October 11, 2009
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Things just don't seem to be slowing down for us at all here this fall.
We have a handful of new projects that we want to get going before our
crew leaves in early November. On Friday we received some new sections
to expand our heated greenhouse. With the volume of starts we use in
the spring we really run out of space too soon. This could be a real
problem if we were forced to harden off plants (move them to an
unheated hoop house to acclimate them to the cool spring weather)
before they are ready. So this project entails, cleaning up all our
onions that are currently curing in the greenhouse, taking out all the
pallets we use for tables, taking off the existing plastic, tearing
down the end wall, erecting the new sections of hoops, putting on a new
end wall and then covering with new plastic. Dan's goal is to get this
all done soon so he doesn't have to think about doing it alone in the
winter when the snow is on the ground. Come mid-February he can walk
in, flick a switch to turn the heater on and start seeding! You see we
always have one eye on the next season around here, even though you
might think we're just about to settle in with dreams of a winter
vacation.
Also this week on the farm... more livestock excitement. Coco and
Patches will be getting a visit from Litmis, a mini-Jersey bull. He's a
beautiful little guy. I'm sure they'll be quite excited to meet him.
Three little piggies are coming this week for the winter as well as a
batch of replacements hens. Unfortunately we lost about 40 of our New
Hampshire Reds to what we can only guess is a weasel. So all, in all a
big week here at the Bunny,of course on top of harvesting, cover
cropping, preparing for a hard frost....
Here's the harvest: onions, leeks, lettuce, celeriac, garlic, daikon, winter squash, kale or collards, beets or
potatoes.... Enjoy! |
October 4, 2009
We've decided to plant the new field to peaches and vegetables,
starting 2010. The peaches are a dream of ours, to be harvested 2013,
the vegetables to be planted between young trees, hopefully harvested
in the fall of 2010. For now, plowing and drop spreading gypsum,
chicken manure, and compost with big intentions for the future!
About the Daikon for newcomers to the CSA: This is a highly
treasured vegetable in Japan. And the Japanese, like the French, know
the vegetable. Disc it up at an angle to make oblong shapes, sautee in
a pan with other veggies adding toasted sesame oil at the end of
cooking. This is your farmer's favorite veg, please give it a try!
It's also good raw on salads, or on the side of sushi/sashimi. Even
better are the greens, cooked with a bit of cider vinegar, mixed with
cooked chard greens. The problem is the greens are so enormous, we
might not be able to put them into your harvest bins. Know this: we
will try.
Also new this week, celeriac. It's another fantastic veg
requiring some work from the chef. Baked, soups, mashed. Known well
in France, I think. Delicious and best described by epicurious.com! This week on the farm: Three winter pigletts arrive from Barlow Beef farm. Compost spreading, harvesting, cover cropping.
Here's an approximation of your harvest:
Onions Leeks Peppers Hot Peppers Winter Squash Pie Pumpkins Celeriac Mustard Greens/ Chard Arugula/ Salad
Mix Garlic Daikon Radishes/French Breakfast Radishes Carrots/Beets Kale/Collards
Enjoy!
September 27, 2009
Pictured is our crew and friends and children on the harvest
trailer behind the tractor. Pie pumpkins and winter squash are now in
and out of the way of frosts! Also pictured is Baxter in his usual
harvest bin pose while Bea tends the chicks in the portable chicken
house....
This week on the farm we'll be planting cover
crops, prepping ground for garlic planting, spreading compost,
harvesting. Our apprentices will be heading over to Debra Tyler's farm
on Monday to learn about micro dairying, raw milk, pastures, etc., with
other apprentices from neighboring farms.
Here's the harvest for the week:
Onions Peppers Hot Peppers Potatoes Celery Leeks Winter Squash/ Pumpkins
Chard Mustard
Greens Salad Mix/Arugula Turnips Broccoli (If warm weather persists!) Collards
Enjoy! Your Farmers, Dan, Tracy, B+B
September 20, 2009
Hi Folks,It's
cover crop time! This and next week we'll be broadcasting rye, vetch,
and clover over what was once tomato plants, garlic, cabbages, salad
mix, and onions. These cover crops will grow through the fall, into
early next summer. Some will get to grow even through next fall. We
try to cover every last piece of ground with grasses and legumes for
the purpose of soil building. Soil building means feeding and
providing an environment for earthworms. What earthworms like is
decaying straw, compost, leaves, and the like. What earthworms leave
in the form of castings and tunnels is better tilth, better fertility.
I've noticed more and more earthworms at the farm over the years and
I'd like to think this is proof we're heading in the right direction!
Two pictures this week: Cows staring down the Daikon rows,
Volunteers working in the early summer.
This week's harvest:
Salad mix/Arugula Blonde Spinach/Chard Onions Garlic Potatoes
Peppers Hot Peppers Leeks Thyme Winter Squash
Bon Appetite! Your farmer, Dan
September 13, 2009
Whew! This past week was a tough one, what with Alissa out on
vacation and Naf still out with a broken arm. Nothing makes you
appreciate your crew like when they're gone! It was Cody and Dan, all
harvest, all the time. We managed to have fun, I think, mostly because
volunteers Ron, Kim, and Daryl keep coming by and rescuing us. My Dad
helps out at the farmer's market, our neighbor Meg has been coming on
harvest mornings to milk the cow- leaving us to just focus on bringing
in the food. Naf even managed to come by with his broken wrist and
hand weed some beets...
This week Alissa and Dan will be at the farm with Cody out on
vacation. We're bound to have another week of challenge but here's
hoping the fun continues. Last
week we managed to bring in all the onions from the field just ahead of
the rain, and it looks like a record harvest! I've never seen such
onion bounty...2009, the year of the Allium (garlic, leeks, onions.)
The greenhouse is stuffed with onions. I think the onion is the most
often eaten and versatile vegetable of all vegetables. And perhaps the
hardest won as a grower. Nice to have a bumper crop to help fill the
tomato void! I'm also considering calling 2009 the year of the sweet
pepper, but it has a few weeks to prove itself yet.
Exciting news this week, another hundred chicks will be arriving in
the mail, our goal being to revamp our layers for 2010. We'll start
them on grass this fall and move them into the greenhouse for the
winter. It just doesn't feel right around here without a sizeable
layer flock (200 layers! 30 of which will be going to our neighbors at
Camp Isabella.) Hopefully having access to more of our own layer
manure will help us cut down on how much manure and protein we have to
import from Fertrell and North Country Organics to grow our hungry veg
crops. It would also be nice to have our own eggs for sale from the
barn and at the farmers' market again. Also, no more white leghorns.
These gals crank out the eggs but tend to have low survival rates when
it comes to predators and nasty weather. We're going with heavier,
less efficient breeds with a greater sense of survival. I also have a
hunch they eat more grass as they weren't bred to live in a box like
the leghorns. This makes for healthier eggs- more grass and less corn.
Our chosen varieties are the New Hampshire Red and Black Australorp.
Hearty,tried and true. Basically heirloom chickens!
Pictured is Beatrice in the portable chicken hut with the New Hampshire Red chicks.
This week's harvest:
Beets Celery Leeks
Onions Peppers Winter
Squash Hot Peppers Basil Garlic Edamame Salad Mix/Arugula Kale
Enjoy! Your farmers, Dan and Tracy, Bea and Baxter September 6, 2009
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Labor Day on the farm is exactly what it sounds like. Labor. We won't
be grilling or picnicing or taking a long weekend. We'll be working to
bring in the harvest. We'll get our due in a few months when the farm
is put to bed for the season.
While there is still plenty of need to tend to this years coming crops-
hoeing, fertilizing beets, greens, turnips, etc. we are taking steps
to get ready for next season as well. We'll be sorting the garlic for
seed to be planted next month. We'll be spreading compost and planting
cover crop. But of course we'll also be spending most of our time
harvesting. WE'll have to start bringing in the winter squash soon. New
this week is the first of the winter squash, the sweet delicata. We did
a taste test last week to see if they were ready i.e. sweet enough.
These do not keep all that well so don't try hording them away for the
winter. We should have plenty of butternut coming for you if you want
to hang on to those for a while. Cut these in half and bake cut side
down in the oven as you would acorn squash. Yum! Currently delicata is
Baxter's favorite!
Here's the harvest: carrots, potatoes, onions, peppers, eggplants, delicata, hot peppers, basil, dill, collards, garlic, lettuce
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We are enjoying these nice days of sunshine. It has been really
pleasant here, not to hot but plenty of sun and cool nights. Perfect
fall weather. I have to admit it seems a little weird to be turning the
corner into fall with out having much of a summer. I guess we just have
to get over that and move ahead. It is a nice time to be out in the
fields and there is still plenty out there to do. Folks probably think
we're just bringing in the fall crops now, but we are still actually
seeding greens every week - salad, arugula, spinach and chard for the
fall.
September is a bit of a transitional month. We have to remember that it
still is technically summer, so you'll be seeing more cucumbers,
zucchini, eggplants and peppers for a while. September
is also a bit of a challenge. There is a change in the air that feels
like things should start to be winding down. That there might be a
break in the workload. But no because we are a crew member down, with
Naf's broken wrist and it is also time for Alissa and Cody to take
their time off. So Dan will have one person helping him when he's used
to having three. So it goes. They will spend most of their time
harvesting.
Here's this weeks harvest: onions, lettuce mix, kale, garlic, carrots, potatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, fennel, basil, hot peppers Enjoy!
August 23, 2009
Hello from Chubby Bunny Farm.
The
big news this week must be that, farming is dangerous. This Monday
intern Naf broke his wrist in a tangle with our two delightful cows,
Coco and Patches. Just after the morning milking the cows got frisky
and while Naf was trying to move them along the cows proved larger (we
had no doubt) and Naf was knocked down. A minor fracture thankfully,
as far as broken bones go, so he is feeling alright, in a cast and healing.
This of course
puts a strain on the farm. We've had some lovely volunteers show up
and put in some work getting the harvest done but losing a full time,
skilled employee really does hurt. Sometimes it's hard to see the
difference things like this have on the farm. We still get the harvest
in and looking good every week, plants keep growing, the weather keeps
coming. It's those things you see from the tractor seat as you drive
out to the melons that get to you - the fall beet transplants and all
the weeds germinating with them, the fall carrots battling battling
fighting the weeds waiting for us to find the time to help them out.
We show up in the misty morning,
work hard sweating all day putting that food in those bins and race out
to show the carrots we still care. We show up in the misty morning,
work hard... and so on. It seems to work.
Besides the
lightning that struck the greenhouse Friday night all else on the farm
seems to be pretty plain. We seeded more arugula, more daikon radish,
and some cilantro, planted out some fall cabbages. We pulled weeds, we
clipped garlic, we bantered endlessly out in the fields. And here's
some of the harvest -
Onions Leeks Celery cukes
zucchini peppers eggplant carrots
basil/thyme potatoes salad mix chard
Thanks and Enjoy-
Apprentice Cody
August 16, 2009
Greetings!
As
an apprentice on the farm it's not a rare thing to find yourself in a
situation far from that romantic ideal you once had of the farm. Such
was the case this Thursday afternoon when Dan sent the three
apprentices, Alissa, Naf, and myself off to the pigs as he pushed the
seeder through eight? beds seeding arugula, lettuce, cilantro, dill,
and chard. The chore for us? A somewhat daunting one - loading three
pigs onto the trailer to be brought to the butcher.
It is indeed a bit
degrading trying to convince a few two hundred pounded, four legged,
cannonballs of pigs onto a little trailer. A pig will go where a pig
will go and a pig don't care what you want. The trick of course is a
bucket of sun cooked cows milk and rotten veggies dumped over a bed of
hog feed fresh from the bag. The difficulty? Getting only a specific
three of the eight cannonballs onto the trailer. Some pigs they mill
around and up on the trailer knocking bits of milky feed off the
trailer onto the ground for other pigs to crawl under it for. The
apprentices they nudge with knees, laugh, curse, throw arms in air in
desperation. Six pigs on, all of them off. Four little pigs on with
the three big ones off. None on. All on. The situation seems to be
hopeless, when, just by chance one big pig is chewing trailer veggies
and the other two seem to be interested. Quick action, unspoken
collaboration, the gentlest of shoves and the gate is up! Three pigs
in while apprentices cheer and sing songs of success. All in all a job
executed relatively efficiently and cleanly and we're back to the field
work.
Summer seems to be
stopping in for a bit on the farm. A few melons are ripening, greens
are vibrant, weeds are multiplying. The puddles in the fields are
slowly shrinking. And rain seems to be the exception these days.
Already fall crops are being seeded and the food keeps coming. Check
the freezer for the pork coming in the next few weeks and here is the
harvest:
salad mix, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, beets, carrots, peppers, basil, leeks, kale, broccoli
Enjoy!
Chubby Bunny Apprentice, Cody
August 9, 2009
Thanks to y'all who sent me well wishes- I think you helped speed my
recovery from my fourth round of tick born illness. So, beside the
terrible looking tomato crop, I'm feeling pretty good. There's a
saying I've heard other more experienced farmers use in regards to
agriculture, "There's always next year." Not to throw in the towel
(or trowel in this case) entirely. Round three of our tomato planting
still stands blemish free and carrying fruit.
If a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, what does a
journey of three thousand tomato plants begin with? Three stepped on
rotting tomatoes? Anyway,
we've got a bumper crop of onions. How many onions is worth one
tomato? Six? Ten? This is the sort of question I torture my crew with
all day long. They've grown rather tolerant of my humor, and
thankfully have continued to crank out the work at the farm with good
cheer (depending on proximity to the tomato crop.) The
tomato is the king of importance of all crops. I don't really care to
eat them much personally, but I know how important they are to y'all
mostly. So know that we will gladly plant 12 tomato plants per CSA
member again in 2010, blending 2 parts fatuous optimism with 1 part
painful memories and 3 parts amnesia.
Attached is a pic of the late blight on what would've been a bumper crop of tomatoes. Enough said, I suppose.
This week's harvest:
Garlic cukes
zucchini celery onions eggplant potatoes carrots basil beets chard salad
Enjoy! Your farmers,
Dan, Tracy, Bea, and Baxter
July 26, 2009
Greetings!It
is a bit of a tough week here at Chubby Bunny. The rain just doesn't
give us a break. Besides dealing with all the crop stress from the bad
weather, Dan has Lyme Disease. After not getting any kind of tick
borne illness last year, we were hopeful that we could make it through
the season healthy. Alas, it is impossible to avoid tick habitat here
at the house and the farm. We are diligent about tick checks every
night, even so the suckers still got him. While he is resting and
healing we are doubly thankful to our great crew of apprentices. Of
course we are all hoping that the meds kick in soon and Dan will be
back on his feet again. I'm going to send this off while the children
are napping.
Without bothering Dan here's the best bet for harvest, but it will be a little bit of a potluck: lettuce, cukes, zucchini, kale,
celery, basil....
ps. getting peaches and plums for the fruit share.
July 19, 2009
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Two pics this week of 2 beautiful crops from the allium family. The
garlic is all in now, after 2 full afternoons of the whole crew working
on it. In the past we've cured it in the barn, but this year we put it
right in the green house with the shade cloth on.
Bea
is showing you that it is turning out to be a great onion year. Onions
can be a tricky crop for us and we get good crops about every other
year it seems like. This year they've been grown on biodegradable
non-GMO corn based black plastic and they seem to like that treatment
as well as the cool wet weather. Alas, we're finding a good onion year and a
good tomato year is rare. On our farm anyway. Onions enjoy English
weather, Tomatoes enjoy Arizona. Dan and crew are, however, working
hard to keep our tomato plants going. Feeding them calcium and potassium through drip irrigation.... and spraying them with hydrogen peroxide to
keep disease at bay. They are hanging in there and hopefully we'll get
some nice hot dry weather to ripen up the fruit. The other nightshade family crops are doing pretty well so you can expect to start seeing eggplant and peppers coming soon in your
share.
Here's this week's share: lettuce, chard, cabbage, zucchini, dill and/or
cilantro, broccoli, carrots, beets, string beans. Wow! |
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Enjoy, Your
farmers, Dan and Tracy
July 12, 2009
Hi Folks,This week on the farm: Garlic Harvest! The crew and your
farm family will spend several afternoons digging up the garlic we
planted last October. This entails driving a tractor with a subsoiler
attached in the rear to loosen the soil, followed by many hands to pull
up the bulbs, windrow them, and load them on the trailer for curing in
the barn. (Pictures hopefully next week) . Garlic harvest timing is
critical- wait too long and the bulbs break when you try to pull
them... Harvest too early and sacrifice potential yield of size and
weight. Generally mid July is the time to harvest, so here we are!
Pictured in this weeks' newsletter, Beatrice on a ladder
helping hang our newly donated Chubby Bunny Farm sign. Thanks Phil and
Jenny Gneiting for helping us with the purchase of this terrific work
of art!
Your share this week, approximately:
Purple Globe Turnips Fresh Garlic Broccoli Salad Mix Chard Zucchini
Parsley Carrots
Enjoy!
Your farmers, Dan and Tracy
July 5, 2009
Summer Greetings!Here
is our apprentice Cody showing his 4th of July spirit in the potatoes.
By the way, the potatoe crop looks beautiful, wouldn't you say? Under
the ground they are sizing up nicely, but they still have a ways to go.
Finally we are having gorgeous summery weather. Although it actually
feels more like fall with the crisp clear cool mornings. All this rain
means weeds, weeds, weeds and it looks like the crew has lost of hoeing
and hand weeding on the agenda this week. We're harvesting 4 days a
week now and the harvests will only be getting larger so Dan feels a
bit of a crunch to find the time to get to all the field work that has
to be done. You might think that the fields have all been planted but
let me tell you there is still lots of seeding to be done - greens
every week until September - and plenty of transplanting too. Sometimes
while I sit here on a Sunday morning writing these little notes to you,
I scratch my head wondering, didn't I write the same thing a couple
weeks ago? Well that is the nature of things around here. We just go
around and around the same circles and sometimes the circle shrinks a
bit when a task is completed (getting in one time crops like potatoes)
or grows a bit as another task starts to demand more time - like
harvests. So here we are with another plan for the week that looks a
lot like last week: seeding, cultivating, fertilizing, plowing,
transplanting, harvesting. Here's the harvest:
beets, turnips, broccoli, lettuce, basil, scallions, thyme, chard
June 22, 2009
Hi CBF members,This
week was memorable for lots of rain, so much rain, in fact, we couldn't
plow or cultivate several of the fields. So much rain half of our Brussels Sprout
crop sat in "standing water" for over 24 hrs. But this doesn't mean
these crops are done for, it just means there's potential. When it's
raining so much it doesn't pay to go into the field with the tractor,
as compaction can be ten times worse than usual. A case of hurry up
and wait for conditions to change.
Between
the rains, our crew found time to pull off three harvests (We actually
have four groups to harvest for- our locals, our Manhattans, our
Westchesters and of course our farmer's market in Norfolk). Between
harvests, and between downpours, we hoed and handweeded carrots,
cabbages, Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplants,
and celeriac. For an hour there, conditions in one field were dry
enough for Cody to seed salad mix and arugula while Alissa, Naf, and I
transplanted the third round of cucumbers, zucchini, basil, and beets.
Thanks to this terrific crew, we manage to keep making progress
despite the weather. Because we are not completely dependent on
mechanization and tractors for every cultivation, transplanting, and
seeding we could continue getting work done.
I always say, I'll never complain about too much rain, because I know
the reverse is far more trouble. Vegetables are 90% water, not 90%
unwater! I suppose though, that we'll be thankful when the skies clear
a bit and we can continue plowing and transplanting, cultivating and
seeding as usual.
Attached is a photo of Alissa with the seeder. We all take turns
weekly putting in the salad mix, arugula, and broccoli raab seed. This
entails pushing the seeder back and forth on the soil until parallel
rows are formed. It's about a mile of greens seeded every week. Mostly
they are ready for harvest in 40 days, and a week missed can make
trouble down the road. (This week's excessive rain has been trouble
for the salad mix too, splashing mud and constant wet make for lushness
and spots of rot.) Hopefully your salad mix has still held up well for
you in the fridge. More on the art of salad mix later.
In your share, approximately:
Salad Mix Garlic Scapes Asian Spinach
Radishes Arugula Scallions
Spring Cabbage
Thanks,
Your farmer, Dan June 15, 2009
Saturday afternoon (or sometimes a Sunday morning)
offered an hour or so of quality family time at the farm. You might
think that it is family fun all day every day here but we find
ourselves worn thin with work, plans and obligations. It isn't
actually that often that we take the time to have a little breathing
space, especially together as a family. So yesterday in the hour or so
before dinner we went down to the farm to get some food. We put Baxter
in his stroller and walked a big circle harvesting along the way. Our
first stop, after watering the greenhouse, was the yarrow for our
table. Next we came to marjoram, dill and garlic scapes, visited the
pigs, then onto scallions. Beatrice is particularly fond of radishes,
so she picked some of those, too.
Dan
tries his very best to put his blinders on as we go. With every step
he sees beds that need to be tended to. But spent from an early
morning harvest and a market he manages to pass by without getting into
the weeds. Nothing goes by without notice and walking beside me I know
he is making mental notes and taking stock for the week; those cabbages
are ready for harvest, the cows should be given this bit of grass, the
leeks are looking good, carrots need to be hand weeded, etc.
We made our way around the farm selecting some lettuce and chard
but at this point Baxter was getting squirmy and needing a milk snack.
By now our bags are full and we don't have anything to put the
beautiful tender arugula in. Oh well, time to go home and make supper.
Here's the harvest for this week:
Chinese cabbage, lettuce, arugula, broccoli raab, garlic scapes,
spinach. Garlic scapes: these are the flowers stalks of the garlic
plant. We pick them to encourage larger bulb growth and they happen to
be delicious too! Cut off the skinny papery end. chop up the rest and
use as you would garlic in pesto, etc, Great sauted with the broccoli
raab. Yum.
June 8, 2009 So much to be thankful for this spring! First,
a terrific crew of apprentices- Cody, Alissa, and Naf. These folks are
all future farmers, devouring the demanding workload we've placed on
their shoulders. On a typical spring day, Alissa will be out chisel
plowing, Cody spreading compost, and Naf cultivating with the new
1950's era CASE VAC tractor. It's a busy scene on the farm every day,
and the work could not get done without these dedicated folks.
Second thing to be thankful for- you the CSA
members, who've fronted us the money ahead of receiving your veggies.
Thank you for sharing the risk of the season with us. This is a much
fairer shake than most farmers get for what they do. I've attended
more than one farmer's market when it was raining and no one came to
buy. So thanks for joining us in a more equitable relationship!
Third thing to be thankful for as your farmer, is the bounty of spring.
Your share this week:
Salad Mix Arugula Spinach Broccoli Raab French Breakfast Radishes Oregano
Enjoy the greens!
Your farmer, Dan
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