Sunday, August 31, 2008

September Farm Week - Thursday-Friday-Saturday

Well obviously, I have not been posting every day. Mostly I got too busy but also there were connection difficulties some of the time.

Anyway, here goes what I can remember:

Thursday:
garden inspection
organized seeds and thought about fall planting and my current seed order
planted in hoop house to be:
Napoli carrots - extra hardy for winter harvest
Kossack kolrabi - ditto
Watermelon radish - ditto
Cauliflower - All the Year Round
Cauliflower - Early Pearl
Cauliflower - Violetta Italia
Cabbage - Savoy Perfection
Cabbage - Early Jersey Wakefield
Cabbage - Savoy Ace
Broccoli - Gypsy
Broccoli - De Cicco
Broccoli - Early Purple Sprouting
The brassicas are confusing to me, in fact the whole winter planting thing is so new I find myself shuffling seed packets and making lists but not actually DOIING anything. So I decided to just go ahead and plant. Then I will just see what happens. Some of the varieties are meant to carry through the winter for next spring, (all the year round cauliflower and the sprouting brocoli for sure. I am a bit late planting them though. And it's a bit late for some of the fall brassicas but I planted anyway.
I made a trip to town mid day and bought chicken food, etc so I didn't do as much at the farm.
Picked for the Friday shares - flowers, carrots, beets

Friday
Picked for the shares.
See the CSA blog for the specifics of what was in the share this week.
It was fun to pick in a relaxed fashion but there was so much food it took a long time.
Each full share had 2 pounds of soybeans, 2 quarts of crabapples, several pounds of cukes, and more.
Stocked the stand and sent out the farm email.
Delivered the shares.
Karen worked on making a sign for the stand.
Bought 30 pounds of peaches from Spatcher's Farm.
Posted at the blog.
Washed dishes and cleaned up the harvest mess.
Picked about 2 -3 gallons of blackberries at Karen's house with Karen and Robin. - yum
Picked several pounds of Swiss chard and made spanikopita with chard. - more yum
Slept!

Saturday
Washed the harvest dishes some more.
Posted a sign for the stand on Greenfield Rd. with Karen.
While walking home I saw a hawk diving toward the free running chickens.
I MUST GET THE CHICKENS INTO A PROPER HOME!
Froze peaches! 4 hours to process 30 # - yielding 5 pints, 1 1 1/2 pint, 7 quarts
Rested and looked at the cook book Fresh & Fast - looks great, I feel too tired to make any of the tasty sounding recipes.
Transplanted some Red Chidori Kale to fill out a row.
Rob sorted the blackberries and I froze most of them. 2 big bags full.
Will make blackberry cake tomorrow.
And to bed with the sink and counter full of harvesting containers again!!

Thursday, August 28, 2008

September Farm Week - Wednesday

1 - posted at the blog
2 - dishes
3 - froze Green Annellino beans - about 5 pints.
4 - made freezer pickles (see recipe blog)
5 - thought some more about maybe working this afternoon. I decided to stick to my plan of staying on the farm, even though it was sort of hard to choose my needs over my clients'. I ended up doing a bunch of philosophizing while digging. It's always so challenging to decide on the correct course of action and to interpret my own needs and feelings. ie Does that slight unhappy feeling in my gut mean I should go clean their house or does mean it's hard for me to choose me? If I feel uneasy, should I just do what feels easier or push through and do the hard thing? I actually like thinking about this sort of dilemma but I hate the undecided, unclear feeling.
6 - set up the Squeezo for Rob to use to make applesauce. (Thanks Rob!)
7 - turned over soil in the west garden and marked the beds. Now the west garden is all weeded. (!)
8 - lopped down more sumac around the chicken coop.
9 - lunch
10 - more lopping, especially the south end of the west garden and the raspberry patch
11 - picked squashes and cucumbers. (lots) (I realized that it would be useful to keep track of how many of each variety of squash are picked. A bit late for this year...2009)
12 - email
13 - dishes
14 - started weeding the sandraberries - driven off by bugs
15 - started weeding the flowers - driven off by bugs!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

September Farm Week - Tuesday

I decided to experiment with a new way of using the blog. Kind of more of a log of activities for the farm. I often get behind on my record keeping for planting and so forth. Perhaps this will help.
Of course I have no idea if anyone actually reads this blog. If so, the details of planting, variety names, cultivation practices, ideas, planning, etc. may or may not be of interest to you.

Anyway for the rest of this farm week at least I will try out this new thing.

Farm Log
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Sent out the weekly CSA email.
Posted at the CSA blog, the farm stand blog and the recipe blog.
Weeded the west garden - almost finished.
Cut sumac in the old chicken yard.
Canceled my cleaning job for Wednesday. (What was I thinking when I offered to do that?)
Weeded the greenhouse. (much improved!)
Let the chickens run loose!

My faith in the chickens was well founded. They barely wandered from their pen in the garage, were much happier pecking around in the grass and eating worms and such and they very naturally returned to their pen before dark.

Next year: Do not let anything interrupt my farm weeks; no rearranging my work schedule to suit my clients.

All that is left to weed in the west garden is the space between the pole beans and the Asian onions.