It’s been a really busy and great summer so far here on the farm. Sorry for the lack of interesting material on here. Hopefully fall with give us a little more time to keep up with the website. Were seeing a lot of new things coming together and gaining a lot more insight on how were going to manage things next year. My biggest news is that we have started to work a new, entirely horse-powered, low/no-tillage system with our vegetable fields and with a lot of thinking and planning, it looks like the idea is going to come together for next years veggie fields. It feels really good to be looking ahead with our farming plans and moving forward with intention and hope. We have got our first pasture fence up and moved the heifer and her new dairy goat friends in. We’re planning on getting set up to sell fresh raw goats milk sometime this fall, and also fresh raw cows milk and butter by next spring.

 Were currently getting a very much needed rainy day here and everything is rejoincing for it. What a dry summer. It has been good weather though for drying out our onion crops which are now cleaned and bagged at farmers markets for winter storage. We have started to harvest some early winter squash, which is delicious, only seems a little odd in August. Annalisa continues to be lovingly hand braiding lots of garlic with dry flowers for a beautiful kitchen boquet.

Its time that were starting to look forward to the fall harvest and plantings for winter greens. With another high tunnel to get up this fall, a new chicken house to build, and a milk room to build, and Annalisa starting Nursing school, we are going to be plenty busy but were both looking forward to the cool and beautiful months of fall. We had a definite positive response to the quality and taste of our eggs this summer from the laying flock that has been moving around to fresh grass on the hay fields, and haven’t been able to supply as many eggs as we would like to.  So another hundred chicks will be coming here this fall sometime to be ready for laying in the spring and keeping us well supplied with delicious and nutritious eggs. If you haven’t yet tried the difference between fresh eggs from pastured laying hens and supermarket eggs, do take the time to crack on of each in a pan next to each other and behold the difference, we will never be able to go back to supermarket eggs.

Farmers Markets will continue through the fall into October, 3 a week still for us, Derry on Wednesday afternoon, Lee on Thursday evening and Newmarket on Satuday morning. Were bringing in a bountiful harvest right now to markets and plan on haveing a lot of good produce through the fall. We have some pigs going to the butcher this week and in two weeks we will have the delicious pork sausage and chops that we have been missing. The pigs have a really great summer running around there pasture. Its been very entertaining to run around with them and watching them grazing in the evenings. Or when they meander to the back of the pasture to border the hay and veggie fields to see what is going on and watch the horses walk past doing some field work, watch the chickens running around or to sniff with Jenny Sunshing through the fence.

The early variety’s are out of the ground and the rest of the crop is ready to follow. Were planning on having the great harvest party this Sunday July 18th starting at 2 oclock in the afternoon. There will be snacks, hopefully some live music to kick your feet to, lots of garlic, and a horse drawn walking plow demonstration while we open up the new piece of ground for this fall’s planting of garlic. So come at 2 or anytime after and have some fun, get dirty, try some garlic, meet the animals and walk around. Feel free to give either of us a call or email if you need directions or have any questions.

Ye ha Garlic Scapes are here! Annalisa has got in a really big harvest and is under way on a big batch of her wildly delicious SCESTO…Garlic SCape pESTO. Ask to try it if you haven’t had the chance yet…it will knock your socks off. This is also just a reminder of all the wonderful garlic to come..its on the way and looking great we’re thinking of having the big Garlic harvest party on the 25th of July..the last Sunday of the month.

Other crop news…

 Were starting to see lots of little green tomatoes in the new high tunnel!   -   Snow Peas and Shell Peas are weighing down the vines and ripe for the picking.  -  The strawberry patch is filling in with shades of green and red, although not a huge harvest is expected. Try to get to market early for a box.  -  As to be expected for the rest of the season there is lots of Kale, and other leafy greens.

Our new flock of laying hens have just started to figure out what it means to lay an egg and were expecting a whole lot more volume of eggs soon.

Look for us a Lee Farmer’s Market every Thursday for the rest of the summer and at the Stone Church in Newmarket every Saturday for the summer as well. Derry’s new Farmer’s Market is starting on July 7th..we hope to see a good turnout and are excited for the start of a new Farmer’s Market.

  Our Farmer’s Market season is just about officially underway. The first Lee Farmer’s Market was last weekend and boy did it pour on us! Our new market trailer made it’s debut trip and we couldn’t be happier. Even in the downpour the produce and ourselves stayed dry..kind of… Anyway look for the red roofed gypsy trailer at a market near you. Newmarket Farmers market is set to start Saturday June 19th. Then close behind, the brand new Derry Farmers Market is set to start on July 7th! We’re excited to be bringing fresh produce back to Derry where I grew up and to see a new market starting up that seems to have lots of enthusiasm behind it. If your able to come and check it out it’s going to be on Crystal Ave. in Derry on Wednesday evenings from 3-7. 

Happy spring!  -Cheers-

It’s really exciting this spring to see the ground that we have opened up slowly getting planted to lots of really good veggies. The animals are happy to be out on pasture, were happy to be able to do the work were doing and thankful every morning for the environment in which we are able to do it. The high tunnel is finished and about to be planted to this summers big crop of tomatoes. The onions and garlic are coming up nicely, and the Kale we have already been able to start harvesting. Here are a few shots that have inspired my thankfulness.

Smiling Pig??

David and I have been getting a lesson from the old pro’s (Queen and Queenie) about how to work the old fashions horse drawn walking plow. I must admit to being a bit apprehensive about plowing because I have never done it before and there is a lot of variables for doing it well. We have a dealine for getting these fields open and planted and I didn’t even know if we were going to be albe to work the darn thing. 

The ground were opening up is coming out of a hay sod and being planted to flint corn, pumpkins, winter squash and sunflowers. Besides being apprehensive about learning to handle the plow, I was also worried about the act of plowing in itself and the affect it can have on our soils. There is a whole separate discussion involved in that, although I will say that overusing the moldboard plow does have its drawbacks on soil health but if used concienciouslly and at the right time it can also be just the tool needed while still keeping out soils health in mind. In our case I decided that if I was going to plow in the spring, that it was going to be as shallow as we could handle to kill the sod and leave as much of the soil in place as possible to retain soil structure and capillary action while the ground is still cool and wet.  The sod is then undercut, flipped over and kept nearer to the surface so that it can decompose quicker and more affectivly than if plowed deep and buried.

Anyway after all this talk, we did manage to walk some semi strait lines while turning over ground as we had planned. Much thanks to the two veteran horses that have walked a furrow many times before and let us spend our time trying to fix the plow instead of trying to steer them too much.

After some follow up passes with Whisper on his new single horse disc harrow setup followed by the old single section of spring tooth harrow we have a fairly decent seedbed for our first attempts, that means we should be able to get the plantings in on time. Ye ha!

Yee ha!