the rainy summer and wet ground, a lot of the potatoes were coming up with rotten spots (I heard this from other growers at the farmers’ market as well). With lots of sorting needed, and quite low yield in some rows, I decided to harvest the post-season balance only as needed. I mowed down the whole potato plot and invited anyone who wanted to dig. It looks pretty scary, in this particular spot, grass and other weeds didn’t take long to start taking over, but in the bright sunlight, it seems a lot worse than it is (a bit of tilling and left to overwinter, and it’d be right as rain). To find the treasure, locate a couple of the dried potato stems—they’re short but easy to ID once you know what you’re looking for—then dig in a line! The haul of crisp, red skin-white flesh Chieftan potatoes was pretty good! The fall harvest continues…
Year: 2008
Roosters: alive and kicking
Eight of the Frey’s Special Dual Purpose roosters are still around, in fine form, roaming the farm. Clearly, I have yet to kill them! Not even one… We’ve been eating chicken often since summer, but there’s still a good supply of fat, frozen White Rocks. Meanwhile, I imagine the meat on these guys getting tougher by the week as they run around and do their thing: turning on one another in brief, furious bursts, digging deep, bowl-shaped holes, hopping on goats, sitting on fences, crowing at all hours, scratching and pecking. It’s a little out of control, but also fun to watch, and they haven’t done anything really bad so far (one has grown quite mean and somewhat vicious, though, and menaces or even attacks people—he’ll be first to get it in the neck! :) They’re truly free-range, they’ve put on impressive weight strictly by foraging, which includes stealing some of the goats’ grain, but mainly involves bugs and whatever else they find in the fields. Most mornings, they get a little scratch, or some of the girls’ feed. Sometimes I’ll hand-feed ’em for a few minutes, for no real reason, but maybe to keep ’em feeling safe with me, and easier to catch down the road…
Real live south-facing slope!
A third trip to the new farm, with more tiny farming conversation and checking things out. The weather: beautiful once again. The view in the pic: a perfectly south-facing slope (when you’re thinking about growing, pictures of promising farmland never fail to excite!). The benefits of a gentle SFS are well-known, and they’re particularly precious in a climate like ours, with harsh, snow-bound winters and a relatively short summer growing season. A slope facing south receives sunlight much more directly than flat land, so the snowpack is much lighter during winter, and more quickly melted off in spring. Then, the soil warms up more quickly, and gravity does its thing, providing better drainage, allowing the ground to dry out more quickly. All around, this simple incline could provide a couple of weeks of spring headstart, compared to flat land right beside. How well this actually pans out will be fun to see!
First catalog
In today’s mail, the first seed catalog of the season! They start arriving around this time every year, it’s always been EXCITING, and now is no different. What I said last year just about covers it once again. I strive to live in the moment and enjoy every day, but….SPRING IS COMING!
Hoarding wood like gold
Calling it scrap lumber doesn’t do any pile of spare wood justice. On the tiny farm, you always make space to accumulate someday useful stuff that elsewhere might get tossed. Waste not, want not! This collection of old fence boards, rough cut cedar planks, odds and ends of 2×4’s, and other bits will piece by piece have its day. Meanwhile, it needs to be moved to a more sheltered spot, raised off the ground, before the snow really comes in. Today seemed like a good day to do it…
Snow carrot harvest
What’s a little snow when there’s crispy-sweet CARROTS buried under there? Lynn (the new Celebrity Farmer) and Raechelle headed up the field late this subzero afternoon, digging forks in hand, and scored sackfuls of Nelson and Napoli, no problem. It’s been well below zero (32°F) recent nights, and for the last couple of days as well, but the ground isn’t nearly frozen, and the layer of snow, fresh from overnight, actually acts as an insulator and helps soften it up. For now… The season’s not over until we SAY it’s over… :)
Drive shed clean-up
The drive shed is in a transitional mess. I’m part way through the post-season clean-up, delving into shelves, unpacking boxes, dragging things around, sorting it all out. Even with the trusty Troy-Bilt Horse rototiller as a bit of a clue (on the left, in red), to the untrained eye, it might be hard to tell that all of this is essential tiny farming gear. Who’d know that the stacks of Rubbermaid storage bins are in fact our mainstay harvest containers? Or that the weathered cedar trays and folding metal sawhorses (leaning on the left), transform in minutes into the farmers’ market stand. Those indoor/outdoor twin halogen lights are critical lighting components for after-dark veggie sorting and rinsing in the barnyard. That front-loading dryer I’ve kept around for years, in case it could become as useful as its companion the top-loading washer has been as a heavy-duty salad spinner. And so on. Every little item in the pic has its purpose. Much of tiny farming gear is plain, old ordinary stuff, pressed into garden service. And it all works!