Sunday, December 30, 2012

This is the extension that we put on the overflow pipe in our pond. The pond's dike is currently about 3-4 ft higher than the level of the original overflow pipe. So we think it should be able to hold the almost 2 additional feet of water with the extension. This would be quite a bit more water that would be available for irrigation. Hope it holds! We had asked our neighbor to weld the extension on and he said he thought he had a pipe the right diameter, but he didn't. So this was an alternative solution. Corrugated drainage ditch pipe slid around the original pipe with cement poured in between.
 
 
You'll notice a few items that we have had available lately that are missing from the list this week. That is because these are crops that are out in the field covered with snow. These are: spinach, Brussels sprouts and cilantro
 
lettuce
lettuce mix
spicy mix
garlic
carrots
kale
beets
onions (red and yellow)
leeks
winter squash - butternut, acorn, tetsakubota (big, gnarly and green)
celery root i.e. celeriac
parsnips
mini cabbages, big cabbages, conehead cabbages, red cabbages, zebra-stripe cabbages (just kidding on the last one)
salad turnips - hakurei and red
potatoes
watermelon radishes
rutabegas 



Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Cute dog photo
Gemini eating a hakurei turnip. Yes we make her eat her vegetables. Just kidding she and Knox love them and they pick their own. Sometimes we have to cut them off after 2 in a row. They also love carrots, beans, tomatoes, an occasional cabbage leaf and peas (though unfortunately for them we have given up trying to grow peas for next year)
lettuce
lettuce mix
spicy mix
spinach
kale
garlic
carrots
beets
onions (red and yellow)
leeks
winter squash - butternut, acorn, tetsakubota (big, gnarly and green)
celery root i.e. celeriac
parsnips
mini cabbages, big cabbages, conehead cabbages, red cabbages, zebra-stripe cabbages (just kidding on the last one)
salad turnips - hakurei and red
Brussels sprouts
potatoes
watermelon radishes
cilantro
rutabegas

Monday, December 10, 2012

You may notice that the potatoes we have had are all very small. This is an effect of last summer's drought. The yield on potatoes was severely affected - more so than any other crop at our farm. We have very little potatoes stored in the cooler this winter; not much more than just enough for the CSA. And they are small so we hope they are able to store sufficiently well. We hope you enjoy them anyway.

lettuce
lettuce mix
spicy mix
kale
garlic
carrots
beets
onions (red and yellow)
leeks
winter squash - butternut, acorn
celery root i.e. celeriac
parsnips
mini cabbages, big cabbages
salad turnips - hakurei and red
Brussels sprouts
potatoes
watermelon radishes
cilantro
rutabegas

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Wow what a hot day.
I have not been giving farm updates the last few weeks. I've just been slacking and putting the vegetable list. So:
Today we spread composted chicken manure in our big field. Yay! The ground is dry enough and the temperature was an eye-popping, climate-change-tastic 65 today so we reduced the huge pile of old chicken crap in our driveway to a mere molehill and now the worms can work it into our soil for us.
I'd like to say everything went smoothly, but that so rarely happens so I was not expecting as much. The rusted out fender on our truck was pulled off from using it to tow the manure spreader. Ah well, that will be a problem to worry about another day. Today we just simply continued spreading after the truck was rendered useless by using the tractor instead.

And our old barn is getting fixed up. Its not going to be fancy but it should be functional. Come see it in a couple weeks when, hopefully, it will be done.
Lots of other items are on the winter to-do-list and we'll just keep plugging away merrily.
Seed catalgues are here so its time to get our order together - maybe next week.

note to Corning folks - if you want greens mix, please specify "lettuce mix" or "spicy mix" so we know for sure which you mean - thanx!

7 items
lettuce
lettuce mix
spicy mix
parsley
kale
garlic
carrots
beets
onions (red and yellow)
leeks
winter squash - butternut, acorn
pie pumpkins
celery root i.e. celeriac
parsnips
mini cabbages, big cabbages
salad turnips - hakurei and red
Brussels sprouts
potatoes
watermelon radishes
cilantro
rutabegas

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Fall/Winter CSA week 4

lettuce
lettuce mix
spicy mix
parsley
kale
garlic
carrots
beets
onions (red and yellow)
leeks
winter squash - butternut, acorn, delicata
pie pumpkins
celery root i.e. celeriac
parsnips
mini cabbages
salad turnips - hakurei and red
Brussels sprouts
potatoes
watermelon radishes
cilantro
rutabegas

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Fall/Winter CSA Week 3

Please choose 7:

lettuce
lettuce mix
spicy mix
parsley
Swiss chard
kale 
garlic
carrots
beets
onions (red and yellow)
leeks
winter squash - butternut, acorn, delicata
pie pumpkins
celery root i.e. celeriac
parsnips
mini cabbages
salad turnips - hakurei and red
Brussels sprouts
potatoes
watermelon radishes
cilantro
rutabegas

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

This week's available CSA items

Pick 7:

lettuce
arugula
spicy mix
parsley
Swiss chard
kale
eggplant
green peppers
garlic
carrots
beets
onions (red and yellow)
leeks
winter squash - butternut
pie pumpkins
celery root i.e. celeriac
parsnips
mini cabbages
salad turnips - hakurei and red
sweet potatoes
Brussels sprouts
potatoes
watermelon radishes
cilantro!!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Hi all here is a list of items we plan to have at market and available for CSA this Friday

(Choose 7 items):

lettuce
arugula
spicy mix
parsley
Swiss chard
kale
eggplant
green peppers
garlic
carrots
beets
onions (red and yellow)
leeks
winter squash - acorn, carnival, delicata
pie pumpkins
celery root i.e. celeriac
parsnips
mini cabbages
salad turnips - hakurei and red
broccoli
sweet potatoes
Brussels sprouts
potatoes
watermelon radishes

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Last week of CSA!
...except not really - if you've joined our fall/winter CSA. We still have shares available. If you are in Corning and would like to join but are discouraged by the drive, we can set you up with a group of fellow CSA members who are sharing CSA pickup duty.
Here is a list of most of the items we expect to have available:

Potatoes, Onions, Winter Squash, Garlic, Brussells sprouts, Carrots, Parsnips, Kale, Chard, Cabbage, Turnips, Radishes, Lettuce Mix, Greens Mix, Beets, Rutabagas, Celeriac, Spinach, Leeks
 
 
The garlic has all been planted and now just needs to be mulched.

We had a big bummer yesterday when the drive shaft on our farm truck broke. So now we must wait for some of the jobs around the farm that need the truck (ex. mulching fruit trees). Luckily there are plenty of other jobs, but we will have to resort to using our pull cart and the tractor bucket to bring the vegetables in from the field for the next several days.

Finger Lakes Restaurant Week
October 22-29
Check out www.restaurantweekfingerlakes.com for a list of restaurants serving menus with 100% locally sourced ingredients.

Items to expect this week:
lettuce
arugula
spicy mix
parsley
Swiss chard
kale
eggplant
green peppers
garlic
carrots
beets
onions
leeks
ginger
winter squash
pie pumpkins
celery root i.e. celeriac
parsnips
mini cabbages
salad turnips
broccolis
sweet potatoes
Brussels sprouts

Friday, October 12, 2012

watch out for wooly bears!

Goodbye lovely summer weather! Hello gorgeous fall! It really looks and feels like fall right now, the table at market is full to the brim with leafy fennel, savory leeks, staple celeriac, potatoes, parsnips and all the grand tastes and textures that will take us through the fall and winter and right up to the new leafy greens of next spring! Here in our part of the world, we are eating right now much as localvores will eat for the next 5 months. Does it sound glum? It shouldn't- there are so many flavors, and shapes, and tastes to take us through the dark months ahead!

I know for some 9-5 working people where those work hours shape their days, the fall and winter can be sad or hard with interminable hours of darkness and the same work as the summer but no time for fun in the sun after the work day. But for farmers where the amount of light in a day shapes the work hours and jobs to be done, the fall is a glorious season! Days shorten, the work becomes less each day and there are so many hours left after dark for cooking decadent meals- roasting and souping and stewing and baking and then time left for reading, and talking, and planning for next year (not quite yet but soon). There are definitely emotional seasons to the farm year, and the calm easy pace of the fall and winter have a place that helps to stabilize the constant, crazy pace of the spring and summer. We are on the down slide into the sleepy winter and a definite sigh of contentment can be heard around here.

Not that there is nothing left to do, but the amount of work behind us so greatly eclipses the amount of work ahead that it seems just a trifle. One of the main task on our plate still is to plant next years garlic, we plant 10 one hundred foot long beds of garlic each fall and when the last clove is pushed into the soil, we know the season is about buttoned up. Want to help us cross of the last major to do on the list? Come on out on Saturday around 2 and we'll get a start on it!

The other main task is to harvest the fall storage crops once they are fully grown and endangered by very cold weather. It was so dry back when we planted them, that they didn't take off growing with great vigor, but instead just held on, until it started to rain and then things grew very well, but are not quite to the size we had hoped for. So now we do a dance- the fall and winter crops can take a freeze, and even quite a bit of cold weather, but we don't want them to lose their quality, yet we want to see them size up a little more before they are harvested and stored in the walk in cooler for the winter CSA. The time that we harvest them will be a blend of when we have time, when they seem full grown, and when the nights are going to get terribly cold. I imagine we will be harvesting them in a few weeks.

I would be remiss not to mention the fall and winter CSA, an email went out yesterday, but if you didn't get it, here are the basics. The CSA will run from November until February, you can choose 7 items each week, the cost is $306, no markets on November 23 and December 28, no pickup on January 25, but the market will be there. The pickup is in at Saint James Episcopal Church parish hall in Watkins Glen from 3-6 on Friday nights.

Hope you have a great week!
Liz and Matthew
 
ps wooly bears are crossing the country roads right now, watch out for wooly bears! 

Friday, September 28, 2012

This photo is from our brief visit to a seed farm/company near the Hudson Valley.  That yellow egg-shaped fruits are eggplants. They are well past the stage at which you'd want to eat them and they are almost ready to harvest to save the seed. The company is Hudson Valley Seed and they have a small seed farm plus they also buy seed from other local farmers to sell in their artful packets. We're thinking about possibly growing a variety of some vegetable for them next year - if they're interested. Probably something easy like peppers. Check them out at seedlibrary.org. It is fascinating to see some of the vegetables in the different stages of their lifecycles that even as farmers we don't usually see - yellow eggplants, 2nd year beets and carrots that are tall and setting seed, the purple, spherical flowers on onions and lettuce stalks that are 4-5 feet tall.

This is the the time of year when we go out in the morning with sweater or jacket and possibly even a wool hat. Then as the sun climbs over the trees (assuming its not cool and rainy like today), we tend to shed the layers wherever we are when we suddenly get too hot - maybe in the middle of the pepper row while harvesting or weeding in the carrot bed or while spreading cover crop seed in an onion bed after they've all been harvested. Then as the sun quickly dips low behind the trees in the afternoon we are just as suddenly chilled and we try to remember where we left our layers earlier that day.

Get your Halloween pumpkin this week as part of your share if you'd like!

Please don't forget we are having a garlic planting day on October 13 at 2:00. Come on up if you can - we'd love to have some help to make this task go a little faster!

And fall/winter CSA shares are still available. $306 for 7 items/week Nov-Feb. Its a great deal with lots of great vegetables. See us at market for details.

lettuce mix
spicy mix
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
parsley
potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
eggplant
tomatoes
a few cherry tomatoes
a few green beans
a few dragon tongue beans
tomatillos
a few peppers, green and ripe
garlic
carrots
beets
onions
leeks
ginger
winter squash - delicatas this week
pie pumpkins
celery root i.e. celeriac (its baaaack!)
parsnips
mini cabbages
edamame
a few broccolis

next week: more of the same except probably acorn squash instead of delicatas

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

What a nice rainy day!
 
The fall growing season is progressing well and most of the crops that we plan to have available this fall and winter are looking good.
So we are ready to accept memberships for our fall/winter CSA. This will run from the first week of November through the end of February with pickup available in Watkins Glen on Friday evenings. We will have forms and further information about the CSA at markets starting this week.
Announcement: CSA event Saturday October 13 at 2:00.
We will be breaking apart bulbs and planting garlic. Come on out at 2:00 or after if you'd like to help. RSVP preferred but not necessary.
 

lettuce mix
spicy mix
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
squash and zucchini
parsley
potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
a few eggplant
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
green beans
dragon tongue beans
tomatillos
peppers, green and ripe
garlic
carrots
beets
onions
leeks
ginger

Monday, September 10, 2012

The wonderful rain has returned. And it was great to be out harvesting and working today in the cool temps. Most of the fall and winter crops are now looking great and we will start harvesting some of them in a couple weeks. Actually we hope to get the winter squash and pumpkins into the barn to start curing this week sometime.
This rain has also given us confidence to go ahead with our fall/winter CSA plans. We would like to accept 20 shares this year with pickup available at the Watkins Glen Farmers' Market Winter location at St. James Episcopal Church Fridays 3-6 pm or Ithaca Farmers' Market on Saturdays. Cost will be $306 and we plan to offer 7 items/week. We plan to have a wide variety of root and storage crops, hardy salad greens, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts. Details and signup forms will be available in the next couple weeks.

lettuce mix
spicy mix
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
squash and zucchini
parsley
potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
a few eggplant
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
green beans
dragon tongue beans
tomatillos
peppers, green and ripe
garlic
carrots
beets
onions
leeks
eggs
ginger

next week: edamame will be back.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/a-banker-bets-on-organic-farming/?emc=eta1

Great NY Times article provided by a CSA member.

lettuce mix
spicy mix
lettuce
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
squash and zucchini
parsley
potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
a few eggplant
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
green beans
dragon tongue beans
tomatillos
peppers, green and ripe
garlic
carrots
beets
onions
shallots
leeks
eggs
new this week - ginger!!

Saturday, August 25, 2012

second community potluck in elmira

second community picnic scheduled for monday evening!  the first community picnic potluck was a big sucess, come join us for number 2!  starts once the farmers have loaded up from market 6:15/30ish.  bring a dish to pass and place to sit, we'll provide table wear, a grill, and nice people!  the picnic is after the grove park farmers market on the corner of 4th and walnut streets in elmira! 
liz (and matthew)

Friday, August 24, 2012

After we got some good rain a couple weeks ago, I really thought we would not have any trouble getting enough rain the rest of this season, but here we are again. I was hoping we would not have to use our pond anymore this year except for irrigating our hoophouse crops, but we have had to irrigate the last three evenings. It was nice to have a break from irrigating and the pond was holding out there for a couple weeks but now it is down a few more feet. This makes it hard on our new plantings of fall and winter crops like cabbage, beets, carrots and rutabegas.
But the chickens are safe for now. We closed them up in their coop Friday evening as we do each evening before we plan to move them the next morning. Its a good thing we did because Saturday morning when we were moving them, there was the hawk hanging around in the trees waiting for a chance to get its breakfast. So if we hadn't closed them in we probably would have lost more. So we moved them into our patch of dead raspberries. This gives them plenty of cover, lots to eat and provides fertility for these beds which we will convert to more space for vegetable crops next year.

lettuce mix
lettuce
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
squash and zucchini
parsley
potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
a few eggplant
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
green beans
dragon tongue beans
tomatillos
peppers, green and ripe
garlic
carrots
beets
sweet onions
shallots
a few melons
eggs

Friday, August 17, 2012

We got another order of Farmer Ground Flour this week, but it is now only available in 5 lb. bags so if you want to take some for your share it will have to be equivalent of 2 items - sorry for the inconvenience. But we thought having 5 lb bags would be better than not having any.

Well I have been wondering when the first time would be that a predator struck our chickens. That happened to be this morning. I walked out this morning to feed and water them and I knew something was wrong when I got close and saw they were all under their coop when usually they are out roaming their yard. Then the hawk took flight. I don't know what species it was - but it was BIG and beautiful, of course. It had killed two hens and had eaten about half of one of them when I interrupted its breakfast. I hope the chickens are able to get under there coop faster next time the hawk comes around! Hopefully the two roosters are good watchchickens and will get better about sounding the alarm when a big bird is overhead. We will move them and their coop to a different location on the farm tomorrow morning in hope that that may help. Our flock now consists of 29 hens and 2 roosters.
Nevertheless, we do hope to have our first few dozen eggs available this week at market though they will be small pullet eggs. We probably will not bring any eggs to the Elmira market, as Heritage Pastures already has eggs to offer and we will not have that many. So probably we'll just bring them to Corning and maybe Watkins Glen Farmers' Markets - we'll just have to see how it goes though.
Our current plan is to offer eggs to the CSA as 1/2 dozen as 1 share item, but we will have to see how it works.
lettuce mix
lettuce
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
squash and zucchini
parsley
potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
a few eggplant
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
green beans
dragon tongue beans
tomatillos
peppers, green and ripe
garlic
carrots
beets
cabbage
sweet onions
shallots
a few melons
eggs

Thursday, August 9, 2012

A few green San Marzano paste tomatoes

These tomatoes are in our greenhouse and we think this might be the first time we've ever experienced a problem that we previously thought may be only mythical - too much nitrogen for tomatoes. The foliage is incredible on these plants with, so far, not many fruits.

lettuce mix
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
squash and zucchini
parsley
potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
leeks
eggplant
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
green beans
dragon tongue beans
tomatillos
peppers
garlic
carrots
beets
cabbage
sweet onions
shallots
a few melons
edamame

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

yummy brownie recipe!

Black Bean Brownies recipe from Cayuga Pure Organics website.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup Well Cooked CPO Black Beans
3 Eggs
3/4 Cup Cane Sugar
2 1/2 tbl. Veggie Oil
1/4 Cup Cocoa Powder
1 1/4 tsp. Vanilla Extract
Orange Zest (optional)
Pinch of Salt
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Combine all ingredients in a blender or a food processor and blend well until smooth, scraping down the sides as needed.
3) Pour mixture into a greased 8"x8" baking dish.
4) Bake for about 30 minutes, until the top appears dry and starts to crack slightly
makes about 16 brownies

Our first egg arrived today! It will be a little while before there are enough to sell, but fun to see the beginning coming!


Saturday, August 4, 2012

Midsummer is the hardest but best time for us to look around and start making plans and changes for next year. All we need to do is stroll through the vegetable beds with pen and paper and take notes of what's working and what's not, which varities are winners and which are lacking. But alas we don't usually make the time. And then by winter when we are planning and buying seeds the memories of all our brilliant ideas and the poor performing varieties from the summer are hazy or completely forgotten.
So I got inspired this past week during my weekly to-do list tour around the farm to also take notes for next year. I thought I would share a few of them here.

  • All tomatoes grown indoors. This year we put most of our tomatoes in our hoophouses and they are great. We love them - they take more work pruning and trellising to keep them under control, but they have NO DISEASE. This compares to our field tomatoes which are always tortured by septoria and early blight and we often hardly get any crop out of them. And there's not really any organic treatment for these diseases. This is definitely a waste of valuable bedspace.
  • Speaking of wasting valuable bedspace - we are pretty sure we are going to stop trying to grow peas and melons. Now you might think to yourself "I didn't know they grew either of those crops?" Exactly! We have put up a valiant effort trying to get these crops to grow and produce a decent yield for us over the years. While some crops might have a poor yield in a particular year, these two are perennial poor performers for us. Peas seem like we grow them just so they can die on us. And melons just do not make any kind of economic sense to grow. We continued growing them the the last few years because we felt they were a treat for the CSA members. But with such low yields we can't keep doing it.
  • We tried this year putting insect netting on the new hoophouse to keep out the cucmber beetles (which along with flea beetles are our most challenging pests). But they were already in the soil so they still ended up decimating our precious cucmbers inside. So I think we'll not have cucmbers in the hoophouse next year and instead have one more indoor bed for the aforementioned tomatoes.
  • Putting tomato cages around the tomatillos worked great! And because we can now walk down the row harvesting them we spend a little less time on our hands and knees which is basically our never-ending quest.
Well I've got lots more nuggets but thats probably enough detailed farm-geek information for you to take in in one shot.

lettuce mix
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
squash and zucchini
parsley
potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
leeks
eggplant
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
green beans
dragon tongue beans
tomatillos
peppers
garlic
carrots
beets
cabbage
sweet onions
shallots
a few melons

next week - probably the same

Friday, July 27, 2012

Half-inch of rain - yeah!
The carrot and beet seeds we planted a couple days ago are settled in and all the plants can take a deep drink, especially the young cabbages we just planted that have been looking awfully wilted as we struggled to keep them watered. And except for taking water out for our hoophouse plantings, our pond level can stay where it is.
Now I might actually have to start mowing again ; )
Thanks for the recipes...keep em coming

lettuce mix
spicy mix
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
squash and zucchini
parsley
new potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
leeks
eggplant
tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
green beans
dragon tongue beans
tomatillos
green peppers
garlic
carrots (for real this time - last week it was actually too dry to even get the fork in the ground to dig them)
cabbage
sweet onions
shallots

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Thanks to those who came out to make the potluck dinner a success.
We got a quarter inch of rain in the last couple days (not nearly as much as some of you in Elmira and Corning area, we are all too well aware!). But its better than nothing and as I was transplanting cucumbers yesterday my fingers actually did get muddy and not just dusty.

 Good thing to come.

Garlic triplets

Salad greens will be in very short supply this week due to the heat, dryness and our falling behind in our planting.

This week's available vegetables:

lettuce mix

spicy mix

pea shoots
 
sunflower shoots

squash and zucchini

parsley

new potatoes

Swiss chard

kale

leeks

onions

eggplant

tomatoes
 
cherry tomatoes

green beans
 
dragon tongue beans

tomatillos

green peppers

garlic

beets
 
carrots (small thanks to lack of rain)

cabbage



next week's expected vegetables:

all of the above plus sweet onions (walla wallas)


Friday, July 13, 2012

We are trying to move a potluck closer to our eater, hope you can make it!  On monday (july 16th, sorry for the late notice) we will be having a community picnic following the grove park farmer's market in elmira. It will start around 6:15 once the market is over, and we have a few minutes to pack up our things. Please bring a dish to pass and come meet fellow CSA members, as well as grove park farmer's market shoppers, and other friends of the farm in the area! There will be a grill available, if that would help with the food that you choose to bring. You may want to bring a chair or blanket to sit on and something to eat from, though there will be some available for use.

Hope you can make it! The market and picnic are on the corner of walnut and 4th streets in Elmira!

Liz (and matthew, too)


p.s. you can find us on facebook now, too!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

 This is our table with our sunflower and pea shoots in trays. With the netting on top we'd thought we'd outsmarted the birds, chipmunks and squirrels. We realize this is extremely arrogant of us to think we are smarter than them because of course they are still getting under the netting and eating the sunflowers. Our next idea - try plastic around the legs to keep them from climbing up (the birds have been foiled it seems by just the netting).
No, Liz is not slowly turning into the Hulk. Neither does she have a weird skin disease. The green residue on her fingers is from pruning and trellising tomatoes
A picture of our pond a couple weeks ago. Now the level is only a few feet from the end of the intake pipe which is just below the white milk jug you can see on the surface on the right side of the photo. When the pond is full all of the land in the foreground of the photo is underwater. So maybe we'll be able to connect another piece of pipe to the end to get a couple more feet. The milk jug serves as a float to keep the end of the pipe out of the muck and debris on the bottom of the pond.

If you haven't already, you can check us out on facebook where we still have a small but growing presence.

This week's available vegetables:

lettuce mix

spicy mix

pea shoots

squash and zucchini

cucumbers

dill and parsley

new potatoes

Swiss chard

kale

leeks

onions

eggplant

tomatoes

green beans

tomatillos

green peppers

garlic

beets



next week's expected vegetables:

all of the above

a few cherry tomatoes



Here is an announcement from a fellow CSA member

Wellness in a Snap!

Attend free cooking demonstrations in my Big Flats kitchen featuring unique and delicious
approaches to healthy eating

Learn how to –

Conquer your carb cravings and control your blood sugar

Put delicious and nutritious meals on the table fast

Maintain healthy cells with high quality supplements

Lose weight ··· Boost your energy levels ··· Think more clearly

Snap to it!

Contact Louise at (607)731-9270 or louisemariepaul@yahoo.com to

reserve your spot in one or more of the 2 hr demos listed below

BREAKFASTS in a snap! July 2, 11, or 20 10am or 7pm

WHOLE GRAINS in a snap! July 3 and 16 10am or 7pm

or July 10 at 7pm or July 12 at 10am

Share this with a friend! Lots of new demos coming soon! Plan to attend them all!






Monday, July 9, 2012

Garlic harvest

We will be harvesting our German White Garlic tomorrow (Tuesday) morning starting around 8:00. We would love some help if anyone is interested. Its just pulling garlic, loading it in the truck and then hanging it to dry. You'll go home with some garlic and vegetables treats.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

We are glad everyone seems to be enjoying the pea and sunflower shoots. Liz has been working hard at perfecting the timing and growing and she's gotten pretty good at it!
The haricot vert green beans are looking really good - a nice rain (maybe tonight??!!) would make them grow even better but we can look forward to lots of bean picking over the next few weeks.
The squash and zucchini will now be offered as needed - they are now, as they say, coming out of our ears.
Muddy Fingers Farm has a facebook page. It has not been updated regularly but we hope that will soon change.

This week's vegetables
lettuce
lettuce mix
sunflower shoots
pea shoots
squash and zucchini
cucumbers
dill and parsley
new potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
garlic scapes
beans
green onions
baby leeks
eggplants
peppers
beets
a few tomatillos

next week:
same plus...
a few tomatoes
garlic

Thursday, June 28, 2012

The bad news is it looks like we won't have any of our summer-bearing raspberries this year. It seems that the ones that were not killed off by phytophthora root rot last year, are succumbing to it this year (or something that looks similar). We know these are a big hit with everyone, but apparently our soil is just not well-suited to raspberries. But we did plant two new rows this year so we'll see how they do.

Where is the rain?? Its not here in our little corner of the Finger Lakes! When we go to till a bed its just rototilling dust and I get covered in the dust from the cloud that results.
So our pond is being drained rapidly by our irrigation pump.

This week's vegetables:
lettuce
lettuce mix
sunflower shoots
pea shoots
squash and zucchini
cucumbers
shell peas - just a few :(
beets
dill and parsley
new potatoes
Swiss chard
kale
baby Swiss chard
garlic scapes
a few beans

next week's expected vegetables:
all of the above plus
a few eggplant
 green onions
a few peppers



Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Millies' kids that now have a new home
Old broken down farm truck (and now donated to public radio) on the right and our "new" one on the left
Potato flowers

Week 4

This Spring has been overall quite dry – or at least it has seemed dry to us. Since April 1 we've received 6.41 inches of precipitation. I don't know how this compares to the normal, but we had no problems with not being able to till because the ground was too wet for the whole spring (except for the one late snowstorm). And we have had to use the irrigation several times in May and June (including tonight!)

Overall the precipitation has been enough to keep us wet enough, though. But this current dry stretch (and heat wave!) has us hoping the summer will be cool and moist.

And with this heat many of our spring lettuce crops are bolting while the summer crop like tomatoes and peppers are loving it. We will keep the lettuces covered with shade cloth and keep them well irrigated to try to keep more from bolting.



This is Restaurant Week in the Finger Lakes, with restaurants serving menu items made with 100% local ingredients – and I do mean 100% down to the oils and seasonings. Please visit one of the restaurants participating in this exciting event. www.restaurantweekfingerlakes.com



This week's available vegetables:

lettuce

lettuce mix

sunflower shoots

spinach

squash and zucchin

cucumbers

snow peas - just a few :(

carrots

beets

dill and parsley

new potatoes

Swiss chard

baby Swiss chard

garlic scapes



next week's expected vegetables:

all of the above plus

kale

a few eggplant

a small harvest of green beans

pea shoots


The sunflower and pea shoots are a new crop we are trying this year. We have had some success but we are still working out the kinks such as: correct planting interval to have continuous supply, watering regime, correct soil mix and keeping the birds off of the trays. Hope you enjoy them. Let us know what you think of them.


Monday, June 11, 2012

CSA week 2

This week's available vegetables:
Lettuce
Spinach
Lettuce mix
Baby Carrots
Beets
Garlic Scapes
Spicy Mix
A few cucumbers
A few squashes

Next week:
Lettuce
Lettuce Mix
Rainbow Carrots
Beets
Garlic Scapes
Cucumbers
Squash
New Potatoes

Saturday, June 2, 2012


First week of CSA is here!
We feel very proud this year that we are able to a offer you a little bit more selection in these meager first few weeks of the CSA than we have in the past years. Hooray for climate change, right? We were able to plant beets outside in March!!
In the above photos you can see the change in tomatoes and cucumbers in the hoophouse from April to May. The second photo is about 2 weeks old and they are about 3 times that size now! Note the new insect netting installed on the sides of the hoophouse. This allows the sides to be rolled up for ventilation yet it keeps out insects. Most notably cucmber beetles which eat our cucmber plants and devastate them by spreading bacterial wilt.
You may wonder if the insect netting excludes insects, how will pollinators get in to pollinate the cucmbers. Well we have to grow parthenocarpic varieties which means they can set fruit without pollinating. That's handy huh?

Crop update:
Probably no broccoli again this summer due to flea beetles and slugs
Cilantro plantings have bolted already due to heat
Our peas are about as poor as usual
And the flea beetles and slugs have delayed our kale harvest by a few weeks

That's the bad news...everything else is looking pretty darn good. And we are up to date on our planting schedule! Which is nice because our time for farmwork is drastically reduced with the start of farmers' markets and harvesting every other day.

On a personal note our pregnant dairy goat had two kids last week - one buckling and one doeling - and they both seem very healthy and playful thus far. Photos to follow.


This week's CSA options:
Pea Sprouts
Lettuce
Spicy Mix
Baby Carrots
Beets
Spinach
Garlic Scapes
Beans from Cayuga Pure Organics
Flour from Farmer Ground Flour

next week's expected vegetables:
Sunflower and Peas Sprouts
Lettuce
Lettuce Mix
Spicy Mix
Baby Carrots
Beets
Garlic Scapes
a few cucmbers??!!
a few squash??!!

Monday, May 21, 2012

The first week of Muddy Fingers Farm CSA will be on the following schedule:

Friday June 1 3:00-7:00 Watkins Glen Lafayette Park
Monday June 4 3:00-6:00 Elmira Grove Park
Wednesday June 6 12:00-dark at the farm
Thursday June 7 9:00-3:00 Corning Riverside Park

expected choices:
lettuce
lettuce mix
sprouts
baby carrots
beets
garlic greens or garlic scapes (maybe - we think they'll be early this year)
transplants
dry beans
flour

Please let us know ahead of time if you plan to change your pickup location for the first couple weeks.

See you there!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

We will be having a CSA potluck lunch and workday startin at 12:00 this Saturday. If you plan to come please RSVP. Otherwise we will see you the first week of June when the CSA begins!

Monday, April 23, 2012

 Lilacs
Well I guess we've had spring and summer and now its back to winter!! I had to go shake the snow off the lilacs this morning to keep any more branches from breaking.
All of the young vegetables plants we have in the ground now should be okay though. They are all hardy and the snow will actually offer them some protection from the cold wind. And the tomatoes and cucumbers we transplanted in the hoophouse should be alive still (though not necessarily happy).

Thursday, April 12, 2012

We love our paper-pot transplanter (so far)


We got to try out our new paper-pot transplanter last weekend. It worked better than we even hoped it would. We planted beds of beets, spinach and lettuce very quickly!! You can see it in action at the following link, courtesy of Molly Shaw at Cooperative Extension.
http://youtu.be/yKbdgux6uIo

The chickens moved outside to their permanent coop today. It was little on the chilly side, but they did not seem to mind. They seemed happy to have the space to roam. Pictures will follow.

I did our first weeding of the season - mostly quackgrass in a beet bed.

Our first CSA event of the season will be this Sunday. We will start with a potluck lunch here at 12:00, then head to the field to transplant probably chard, broccolis, cabbages and/or onions and also put more potatoes in the ground. Maybe it won't rain, but we actually could use the rain!! Go figure! Please call or email if you plan to come.

Also we moved our two goats out of the barn today. They now have plenty of tender young invasive honeysuckle leaves to eat rather just that boring old hay they've been eating all winter.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Frozen Blooms

Plum blossoms "first bloom" stage


Peach blossoms "first bloom" stage


Apple buds "tight cluster" stage


Tart cherry buds "first white" stage

Will we lose all the fruit in our orchard and the region tonight?
Well, we knew we might be in trouble when we had day upon day of 70-80 degree temperatures in mid-March. Now we have fruit trees in various stages of bloom and a frigid cold front that swept through the region last night.

Compare the above photos taken today in our orchard with the chart at:
http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/pub__5191779.pdf
The low tonight in our area is expected to be 20 degrees.

Our young, little orchard is still just starting to bear fruit and we are not really expecting much out of it yet this year. Maybe a bucket of cherries, a bushel or two of apples, and a few plums and peaches. But many of the orchards that we rely on for summer and fall fruit may be in danger. Apples seem like they'll probably be okay. But they all just depend on how far into blossom they are and this depends mostly on their individual microclimates around the trees. I am certainly no fruit expert so it will be interesting to see how much loss there is.


Ginger (the brownish pieces on the left) and galangal (the larger yellowish pieces with rings on the right)
Galangal is thai ginger. Some customers have seen our young ginger on our market stand and asked, "Is that galangal?" We responded, "What's galangal?"
Its also known as Thai ginger. And we've never tried it before, but we figured we should. So we purchased five pounds of seed pieces to give it a try. And the 5 lbs. of galangal and 50 lbs. of ginger arrived in the mail last week and planted them in potting soil in bulb crates immediately. They will be in the bulb crates until early May. Then once the seed pieces have green buds on them we will transplant them into the ground.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Chicken upd8





The dogs are VERY excited. They are learning that the chickens are now part of the farm and not snacks.

Black Australorps. The yellow chicks are all roosters, sent along with the others in the mail for warmth in transit. Which of the blacks are the two roosters? We'll just have to wait and see.


We are very proud of our homemade coop. We think the chickens will like it in a few weeks too!



Believe it or not, it is still winter. This weather is nuts. We've already planted seeds outside. Usually we don't get to plant outside until the middle of April!! We are kind of scared by this weather and feel like we got gypped out of winter.
But I'll not dwell on the weather. We've got chickens!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Muddy Fingers Chickens


After much thought and planning, we have decided to try our hands at having chickens here on our farm this year!
Having eggs available for the CSA and for sale was only a part of our reasoning for adding chickens to our farm. The real reason we got them was for their manure! We currently grow cash crops on all of our land every year. This does not leave us much space to add to our soil's fertility by growing large amounts of nitrogen-fixing and organic matter-adding cover crops like clovers, vetch, soybeans, rye, oats, etc.
Many farms add fertility to their soils by rotating cash crops with pastured livestock. So, though, we will still have to buy in the fertility (i.e. chicken feed), the chickens will take that feed and convert it into a form that is more available to our plants!
We have ordered 32 chicks - 30 pullets (females) and 2 cockerels (males). If you're interested, they are Black Australorps and will arrive next week!
Eggs will not be available until almost the end of summer. And we will not have a lot (maybe 10-12 dozen/week assuming they all survive). So we plan right now on only bringing them to one market (probably the Corning Market).
Above is a photo of their almost finished coop. It is still missing its covering and wheels. The chickens will be kept inside an electronet fence and will be rotated through fallow vegetable sections, the struggling asparagus patch and the orchard through the spring, summer and fall and will be in the greenhouse in the winter. Well, that's the plan anyway!
Updates to follow!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Gettin' busy

Moving our hoophouse
The hotbed
Filling trays for onions and leeks
The first indoor planting of lettuce mix, greens mix and spinach.

Here are the obligatory images of our first plantings of the year.
We are always excited to get started and at the same time reluctant knowing that our quiet, reflective season will soon be ending.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Winter Farmers' Market!

Dear CSA members,
There is a monthly farmers' market happening in Corning this winter.
We will be there selling vegetables this Saturday.
The market is inside the Information Center of Corning at 1 West Market St. (near the location of our summer market) from 11:00 - 3:00.
We will have available:
Carrots
Brussels Sprouts
Radishes
Potatoes
Garlic
Celeriac
Beets
Turnips
Rutabegas
Salad Greens!!!

We will be taking CSA signups and offering a free 1 lb. bag of garlic to anyone who signs up for a share on Saturday.

We have been working hard planning for next season. So exciting!! You will be hearing from us soon with details.

You can also catch us at the Ithaca Winter Market at The Space @ Greenstar Saturdays (including this Saturday!) in January and February 11:00 - 2:00.