Libby

Potato digging party

by

It’ll be hard to top THIS one for extremely labor-intensive tiny farming involving lots of peeps! Here, Libby, Lynn, Andie, and Mel hand-dig potatoes for tomorrow’s farmers’ market. The taters happen to be Gold Rush russets, and they’re in fine form, with a little wireworm damage (surface blemishes or tiny holes) to only a few. We’re right at the end of the first (of three) potato areas of this year, 600′ (183 m), evenly divided between Penta, Chieftan and Gold Rush.

So, what’s with all these people, digging together in a cluster, with just one bin? A little inefficient, pehaps? Well, not really. When there’s a lot of folks happy to mix it up with the dirt, tackling a single task all together can work out! We only needed about 70 lbs of each variety (that blue bin full). With the moist-but-not-mucky soil, pulling plants and scrabbling around was quick and easy. BIG POTATOES helped. Working close together wasn’t a problem because we had so little area to cover. Each bin got filled in maybe 15 minutes. Satisfying!

In the photo, you can also see how relatively good shape we’re in with weeds. The bit of grass growing back is in separate clumps, all the runners haven’t started to reach out and hook up. Further up is a section of more heavily overgrown onions. But that’s actually doing well as well: the onions were thoroughly weeded twice, and hoed a couple more times, so what you see is mainly grass from the last three weeks (without much shading out from the onion plants, everything else grows fast!).

Anyhow, when we tackle the main potato patch, around 2,000′ (609 m), methods will change. But we’ll still be digging in the dirt…!

Early season harvest day

by

It’s a harvest Friday, second for the farmers’ market, and first for CSA, but the load is still light. After picking snap peas, we spent the day doing other field work. In the photo, Libby, Jordan and Michelle are hand-weeding the small strip of spring-planted garlic, and we spent some labor-intensive time thinning a 400′ (122m) of carrots, and several beds of beets (the thinnings were the beet greens harvest). In late afternoon, time to cut greens: spinach and mesclun. Plus a little parsley.

Checking back over the last four years, at this time, we had broccoli once, radishes usually, baby Swiss chard a couple of times. And, of course, garlic scapes. And, a couple of years, no peas yet. So, all in all, with the slightly slower planting schedule in this start-up this garden, and all the cloudy weather, we’re doing pretty well!

Last of the spring planting

by

It’s another week till the start of CSA shares and the first picking of peas, and at least 3 weeks until some of the heavier crops—broccoli, cauliflower, summer squash—are ready, so Friday’s are still about general fieldwork, not HARVEST. Just ahead of the end of spring, Lynn, Libby and Jordan planted out a last wave of winter squash and some fast-maturing (80-90) Neon pumpkins. That brings the spring planting to a close, a little later than usual, overall, but considering the first-year, start-up situation, really good!

We also put in one bed of melons under infrared-transmitting (IRT) plastic mulch (above).  For a couple of years, I planted 5-10 50′ beds under IRT mulch (more heat to the soil), but yield wasn’t worth the effort, including the extra watering (didn’t use drip tape under the plastic). This year, with one bed to focus on, it’s an experiment—we’ll try to give them extra special care!

Lynn vanished early from lunch, only to be found reading her new herb book under a tree. This photo (below) doesn’t nearly capture the scene: it looked like an impossibly peaceful countryscape, from a simple, carefree world—fit for a postcard. We were laughing, and Jordan spontaneously got out his camera and took photos, too.  I asked her if she’d scouted the location for the setting (joking, but I can also be a bit of a cynic! :), she said it was just the best spot she could find for shade!

Skinning the hoophouse

by

This is the spring of Finally… Today, we finally got the plastic on the hoophouse, can’t believe it’s been over a month since the frame went up! Anyhow, it’s done! A kinda huge turnout of people: Libby, Jordan, Andie, Tom, and Lynn (planting grain elsewhere during the hoophouse skinning). A bit of a breeze, but it didn’t get in the way. First, the ends went on, and then, the big job, which with a lot of hands is pretty simple. Started by pulling the plastic over* and loosely fastening it at one end (the many hands really help)…

Next, we slid it along. I’m on the ladder, putting UV-resistant greenhouse tape over the edges of the ribs where they join the ridge, so they don’t rub on the plastic (clearly, that’s a one-person job…could’ve been done ahead)…

Get to the other end, and fasten it! There’s still a fair bit of wood work to secure it all, and electricity and then the squirrel cage fan to install, to inflate the double layer of plastic, but the main job is basically DONE. One more thing on the new-tiny-farm start-up-from-nearly-scratch list, practically checked off! (I should move the jumbo rain gauge to a completely unsheltered spot…)

*It’s a lot easier to lay the plastic out lengthwise beside the frame, then pull it over from both ends in one shot. We did it this way because there was only one tall stepladder, and to avoid catching the breeze on the full length of the plastic as it went up—a completely calm day is best, but with a lot of people, you can handle a little wind. (Photos 1 and 2 by Andie)

Filling the fields continues

by
Transplanting parsley

More slow but steady planting out. Flat-leaf and curly parsley, started so long ago, finally hit the field by the hands of Libby and Lynn. Later in the afternoon, we started one section of potatoes. The timing this spring is…unusual. We’re still tilling and retilling sections to further break up sod, planting the same crop in two or three different spots, and staggering planting dates by waiting as long as possible, to get as much variation in conditions as we can. It’s hedging bets in a new market garden…

Transplanting team…

by
Transplanting brassicas

Another big Friday showing of people in the field: Chris, Libby, Jordan and Lynn transplant broccoli and cauliflower, while Andie is on a solo rototilling mission in the other field. Later, everyone got together to plant a few hundred onion seedlings and sets. And some other stuff got done.

Although we’re in the thick of it as far as timing and weather and urgency to get things out, our spring schedule is slower than it could be, and the field days are so far fairly laid back. Slowing things down is the start-up stuff: a ton of tillage to do (working in the grassy remnants of last year’s hay field), water for irrigation to put in place, electricity to run, chickenhouse to build, and a long list of other basic things that we have to put in place along with starting the season’s crops. Getting it all rolling together on this new farm, now that’s fairly intense!

Tossing onions

by

Well, Friday harvest is over…what to do? A few onions and a little winter squash you’re  set for ALL-TERRAIN ONION BOCCE. Libby used yellow cooking onions (Stuttgarter), Grant took a mild white (Superstar), I went red (Red Wing), four onions each. A stunted orange acorn squash (Table Gold) served as the target ball. Toss away!

The rules are simple: the player with the closest one or more onions to the squash scores a point apiece. The all-terrain part means the winner of a turn gets to toss the squash anywhere. We played up and down the gangway to the barn, through gravel, long grass, chicken hazards (roosters peck onions)… Good thing no-one got really competitive, ’cause onion bocce is pretty imprecise, what with eventually exploding onions (largest piece counts), and ragged edges that make down-to-the-millimeter measuring kinda futile. Still, we did get out the tape measure… Wholesome outdoor fun on the farm. With veggies. Must be a new age of innocence! :) (Guest measurement photo by Libby)


Home

All of 2025

Stories

7 ways to browse