It has begun!

Hello lovely CSA members, and other various blog readers! The peaceful waiting that we wrote about last time is gone and it is replaced with lots of "to do" lists. Plant this, water that, till this, mulch those over there. Each week has a list, every day has another list. Don't forget to call this place, pick up the last few supplies from the place in penn yan, mail the insurance form to that place before tommorrow, write a letter of support for the grant and find a few other farmers to do it, too. Get final permission in place for the new farmer's market in elmira. Spend hours outside listening to the lovely spring sounds. It is so much fun to be back into the season! (this is not sarcasm, don't worry, we really do like what we do.) the rodents and the snakes have both arrived since we last wrote! here is evidence of the rodent's arrival. No pictoral evidence of the snakes yet, sorry!

lettuces and frisee

I would say, "you should see the farm right now"! It is so beautful, cherries and plums in bloom the garlic plants stretching up through the mulch. Teeny little lettuces in straight rows down the beds, lots of birds nests in funny hidden places (inside a barrel in the hoophouse, two birds in hollow holes in the same dead tree, maybe ducks at the pond), baby broccoli plants under covers in the field. There are brand new plantings of hazelnuts and elderberries (we meant to plant them last year, but had a mixup on the order, so we didn't get them) and soon will be more new yellow raspberry plants. I said, "would say, you should see the farm right now" because you can see the farm right now --saturday is our first CSA get together day! We will start the day with a potluck at noon, bring a dish to pass, then we will have a brief farm tour, then we will be planting some onions and leeks as well as potatoes for an hour or so. Hope you can make it! we will email directions out soon. Don't forget our second CSA get together day which is may 22nd, put it on your calendar now, please!

gemini and liz with the new hazelnuts before they were caged to keep out rabbits, and mulched to keep them moist.

we are planting more ginger this year, here is our unhappy cat modeling how cool the "mother plants" look before we cut them into smaller pieces and plant them.

don't worry, once the CSA season starts, we write every week with recipes and updates, for now, we seem to make it happen monthly, thanks for checking in!

hope to see you saturday, and that your spring is busy and good, too!
liz and matthew

farming, in march

a few old shots of the snow storm that is now ancient history, see the drift outside though?

This time of year feels like the last few days of a pregnancy- restless, ready for the change, aware of the storm of work that is about to arrive, yet not able to begin it until the time has come. The warm beautiful weather is enjoyable, we walk and feel the sun on our faces, we plant the seeds in the greenhouse that it is time for, we check our supplies, and order last minute ones, things lay in the ready, but the time to begin in earnest has not yet arrived. Soon we will look back and wonder what was so wrong with reading for a few hours or taking a walk around the orchard just to enjoy the morning. For now we are restless.

Despite the sense of waiting, it’s a joy to live on a farm and really be a part of the cycles of nature. We wait eagerly each late winter for the signs that spring is arriving. Several weeks ago, we saw the first snow geese heading north- white wings with the lovely black tips, the arrival of red wing black birds lifts our spirits with their distinctive call causing our hearts to give a joyful beat, we can hear them as we sit and seed in the greenhouse. The robins arrive and we are reminded of how they follow us down the beds after we work the soil, getting an easy meal and sticking close to where the soil is being turned. The killdeer calling its own name is a good friend and reminds us to be mindful of where they place their nests on the ground so that we don’t spoil it with the tractor. We remember the times they have nested right in our field and spent hours over the course of the nesting period, faking a broken wing to keep us away from the nest that we are well aware of already. We are holding our breath to see if bluebirds will move into one of our nest boxes again this year, as last year we scored our first brood and we glad to see them hatch and fledge successfully. Last night on the way to light the woodstove in the greenhouse, long vees of Canada geese could be heard moving overhead under the constellations. It is truly a magical time of year!

Most of the action at this time of year revolves around our horse manure hotbed. Basically manure mixed with the bedding in a frame of hay bales , the manure gives off heat as it decomposes, and we keep our seedlings sitting a few inches above it- the right temperature without the use of fossil fuels! We have used these every year that we have been farming, and this year we have answered questions from four other farmers about the “system”, we’d love to see other people get free heat for their seedlings, so it is great to answer questions about it. All of the seedling trays begin in that spot and once they have germinated, they are moved off to make room for the next batch. The greenhouse is better than half full now, and filling with more trays every few days.

there are snow drifts in this one, too, but this is the hotbed with plants being started on top.

Its always exciting to have a sunny warm day at this time of year, because you can almost watch the first tomatoes as they pop up through the soil in the light. Yesterday morning, there were about five tomato seedlings up and visible, and over the course of the day, another 50 or more popped right on through! I’m sure today many more will make their dramatic appearance, slim neck dramatically unfolding from out of the soil to ease any doubt that it knows what its meant to do.

The next step in the cycle is for the rodents to move in. Every year it happens all of a sudden we notice the tunnels in the surface of the manure, and then a few seedlings clipped off (sometimes more than a few). And then the snakes arrive and suddenly the problem is gone. The rodent social network must be faster than the serpentine one, but they always arrive eventually. Then lifting trays becomes interesting, because sometimes you’ll find your finger resting on a strangely smooth, scaly object and as the realization of what is happening hits both parties involved, it slithers rapidly away, and drops neatly down into the manure and disappears.

we had a delicious meal the other night of multi-colored pierogies, which was exqisite! this is a look at them before they were sealed and cooked.

we hope you are eating well and biding the last few days of winter in good spirits and health. Please don't forget the first two CSA days of the season, april 17th and may 22nd. we still have room if you haven't signed up, please do so!

sunny thoughts, liz and matthew

Snowy Seeding

Rabbit tracks

A couple shots of freshly planted beds and trays. Its always fun and reinvigorating to plant seeds when the snow is falling outside. And the smell of the earth, compost, peat moss and even horse manure in the greenhouse is intoxicating this time of year.

There's Liz at the highly successful Local Foods festival in Corning last Friday night. Thanks to those of you who came out to support local agriculture. Liz and I were both hoarse by the end of the evening from talking to so many people interested in the CSA over the rumble of the crowd!

Here is a photo of Liz on our "dune buggy"/cultivating tractor. We were getting it out to fit it with its cultivating equipment.

what do farmer's do in the winter, anyway?

a common question. Obviously not write on blogs, sorry followers that its been so long.

This winter we have been doing the business end of farming. Lots of planning, plenty of reading, and we attended a conference to beef up our farming skills for next year. We have been doing a bunch of talkings and planning for changes, we will be simplifying our marketing schedule from five things a week (four markets and a CSA pickup) down to Four things a week- three markets and a CSA pickup (that we may try to build a new market around). We will make up for some of the lost income by growing the CSA up to 75 members, from 60 last year.

We are tweaking our crop rotation scheme and trying to work in some more cover crops into the mix. We have been reading about both soil health as well as caring for our orchard, which may begin to bear a little this year.

We have finished going to market one day a week as our supplies have finally run out.

but you can find us this friday at the local foods fest at the civic center in Corning from 5-8 PM.

We've sent out our CSA forms for the season with a more extensive letter to our members, if you haven't recieved yours yet, please let us know!

Thanks to those who have signed up already, they are coming in fast now~ so don't delay too long!

We are also fortunate to do a lot of playing in the winter! reading for fun, watching some movies, cross country skiing, ice skating, and this winter we are doing plenty of olypmics watching!

even playing a little badminton!

We hope you are enjoying your winter as much as we are, first seedings are in just a few weeks, so things will be rolling again here before too long!

Happy winter days, liz and matthew

Refridgerator panels are up!

They've been stacked in our yard for over two years, waiting. But now, at least the panels are in place.

A reminder: you can still find us at the Ithaca Farmers' Market at the outdoor location on the lake for the next 2 Saturdays. Then the Ithaca Farmers' Market will move indoors for January and February to the Women's Community Building Saturdays 11-2 pm. We'll be away for the holidays the first Saturday in January (Jan. 2.), but we will be attending after that.

We still have potatoes, chard, lettuce, arugula, garlic, onions, celeriac, cabbage, carrots, and hakurei turnips.

a learning day

caterpillar ariel view

celeriac by the cartful

This has been a season of learning. During the last week of the CSA we learned that we did not have a secure enough email password and you all got a wonky email from our email address directing you to the website of some chinese company. Turns out password security is super important. If yours is still your pets name and a few numbers, time to secure it up (that's not what ours was, but i hear it is very common.)

Today we learned that fire extinguishers work really well. and also how strange it is to hear the words, "your tractor is on fire". our friends dropped off some mulch hay to us today to mulch our garlic, and while they were here the tractor caught on fire. Turns out its important to have a secure email password and a couple of working fire extinguishers, just in case. tomorrow i'm going to buy a fire extinguisher to put on our tractor, just in case. It aslo seems like a good idea to keep one in the car.

we also are learning how advance planning can pay off. we've just filled up our last little spot with inside the fence. We had hoped for a while to plant some native fruits. during the last year we grew persimmon and paw paw trees from seed. The pink flags are marking the little trees stretching out to almost the fence (visible in the background). Hopefully some day we will be bringing some native fruits to market.

the last thing we learned is that some of you are still looking for us and you can still find us at the ithaca market on saturday's from 10-3, it goes all the way to the 19th of Dec. we will be missing the week after thanksgiving, but otherwise, we'll see you there!

liz and matthew

Caterpillar!

Here's a new concept (for us anyway) that we are trialing on our farm this winter and next spring: a temporary, moveable hoophouse. The kind folks at Cooperative Extension provided funds and materials for this cool "caterpillar tunnel" at our farm. The tunnel is covering fall-planted turnips, radishes and spinach. We'll monitor their progress, hopefully harvest them early spring (?) and see how the moving of the hoophouse goes next spring! And we'll also keep track on how it holdss up to the winter weather!

We got together Thursday to construct the hoophouse. Things went quite smoothly despite a little rain and cold and the structure was completed in the afternoon. In the first picture you can see we bent the pipes for the ribs of the hoophouse.

Thanks so much to Molly, Eric and Matt. We had a lot of fun putting it up.

Please stop by sometime to check it out!