July 2005 | Old Shaw Farm

Josh, Corny, Lex, garlic, and salsa

by maryellen | Jul 31, 2005

Our friends Cornelia, Josh, and their dog Lex came over today. We have been selling all the tomatoes we raise at market, but we find that we almost always have some tomato seconds lying around that are slightly bruised, misshapen, or somehow imperfect. So Corny and Maryellen took a bunch of tomato seconds and made salsa and ketchup today.

Here is Maryel at rest after a long day of preserving and canning.

Those of you who have worked here, or have visited in the last few months, will know what magazine she is reading. (I am not sure who will be in more trouble for this pic -- me for posting it, or Corny for taking it. Somehow, I suspect it will be me.)

Josh and I pulled some garlic and hung it in the shed to dry. Here is the first of it going up.

Lex took it easy most of the day.

Then we all went out to dinner at the Norwich Pub, which is down by Corny and Josh's house. Yum! Not a bad day at all.

A blog is born

by maryellen | Jul 26, 2005

Speaking of Tamara (see last post), she now has a blog, mostly about critters and knitting. Take a peek.

Photo op

by peter | Jul 26, 2005 | in

Crew

Kat picking beans the other day, in between the rain showers. Eat your heart out Patagonia!

First honey

by maryellen | Jul 25, 2005

taking honey.JPG

Tamara helped me work the bees today. We inspected, and they seem to thriving. We took out a frame of honey because they have lots of honey already and the wood on the frame was starting to break from age. We harvested our first ever honey from the frame.

Above is the picture of the super while the old frame is out, before we put the new one in. The bees were very gently and kind to us. Below is Tam holding up the old frame full of honey.

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A closeup of the capped (finished and sealed with wax) honey with some dripping. The wax is dark because it's so old. The honey is not dark.

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Uncapping the honey and setting it to drain in a colander. After this, we strained it through cheesecloth.

uncapping the honey.JPG

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The first jar of Old Shaw Farm honey.

first jar of honey.JPG

We're still straining the rest. I think we'll get at least another jar that size, maybe two, from just that one frame. Tamara is a soapmaker who is going to use the wax to make soap.

Seeding fall carrots

by maryellen | Jul 23, 2005 | in

Crops

Beans

by maryellen | Jul 22, 2005 | in

Crops

Just coming up.

Leafing out.

First buds.

Baby beans.

The beans are coming along nicely. As of last Sunday, when I took these photos, the beans on the first plantings were about an inch long, so they should size up and be ready in a week or two. There are three more plantings behind them, to hopefully keep us in beans till frost.

Bee pollinating melon flower

by maryellen | Jul 19, 2005 | in

Crops

Keeping it local

by maryellen | Jul 18, 2005

This seems to be an idea whose time is coming. Some regular customers of ours at the Waitsfield market we attend sent us a link to this article about how Brown University is making an effort to buy local food and produce to feed its students and staff. NOFA-VT also has a couple of programs that build connections and buying habits between schools, children, and local farms. In fact, before the school year ended back in June, Maryellen sat down with a board member from our local school in Peacham, and with the school food buyer, to discuss whether it made sense for the school to buy some of our produce this fall. We think it probably will make sense!

Don't count your melons before they ripen, but . . .

by peter | Jul 17, 2005 | in

Crops

Well, the slow spring and a series of equipment problems left me a little bummed out about a month or so ago. But we have had heat, rain, heat, rain, since then, which is great for the veggies. And it is getting to be the time of year where everthing is just busting out.

One of the most encouraging developments this year is the melons. We grow a French charentais-type melon that is about the size of a softball and very sweet and tasty. And they are starting to size up already.

Normally, melons are very hard to grow this far north because they like a long, hot, dry season. And frankly, most Vermont summer are not long, hot, nor dry.

Last year was not kind to the melons. There is a fungal disease that often affects melons at the end of the season up here. But last year was so cold and wet the disease emerged mid-season rather than at the end of the year, and we basically lost our whole melon crop. We were all pretty heartbroken.

But this year, the melons are looking good, and we are starting to get cautiously optimistic that we will actually have some to market this year. We shouldn’t count our melons before they ripen (which will (hopefully) be in early-mid August) but it is hard not to get our hopes up at this point.