End-of-Season wrap-up

Spoiler alert, members who don't want to be biased on their survey may want to wait to read this post.

People ask me alot every year how the season was, and so I start thinking of answers practically as soon as the season starts, and usually in my mind then it has this character that is building and fairly unified, in short, the answer this year is "Weird" - weird in my book is neither positive nor negative. One example of this years weirdness was the tomatoes: once ours had generally made it past the blight, I think they were some of the best tasting we have had since farming in Vermont (4 years). That was extra weird cause alot of farms had none. On the other hand, our brasicaas did not do that well, which you might expect they would given the temps and weather. Lots of stuff was exactly as you would expect for a wet cool year, our parsley and spinach have done (and are still doing) really well, eggplant were a big bust - oh, I remembered another weird positive: melons. It might just be that I finally planted enough, but we finally had enough for all our members to get two, and I thought they tasted better than they ever have (for us). I always say melons are not my specialty, but I think I hit a few good Varieties that I will have to check my notes on and order again come January. Celery was also better, in part due to a new Variety and in part weather. Our garlic is also improving every year. Our seed for this year is the best I have ever seen it.And I think we have more of it than in previous years, so I am hoping this sets us up for an even better year next year.

This year was also weird because of our transition to new fields which had not been maintained in any way for the previous two years (ie lots of weed seed). This move has kind of set us up it what seems a more permanent configuration, permanent enough for us to have started our first perennial beds of rhubarb (which worked great from seed, and asparagus (which worked only so-so from crowns), we will be adding more of each in the coming years, hopefully providing extra goodies in the early weeks of the CSA.Here is the rhubarb, I even made a pot of jam or two at the end of the season, yeah!!

Now onto what we'll call the room for improvement section: as I already mentioned: brassicas were overall weak, basically due to weeds. In fact, without hopefully sounding silly, weeds were a larger problem than they should have been this year, alot of that is weather related (if its always raining its hard to hoe), alot is the fact that we almost doubled our size, some part is that our new aforementioned field was full of seed, another part was our lack of working members, and another large part is a lack of a system for staying on top of a farm the size of the current Open Heart. The good news is I think alot of that is do-able, and that eliminating even 25%-50% of those weeds would make an extreme difference in the crops, and, that even just the regular tilling of the new field is vastly improving it, even for next year, because about half of our weeds there were rhizomatic (they spread via their root systems in addition to seed head), and I have been fairly vigilant about breaking those up. Irrigation was also way more of an issue than I hope it will ever be again (those kinks are mostly ironed out even now.)

Other improvement areas?!?! despite planting probably about 33% more carrots than last year, I could probably still double the amount and use them easily at CSA pick-ups and at market. I'm still having a hard time figuring out how early you have to plant that last planting of beets and carrots. This year was a good object-lesson in how growth can potentially slow to a halt right around sept 15th, that is what you should count on and then if you get Oct 15th youre ahead of the game. Winter squash (esp pumpkins) didn't do that well, mostly cool weather on that one (and when I say this I think I'm referring to a summer that was basically between 5-10 degrees cooler than the average, and especially never had a real scorching week)). That said, there also remains a tension (I think) of how many winter squash to give the CSA members. This crop is a real space eater, so on a four acre farm I would feel silly having a half acre of squash but . . .

Overall, I'm rating this year as slightly below average, just in terms of gross production. That said, I actually feel better about the farm as a whole than I did at the end of last year, when all the growing had seemed a bit easier. Maybe I enjoy the idea that I learned alot.

And to think, it's not all over yet, come see me at the Shelburne Winter Market on Oct 31st.

The BVT

This recipe is adapted from Elongo Dev's (of Digger's Mirth) JFK sandwich. I have been craving one and we happen to be giving out many if not all of the farmy ingredients for it in this weeks share:

one baguette
wilt turnip greens in olive garlic and one chopped cayenne pepper (you can go hotter if so desired)
place that hot cooked green mixture onto the baguette which already has thinly sliced provolone and procuttio (sp) or hard salami. If you are not a meat person, add some strips of tofu in the early part of the garlic cayenne cooking and some sea salt.

I like simple recipes that I will actually make, and tunip greens are one of my favorite this time of year, especially as I am (we all are) getting sick of chard and kale. By the way, I totally forget or never knew how that sandwich got its name, so if you see

If you are looking for something fun to do with the turnips themselves, may I suggest Irish Stew, which I have been having a real hankering for as well.

Here are some pics from a little earlier in the season:



tomatoes at their height


sunflower from the kids garden (some things did manage to work there (I even found some acorn squash there last week)


Nick holding a heart shaped potato, does pitch fork farm find pitchfork shaped ones?

Autumn, & the best tomatoes

Let me start with the last part first.

I think the best tomatoes of this year have been the pink (eva purple ball, brandywine) and the black ones (paul robeson, nyagous, and cherokee purple), with orange being a runner up, leaving the red ones suprisingly in the dust. To explain a little, I'll add that different tomatoes fair better on different years. There are probably a lot of factors, like soil ph and minerals, weather, and others. My theory on this years major factor is when we got our rain and the quality of light (ie not much sunshine overall). The final results have let this tomato year be not too bad for us, tho i suspect the ought nine season will be generally remembered over Vermont as the season of the blight.

Now, on to Autumn. My friend from college andrew was in town and helping us on friday with the harvest and mentioned that his favorite Keats poem was "To Autumn," well, I read it, and if ever there was an inverse equation to a picture is a thousand words here it is

TO AUTUMN

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

definitely one of those the more things change the more they stay the same moments for me, tho i guess we are all going to have to look up garden-croft.

Summer in Vermont 2

O that question mark of the last blog post seems a distant memory. We've had our heat wave, and to look at the long range cast that would be it for summer, but we'll see - I think we've all learned Vermont can thrrow a few weather curve balls. Well, despite the blight we've been fortunate to be giving out tomatoes for a few weeks, and I suspect we will get a few more weeks of them before all is said and done.

This has been our best year for melons (something that just hasn't worked well for us in the past), that said I feel like there is a lot of room for improvemnt on the productivity end, ie it would be nice if members got melons two weeks instead of one.

For those who have not heard via email, we are having a potluck down in the intervale this saturday, come one come all, members and friends past and present. It's at five at the community barn right after gardener's supply.

The camera is now in the truck, so now alls i got to do is take some pics, of our sun flowers or zinnias for instance.

Other things on the horizon: different greens (yeah): I seeded mustard, boc choi, arugala, and we have a bunch of collards and cabbage in the ground. Furthermore, the fall brassicas are looking fairly good. Also seeded turnips and the last (hard to believe) bed of carrots.

Yep, more updates soon?

Summer? in Vermont

Blog entries a month apart, the surest sign this year that it is actually summer. It seems that temps have been an average of 5 degrees cooler than last year or so. This said, most plants keep chugging along, possibly a little slower, but things as a whole are actually starting to look even more in control (ie neater) at Open Heart Farm. The weather turned what was seeming like a loser of a pea season into an about average one.

The weather has also played a major role in the largest farm story of this year. Late Blight on tomatoes. Let me first assure all members and well-wishers that our tomatoes look amazingly healthy (knock on wood) - and while they, like alot of stuff, are seeming a bit late, I hope that we will have a nice warm fall and a long tomato season. That said, this dark humid cool weather is the absolute most conducive weather for late blight, which as I understand it is a bacteria that travels on the wind, up to fourty miles a day.

What happened to make this the year for late blight? The aforementioned weather was necessary, but it was all helped by the big box stores selling tomato starts from South Carolina. Like I said, once your plants are within a few miles of your neighbors tomatoes, there is cause for concern.

One thing thaat I think has kept our tomatoes so nice looking is the compost tea that we spraying about three weeks before this news hit the scene: it brewed for two weeks with stinging nettle tops and horse tail, two high-silica plants (along with other attributes I don't know). This year has me appreciated the possibilities of biodynamic farming more than ever. The organic alternative is copper sulfate, which isn't all that bad for people, but is more covering the plant than giving it health, and leaves me potentially washing all our tomatoes.

I'll try to bring the camera today, and post again before the month is out.

The tendril end of spring

On these last days of Spring 09, a spring I have much enjoyed, I offer a poem by DH Lawrence (well, an excerpt anyway) in praise of non-summer, pre-summer, the just-before-the-frenzied-showiness-of-summer time, in praise of this time which yet offers on occasion a little bit of shadow and sluggishness(...and peas!)

Grapes

So many fruits come from roses
From the rose of all roses
From the unfolded rose
Rose of all the world.

Admit that apples and strawberries and peaches and pears and blackberries
Are all Rosaceae
Issue of the explicit rose,
The open-countenanced, skyward-smiling rose.

What then of the vine?
Oh, what of the tendrilled vine?

Ours is the universe of the unfolded rose,
The explicit
The candid revelation.

But long ago, oh, long ago
Before the rose began to smile supreme
Before the rose of all roses, rose of all the world, was even in bud

Before the glaciers were gathered up in a bunch out of the unsettled seas and winds
Or else before they had been let down again, in Noah's flood,
There was another world, a dusky, flowerless, tendrilled world
And creatures webbed and marshy,
And on the margin, men soft-footed and pristine
Still and sensitive, and active,
Audile, tactile sensitiveness as of a tendril which orientates and reaches out,
Reaching out and grasping by an instinct more delicate
than the moon's as she feels for the tides.

Of which world, the vine was the invisible rose.
Before petals spread, before colour made its disturbance,
before eyes saw too much.
In a green, muddy, web-foot, utterly songless world
The vine was rose of all roses.
There were no poppies or carnations
Hardly a greenish lily, watery faint.
Green, dim, invisible flourishing of vines
Royally gesticulate.

Look now, even now, how it keeps its power of invisibility!...

The grape is swart, the avenues dusky and tendrilled,
subtly prehensile,
But we, as we start awake, clutch at our vistas
democratic, boulevards, tram-cars, policemen.
Give us our own back
Let us go to the soda-fountain to get sober.

Soberness, sobriety.
It is like the agonised perverseness of a child heavy
with sleep, yet fighting, fighting to keep awake;
Soberness, sobriety, with heavy eyes propped open.

Dusky are the avenues of wine
And we must cross the frontiers, though we will not
Of the lost, fern-scented world:
Take the fern-seed on our lips
Close the eyes, and go
Down the tendrilled avenues of wine and the other-world.

kids garden and more

Our members are in full swing. when we arrived this afternoon there were a few picking flowers and herbs (the herbs remain weedy, but I think we have Hannah and working share members devoted to this task next week). So, new this year, a sign to help you actually get Chez Nous, it was done by Lee, a grad student who we worked with some last year. It looks wonderful and we are psyched to have a more permanent sign (don't worry, it wasn't us who cut down that tree it is attached to, thats a whole 'nother long blog post).





Here are said flowers. The cosmos are the only thing out yet, except for the one sunflower, which I see someone got (I'm very happy it seems like people are going to come down for some flowers this year because); we have a pretty large bed of zinnias on the way, along with some bachelor buttons, statuc and maybe globe amarant if they made it through the frost. In any case, this little rain should be speeding everything along.





Here we have Ciaran hard at work in the Childrens (or Kid's) Garden. Today he put in a few cherry tomato plants and some husk cherries (pictured below), which are a child pleaser, and a Josh pleaser, a nice sweet fruit, related to tomatillos (which we are also growing for the first time this year), which have a taste that I just cant describe, and look cool.

CSA 2009 reminder!!!

Just in case you forgot!!

OPEN HEART FARM CSA 2009 starts NEXT WEEK!

That is, Monday, June 8 for members picking up in the SOUTH END at CHAMPLAIN Elementary.

Thursday, June 11 for members picking up in the NORTH END at HO Wheeler school.

Pick-ups run from 4-6:30pm. Please bring shopping bags if possible. Also, if you want to recycle plastic shopping bags, we will take them for us with the CSA or for our stand at the Shelburne Farmers Market.

BERRY CARDS will be distributed next week. Adam will be sending out emails as each batch of berries become available for picking. (Just in case you don't know: strawberries first, then blueberries towards mid-July, then raspberries late August). STRAWBERRIES are rumored to be opening "June 10th-ish."

Re: flowers and herbs. Chives, peppermint, "regular" mint, and cosmos are currently open! If you'd like to pick some, give us a call at 881-8125, as we haven't yet posted signage but we'd like to help you help yourself!

If you have any questions, please call or email us at openheartfarm@yahoo.com.

See you soon!!

RD summer 09 chronicle 01

Ciaran made his first trip to the farm about a week ago. Luckily, I chose a day when we had the good fortune to be witness to lots of Josh-on-tractor business, specifically, Josh laying down almost 20 rows of bio-mulch for tomatoes, melons, winter squash. Fun with big loud machinery!

...the fact of thinking about winter crops pre-June used to startle me some, but I guess after 7 years of farm-season scheduling, not so much anymore...

Ciaran, however, is startled and engaged with almost anything outside at this point. Earlier this spring, we had a crash course in birdology and we found the Cornell website to be fantastic for many indoor-birding pleasures:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1189

Baba and Joshers had to reel-in the monitor-watching, though. No more than 7 minutes in one sitting. But we got very familiar with red-wing blackbird, chickadee, blue jay, cedar waxwing, pileated woodpecker, goose, turkey, robin, cardinal, mourning dove, mockingbird, crow, gull..(also chickens ducks and sheep on YouTube). Ciaran has startled me all spring by identifying many of the birds we heard and saw online while walking down the street or playing in Leddy or Ethan Allen Parks, or even just in our parking lot or outside our window (many blue jays and robins).

Being able to go outside, though has made our computer searches for wildlife a thing of the past. Though some may think it odd or even crazy, I leased a small plot at the Starr Farm Community Gardens, and C and I do our thing there a couple times a week, just a quick jaunt down North Ave. So far we've put in morning glories, beans, zinnias, and are to plant corn, sunflowers, some tomatoes and husk cherries today. Whatever. It's nice to have a whatever garden.

Though, the farmy farm will quickly become The Place To Be. Plans for a children's garden are in the making, to include fun flowers and edibles in the landscape, shady spots, a water cooler, digging implements and insect havens. Of course, more birds.


But for the day, our work is done.

Farm Share

Wanted to say a brief word about NOFA's Farm Share Program, since this is the second year running they have supported us in helping someone who couldn't otherwise afford it, get vegetables from our farm. Um, I've basically explained the whole gist of the program. It's not complicated, just great. They even keep a little bank of donations made by our farm members to go directly to other people who want to become our farm members, then NOFA has paid the difference that cannot be met. Just one of the programs they organize, and if you haven't checked out their site, they organize lots of programs, for farmers, gardeners, and eaters of Organic food. Every year they also hepl organize small farms like ours into a bulk order to make thinks like chicken manure and cover crops more affordable.

OUR ROAD IS MUCH BETTER!!! - I also wanted to get that out there. I know this has been a deterent for people wanting to cut flowers, so I am excited that the ride will be less bumpy, and that it may help the farm be a more open space for everyone. We have already planted two beds of flowers, including tons of Zinnias and Sun-Flowers, cosmos, bachelor buttons, and more. I also am planning a little kids garden with husk cherries, a delicious little fruit each wrapped in its own paper lantern, so . . .

So, I probably mentioned our new shed before, but if you haven't seen it, it is an eye-popper. The shed and paint job is courtesy of Kolya, who ran Troika farm for two years on the piece of ground open heart is moving onto (which is adjacent to the original piece, which I should mention we are keeping. We are just adding his piece to come to an approximate 3.5 acres. The addition is mostly to aid us in cover cropping and rotation, ie general soil health.). We have a very pretty layout now so I encourage all to visit.

This second picture is of our red gold see potato. I haven't planted red golds for the past few years, but had a hankering for them and hence we shall (I hope). In worse potato news, Adirondack Blue seed from Johnny's was recalled due to fusarium wilt. I really liked both the flavor and yeild of it, but, them's the breaks, and we will try all blue, which is more of the standard one, and I'm sure will taste fine. You can be the judge.

In the ground are onions, spinach, asparagus, carrots, parsnips, chard, and maybe one or two other things. Planting season is upon us, and lots of the rest of things will be going out in the next two to three weeks. Open Heart's field help is starting early this year, Rrahke, who I have no current picture of, has already put in a few hours, and is the only reason we are remotely close to on schedule. Enjoy the Weather.

The photos I spoke of, the new van, Adam's Berry Card Update, and possibly more

So, I found my camera, and now you can see if my description of them at all matches the mental image you conjured up from my attempts at description:


The First Spring Rain
The Accidentally Well-Dried Peppers



And this is the new OH Van. It is not the traditional farmer model, and yes, it did come with an oriental rug and futon inside. I bought it so that we could expand our CSA and possibly Shelburne market. The Toyota that you see next to it was basically bursting at the seams every week. I can't help but mention that the Creampuff, as our mechanic calls it, saved our butts the past two years and was the generous gift of Shana and Seth, who since then are have had two babies, James & Zephyr. Thanks to you and any Haines' born in the future.


We have a bit more of a fleet than I ever would have guessed, but . . .

News about Adam's berry cards, they are going to go up in price, and I will have to retroactively refund or get a few bucks, this is mostly due to my eagerness to get the brochure out. Just wanted to let anyone who bought one or was thinking about it know, definitely a solvable problem.

Just reposting the link to the Brochure: http://www.intervale.org/programs/agricultural_development/documents/OpenHeartCSAbrochure.pdf

and rachel and ciaran with the last of the snow

Spring Rain

I know blogs are supposed to have pictures, but in the spirit of the prologues in King Henry 5, let my words paint the pictures (and, because I have temporarily (hopefully) misplaced my camera): the first picture is a wet shimmering dark street, the shimmers are neon signs on the glistening on North Street, taken from our apartment during the first Spring Rain. Now when I go down to the Intervale to water plants, or to the parks with Ciaran, I see litile sprigs of green grass, as opposed to the snow of a month ago, and the straight brown of 2 weeks. I think its going to cool down a little, but this warmth is making me think i should be tractoring and mulching our new asparagus beds.

The second picture was of some found objects in the greenhouse, where I spend most of my farming hours right now: three or four dried yellow and red peppers. not perfectly dried. but I had just left them on the table over the winter. two kinds, the long red cayenne and the ho chi minh. definitely inspired me to more intentionally dry this year. It kind of strikes me that the theme of this season might be intentionality. Last year we kind of sailed through the season by our lucky or graced seat pants. I feel like its going to be more planned and effective work this year that really pays off, But as they say in the Ivory Coast: on va voir.

Well, I bet now your hoping I find my camera as much as I, for I'm no Shakespeare with the images, which, when I find my camera I will stick up, and you'll go wow!

Important CSA news: we are filling up steadily. If you are interested I would think of the next two or three weeks as a very good time to sign up, see a link to our brochure below.

Farm News

After a slow start things are really picking up quick regarding our membership. Kinda mirrors the weather, huh. I also noticed that someone has found a way to spam blogs via the comments. Oh well.

The onions are up, I'll get a picture on Tuesday.

I wanted to say a few words about Biodynamics w/r/t Open Heart Farm. It seems timely, because I am getting more involved in certain aspects of Steiner's philosophy (for more on Rudolph Steiner click now) I realize how un-deep I am in to some of it, at least as of yet. The farm does plant by the cycles of the moon and use two very simple versions of compost tea. I'm realizing as I describe this that you kind of have to know what's lacking to understand that Open Heart is a loose interpretation. Many biodynamic preps call for very specific measurements of like up to ten or more things, some of which could be powdered alminum, ground bone of importantly different animals, certain plants at special time of the year (that's the part we come closest to). Anyways, didn't want to give any false impressions that we did the steer horn. I have my own ill-informed beefs with Anthroposophy and Biodynamic which basically come down to not being local enough. I feel, nay, guess, that, for instance, Steiner didn't take into account the sheer amount of electro-magnetics we are dealing with, especially in urban ag.

I think the Flack Family may practice a few more of these things, but one thing I wanted to stress, is that I bet all farms use a combination of proactices that are all their own. Even alot of conventional farmers do one or two things that are technically organic, or are intentionally a hybrid.

Um, maybe more on t his topic later.

For those looking to a link to our CSA flyer, it is in the post below. We still have shares available.

So, this is what it looked like the day we started seeding in the greenhouse this year. I could pretend I'm surprised, but a quick look back at blog posts from previous seasons will show similar pictures. In fact, last year there were quite a few more inches. So far I have done about half of the alliums (leeks, onions, shallots). Things seem to be progressing smoothly, if slowly.

Looking back at the blog I saw that Spencer from Half Pint Farm found out that Johnny's is not in fact owned by Monsanto, which is good to know, and I'm happy to have the facts straight. They do still sell seminis seeds, which I think (now I'm realizing I'm not even sure of this) is owned by Monsanto, that is some, not all of there seeds. It should also be said for Johnny's that they have developed alot of award winning seeds through breeding, bright lights chard being an example of one that I use on the farm. Anyways, all to say that the relationships between these entities are probably not as black and white as I would have them be.

In other news, I just did my first winter sport ever today, cross country skiing. Uh, I fell alot, despite being on perfectly flat ground. But it was fun.

Have to include this one of Ciaran looking so grown up.