One broccoli (Early Dividend), one cauliflower (Early Dawn), but what’s that Violet Queen in the middle? The EDs are standbys, the VQ is new. It looks like broccoli, cooks like broccoli, tastes like broccoli, but it’s in the seed catalog … Read the rest
A satisfying few hours today, spreading year-old cow manure on the market garden. Bob and the old White 70hp handled the spreader (and you can see a rock picker attached in front!). I used the Kubota compact tractor to fill … Read the rest
As a friendly reminder that the weather hasn’t gone entirely haywire, the nights have been cold lately, freezing or below, and some days begin with a reassuring blanket of frost on the field. Here, the Swiss chard (it’s trusty Fordhook … Read the rest
A perfect moment in tiny farming time as the first garlic goes in for next season’s harvest! It’s all Music (that’s the hardneck variety), and for the first time it’s 100% my own seed stock (last year, I had to … Read the rest
Fat bags of kinda fluffy grass-and-alfalfa mulch are the satisfying end of this little experiment (well, the real end comes next spring when we see how it does at sheltering the garlic for the winter). For this second batch, the … Read the rest
Tilling in the monster oats green manure/cover crop is a task where the Kubota compact tractor sure comes in handy. The oats is tall, dense and seemingly unstoppable by cold. It took a double mowing to get it down to … Read the rest
A vibrant slash of orange and yellow—the half-row of calendula seemed to be fairly unfazed by the recent blast of sub-zero cold, where the zinnias didn’t do so well. Another bit of first-hand frost experience to file away. Elsewhere in … Read the rest