Down on the Farm

The strong, silent type

Peter's still sick, and he's lost most of his voice now. Still, market went pretty well yesterday. Here's a vew of our stand, front and back. Waverly and I are slicing salad turnips for sampling.

Also, it looks like it didn't frost here last night. They're still saying it could frost tonight though.

The F word

The weather people can't seem to make up their minds about what will happen Saturday night. We have a cold front coming through today with some rain, and it is supposed to clear up and be a little windy tomorrow. And then Saturday night it is supposed to get chilly. But the weather people have been hedging their bets all week. Originally it was only supposed to be in the 40s on Saturday night, but each day the forecast creeps down a couple of degrees. Now the prediction is for a low of 36 degrees with the possibility of "scattered frost".

Hmmmm . . . I almost like this forecast less then if they said we would definitely have a frost. At least then I would know that I have to spend a couple of hours covering everything. With this forecast I will have to decide whether to roll the dice or not. I guess I will mull it over today and see what the weather folks say tonight/tomorrow morning.

Long time no post

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. Waverly and I have been pretty sick this week -- nothing too serious, but just some nasty cold/cough virus. It landed me in bed for a day, which is unusual, especially with so much to do around here. Plus, Waverly got an earache, and she is teething pretty bad.

So, Maryellen has had two crybabies on her hands this week. We have voluntarily taken on so much here (farm business, house fixing, landscaping, jobs, baby), that when something disrupts the balance, like a cold bug, everything kind of goes to hell for a few days.

But Wavo and I are on the mend now -- we are probably up to 80% or so. Which means it is time to get back to it, and pick the salad turnips for market tomorrow!

Farm love

It has been pretty wet around here lately. My Valentine's Day present from my sweetie has been making a huge difference in my life.

Thanks for the warm, dry, comfy barn boots Maryel!

. . . and sometimes it rains.

So Saturday was our first day at the Mad River Green Farmer's Market in Waitsfield, Vermont. How did it go? Well, let me set the scene.

The market runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and it is about an hour away from our farm in Peacham. At 6:30 a.m., Maryellen, Wavo, and I have the truck all packed and we set out to make our fortunes. It is overcast in Peacham, but no big deal. As we drive, we hit some rain, but no need to panic, it rains all the time up here, and sometimes it is only a mountain shower. But then it keeps getting darker and it keeps raining harder the further we get, until we arrive at the market around 7:30 a.m. in a complete downpour. Maryellen and I look at each other and we can only manage one "Hmmm . . . " between the two of us.

Although we aren't set up to manage Waverly in a sheets of rain, we somehow get our stand set up by 8:45 a.m. Still raining heavily. At 9 a.m., the market opens. Not one customer in sight. Not one. Only several dozens cold and wet vendors huddling under their tents and stand umbrellas. Maryellen turns to me and says, "We aren't going to make one sale today." I only nod slowly as I look off in the distance, hoping to see something positive somewhere in the sky. But who's kidding who, it looks very bleak.

By 10 a.m. Waverly has fallen asleep in her carseat in the car (we brought both our car and truck because we had so much bounty to bring to market). After some quick deliberations it is decided that Maryellen and Waverly should make a break for home, and Peter will deal with the hordes of yet to materialize customers.

And then . . .

About 10:30 a.m. it starts raining less hard. Still raining pretty hard, mind you, but not a downpour anymore. By 11 a.m. it stops. Still gray and heavy, but no rain. Around 11:15 a.m., some people start showing up and buying salad turnips.

By closing time at 1 p.m., we have sold 80% of our stuff, or so. It turns out that if it had been a beautiful day we would have sold out by 10 a.m. This is going to be a good market for us. Plus, it turns out the other vendors and the customers are extremely nice.

So all in all, a good day.

Getting ready for market

We harvested for market tonight.

Lettuce floating in the tub.

Tommi in action.

Doing the funky romaine dance.

Crunch time

Sorry about the sparse posting lately, but things have been a little hectic around here. The big news today is that we are getting ready for our first farmer's market of the season on Saturday, May 22! It will be our first time at the Mad River Green Farmer's Market in Waitsfield, Vermont. Locally grown organic produce, baked goods, food to go, flowers, art, crafts, live music, 65+ vendors -- it should be a good time. (If you want to stop by and buy some of our veggies, the market is on Rte. 100 in the town of Waitsfield, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.)

We are a little nervous ourselves. We will have early crops and seedlings to sell -- salad turnips, broccoli raab, beet greens, lettuce, mustard greens, dandelion greens, etc. But since it is our first time at this particular market, it is hard to know what to expect. Will the other vendors be nice or mean? Will we get crushed by the competition or will there be plenty of customers to go around (I actually suspect the latter)? Will it rain? Will it snow (yikes!)? We shall see!!! But this market is a big step up for us, so we are excited!

Ode to irrigation

If we have been talking about our irrigation system a lot lately, it is because it totally rocks. You would think that people starting a vegetable farm would invest in an irrigation system, but it actually is not that obvious a decision. For one thing, it is expensive, and there are plenty of other demands for our capital resources around here. Second, it is pretty wet up here. I mean, there is plenty of annual rainfall for veggies. The problem is timing. If you don't have any rain for two weeks and you have a constant breeze/wind, it gets pretty dry pretty quick, especially on our sandy soil, and your plants can get set back significantly. So it is tempting to think each season that you might be able to get by without making the investment, and just hand water out of tanks in the truck if things get desperate.

But already our investment has saved us labor expenses. It has been hot (at least for around here) and dry lately, and we have put the system to use, not just to save our plants from dying, but also to make sure they have enough water for optimal growth. The motor attached to the pump has a gas container that holds about 2 hours worth of gas. Fill it up, let it run in the evening, and when it is out of gas, it shuts down by itself, and all the little plants go to bed with plenty of water. The other night we were hanging out on the porch with our friends Kurt and Tracy (and their baby Tommy), and at the same time we were "watering" the plants. Now that is my kind of farming.

Plus, last night we went to the ice cream stand at Marty's in Danville (which, by the way, qualifies as a big Friday night out around here), and I saw another small scale veggie grower I know. She was complaining about the lack of rain, and I know they don't have a real irrigation system. I tried my best to act sympathetic. I really did. But it was a little hard not to have a bit of an inner smile.

Watering systems

Looks like the veggies aren't the only ones around here enjoying cool water on a hot day!

High school math

Susannah and Peter dug the holes for the new greenhouse today.

My high school trig teacher was awesome, and I thought of her today. In connection with building the new greenhouse, Peter asked me how to figure out the angle of a right triangle where you know the length of the two sides adjoining the right angle. In this case, the two sides are 4 and 10. With some help from this page, I was able to figure out the angles (21.8 and 68.2). I even still had my old high school trig calculator.

What's to eat

I'm hoping to keep the what's to eat page updated this season. (It's linked at the top of the blog). So if you're in the area and want to know what we've got, check out the what's to eat page!

The what's to eat page is set up differently from the blog, so formatting and editing it requires a bit more computer expertise than I have. I'm still trying to figure out how best to set it up. If you have suggestions about that page, please let me know!

Lots of work

Peter's been very busy.

The veggies appear to have survived two recent hard frosts. Here's Peter putting on the second covering one of those nights.

Peter power washed out the shed to get ready for it to be a farmstand.

We hired an excavator and a bulldozer to move some big rocks and earth to make room for more greenhouses. Here's before

and after

We got an irrigation system.

The internet sure is nifty

We have a ground drive manure spreader that we use to distribute compost evenly over the fields. It looks something like this, except ours is green. The compost is loaded in the retangular box, and in the bottom of the box lie two chains with several bars across them. The chains move along the bottom of the box, dragging the bars with them, and then they loop under the box back to beginning. The chains are geared to the ground movement of the axle, and as they rotate along the floor of the retangular wooden box, the bars push the compost out the back.

Anyway, both our chains busted the other day, which was a bummer, to say the least. (Now, why the chains busted is the subject of some debate, but there is a slim possibility that someone around here was in a hurry and overloaded the box with wet heavy compost. But that is just a slim chance, mind you.)

Without being able to spread compost, we cannot adequately prep the beds for planting, and right now we are in major planting mode. So I was thinking, where the heck am I doing to get a replacement chain link for a 50 year old manure spreader, or at least something I can use to temporarily get it working again.

The answer -- you got it -- the internet. Only $0.97 for the part I need. Shipped via two day UPS from Wisconsin, and we should be in business again on Wednesday.

What will they think of next?

Happy mother's day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and babies out there. And everybody is somebody's baby!

Sleepytime

Putting the plants to sleep.

We normally cover our early crops with a light spun fabric, generically called "remay" (which is also a trade name), suspended over wire hoops. Remay allows light and water to permeate, but adds a layer of protection for the plants. It keeps them a little warmer during the day, protects against some frost at night, keeps the bugs off, and keeps the wind damage down.

Tonight it may get down into the 20s, so at about 6 p.m. Maryellen, Wavo and I added a second layer of remay to all the plants to trap as much heat as possible radiating from the soil at night.

Sleep tight, little plants!

The grass is greener

This is one of my favorite times of year. I heard someone on the radio recently call it the secret spring. The grass turns the most vibrant, deepest color green. It is so amazing.

When we were considering moving up here, I told my friend Kristina that it seemed like this corner of the world would be perfect for us, but, I said, surely that was because the grass is always greener on the other side. Kristina said ya but the grass really IS greener up here. She was right.

Big morning

Well, the excitement around here this a.m. is the first sale of the 2004 season!!

We sent a little over a case of early lettuce off to Kingdom County Market, which is the food co-op in St. Johnsbury. So if you are reading this in the St. J area, go down there and demand your fresh veggies from Old Shaw Farm!!

The other excitement was more like excitement/panic, than excitement/triumph. I went out to cut the lettuce at about 5 a.m. this morning, in that funny light between the edge of darkness and the break of day. It wasn't really light out and it wasn't really dark. While putting the boxes in the truck, I thought I noticed frost on the truck window, which was strange because at that moment it was raining out. So I thought, "Hmmm . . ." as I reached out to touch the window. On contact, a chill ran up my arm and down my spine at the same time -- that's right -- snow!!

It has been snow/raining all morning, and apparently for parts of last night. The odd thing is that I don't think we had a frost -- it never got below 33 or 34. Even at 5 a.m., which would normally be the coldest part of the night (right before the sun comes up), it wasn't below freezing. So I think our little plants in the field should be OK under their little remay blankets. At least, I hope they are OK. Only a few hundred feet above us (in altitude) the snow was sticking to the ground, so we just dodged a bullet, but not by much. Such is the plant growing roller coaster called spring in Vermont.

Update: I just listened to the noon time weather on VPR, and it turns out we were lucky. They got 4-6 inches of new snow in Walden, VT (about a 1/2 hour north of us), about 2 inches in Greensboro (which is where there is a farm I used to work on), and some place in northern New Hampshire got 8 and 1/2 inches of snow. Unbelieveable!! Sounds like we were on the southen edge of the accumulation, so we did luck out.

Farm geeks

Who says we don't know how to party here? It is 8:30 on a Saturday night. Maryellen and Wavo are asleep. I just got in from the field, and will be joining them shortly.

I was out working on the tractor, and it was getting to the point where I was trying to figure out if I could get my work done using only my little tractor headlight. I decided I couldn't, so I came in.

The three of us were up early, getting potting soil, getting lumber, prepping fields, landscaping the house, etc., etc. So we go to bed early. Tired.

We had our first salad from the farm tonight. It was only bibb, red leaf, and mustard greens, but it was a start.

This life isn't for everyone, but we love it.