First week of July...

The garden is finally growing well! Things are getting bigger and I figured now was a good time to do a little photo survey of our farm and how things are growing.

We have always had a hard time growing carrots, because we had pretty heavy clay soil before. Not so anymore. Our carrot rows have really taken off since we started to foliar feed them. Yesterday I was weeding and noticed two large tops right next to each other, so I thinned one out and got this! A real to honest little baby carrot!

A couple weeks ago our squash were just little baby things, now the leaves are as big as dinner plates and they are getting blossoms! Won't be long until we have summer squash! (Come over here little bees!)

This is photo of our beet row we have 3 succession plantings going. One after another 2 weeks apart. So members should expect lots more beets in their baskets! Yummy!

Lettuce is another one of those things which has been a little hit or miss for us in the past. So dependent on weather, it can be difficult to field grow. A little luck this year and we finally have gorgeous little heads. Sunday members, got only a tiny bit this week, Wednesday members got a lot more. Sunday members should expect a bigger share of lettuce this coming week.

It will be so strange to be able to offer onions! They are coming along nicely! Next year we are planning a 1/4 acre onion plot, hopefully everyone likes onions!

Time to stake the tomatoes! They are starting to spread out a bit. These are Matt's Wild Cherry a nice heirloom cherry tomato. AND they have little baby green tomatoes on them! These plants will bear all summer, so get ready for cherry tomatoes! Obviously these plants are benefiting from the foliar feeding, they have gone from being a light kellyish green to this dark green beautiful color.

Anouther food outbreak and local farms

I always get so scared when there is an outbreak of disease from a food born pathogen, especially one linked to fresh produce.

Invariably calls are made for better food safety. And that means more regulation, red tape, and less freedom. But people are smarter then that, right?

The recently passed George Carlin said "Think how smart the average person is. By definition, half the people are stupider then that!" I've been thinking of that recently.

What happens when children die? People want something done, and indiscriminately. The local movement is still small and so many people still think that food comes from a grocery store and before that a refrigerated truck. Someone should "DO SOMETHING!" about food safety.

But big ag will want small farmers to take on the same burden as they do, and if the answer ends up being UV light or chlorine baths or "certified fields" or special handling facilities will they exempt small producers? Probably not, and with the extra requirements come up front costs that most small farmers cannot afford.

Last year the board of the Countryside Conservancy visited our farm and asked us one simple question. "What can we do to help you?" Our answer was simple "Be there to offer legal support when they try to make what we do illegal..."

This spring I signed a multiple page contract and bought a part of another farmer's stock so I would have the right to purchase an agricultural product directly from him. And even that may or may not end up being accepted by the State Department of Ag when push comes to shove. This farmer may be risking his farm and his family's lively hood to sell me a product I want to buy.

What happens if produce goes that way? If all washing and prepping has be done in a certified facility? I can say that all my produce is washed with the same water that my family (and an entire city) drinks and as we do not have any recirculation system it is all fresh water (we wash with a garden hose) but will that be enough? Probably not... What if fields have to be tested? How much will that cost? $1000 a field a year? Not much if your field is 5,000 acres, but we have two 1 acre fields and a 1/4 acre field in production right now...

900 people are sick and who knows how many more. They are still looking for the source. It is a horrible thing and "something should be done" but I fear that "something", as more incidents like this occur (and they will,) will cast a wide net and catch many who have nothing to do with the problem.

Beet Greens & veggie adoption...

This year we added a "veggie adoption table" to our pickups. If ever a member does not want something in their share we ask them to take it anyway and put it on the adoption table, so it can find a loving home...

At yesterday's pickup a couple bunches of beet greens made their way to this table. Both found loving new homes, but I'd like to point out that beet greens are yummy! This is especially true for young ones, which need to be cooked (if at all) for only a little time. Also, always enjoy the greens on the tops of your "regular" beets, they are a little bigger but just as yummy.

So the question becomes, "What do I do with beet greens?" And as this week is not the only week these hardy greens will find their way into shares it is an important question. Try one or more of these...

General beet and green info

Beet and green salad with beans

Garlic beet greens

and 125 more...

Ominous cloud hanging over our first pickup... Maybe a bad omen.?

No! First pickup went well. A couple people forgot or didn't show, but that is to be expected with the frist pickup of the season.

In the above photo, do you see the dark green (almost grey) rows? Those are weeds that were just knocked down with the flamer. This is almost our last bed has not been weeded as carefully as it maybe should have been.

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The sad truth...

I almost did not blog about this, as I am embarrassed about what it says about my skills as and future as a farmer, but I decided I need to come clean! So here it is...

We finally bought a small soil test kit. I know! We should have done it first thing when we turned ground but we did not. Results would not really change the fact that we still need to plant those feilds. But last night we tested soil from both of our fields (1 location each but we will be doing more!)

The results?

Carrot row: Ph-6.5 (good), Nitrogen - Low to very low, Potassium-trace (that vial was supposed to change color?), Phosphorus-very low. UG!!!

Potato row: Ph-5.5 (low but potatoes like that), Nitrogen - Medium to high (Finally a good result!), Potassium - trace (I wonder if the test is working!), Phosphorous - very low...

Not good results, as hubby said it is amazing grass grows up there! So we need to work on both our short term and long term soil building and fertilization plans.

Short term we have two backpack sprayers on the way so we can foliar feed our plants as much as we need to. Currently we use a small sprayer and it is such a pain that we do not always spray when we should. You may be asking yourself "But I THOUGHT they were growing naturally!" We are! But foliar feeding is an established method of organic fertilization. By using a combination of natural products we can supply many of the needs of a plant efficiently and reducing runoff by spraying the products on their leaves right before sunset. Then when the stoma open at night so the plant can breath it absorbs the nutrients very quickly and effectively.

Longer term I fear that our planned cover crops and green manures will not be nearly enough to make up the deficiencies. We will probably have to use significant amounts of organic soil amendments over the next few years to make up the deficiencies... It may be a long road.

But in the end I want to be able to post that our soil in amazingly healthy! High in everything and a perfect pH, the kind of ground that will grow any seed that touches it into a wonderful vegetable!

Junior Rangers...

We have the first of three Jr. Junior Ranger Programs at our farm today. Little Sprouts will run today and Saturday and for kids 4-6 and will teach them all about seeds and how they grow. At the end they will get to plant a tomato or pepper in the field.

The third program is in September and then the program will based on harvesting in the field and trying what are picked. Potatoes, tomatoes, beets and more are on the schedule for then...

But I thought I'd mention on the blog that there is still space for this Saturday's program at 1:30! If you have a child in this age, consider the program, we had great fun last year...

Cool in Cleveland?

My husband claims that I am not cool. He goes as far to say that "There is not even enough cool in a Harley to make you cool." And, I fear, he is not alone in this opinion. There have been plenty of times in my life when I bottomed out the "cool-meter," but lets not talk about high school Star Trek conventions and memorizing first air dates for original episodes in their star date equivalents! Let's pretend that was someone else... (I have perhaps shared to much!)

So imagine my surprise when I was listed in Cool Cleveland this week in there "Emissions from the Blogsphere" (scroll way down...) But then flame throwers are always cool! I'll need to get a video of my husband flaming at night and post that, talk about cool! My hubby may claim that it is he who wields the flame thrower while I man-handle the propane tank (not nearly as cool) but I'll take my cool where I can get it...

Flame weeding

Weeding with flame the only way to go... One of our new toys...

Take a look at this video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14DVs6alR-Q With our little torch we weeded inbetween all our rows in our small field in a little over an hour. With a hoe or our small walk behind tiller it would have taken a day...

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Hold on market for a while...

This weather has been pretty annoying to us this year. The picture is of bolting lettuce...

Just when things were starting to grow a heat wave hit and all of our nice spring stuff is done. Our radishes turned to disgusting pithy hollow balls, our broccoli rabb bolted, and lettuce turned bitter. The good news is the turnips, beets, squash, beans, and the like seem to be loving it, not to mention the tomatoes and peppers!

There will be lots of yummy food this year, but not this weekend. So we have decided to stop doing market for a few weeks. This will give our stuff a chance to grow a little more without us having to pick baby stuff for market and fearing that our members will get short shifted their first week.

Speaking of the first CSA week. We will be announcing it to an email to our members this weekend! It will be really soon, but not next week. Our season may start a little slow, but before long their will be more produce then they know what to do with!

We are seriously eyeing a nice big hoop house which will give us a place to grow earlier crops for everyone next year! But we know that our season will be a good one,and we thank all our members for hanging in with us...

Update on the PD article

A friend contacted them about us and they said we had not answered our phone when they tried to call us. We do not have an answering machine on our home phone as we always use our cells, and recently between our jobs and farm chores are seldom inside the house during daylight, unless it is raining! Most people contact us on email, or else our cells. I'm not sure where they would have gotten our home phone as we do not list it anywhere. If they contacted the Cuyahoga Conservancy the number they have for us are our cells, and that is what they always give people... No one attempted to contact us by email.

In any case that was not the only error/omission in the article. Poor Crown Point! If anyone is wondering they do NOT require members to work 30 hours a week! They do offer a working share where members receive a discount in exchange for working on the farm some during the season, but it is not 30 hours a week!

Thanks to everyone for their support of our farm.

Rain and plants...

Yesterday we saw the rain was coming (2.5 inches expected in next 2 days) and it was a mad race to get more stuff in the ground. The soil temperature was (finally!) warm enough to feel safe putting in our untreated squash and pumpkin seeds, so it was going to be an evening of squash and pumpkin planting!

But then I got home and there was a box on my doorstep. 200 sweet potato slips (plants)! I was really beginning to wonder if our order had been lost as we were supposed to get them (I thought) 2 weeks ago! But there they were and they had to go in then, as 2 inches of rain will make it hard to plant very much for a week... So it was a change of plan.

With the help of my sister (who is visiting) and my 5 year old niece (who is a sweety pie and very patient) we put in the sweet potatoes. Then a quick look at the weather on our cells said there was only a 20% chance of rain in the next 24 hours (80% in 48) so poor hubby went and got the hoses and dragged them out to the field. We typically do not need to set up our irrigation this early in the year, but we will in the next couple weeks, this has been a strange weather year and we need to be more prepared.

S0 1000 foot of hose came out, not quite long enough, so he spent an hour watering the starts with a bucket while my sister and I put in hundreds of feet of winter squash and pumpkins! He said when we were done he never thought he'd own that much hose, and he NEVER imagined if he did he'd want more!

The 5 year old alternated who she was helping, but I think her favorite was stepping on the seed holes and dropping seeds in the planter, although anything she can do with her Uncle is always fun...

We started around 6:30 and got done at 9:15. Then watered the starts still being hardened off in the barn, took care of the baby chicks, and was inside the house by 9:45 or so. Feed the kids a very late supper (they had snacked and we had a late lunch (2:30)) and I was in bed around 11:30. Yawn...

Woke up this morning and was out the door at 5:59, to be at my office by 6:30. And the past week of days like this are getting me! I NEED to get to bed before 11, at least once, or else I will fall asleep at my computer! When I woke up it was raining, and I felt horrible that hubby had spent so much time watering by hand! But if we had woken up to sun and it had not rained until 1 or 2 in the 80 degree weather those sweet potatoes would have been cooked!

I am having a great time visiting with my sister and nieces, I took afternoons off all week so I can be home by around 1 to go do something with them... Yawn, again, long week... Maybe when I get home today I'll nap...

Rumors of our demise...

Yesterday the PD wrote a wonderful article on CSAs... Program guarantees fresh, local vegetables -- by contract written by Debbi Snook. They even furnished a list of local CSAs...

And in case anyone noticed an omission and is wondering, we are still here and kicking. Our season will start in a few weeks and we have 35 members for 2008.

Perhaps we were omitted because of our small size? But with 35 members, according to their list, we would be the fourth largest in the region. And CSAs with 4, 8, 10, 12, ect were mentioned.

Maybe it is because we are way out here in Summit county, in between Hudson and Cuyahoga Falls? But CSAs in Ashtabula, Geuaga, and Stark Counties were all mentioned. In fact one CSA is only a couple miles from us...

Maybe it is because we are so new to being a CSA? Actually, 2008 will be our fifth season of running one, making us one of the older ones in the region.

Maybe we were not listed because of our obscurity? But the article lists a source as the Cuyahoga Valley Countryside Conservancy (which they misspelled), and we are listed on their CSA list, as were a majority of those in the PD article. We are also listed on Local Harvest a major local food search site, and our website will pop up with a Google search for local CSAs...

Maybe we were not mentioned because we have never gotten any press before? But we have been mentioned in PD articles as a CSA at least twice, once when we were awarded the lease on our farm in the national park and once when our local Slow Food sent us to Terra Madre'.

Maybe it is because our CSA is full? But of the 17 farms listed 10 are listed as sold our or wait list only.

So in case anyone was wondering we are still here... We are thriving, and this is going to be our best season yet! Thanks to everyone who emailed to bring this to our attention, we appreciate your support of local food!

And in case anyone would care to there is a place to leave comments on the bottom of the PD's list...

First Market June 7th...

After much thought we have decided not to attend market this coming weekend (May 31.) Instead our first week will be June 7th. We just do not have much to offer, so we decided to hold off one more week.

Sorry for the inconvience this might have caused anyone, but we hope to see you on the 7th...

Market this weekend...

Our first market of the year will be on May 31rst! This coming Saturday 9-12.

What will we have, you may ask...

UM! I'm asking myself that as well...

The cool weather recently has really SLOWED down our crops. When in the middle of April we planted 18 day radishes we were worried that they would be ready before our first market. We were confident that our 30 day Broccoli-Rabb, our 34 day turnips ,and the 28 day cress would all be ready....

Now we are crossing our fingers that those 18 day radishes will make it!

We will have a little rhubarb (a little being the key word.) We will also have some tomato and pepper starts (some Ark of Taste varieties) and then their will be honey caramels!

But we will be there, so if we look particularly sad and pitiful standing there in front of an almost empty table, please come and visit with us a little...

• Countryside Farmers' Market at Heritage Farms
• Time: Saturdays 9 a.m.-noon
• Dates: May 31st — October 4th
• Location: Heritage Farms, 6050 Riverview Rd., Peninsula (south of Rt. 303 & Riverview Rd. intersection)

When it rains...

When it rains it...

Wait a minute, it didn't rain! After all the talk for a week of the "Memorial Day Storms!" we had exactly NO rain, and we were counting on it!

We put in a few thousand more feet of row crops (lettuce, carrots, beets, turnips, parsley, ect, ect), 300 more feet of potatoes, and hundreds of starts, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. And then we waited for the rain, which never came...

Farmer's Prayer:
Please let it rain,
But not to much...

So this morning poor hubby gets to water all of our transplants! As we have yet to expand our irrigation system (ouch, more money: seems to have been going out like water this year, thank goodness for my mom's kind gift and our CSA deposits!) he'll do it with old fashioned hoses...

Am I a softie?

So, I’m a softie, I admit it.

My niece loves chickens. Other girls want ponies. She wants chickens. Other girls talk about being doctors or teachers or anything else when they grow up. Anything other then the owner of a chicken food store, and maybe a chicken vet. She even wrote me a chicken book to keep at my house so when she is ready to open her store I’ll have it for her. Because, of course, the chicken store will be on my farm.

Because I think this is all so cute I just ordered absurdly expensive chickens for my niece which will be delivered next week. Expensive because I only ordered 5. Typically you have to order 25 chickens at a time, but I found one place that will ship boxes as small as 3 chicks! Catch is you have to ship them express and you have to pay a “small batch” fee of $25. This fee pays for a box with a little heating pad in it so the chicks stay warm in transit (why most hatcheries send them at least 25 at a time so they can keep each other warm!) So these 5 chicks cost as much as 25… almost.

So why would I pay so much for chickens. Well, my little chicken fanatic niece (5) is coming up to visit starting May 28th for about 2 weeks. Our order of 25 Dominique pullets is not due for delivery until around June 11th. Either they will just miss her or I will be sending home a very unhappy little girl who got to see chicks for only one day.

So my sister and I talked and I said I’d try to find chicks. I looked and looked for someone who had some locally with no luck, and then on a chicken message board (there are such things) where I was begging for chicks, I ran across a mention of MyPetChicken.com. A company that will sell fewer than 25 chicks! So I called and they actually had some pullets (female chickens) with availability next week! The catch of course being the cost, but what a great thing for someone who only needs a few! It really opens up chickens to people who could not get them before.

So my sister and I are splitting the cost and I will go pick them up and bring home the chicks, to a very surprised little girl (who’ll be the best aunt ever?) These are White Cochin and are on the Livestock Breeds Conservancy’s watch list so they fit with our goals of helping to preserve heritage breeds. The chickens will be hers, but they will live at my farm. I think my hubby thinks I am silly, but how often can you make a little girl’s fondest dream come true and for only half of $60?

Strange new theory on Colony Collapse...

This article is pretty scary...

In my day work we always recommend that clients install carbon dioxide sensors in conference rooms and other high occupancy areas so that if the CO2 level rises above 800 ppm the mechanical system of the building will bring in more outside air to lower that level to a healthier range.

This article suggests that bees are their own CO2 montoring system in their hives. Bees can sense CO2 and when the levels get to high they will adapt to try to lower it.

Is it possible that bees are sacrificing them selves to lower the CO2 in the hive? I kind of doubt this is the whole answer, because hives affected with CCD find only a few bees left... Certainly at some point of the CO2 induced exodus the remaining bees would sense a lower CO2 level. CCD hit in 2006-2007 the CO2 has not jumped that precipitously that more then a handful more bees would leave. Then also you would have expected to see much greater losses around major cities then you have...

But perhaps this is just one more thing, which in combination with mites, diseases, feeding with corn syrup (made with bt producing GMO corn), Israeli acute paralysis virus, increase pesticide use, trucking colonies thousands of miles a season, and all the rest have caused us to reach the tipping point for bees...

I have to say (KNOCK ON WOOD) we have yet to loose a hive to CCD, although we have lost 2 in the past 2 years to other causes. If bees are the proverbial canary in the coal mine I think they are warning us of many things wrong with our world, and CO2 is just one part of that... Before we reach a greater tipping point...

Lag in Posts and Workday...

We are NOT going to have a workday the coming weekend. There has just not been much intrest. It is a holiday weekend, of course! We will schedule more this summer...

Sorry, I have not posted much recently. The almost constant rain has kept us inside recently. The cold soil means nothing is growing fast! This week is supposed to see a warm up and a dryout so I'm sure we will have more to report soon!

Any one want to work?

We are thinking we will hold our first ever farm work day Sunday, May 25th... We realize that lots of people have things going on at this holiday weekend, but if only a handful of people are interested it will help us a ton!

This is still tentative and weather permitting. We are thinking of starting around 2:00 and going until around 5:00, or sooner if we get done...

If you plan on coming, or are thinking you might, please let us know, so we can coordinate with people and cancel at the last minute if the weather turns bad or it is to muddy to get onto the field! If you are bringing children please let us know so that we can send you a quick form to fill in. Please do not bring other people's children and just use your best judgement on if your kid is ready to help! Many of our seedlings are still tiny, so they need gentle hands to plant, discression to pull weeds and not seedlings, and care not to step on rows. I know several 5 year olds who would be great help, and many 8 year olds who would not be ready yet. There is no reason you have to stay the whole time, but we would like people to come all at 2:00 so we can talk to everyone and assign tasks at the same time.

This is just an email to determine interest, if we get none we will not do one, and if we get a ton we may need to reconsider how to do the event, so please do NOT show up at the farm unless you get a confirmation email from us! We will ask everyone to bring some basic stuff with them including a reusable water bottle for each person, gardening gloves, and boots (if it is muddy.)

Please email if you are interested to basketoflifefarm@yahoo.com. Let us know how man of you there are and if there are any kids and their ages. We are not planning on limiting this event to CSA members, but may need to if we have a strong response...

Hope to hear from you soon...

Why to grow slowly...

So many people ask us "If you have a long waiting list why don't you add more spots?"

We say that we are growing slowly and deliberately so we can be sure of the quality of what we give our members and can grow the amount that we need to provide fair, reasonable shares. We see growing slowly as a key to our long term success, although we could easily have taken 150-200 members this year (based on willingness of people to buy a share, not our ability to support that!) we are just around 35, which with also adding a farmers market will mean growing more then twice what we did last year.

Today I ran across this website for Covered Bridge Produce (please note, this is not the local Covered Bridge Farm.) They grew from 300 members in 2005 to 600 members in 2006 and were out of business before the end of the season, and sold their farm (one assumes from the site) in 2007.

We hope our farm will be sustainable for the long term. Embracing the triple bottom line; Planet (Environment), People (social), and Profits (Economic). We want to grow sustainable food, create a community around it, and support our family financially.

We do not want to be another story of a small farm that failed... Grow smart & grow slow until you know what you really can grow!