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Hello, friends!
Hard to believe it’s November already. Our garlic’s planted and we’re still putting the garden to bed. The cattle are putting on their shaggy winter coats and we’re cleaning out the barn.
From now until February, we have the following items available. Delivery/ Pickup in Noblesville/Carmel is every other Monday evening, and I can do special deliveries for large orders. Call or email with your order at least a few days in advance of when you need it.
Eggs $3.50 per dozen
Homemade bread $2.50 per loaf, white or wheat
Homemade fettucine $5 per 8 oz package. White or wheat, egg, spinach, or garlic
Banana bread 5$ per loaf. Add 75 cents each for nuts and/or chocolate chips
Pumpkin bread 5$ per loaf, with or without cream cheese icing Gingerbread cookies & jam thumbprint cookies starting Nov. 21
We’ll be at the Carmel Holiday Farmers Market on November 21st from 4:30 to 6:30 PM with all of these items. This market coincides with Santa, live reindeer petting zoo, tree lighting, and various other downtown Carmel festivities, so it’s a not-to-be-missed event. The vendors will be located around the fountain, on Veterans Way, instead of in the City Hall parking lot as we are during the summer, and I’m told there will be plenty of ready-to-eat goodies & hot drinks for sale.
CSA applications! This is a reminder that I would like CSA applications within the next week or two if you want to be assured of a spot. Join us for 16 weeks of produce in summer 2010. Some of you have verbally told me that you intend to participate next year, but my memory’s not perfect, so I need the piece of paper too!
If I already have your application, you’ll be notified of acceptance by December 1st, and deposits are due January 1. If you would like an application, or if you just want to know more about the CSA, send an email or call 317 362 6512. We’ll have more applications available at the market on November 21st. After December 1st, applications are accepted on a rolling basis until we’ve got as many members as we think we can handle for the season. Pickups this year will be in Carmel, Noblesville, on the farm, and we may add a fourth location closer to Indianapolis if the demand exists.
Thanks again for being part of our season in 2009!
Lisa
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: farming, intern, job, livestock, organic
We have decided to seek a farm intern for the 2010 growing season. Our farm is located in central Indiana. We offer room, board, a monthly stipend, and a small but growing library of interesting books on sustainable farming topics.This intern will receive hands-on learning experience with all phases of organic vegetable production for market and CSA customers. We raise our own transplants and plan to add some tunnel production in 2010. We’ll be entering our third year of transitioning to organic while growing our customer base.
The ideal person would also be handy with tools, building stuff, fencing, and tractors, but that’s not a requirement. The main requirements are an interest in organic farming and the desire to work hard for 5 and half days per week. Email us or comment on this post for additional information!
I’ve been meaning for a while now to write a post about some of my favorite tools, equipment, etc. around the farm. So here they are’ in no particular order. Each description will tell you why I like the item.
1) Drip irrigation system
I have a t-tape system from DripWorks. I love this system because once it’s out in the field, watering is literally a matter of turning the hose on or off. Our field is too big to irrigate all at once on our residential well, but I have valves installed on each row so I can just irrigate whichever rows I prefer on a given day. And when I run out of valves, I just run a little extra t-tape at the end of each row so I can switch rows manually- still not too hard to do.
There are a couple pitfalls of the system. First, it’s a pain to pull all the t-tape out of the field in the fall. We’re going to experiment with t-tape winders this year. Second, mice chew on the stuff both out in the field and when it’s in storage, so there is always mending to do. Third, it can be a pain to cultivate around. This year I got around that problem by putting it out really late, but that meant I was watering in transplants by hand and I HATE DOING THAT.
2) The stirrup hoe
Oh, how I love the stirrup hoe. With smallish weeds and dry soil, this thing makes cultivating actually kind of fun. It slices just under the surface of the soil like a razor blade and the weeds become dessicated. It also works very well for hacking at bigger weeds, better than a regular hoe. I have a Glaser hoe blade with a super-long handle that I got from Johnny’s. An extra-long handle means you can stand up when you hoe and it’s much easier on the back.
3) Felco #2 pruners
My first “favorite tool” is Felco #2 pruners. I love the red handle to keep them from getting lost in the garden. I love how they cut everything from a tree branch to tiny flower stems with relative ease. I first used these at a job where I was regularly pruning roses with them. During Christmas Tree Season at the same job, they were my favorite tool to cut up tree branches for making ornamental fir and pine bundles. We used many different types of pruners at that job and the Felcos were always taken first! I use them now for cutting flowers, bramble canes, and giant weeds of all kinds. They even cut twine if they are sharp (I only sharpen mine once a year or so…)
4) My troy-bilt rototiller from 1979.
Usually I get aggravated with older power equipment because it’s hard to start, smoky, loud, and breaks a lot. But I can start this rototiller myself, and it has a recoil start! It’s simple to use, and only aggravates me when I have to cut long weeds out of the tines or when it dumps gas on the ground (ok, it has a little carb issue.) I can rototill between all of my rows and not use an entire tank of gas. And I like the way it looks, sitting out in the field with a galvanized washtub over the engine to protect it from rain (not that we’ve had any rain lately.)
5) My cheap harvesting knives
I bought a couple cheap harvesting knives last year. One was advertised as a broccoli knife, and one was a lettuce knife I think. They are both from Johnny’s. I have a small serrated one with a red handle, and a bigger straight knife with a brown handle. The brown handle blends in with the dirt too well, but I love the knife because it cuts through lettuce like butter. And greens. And my finger! Ouch. The serrated knife is nice for broccoli, okra, and summer squash, and I am looking forward to using it on pumpkins, etc. this fall.
6) The rotary mower
It’s like mowing, but faster, and with an added element of PTO danger. What’s not to like?
In an ideal year, all transplants would gradually be placed outdoors during April and May. Each week, one or two new things would be planted in the garden and only the pepper plants and sweet potatoes would remain to be planted at the beginning of June. This would leave plenty of time to put down plastic mulch, drip irrigation, and row covers gradually, as these items were needed.
This hasn’t exactly been an ideal year. I planted most everything during the one ten-day dry spell we’ve had. Because of my haste, the rows are not straight, and plastic mulch didn’t make it down under as many of the transplants as I’d have liked. All the rain has given the weeds ample time to germinate and I’m spending a lot of time hoeing, hand weeding, and wishing the rows were straighter so I could do a little more tractor cultivating. However, there haven’t been many days dry enough for that anyway.
But even when everything isn’t perfect, I still love it. Being out in the sun, rain, mosquitoes, and flies, pulling foxtail grass endlessly, sitting on thistles, dodging poison ivy, getting drip tape wrapped up in the rototiller tines, and standing on the hot pavement every Saturday morning bright and early are all parts of the best job in the world. I see the sun rise and set. I eat fruit warmed by the sun at the peak of ripeness. I watch hummingbirds, discover barn swallows, and am surprised by toads. Even weeds have pretty flowers sometimes. I am in the fresh air and obtain free exercise and a tan. I get to drive a tractor. I pick fruit and vegetables by the pint, quart, bucket, bunch, bushel, and hundredweight. I sleep a blessed, oblivious sleep on nights when I’ve been working in the field. There are always new problems to solve and interesting things to think about.
Besides the pure enjoyment of the outdoor physical labor, there is the satisfaction of doing something to make this little piece of ground better. Organic matter is being added to the soil. Erosion is slowing down, rain is being soaked down into the ground instead of running off. Zillions of microbes of every kind are coming to life and doing everything they do to support life. The ground is making a recovery from its deadening dependence on external inputs.
And as if this weren’t enough, people who care about what they eat are getting a chance to eat wonderful food that comes from 25 miles away from their home instead of the average grocery store food that travels something like 1200 miles. And I get to meet these people! I love this.
We had almost 2 inches of rain on Thursday.
The cows arrived on Friday. They were less than thrilled about the whole moving experience and within 10 minutes, three of the five cows had found the highest bit of electric wire and managed to get under it. Mr. B. and I took off after them. Mr. B. put our 2.5 year old in the “baby backpack” and high-tailed it across the very muddy adjoining fields. The cows were off our property, heading for who knows where. I was running across the field also.
Now I’m sure it was obvious to anyone who was watching that neither of us knew anything about cattle, and any time we tried to run or walk faster those cows would start running too. I have no idea where they were going, but the corn and beans around us are all still miniscule and so there wasn’t really anything for the cows to stop and eat. Since this is a family website, I won’t mention all the epithets for the cows that were going through my head at this point. The thought of the rather large amount of cash we had just shelled out for these creatures, the knowledge that two of them were still back there unsupervised and maybe getting out as well (we lowered the fence right away, but I had no idea how seriously they would try to join the herd) and the sight of large cow feet stomping through the mud and tearing up my neighbors’ crops were combining to make me totally miserable. Also there was the adrenalin rushing through my body as I tried as hard as I could not to lose my shoes in the mud. I remember praying, “PLEASE GOD HELP US CATCH THESE COWS!!”
In a feat of superhuman strength, running (or walking as fast as he could) through the mud, with an extra 30 lbs or so on his back, Mr. B. was able to get in front of the cows and get them to turn back.
We kept on our journey. The cows retraced their steps, went back into the pasture (but still outside the wire), into our yard, back across the street into the other neighbors’ soybeans, all over the place. A few times they tried to get back in and rejoin the two steers who had not escaped. A steer got back under the fence and rejoined his brothers, but the 2 heifers were too big and just got shocked by the fence and got even madder than they already were.
After about 2 hours of this delightful adventure, our 2.5 year old was ready for lunch and a nap. I brought him in the house and started calling everyone I could think of on the phone. My first call was to my farm mentor, who tipped us from the point of “thinking about cows” to “getting cows” this year. He gave me some suggestions of what not to do, and said if they were still out the next day we’d have to find someone with a rodeo hobby to come out and rope them. I called our neighbor with horses to see if he knew any rodeo types, but he wasn’t home. After that I figured I’d better call Farmer Y, who rents our land, since the cows were out there stomping on his crop.
Farmer Y and his family kindly agreed to help. I called Mr. B., who was still out in the field with the cows, and let him know they were on the way. The cows were more tired now and were back in our pasture eating the nice long grass, but were still *outside* of their electric fence. Farmer Y, his dad, and his grandfather came over with two trucks and a rope. I was in the house getting the child to take a nap at this point. Once he was asleep I went out to see what was going on and if I could be of help. The cows were still out with Mr B, Farmer Y, and Farmer Y Senior herding them around. Grandpa was keeping his distance and just watching everything unfold. They’d made one unsuccessful attempt to corner the recalcitrant heifers back into the fence, but had failed.
I went back inside and got on the phone to see if I could find more help. I won’t mention all the people I talked to, but I was on hold for the Animal Control officer when the men came back in and said they had gotten the cows back in. The cows had been out for a little more than 4 hours.
We had nice farmer chat and a drink out in the driveway afterwards, mostly about what a wet year this was. Grandpa said it wasn’t as bad as 1974, when he didn’t get his corn in until the end of June and then didn’t get anything for his effort. When talking to the three generations of family farmers, I noticed even more than usual what newcomers Mr. B. and I are to this area and to farming, and how different we are from the “normal” farmers in this area.
The cows are doing fine, and are staying in their fence, and are getting the hang of rotational grazing. We are doing our best to befriend them so that if they ever escape again it will be easier. Now that we’re not chasing them all over the county, the cattle are actually less work than chickens- they feed themselves!
The other day, several chickens were huddled in a corner of their pen. I don’t remember what the occasion was, whether it was raining, or if we were mowing, or what. Regardless, there were about three or four chickens packed into the corner between their house and the fence.
Dinner time was coming up, so I headed up to the house to start making dinner, and as I walked past the chickens’ area, I noticed three pullets pecking at something in the corner. It looked like there was some blood, so I rushed in to see what was going on.
The arrangement was like this: One araucana was laying down in the corner, apparently thinking that it was dead. A delaware was half-lying on top of it, with one of its feet caught in the fence, so its leg was stretched way out behind it. Three other pullets were busily attempting to help free the delaware from the fence. Their chosen method: amputation.
My investigation had stirred things up, so the pecking had stopped. I freed the delaware, and tried to pick her up, but she started pecking at me, so I put her down. I picked up the araucana and told her that she was still alive. She was pleased and ran off to join the flock.
The bloodied delaware had also tried to rejoin the flock, but one of the other pullets was chasing her around, trying to peck at her wound. So I had to be a chicken rescue squad to rescue the chicken from another chicken rescue squad.
Now the damaged delaware is isolated so she’ll have a chance to recover. She is quite dismayed at being separated from the rest of the chickens, and every evening at dusk she gets antsy, wanting to go get into the house with the rest of the pullets. And she’ll get her wish … in a week or so.
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Check out this post on Sunflowers in my Kitchen. She was a great help in chicken processing this past weekend. There are before & after pictures, but don’t worry, no gross ones.
Today it was just barely dry enough to hoe the garlic by hand. 1 – 2 inches more rain predicted for tomorrow night, and the market starts May 30th. Eek! We’ll be there, with green garlic, maybe some peonies, a little lettuce & mint, and I don’t know what else. I dug around for the peas today and as I feared found only rotten seed. I will start looking around for some to buy for the CSA. I love peas myself and would hate for my CSA members to not have any.
The conventional farmers around here are just as antsy as I am. Today I saw a lime truck going through the field across the street, which is an extremely soggy piece of ground in weather like this. Maybe this will be the last big rain before the ground dries out.
In other possibly bad news, I plugged in my used walk-in cooler for the first time this weekend and it didn’t get cold. I’ve contacted the individual who sold it to me. I very much hope that they make good on the guarantee that it was in working order when I bought it.
In good news, we are working on putting up an electric fence. I hope to get it done this week, and to get some cows! I think we will get five of the ones we went to look at last week. The person selling them kindly offered to deliver them.
Warm weather came for a few days and we were very glad. The seed-starting house is overflowing, with trays and pots on the floor as well as the benches.
We planted the first brassicas outdoors, under plastic mulch, two weekends ago. The drip irrigation has been sort of shoved out into the field in a very disorderly fashion to water them. This weekend I made a few experimental passes with the cultivator. A few hundred onions made it into the field along with some salad greens and parsley.
The weeds are also getting off to a really healthy start. At the old place my main garden enemies were warm season grasses like crabgrass and nimblewill, lamb’s quarters, a few broadleaf perennial weeds like dandelions and plantain, and the hated bindweed. Here, the broadleaf weeds are less severe except for the unfortunate presence of Canada thistle, but in the annual weed department we have foxtail grass galore with a heavy dose of ragweed- at least two kinds. Someone with more soil science knowledge than I could likely give me some great soil insight based on this information, but I suspect that longtime use of herbicides has something to do with the difference.
I am using multiple approaches to weed pressure this year, based on what I learned from various talks at the MOSES farm conference. First, we are using a lot of transplants. Starting out with a larger plant should help to shade out competing weeds or keep them from germinating. Second, we have acquired cultivation equipment that should allow us to shallowly cultivate around the plants and in the rows in order to disturb newly-germinated weeds. The use of this equipment is largely dependent on the weather. Hand cultivation will still be used on some crops, but unlike last year it won’t be the *only* method of weed control. Third, the area of the garden where Indian corn and pumpkins will be planted is going to get a good “stale seed bed” prep, with multiple cultivations over the course of a few weeks in order to exhaust the weed seed bank in the top soil layer. Fourth, we will continue to use cover crops in unplanted areas both to suppress weeds and to enhance fertility. Buckwheat and oats will be used this year. Fifth, we hope to acquire some livestock to eat down the pastures and therefore reduce the number of weed seeds created in non-crop areas. Sixth, we are experimenting this year with black plastic mulch under certain crops, both for weed prevention and to keep the soil warm and moist. It’s under the brassicas now, and we plan to use it with tomatoes, melons, and at least some of the other cucurbits.
The chickens are prospering and enjoying the outdoor life. Our “old lady” hens have become free rangers now that they’ve proven they will still lay their eggs in their house and come home in the evening. We have a good system for the meat birds (a Salatin-style pen) but the pullet house is still awaiting additional revisions in order for the pullets to have good outdoor access.
We can now add spring chickens to our list of the signs of spring. We have 70 chicks under a heat lamp now. That’s up from 25 last year. There’s one breed that’s the same, and a couple that are different.
Some things that I’ve noticed this year:
Seventy chicks in a box are noisier than twenty-five chicks in a box. The ride home from the post office was … chirpier.
Seventy chicks are a lot crazier, when they’re out of the box. It’s kind of like kids… when there’s one or two, they’re usually pretty calm. But the more kids you put in the same room, the louder and crazier they get. The chicks moved around a lot more. They seemed to have fun running up the hills that lead to their water.
It’s a bit amusing to watch seventy chicks all stand up straight and turn their heads at the exact same instant when your toddler drops a loud something in the other corner of the room.
This morning, it was peaceful and calm watching the chicks all cuddled up with each other, sleeping. I’m glad their party wound down eventually last night, and they got some rest.
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Last week I saw my first grain truck. This week, the crocuses are in bloom. And best of all, we have seedlings out in the seed starting greenhouse.
Onions and cabbage are up, broccoli and a few greens are next. I’m building a raised bed for the greenhouse and am going to try putting a few tomatoes in there. This is the first year I’ve used soil blocks. So far, so good, except that I made the mix too wet and they take a good bit of extra squeezing to get the water out of them. “Mud blocks” is more like it.
70 new chicks will be arriving in a few weeks, and so we’re scrambling to get their housing ready. Last year’s layers seem positively geriatric by now, but they are starting to lay a bit better again now that the days are lengthening. We’re still talking about beef cows as another form of revenue and as an excellent addition to our fertility program. So far it’s just talk…
