July 16, 2011
This week's harvest:
Lettuce
Basil
Green and Yellow Beans
Tomatoes
Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes
Eggplant (medium shares)
Zucchini
Yellow Squash
Cucumbers
Garlic and Onions
This week's farm news:
This crazy summer is just flying by! Here we are already entering the second half of the "main" vegetable season. And, boy, are we about to hit a serious summer glut! Hooray! Finally! We are just days away from our first taste of melon. We've been enjoying tomatoes - and from the estimated 468 plants in the garden an insane amount are coming your way from now until our first frost of the autumn. Sweet corn is about ready, too! Oh, the delicious tastes of summertime!
The crew pulled all of the remaining onions from the garden this week and now they are all laid out in our greenhouse on screen tables and bread trays to dry. They were pretty moist upon harvest so we have our fingers crossed that they do, in fact, dry and not rot! Onions are pretty tricky to store in this humid climate.
We had another broody hen hatch out a clutch of abandoned turkey eggs this week! This time Jesse took the hen and poults out from the big flock and is keeping them in the barn so he can keep an eye on them. Ira has now been inspired by all of these broody hen success stories... so this morning he took about a dozen of his duck eggs up to the chicken compound and placed them under yet another broody hen! We'll see in about a month what happens!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
2011 Season, Week 10
July 9, 2011
This week's harvest:
Potatoes
Garlic
Onion
Yellow Squash
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Lettuce
Basil
Yellow Beans
This week's farm news:
The heifer calf that was born last week, "Peanut Butter Pie," had to be nursed back to health this week after getting severely dehydrated in the intense heat we had early in the week. The calf's mama wasn't moving her to the shade very well, so several times daily Eric would make a trip to the animals, move the calf to the shade, and give her some homemade electrolytes. Eric's efforts seem to have paid off as the calf is back on her feet and nursing from her Mama. Whew!
The intense heat also kicked us in the pants to get our "shade house" back in action for the season. We use this for starting all of our late summer & fall crops (that we don't direct seed in the field.) Up until now this season we've started everything in the greenhouses... But this week proved to be too hot for crops that we are trying to germinate right now - like leeks!
We ate our first cherry tomatoes this week (a bit later than usual!) so you all have those to look forward to very soon!
This week's harvest:
Potatoes
Garlic
Onion
Yellow Squash
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Lettuce
Basil
Yellow Beans
This week's farm news:
The heifer calf that was born last week, "Peanut Butter Pie," had to be nursed back to health this week after getting severely dehydrated in the intense heat we had early in the week. The calf's mama wasn't moving her to the shade very well, so several times daily Eric would make a trip to the animals, move the calf to the shade, and give her some homemade electrolytes. Eric's efforts seem to have paid off as the calf is back on her feet and nursing from her Mama. Whew!
The intense heat also kicked us in the pants to get our "shade house" back in action for the season. We use this for starting all of our late summer & fall crops (that we don't direct seed in the field.) Up until now this season we've started everything in the greenhouses... But this week proved to be too hot for crops that we are trying to germinate right now - like leeks!
We ate our first cherry tomatoes this week (a bit later than usual!) so you all have those to look forward to very soon!
Saturday, July 2, 2011
2011 Season, Week Nine
July 2, 2011
This week's harvest:
Potatoes - "Kennebec"
Lettuce
Basil
Parsley
Red Cabbage
Garlic
Onions - mini sweet Walla Walla
Cucumbers
Choose between Yellow Beans, Yellow Squash, Broccoli
This week's farm news:
In the wee hours of the morning on Sunday we had two intense storms roll through the farm, leaving us with around two inches of rain. It rained hard, too... So that means another round of cultivation is necessary to "cut off the wick" and preserve that moisture in the soil. By Thursday it was dry enough to start cultivation and that's just what we did. When the sun was shining this week it was pretty intense - UV index of 11 on a scale of 1-10! - which left us farmers a little more tired at the day's end. Earlier in the week while the garden soil was wet, we started some fall (yes, fall!) crops in soil blocks - leeks, brussels sprouts, & winter squash.
We had a new calf born on the farm this week. She is the third (of three) heifer calf born this spring. We are calling her "Peanut Butter Pie". The other two are named "Bella Marshmella" and "Cookie Face"... three sweet girls.
Have a lovely weekend!
This week's harvest:
Potatoes - "Kennebec"
Lettuce
Basil
Parsley
Red Cabbage
Garlic
Onions - mini sweet Walla Walla
Cucumbers
Choose between Yellow Beans, Yellow Squash, Broccoli
This week's farm news:
In the wee hours of the morning on Sunday we had two intense storms roll through the farm, leaving us with around two inches of rain. It rained hard, too... So that means another round of cultivation is necessary to "cut off the wick" and preserve that moisture in the soil. By Thursday it was dry enough to start cultivation and that's just what we did. When the sun was shining this week it was pretty intense - UV index of 11 on a scale of 1-10! - which left us farmers a little more tired at the day's end. Earlier in the week while the garden soil was wet, we started some fall (yes, fall!) crops in soil blocks - leeks, brussels sprouts, & winter squash.
We had a new calf born on the farm this week. She is the third (of three) heifer calf born this spring. We are calling her "Peanut Butter Pie". The other two are named "Bella Marshmella" and "Cookie Face"... three sweet girls.
Have a lovely weekend!
Saturday, June 25, 2011
2011 Season, Week Eight
June 25, 2011
This week's harvest:
Lettuce
Carrots
Swiss Chard
Garlic
Broccoli (the last taste until fall...)
Yellow Squash
Cucumbers (medium shares this week)
This week's farm news:
The week started out stormy and wet. The garden is plenty saturated at this point. The remainder of the week was intermittantly stormy but no storms yielded that much rain and by Friday the gardens were ready to be cultivated - which is an enormous task right now because there are so many young plantings and most of our cultivation is done by hand.
On Monday (conveniently when the farm was saturated!) the crew took a field trip to Emerald Glen Farm in Munfordville, KY for a farm tour. It's a beautiful, well-managed farm which produces a variety of pasture-raised meats. (These are available at the Metro Farmers Market every other Saturday.) Good folks to support if you're in the market for some high-quality meat from a small producer.
We harvested our garlic crop this week. We clipped all of the stalks from the bulbs and placed the bulbs into baskets to then be hauled up into the barn loft. Next we'll spread them all out so they have ample ventilation while curing. So, this week's garlic in your basket is super fresh and juicy. Enjoy it and our amusing story of the week...
About a month ago the crew inadvertantly scared a turkey hen off of her nest while moving the animals. We happened to have a relentlessly broody hen so Jesse thought he would give her a project. He set those eggs under her about a month ago and lo and behold, this week four of them actually hatched!
This week's harvest:
Lettuce
Carrots
Swiss Chard
Garlic
Broccoli (the last taste until fall...)
Yellow Squash
Cucumbers (medium shares this week)
This week's farm news:
The week started out stormy and wet. The garden is plenty saturated at this point. The remainder of the week was intermittantly stormy but no storms yielded that much rain and by Friday the gardens were ready to be cultivated - which is an enormous task right now because there are so many young plantings and most of our cultivation is done by hand.
On Monday (conveniently when the farm was saturated!) the crew took a field trip to Emerald Glen Farm in Munfordville, KY for a farm tour. It's a beautiful, well-managed farm which produces a variety of pasture-raised meats. (These are available at the Metro Farmers Market every other Saturday.) Good folks to support if you're in the market for some high-quality meat from a small producer.
We harvested our garlic crop this week. We clipped all of the stalks from the bulbs and placed the bulbs into baskets to then be hauled up into the barn loft. Next we'll spread them all out so they have ample ventilation while curing. So, this week's garlic in your basket is super fresh and juicy. Enjoy it and our amusing story of the week...
About a month ago the crew inadvertantly scared a turkey hen off of her nest while moving the animals. We happened to have a relentlessly broody hen so Jesse thought he would give her a project. He set those eggs under her about a month ago and lo and behold, this week four of them actually hatched!
Saturday, June 18, 2011
2011 Season, Week Seven
June 18, 2011
This week's harvest:
Carrots
Lettuce
Broccoli
Swiss Chard
Garlic
Shelling Peas
Summer Squash
This week's farm news:
We enjoyed a few days of cooler weather this week interspersed with brief rain showers. Altogether we received a little less than one inch, but it was all so gentle and slow that the crops were able to take full advantage of every drop. Good thing, too, because the gardens were getting dry. All the young crops received a cultivation and now look fantastic! In the garden, we set out our 4th planting of tomatoes for fall harvest. We seeded pumpkins, blue Indian corn, cucumbers, gourds, and a buckwheat cover crop anywhere that we intend to plant fall crops. We also started a late crop of basil, dill, and more lettuce. Our garlic crop is nearly ready to be harvested, which almost always coincides with the summer solstice, so my guess is next week the smell of garlic will be wafting through the air here in Bugtussle! Yum yum!
This week's harvest:
Carrots
Lettuce
Broccoli
Swiss Chard
Garlic
Shelling Peas
Summer Squash
This week's farm news:
We enjoyed a few days of cooler weather this week interspersed with brief rain showers. Altogether we received a little less than one inch, but it was all so gentle and slow that the crops were able to take full advantage of every drop. Good thing, too, because the gardens were getting dry. All the young crops received a cultivation and now look fantastic! In the garden, we set out our 4th planting of tomatoes for fall harvest. We seeded pumpkins, blue Indian corn, cucumbers, gourds, and a buckwheat cover crop anywhere that we intend to plant fall crops. We also started a late crop of basil, dill, and more lettuce. Our garlic crop is nearly ready to be harvested, which almost always coincides with the summer solstice, so my guess is next week the smell of garlic will be wafting through the air here in Bugtussle! Yum yum!
Saturday, June 11, 2011
2011 Season, Week Six
June 11, 2011
This week's harvest:
Broccoli
Lettuce
Shelling Peas (medium shares)
Summer Squash (small shares)
Carrots
Swiss Chard
Garlic Scapes
This week's farm news:
Other than a brief rain shower last Sunday, the week was hot and dry. The crew endured the heat and had another productive week of planting and garden work. The sweet potato crop is in the ground, the tomato patch is mulched, and many, many more seeds and transplants were planted. Now, we would be so grateful to get a nice rain to settle everything into the soil... At least we can dream, right?
We want to thank all of you that have already voiced your opinion to the powers-that-be about today's farmer's market location and we strongly encourage everyone to let your opinion be heard to the farmer's market organizers (who are working so hard to make this market enjoyable!) to help them to make their case to the Parks Commission. We hope that next week we will be back in our nicely shaded market location!
This week's harvest:
Broccoli
Lettuce
Shelling Peas (medium shares)
Summer Squash (small shares)
Carrots
Swiss Chard
Garlic Scapes
This week's farm news:
Other than a brief rain shower last Sunday, the week was hot and dry. The crew endured the heat and had another productive week of planting and garden work. The sweet potato crop is in the ground, the tomato patch is mulched, and many, many more seeds and transplants were planted. Now, we would be so grateful to get a nice rain to settle everything into the soil... At least we can dream, right?
We want to thank all of you that have already voiced your opinion to the powers-that-be about today's farmer's market location and we strongly encourage everyone to let your opinion be heard to the farmer's market organizers (who are working so hard to make this market enjoyable!) to help them to make their case to the Parks Commission. We hope that next week we will be back in our nicely shaded market location!
Saturday, June 4, 2011
2011 Season, Week 5
June 4, 2011
This week's harvest:
Lettuce
Cilantro
Swiss Chard
Beet Greens
Garlic Scapes ("pigtails")
Red Russian Kale
This week's farm news:
We had sunshine every day this week. And, boy, was it hot! Quite a stark contrast from last week. So the pendulum swings again and your farmers worked their tails off because of it! Thousands of transplants were set out in the garden - lettuces, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, watermelons, muskmelons, tomatillos, & fennel. Thousands of seeds were sown also - peanuts, sweet corn, butternut squash, etc.
Eric spent hours on the tractor taking advantage of the (finally) dry soil conditions. We have lots more ground ready and awaiting more planting in the coming days... That's why farmer Eric stayed home from Nashville today. There's just so much on his plate and the time to get it done is now!
Also this week we welcomed our third intern, Lena. She jumped right in with the crew, worked hard, got sun-burned, and basically embraced life in Bugtussle!
This week's harvest:
Lettuce
Cilantro
Swiss Chard
Beet Greens
Garlic Scapes ("pigtails")
Red Russian Kale
This week's farm news:
We had sunshine every day this week. And, boy, was it hot! Quite a stark contrast from last week. So the pendulum swings again and your farmers worked their tails off because of it! Thousands of transplants were set out in the garden - lettuces, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, watermelons, muskmelons, tomatillos, & fennel. Thousands of seeds were sown also - peanuts, sweet corn, butternut squash, etc.
Eric spent hours on the tractor taking advantage of the (finally) dry soil conditions. We have lots more ground ready and awaiting more planting in the coming days... That's why farmer Eric stayed home from Nashville today. There's just so much on his plate and the time to get it done is now!
Also this week we welcomed our third intern, Lena. She jumped right in with the crew, worked hard, got sun-burned, and basically embraced life in Bugtussle!
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