Digging up the very last of the Jerusalem artichoke, this is pretty much the final harvest of the year, besides a little kale and maybe a last few tiny cauliflower and cabbage. The few remaining feet of the original 50′ … Read the rest
Thanks to the comments on yesterday’s blog post, this piece of old farm gear, lying abandoned in the field for who knows how long, has been ID-ed as a sickle bar mower. Yet another in a long line of bigger … Read the rest
Around 8 am, just getting light, and it’s the second snow that’s sticking around for a while. Here, I’m standing in a weedy area right beside the barn, looking south-west over the south-facing slope, with the chickenhouse just out of … Read the rest
The star by far of the last planting of brassicas, that mostly didn’t size up in time for market or CSA, is without at doubt this unusual Nero Di Toscana strap kale. This Italian heirloom, apparently from Tuscany, is hardly … Read the rest
Harvested a few tiny (tennis ball to softball-sized, like, orange to grapefruit…little ones!) cauliflower from the last-planted section of brassicas that also has kale and broccoli. It’s still producing in home-consumption quantities, but with the exception of some strap kale, … Read the rest
So this is it for the season’s spinach, a last 18lbs (8kg) of Spargo, unfazed by many subzero nights and all sorts of up-and-down weather antics. Spinach is one of the great ones for cold-climate tiny farming, easy-going once it … Read the rest
Here it is, in the dim, chilly, gray 7:30 am light: the first snow to stick this fall. Familiar—we really do have such a short growing season, time flies—and of course not welcome, because there’s still fieldwork to do. And … Read the rest