21st century

Don't want to blow everyone's mind with too many advances at once, but OHF has moved online in a big way.

For one, we have a website www.openheartfarm.com - the blog will still very much exist, and be the day to day week by week go to, but the website has the brochure also, but maybe even more amazing, at least to me, is you can now buy your open heart veggie shares with your credit card or paypal account.  It is a basic site that may over time include recipes and more stuff, but for now it has our asic info with a few fun features, and looks great, I have to thank Eva Us who is doing it for us and did everything to make it look wonderful.

In even another piece of tech news from the farm, we are officially a google place, which I wanted to do mostly so people could more easily get directions, so let me know if it at all helps with that.  It was a bit of a process, but I have to admit I got into it and can understand how people get into the powers of technology, even tho i am generally a book reading tape listening to guy.

Actual Farm, like on the real earth news: you all know it too: we will be in the ground at least a week earlier than normal and maybe too.  The goal is actually not to get too far ahead of ourselves I think.  Not that there will be a frost or anything, at least I don't think so.  Just don't want to over-extend or have my peas before the CSA starts, actually maybe more of an issue with the spinach, maybe we will for the first time for us, have to spring sowings of spinach, which would be exciting.

Brochure still is on sidebar, hope you all like the website and please comment and let me know what it could use.

Next time: to organic or not, and why I mulch with lots of leaves

Poor Man's Fertilizer

Poor Man's Fertilizer is a spring snow once the ground is already thawed.  Ours is a little bit, so I'm hoping to get some of the positive effects, which mostly come from the higher nitrogen content in snow.  So these past few snows have been nice for me.  Even went to the Burlington Country Club hill for the first time with Ciaran.  Rachel and I both survived a few rides.  Ciaran, as per usual had to be dragged away from the action.

But I digress, the whole fertilizer thing was making me think of a few things people may not know about our farm in particular and farms that grow organically in general, especially with regards to the soil.  One of the organic mantras is "feed the soil" - keep the soil healthy and you'll be in good shape.  Mostly in the past I did that strictly though compost, which supplies lots of organic matter, but is also rich in other nutrients.  Now trying to balance that with green manure more, as I believe I mentioned in earlier posts.  But we also do use fertilizers.  Ours aren't made from petrochemicals, instead mostly from two sources: pasteurized chicken manure and various forms of seaweed.  Actually, luckily for us, the are made locally by a great company: North Country Organics.  Even when I was farming in Long Island, we had pallets of their cheep cheep (I know, cute name) basic chicken manure mix sent to us.

This year we are in really good shape, after the floods we did lots of soil testing and one thing it revealed (besides a lack of toxins) was the all our fields had an average of about 3.4% organic matter.  That is fairly good.  5% is ideal, really don't want to go that much over that I don't think, and under 2.5 - 2.25% you start having significantly less fertility.  So that plus a little poor man's fertilizer and things are looking good, as far as the ground is concerned, at OHF.

Working Members

As we start to get our members for this years farm season together I wanted to remind everyone of the working member option.  We have three working member slots this year.  Traditionally, a working member comes out to the farm and works a few hours for 12 weeks out of the season, and gets a discount on the farm share.  It is ideal for those interested in getting a bit closer look at the farm and how it works, and being part of that.  There is a less dirty way of being a working member though: we have in the past had "recipe members" who have dedicated themselves to finding one good recipe a week to match up with what we are giving out in the share.  Look back in the archive for some great recipes (and an idea of what we had available each week).

We also have working members with special talents like photography.  Last year Monica Donovan took these wonderful photos.  Those tomatoes look like they are glowing, I can practically taste them.  Monica specializes in photos of people working, especially rural work, so the working membership made perfect sense.

In Farm News:  I know its early, and I hate to break it to everyone, but, winter is over, so I went down to the field for the first time just to check-in.  There is still ice in spots, but the winter rye cover crop is definitely up, and the peach and pear trees are starting to look alive again.  (These fruit trees are all just a few year old but I think we might get a few pieces of fruit this year.)  Rhubarb and asparagus and garlic all dormant still, but my guess is three weeks before things start looking green.

No matter what the temp it is just a week and a half until we start seeding onions.  I hope to mulch some or all of them this year, but that will be dependent on how much mulch the perenials and garlic take up.  Mulching once sounds so much better than hoeing 5 times, and leaf mulch is so good at keeping them moist.  It would be our first time doing that at the Intervale, though it was standard practice at our previous farm.

A link to our brochure for the coming year, enjoy the weather.

broken up garlic that will be planted for next crop

 

O Bread

Wanted to share this article on O Bread.  I found there bread first at the Shelburne farmers market where OHF goes on Saturdays, and have been eating it ever since.  This is the second year they are working with us to supply a bread share, which is, not to overstate the obvious, one loaf of bread delivered to you each week, at the same time as you get your veggies from us.  Delicious bread at a reasonable price, kinda like what we are going for with the vegetables.

Here is a link to the article in the Shelburne News:
http://www.shelburnenews.com/news/article/current/2012/02/01/102929/vermonts-artisan-bread-pioneers-o-bread

 As always this time of year, remember the link to our brochure is on the sidebar to your right!

Yeah! our new Brochure is up!

Hi everyone, if you are interested in a share for 2012 click on the permanent link on the sidebar to download or print our brochure.

This front cover painting is by local artist Jesse Azarian.  It was part of an show at Rose Street Artist Co-op where I live, and as soon as I saw it, I thought, "this would be awesome for the brochure."

We are so excited to start the season.  I feel like we have already hit the ground running and that the season has too.  Even though it's cold the gears feel like they are already turning.  I know all farmers are taking this time to make sure all their ducks are in a row, and this year's OHF mantra might just be "ducks in a row" - in the world of farming that means put on row cover right after sowing the seed, pick off potato beetles once a week, etc., just a little extra attention to detail.  Easy to say, right.  I think we at Open Heart are going to try to make it happen by hiring a few more hours of help.  Part of the desire to emphasize this this year is just about the learning curve of farming.  This is my eleventh year, each year picking up bits here and bits there, and alot of those bits are starting to fit together to make one whole puzzle. A delicious puzzle.

Anyway, check out our brochure, and if you have any questions feel free to call that number on the side as well.

New Stats to look for

As most of you have looked at the blog for a few years know, I regularly check the river page to see what level the Winooski is at, this year, I, and surely lots of other farmers, are looking at these numbers, particularly the snowfall for the season and month.  The numbers tell a good deal, but not all of the story.  They tell us that we have 29 inches less snow than last year this time, which is more than 50% less, or probably more importantly, even if it started snowing at the record rates of last year, we would have still 25% less than last year, and hence signigantly less flooding.  If we hang out at average or the  even less than average that we are getting so far we could even be looking at some early starts, like we had in the 2010 season.  Some of this number crunching is just too much time in the winter, but still, a good way to plan how much one should try to get on the highest ground one has, and to look ahead and say, maybe we will be in the greenhouses a week earlier than last year, so get ready.

heres the link in case you want to watch along with me: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=ICAO:KBTV&almanac=1

 Burlington International, Vermont (KBTV)

Weather Almanac for January 19, 2012

	Actual	Normal	Record	Last Year
Yesterday:
Max Temperature	44°	27°	53° (1996)	31°
Min Temperature	9°	10°	-24° (1974)	11°
Precipitation	0.00 "	0.07 "	1.61 " ( 2006 )	0.21 "
Month-to-date precip.	0.93 "	1.19 "	--	1.19 "
Year-to-date precip.	0.93 "	1.19 "	--	1.19 "
Snowfall	0.0 "	0.6 "	9.7 " ( 1978 )	2.1 "
Month-to-date snowfall	8.1 "	12.2 "	--	21.0 "
Season-to-date snowfall	20.1 "	35.5 "	--	49.3 "
Heating degree days	38	47	--	44
Month-to-date heating degree days	754	831	--	785
Since 1 July heating degree days	3010	3590	--	3569
Since 1 Jan cooling degree days	--	--	--	--
Maximum humidity: 86%, Minimum humidity: 45%, Average humidity: 66%																													P.S. for those looking for the brochure I will be getting it ready for the end of January beginning of Feb.

Seeds are coming in

As with most years I start ordering seeds with the new year, which seems appropriate.  Well, they are already coming in, probably mostly in by the end of the week, which means the next step will be organizing them. (Reminds me of another thing I like about farming, one step seems to so naturally lead you to the next.  You take care of a plant for a while, then you harvest from said plant for awhile.  It's probably just as natural in other jobs but I couldn't always figure it out).  After that I will get on to making this years brochure . . . before you know it greenhouses.

But to savor the moment a little, there are some seeds I am excited about this year.  Mostly tomatoes.  Because I have access to hoophouses this year I was able to bring back a few I had given up on.  Pinapple, above, is one of those striped ones that I love but are just too darn big and cracky to get reliably in the field.  Most of these striped ones (like gold medal) are pretty sweet but large enough to have some nice complex tomato flavors as well.  Dad's Sunset was just too nice looking and such a great name couldn't pass it up.  I have one other orange tomato, Valencia, that is pretty, but I've never been one hunred percent satisfied with it's flavor.  Other tomatoes I'm bringing back for a run in the hoophouses are Cherokee Purple, which in the field always had a week or two of nice early ones but then were worthless, and Brandywine, which I was truly contemplating giving up before I secured our land at South Village (where our hoophouses are and a chunk of higher ground, the need for which, see earlier posts).  Brandywines really are as awesome as their reputation but I was getting two usable tomatoes a plant, maybe.  Even for field tomatoes I am going back to my old regime of using Serenade for a few weeks in the beginning, probably up until the time they set fruit.  It is an organic spray that I think can add about two or three weeks of life to the plants, and when you are talking tomatoes every week is worth it.  They're here and then they're gone.

Other veggies that I'm excited about: I just can't stop thinking of the peas.  I'll probably be dreaming about them tonight!

What I do during the Winter

my new book: Cloud Computing (this is the cover photo by Ciaran to your left) which I should warn you, should probably not be read if you want to have a more meaningful understanding of how cloud computing works, at lest in a technological sense, is available on SPD (small press distribution) and possibly amazon as well.

I started it last winter after what had been a pretty good farm season, which left me time to coach basketball, watch the kids and write some at night.  A year  and much tinkering later and voila. 

I do hope to do a reading or two before the next farm season starts in earnest.  hope you enjoy the book.  Did I mention it is perfectly sized for a stocking stuffer!

Gift Giving

My choices for gifts to give this season are:

1) non-material gifts such as giving to oxfam in someones name (we and some other families might even try to buy a goat for people in our kids names and explain it to them.)

2) cookbooks that you actually use and like, no one needs another untested dud cookbook, but there are a few (I've recommended them in the past so you can search that) that are eternally useful for vegetarians, carnivores and everything in between.

3) This is the one I'm most excited about, mesh produce bags.  Tempted to get a set for everyone in he csa.  Over the past year or two I've seen them cropping up more and more but definitely would like to reduce much more substantially the number of bags we use.  I haven't used them myself yet, so I'm not sure they are appropriate for absolutely every veg but . . . I did find them at gardeners, where, if you know me I've probably told you ten times, I work this season. 

anyways happy holidays, even if all the gifts you give are immaterial.

Big White Eraser

 Ciaran and Francis weren't the only ones shoveling snow this morning.  It seeme like every adult wanted to get out there and play in the white stuff, we just had to pretend a little, since it seems even mid-day the snow is starting to melt.  I felt like everyone was instantly happier with thoughts of: "This is what we Vermonters love to be doing."

Finally we can all move on, no more even talking about it, the snow is falling.

Beginning of the end of the year assessment

can you tell it's been a crazy year.  Where does one begin with assessment of this one.  Well, I'll begin and see how far I get today.

It was our lost year, the way Japan had a lost decade, as another farmer put it: Ctrl+Alt+Del.

That said I learned alot and alot is happening with the general Vermont ag scene that I think is going to make next year pretty darn interesting.

1)Things that don't seem to mind flooding at least on the Intervale soil where they can drain pretty qucikly:  Asparagus, garlic (to an extent), peach trees.  I'm not going to start a peach farm, but garlic and asparagus are something I am interesting in growing more of.  Their limited harvest window also makes them interesting to me.  Floods at certain times have no effect on them whatsoever.

2) did i tell you I figured out how to grow lots of chard far easier.  Probably cause ive told everyone, but for me this is pretty exciting. It takes less time to pick and is more plentiful.  space it in plugs and don't direct seed, just that simple.

3) good to have some higher ground.  no way around the fact that that's a plus. for me that could be alot places within the intervale or outside.  I am going to be farming some at south village next year.  probably about a half acre plus hoophouses.  so definitely alot of learning continuing.  Haven't dealt that much with clay soils or hoophouses, but I'm excited for the balance, and to see how the relationship grows.

4) this would have been learned in a normal year: deer fence works

5) I can grow corn.  I was scared to do this, just having never done it at Quail Hill where rachel and I apprenticed, but spurred by early losses I gave it a go, and half of the CSA did recieve pretty good corn (will be better next year cause actually planned for) before hurricane.  deer fence made this possible too.

6) Having a CSA is great.  Way beyond the money part, which obviously can't be overstated as important to our continued farming, our members were so supportive, and make me want to come back next year and give them the season they deserve.

More assessment, like limited results from the survey coming out to you next week, have a good thanksgiving!

Yeah Onions!

RACHEL'S READING POSTPONED!!

THE POETRY READING ANNOUNCED HERE FOR 7/10 AT THE FALLS GALLERY IN WINOOSKI HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES! PLEASE CHECK BACK FOR NEWLY SCHEDULED TIME (TBD)

THANKS!!

POETRY READING THIS SUNDAY!

(above image is a photo of Wreath, Anne Cummings, at the Top Gallery in Winooski, VT)



Please join us for a poetry reading this Sunday, 7/10, at 2pm in the Falls Gallery in Winooski!

Rachel will be reading from and talking about her recently-published poetry collection, Plasmos (Fifth Planet Press/3rdness Press). The reading is part of events for the Winooski Pop-Up Arts District, which runs through the end of July.

Get more details about the Pop-Up Gallery District here:

http://artmapburlington.com/winooskipops/


Read a little bit about Plasmos (and buy it at 40% off) here:

http://www.spdbooks.org/pages/events/summer_white_sale.aspx






Please join us!

New Life

 So these are the eggs of two killdeer that have been hanging out between two beds of leeks for the past two weeks. Forgot if I mentioned them.  Now the eggs are hatched so I could finally clean up that super grassy aisle, which was nice.  And the four chicks and the mom and pop (I guess are roaming around the farm chirping.  They are all so loud I almost feel like, "how can that be safe? Aren't hawks going to come eat you?"  But they probably have it figured out.

 

Well, we to have a sense of new life at the farm.  This week we had our first working members out and our crew (Jamie and Jeremy) were working longer, we hilled the potatoes and leeks.  Starting to seem like a normal season a little more, and I think there are even some chances for prosperous growing.  The leeks are a nice size already.  I'm really liking the hilling as a weed control method.  We will hill them one more time and hopefully have nice long white shanks.  Also had a nice farmer's market this weekend.

I think it's summer.    

Wild Ride

It's been a crazy few weeks down at the Intervale, and probably around most of the state, as far as agriculture goes.  It finally feels like things are starting to even out and normalize.  We (Jeremy, Jamie, and I) have been hoeing and re-hoeing things.  The soil is just so saturated with water that it is taking a few passes to kill most of the weeds, but kill them we shall.  It finally looks like we are not too far away from our first radishes, turnips, head lettuce and lettuce mix.  That plus beet greens and garlic scapes are looking like early staples this year.  We just put in our new chard, the first time I have ever grown it from plugs and in three rows, as opposed to direct seeding (the seeds go into the ground) and in two rows. 

That seems to be a theme so far this year.  Doing things in a different way that may in fact be better, and make us a significantly better farm over the next few years.  Other examples, you inquire.  Well, we put in an electric deer fence, something I normally wouldn't have thought we had time for but in the weird schedule of this year we do.  I'm hoping this means an extra planting of lettuce in the fall and no eaten winter squash (we would normally lose 10% or more of that and the melons), and also unmolested beans and fall carrots and beets.  We are also moving the hearb circle to higher ground and actually making it into a circle instead of rectangle.  Probably most exciting is the 150 asparagus plants which are doing fine.  If we could get two or three weeks of asparagus next year (it then increases about a week a year of harvesting I think) wouldn't that be sweet.

The first cosmos and zinnias are flowering, so come and get them.