Down on the Farm

Dandelions

The dandelions are in full bloom. It's spectacular. The bees are very happy. It's their first major feast of the summer.

Seedlings list

Like everything on our farm, we grow all our seedlings organically. We use Fort V potting soil from Vermont Compost Company in Montpelier. We buy most of our seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds or FedCo., both in Maine. Mulitpack (4 and 6 pack) seedlings are $3.00 and seedlings in 4 inch pots are $2.00.

These are the plants we sell:

Broccoli - Arcadia is a rugged, vigorous broccoli with mid-late maturity. The plants grow big with heavy, very firm, dark green, domed heads.

Cucumber - Marketmore begins bearing late but picks for a relatively long time. The cukes are long, slender, and dark green.

Eggplant - Black Bell is early and highly productive. The fruits are round, oval, medium-large, and glossy black with a green calyx.

Lettuce -
Red Sails is the slowest-bolting red leaf lettuce. It stays mild tasting for a long time without bitterness.
Waldman’s Dark Green is the standard green leaf lettuce. It is dark green with frilled, ruffled leaves for a well-bunched head.
Jericho is a tall, bright light green romaine lettuce. Great tasting.

Melon - Edonis is a French chartenais type cantaloupe. The fruit is small, sweet, summery tasting. We grow these because they are simply the best tasting melon we have ever found!

Peppers (Sweet)
Labrador is a yellow bell pepper. The peppers come early, and they are medium large with a sweet and fruity flavor. The plant is compact.
Gourmet is an orange bell pepper. The peppers are medium large and very blocky. The plant is strong, compact, and plentiful.
Red Ace is a red bell pepper. It is extra-early and very productive – nearly every flower produces a pepper. The glossy green fruits turn red early.

Peppers (Hot)
Andy is a slender, smooth cayenne pepper that turns bright red and dries beautifully.
Early Jalapeño produces sausage-shaped, blunt fruits that mature early. The peppers start dark green and then begin to change to red.

Summer Squash
Revenue is a virus tolerant green zucchini. The fruits are medium green and slightly tapered.
Sebring is a yellow summer squash with beautiful, golden, cylindrical fruits. The plant produces abundantly and has some tolerance to powdery mildew.

Winter Squash
Table Acorn is a nutty, moderately sweet squash with a nice “black-green” skin.
Burgess Buttercup has dry, sweet, rich flavored golden flesh with dark green skin. It is excellent for winter storage
Waltham Butternuts are the yellow-tan big squash. Its flesh is smooth textured with a unique, sweet flavor. Waltham Butternut was an All America Selections in 1970, and it is still the most widely grown butternut.

Tomatoes
Big Beef has early, flavorful, big globe-shaped red fruit with full flavor.
Celebrity is a good tasting, mid-season tomato with mid to large globe-shaped, firm red fruit. Celebrity was an All-America Selection in 1984.
New Girl has taste that “tops the charts.” The fruits are medium sized, red, and plentiful.
Sun Cherry is a very sweet, small, red cherry tomato.
Sun Gold is a major Old Shaw Farm favorite. We love the taste and color – a bright tangerine orange cherry tomato with a fantastic fruity flavor, exceptionally sweet. The plant is vigorous and easy to grow.

Herbs - We have basil, dill, and thyme.

When the going gets tough

I don't know if it is apparent to folks who only know us by our website, but both Peter and I have part time, off farm jobs. I'm a lawyer for a local non-profit. I generally love being a part time lawyer, part time farmer, plus mother, spouse, citizen, homeowner, neighbor, aunt, etc. Generally, wearing a lot of hats is fun and interesting. But every once in a while, multiple areas in my life seem to go into crisis at the same time. Last week I had a big brief due, which, for various reasons, was a time crunch. Peter had to go out of town for his off farm job, and Waverly had a fever high enough to keep her out of daycare. The farm is crazy busy, and last Saturday was "grand opening" of the farmstand.

So what do the tough do when the going gets tough? They call their mother! My mom came up Friday and played with Waverly so I could get a couple hours in on my brief. She made us dinner and then got up early on Saturday and helped me move seedlings into the farmstand (and helped me figure a much more efficient method than walking them over one at a time!). She got the farmstand set up, took care of customers while I was getting Wavy down for a much needed, early nap, and much much more. (Wavy is totally better and back to her giggly self, by the way.) My mom also wrote up the the descriptions of the seedlings above. Thanks Mom!

First Market

We went to our first farmer's market of the season last Saturday. It was really fun. I forgot how much fun market can be. Waverly loved it - music, dogs, babies, what more could a person want! It was very mellow and quiet, as first markets tend to be, but I really enjoyed seeing all the other vendors and a lot of the regular customers.

We were there selling seedlings. Tomatoes, peppers, thyme, lettuce, broccoli, dill, basil (very popular), eggplant, all sorts of stuff. We did not have any veggies yet, though we had planned to. It's just been such a cool spring.

The plan is for Waverly to not come to Saturday markets, but to stay home and help run the farmstand at the farm. I don't know if Peter will go to Saturday markets or if I will or if we'll alternate, but we decided two markets a week would be too hard on Wavo. She'll do the Wednesday market in Danville with me, if I can figure out a way to keep her out of the road.

Overflow

One of the other problems we run into this time of year is the seedling log-jam. It seems no matter how much space we have for seedlings, we hit a point in early May when we can't plant them out fast enough.

Right now the heated greenhouse is full to overflowing!

This year, the solultion has been to put the overflow in the unheated hoophouse that Mark and Susannah built last summer. Brassicas mostly, plus onions and lettuce. The hot stuff, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, stay in the heated house.

An apology, of sorts

Sorry we have been so lame about posting lately. There is, however, an explanation.

What happens in the spring up here is that we need to wait and wait and wait for the ground to thaw, and then for it to dry out, before we can work it and do our spring planting. So for a while, we are just checking the weather, checking the soil, and sipping coffee.

And then one day comes when we decide that it is warm and dry enough to start plowing and prepping beds. And it is on that day that we wish we were able to plow and prep all our land, plant out all our seedlings, and direct seed all our direct seeded crops, all at once. So for the last week or two we have been busy trying to go from zero to 60mph, overnight. It has been fun, but a lot of work.

There is so much to catch up on blog-wise that we are going to try to do so over the next few days. For starters, here are some pictures of Maryellen and Waverly prepping beds this morning.

First, Wavo and I had to fix something on our homemade bedformer device thingy.

Then this is Maryellen on the Deere, using our homemade bedformer device thingy.

And here is Wavo on her Deere, putting the final touches on things.

Hip farmers

Here's a link to the Boston Globe article about new farmers in Vermont, that my mom mentioned in her comment, below. Thanks Mom!!

This was my favorite line. "You can also be pretty hip with dirty fingernails."