Farmer Party

One thing that farmers like to do to have fun is help out other farmers. It's the perfect way to learn from each other and socialize while also getting work done.

Getting work done is the main thing that farmers like to do.

Recently, a Beginning Farmers group has started meeting up in the Keweenaw area. Yesterday we got together at Wintergreen Foods and everyone was kind enough to lend us their hands. We got a lot of work done.

In fact we filled 85 trays like the one above, which means we planted over 6500 onion seeds.

We finished the project (which would have taken Scott and me a good 3-4 days to complete on our own) in about 6 hours.

Thanks everyone for coming out to lend a hand!

Sara gives Jake and Ashley, from North Harvest CSA in Calumet,
 a quick soil mix tutorial.

Making soil blocks.

Matt, Lynette and Katie planting onion seeds in the blocks.

We ate lunch outside in the snowy parking lot. It was warmer out there than
in the unheated building.

Cold as it was, lots of good play happened :)

We brought the trays home and loaded them into the greenhouse.

After shoveling a bit of snow.

Hoophouse Work Day

Our first member work day was a blast. We met some of our new members, fed worms to chickens, and accomplished a lot!

These are the plants we put in the ground last Sunday.

Seda hanging out with the pepper, tomato, and basil plants that are waiting to be
planted. We didn't put those eggplants in the center of the photo in yet because
they didn't appreciate the chill. They will be planted soon.

We finally met our goal of getting hoophouse tomato plants planted on May 1st! If the sun cooperates we could theoretically have our first cherry tomatoes by the Fourth of July. (For those readers that are not from the Upper Peninsula that would be more or less miraculous) I'm betting that it will take a bit longer than that, but we have a fighting chance.

Lots of members working away with Scott in the background yapping.
He saw the photos I took of the workday and asked "Did I do any work at all?"
He did. He turned all the beds we planted. I guess doing the hardest
work means taking more breaks.

We plant our tomatoes around two foot wide cages. We plant five plants around each cage, then tie the plants to the cages as they get taller (we use old T-shirts as ties). The cages are filled with straw and compost as the plants grow. The compost provides a slow fertilizer and the plants will root in the cages, making them very sturdy. Then, when we pull the plants, we get to knock all the compost into the beds. The initial cost of the fencing to make the cages is a little hefty, but it's a great system and the cages last many years.

All tucked into their cozy beds.

The nights following our work day dipped just below freezing - putting our newly transplanted starts in danger. Scott came up with the clever solution of laying the cages sideways in the paths and spreading row cover over the beds. We ran a propane heater (you can see the tank to the left) under the row cover for a bit of extra heat. After three freezing nights the plants still look great. In fact, they have put on a bit of size, especially the peppers.


Thanks again to everyone who made it to the farm. What a perfect way to kick off the season!

How Does Your Garlic Grow?

Fall is the season to put garlic in the ground. This year we planted about 500 cloves of garlic, half hardneck and half softneck, plus a test bed of some new (to us) overwintering alliums called potato onions. These are, of course, for harvest during the 2011 season.


The hardneck garlic.
A hot and colorful variety called music.


 

The softneck garlic.
Mellower than the hardneck and braidable,
this variety is called New York white.

We've been growing out the softneck garlic for three years now, giving some heads to CSA members and replanting the rest. We hope to harvest enough in 2011 to make a few garlic braids because who doesn't love edible art? About 100 of the hardnecks are from heads we grew this season. We wanted to try the variety out before we made a big investment in it. After tasting it we're convinced it's worth some of our money, land, time, and muscle to grow more. It's hot and mega garlicky and we've decided to make it our main variety for the CSA.     


Those things in the bag are potato onions.
Each one will grow into a cluster of small to medium onions
that will keep for several months.

The potato onions are something altogether new to us. We love things that can be planted in the fall because fall planting means less spring insanity. Spring is crunch time for us. We are so busy with bed prep and seed planting and CSA payment collecting and tomato transplanting and chick rearing and lamb purchasing and (I could keep going here...) that we have been known to forget to breath. So, we're crossing our fingers that the potato onions do well and allow us to eliminate something from the spring to do list. There is one sure thing about farm life. We will never run out of new things to try.

Our favorite new things this year are our tractor and manure spreader. They don't look so new but they're new to us and truly life changing. My husband was able to create an acre of new growing space by plowing in his spare time and spreading manure without using a wheelbarrow is, to put it simply, revolutionary. The only thing missing is the callouses.
 

The Tractor. A 1948 Ford 8N.
Michigan girls love their Fords!



A current sampling of our soil inputs.
This is composted horse manure from
the local animal shelter.



The Spreader. Full of composted manure and ready to roll.

Compost is the lifeblood of a small farm. We are always on the lookout for organic materials to add to our fields. Our plan this year is to create a few windrows of hay and fish guts before the snow falls. We'll see how the skunks like that!



Look at that compost fly!

Once the compost is down the bed must be readied for planting. We rake to make sure that the manure is spread evenly and there are no large chunks in the growing area.


Smoothing the bed.

 

Keeping things straight.















After all of that prep, it is finally time to get down to some planting.


Planting.



Planting.



Planting

We lay the cloves out in a grid pattern, six inches apart in every direction, then poke them under the soil and compost so that the growing tip is about an inch below the surface.

...

Still Planting.

The final step is to tuck the garlic in for the long winter. It's not unlikely that this garlic will be covered in two or three feet of snow come January, but it needs the insulation of hay during the early winter. The hay will also help keep weeds down, hold in moisture, and give the worms a nice place to live next spring.