All posts by Semra Fetahovic

Building a Raised Herb Bed

herb garden, raised bed

We continue to try to get the best out of our soil at the farm, but for some plants a heavy silt loam is never to their liking. Such is the case with some of our herbs. When we were in Upstate New York we seem to remember one tarragon plant growing as tall as your head in their sandy soil and being enough for the whole CSA. Our plants do not do as well, to say the least.

So we are building a raised bed for some of these herbs, in an attempt to make them happier. The soil mix we are trying is roughly 1/3 sand, 1/3 compost and 1/3 topsoil. A little wood ash, a quick mix, and voilà, an herb garden.

The other factor that helped us decide to try this out is that we are cleaning up an old pile of building stones from behind the barn as part of our farm beautification. These wonderful limestone blocks came from our barn’s old foundation wall that was replaced in 2004. While there is only a limited amount of stones, we may build another raised bed if this one proves beneficial.

Here is the stop action video of the project. A higher resolution version is available on YouTube

FSF to Host “Outstanding in the Field”

jonathan justus, outstanding in the field

We received some exciting news this week at the farm. We have been chosen (and agreed) to host an Outstanding in the Field dinner.

This program travels around the country, setting up their long dinner table in a farm field, while having a celebrated local chef serve up a farm inspired meal. Our event will be held July 24 (rain or heat or shine) with chef Jonathan Justus providing the meal. For more information on Justus Drugstore, the Restaurant read this New York Times article.

The tickets are $180 per person. You get the unique experience of dining in the field and eating arguably the best local food from the area’s most celebrated chef. Along with appetizers, wine parings, a five course meal you get a chance to rub elbows with real live farmers (that’s us!).

We receive a generous honorarium for hosting, and plan on putting some of it towards farm beautification. We like our scruffy side, it is proof that we are indeed a working farm busily producing food and not manicuring the grounds, but we don’t want to look too shabby for this celebrated event. To help with this we anticipate having a volunteer day or two as the date approaches to help showcase Fair Share Farm in the best possible light.

Spread the word. The folks at Outstanding in the Field say that tickets sell out quickly. We are looking forward to playing host to the region for one night’s dinner.

Tom and Rebecca

Is it Really Spring?

cold weather, nettles, seeding, spring

We are getting antsy to get going in the fields at Fair Share Farm, but the weather, and our farmer’s sense tell us, be patient. We have learned that a transplant in the greenhouse with warm roots will give us a healthier plant than one that gets set out into 40 degree soil. And while we’ve seeded some peas and spinach, it remains too cold and wet for much else.

And cold and wet is the word. For the next five days the warmest temperature we can expect is 45 deg F; and 4 of the next 5 nights will see temps in the mid to high 20’s. All are well below the balmy average of 60 deg F during the day and 40 deg F at night.

So we continue working in the greenhouse, and in the barn, and clearing brush, and planning, and whatever else we can do.


First day of Spring


Snow on the garlic Friday morning


Seeding the eggplant in mini-soil blocks


Stinging nettles, a Spring treat

March Farming

cold frame, electric tractor, greenhouse, ground staple

Activities are accelerating here at the farm as March passes the halfway point. In the greenhouse we have seeded a host of crops: onions, leeks, broccoli, cabbage, Asian greens, kohlrabi, lettuce, tomatoes, celeriac, kale, herbs and flowers. Our volunteers and interns, Shelly, Marlene and Lucas have been a great help.

Marlene seeding w/Momma kitty

Broccoli showing its true leaves
No more greenhouse for the onions. They are hardening off outside awaiting planting in about a week.

Lettuce, kale and leeks filling the cold frame

Cleaning the tools in prep of the season
Lucas taking a soil sample.
Recycle and Reuse at the Farm
Frugality is nothing new to this Missouri homestead. In our remodeling of the house and in other activities at the farm we often find scrap materials that were used in construction 4o or 50 years ago.

To live up to the waste not attitude of our forebearers, and satisfy our desire to keep plastic out of the trash, we have designed our own version of the “ground staple”. By cutting waste irrigation tubing in half, and punching two holes in it, we are able to make a ground staple that better holds down our row cover. It appears to be working well, and has the potential to save us a lot of time when putting out the row cover, as our alternative is to bury the edges (a tiresome and time consuming process.)

To top that, we are using them this year to tack down large sheets of waste greenhouse plastic on our cherry tomato beds to help warm the soil before planting in April. More on that in the future.
FSF ground staple
Warming the beds
Electric Tractor Update
At the end of last year our electric tractor was not acting as powerful as in the past. After some testing, it became apparent that 3 years of farming was all our batteries could take.
As we were hoping for 4 to 5 years we were a bit disappointed. Luckily our search for new batteries took us no farther than next door in Lawson, to Magnum Industrial Batteries. The folks there were helpful in providing us with an alternative design for our battery pack.
Instead of the six 8-volt batteries of our original system they suggested eight 6-volt batteries to achieve our required 48-volts. The 8 battery system cost the same as the 6 and has over twice the amp/hour rating, meaning we will have more overall life.
We installed the batteries on Tuesday and went to work cultivating on Thursday. The tractor performed like a charm, with enough power to draw the cultivators and disks through almost an acre of beds.
New battery pack

Cultivating in prep for planting

Continuing to Move Towards Spring

Uncategorized

The words of the day lately have been remodeling and greenhouse. We are wrapping up the remodel and getting our life back in order in the house. While the trim work and other jobs await us, we are now able to move our concentration back to farming.

Yesterday and today were filled with planting…cherry and determinate tomatoes, kohlrabi, pac choi, herbs, more broccoli. As the sun gets stronger and the fields dry out we get closer to the days when we can again work in the fields. The sunshine and warmth are most welcome.


Broccoli growing


Kale and lettuce growing well


Painting


More painting


Done except for trim (yeah!)

Valentines Day 2011

onion seedlings, snow

Happy Valentines Day to all. Here at the farm we are starting out with a warm cup of coffee to prepare for a day of renovation, before a Valentine evening.

The onion seeds are starting to sprout (yeah!) A moment that has been less tenative as we have become more proficient in the greenhouse. But nonetheless, it is always a beautiful sight to see healthy seedlings beginning their new life.

Out in the fields the snow continues to melt. The insulating blanket of a foot of snow was a great benefit during the cold spell, and now the melting snow is adding some much needed moisture to the soil. It will warm up, before cooling down again later in the week, which is just fine with us farmers. No need to rush the Spring and have things damaged by a late cold snap.

Starting the Greenhouse

onions, remodeling, seeding

We remain quite busy at the farm. When we’re not farming or remodeling we are using chain saws, log splitters, bobcats, tractors, trailers…and chains. Cutting, splitting and hauling wood through and around snow drifts is something that just has to be experienced. Lots of problem solving mixed with fresh winter air.

The main priority of the week, however, has been the greenhouse. We recieved our humified compost from Microleverage (of Sedalia) on Saturday, the last piece of the puzzle, and started seeding onions on Monday. It is a tedious job seeding 10,000 onions, so we spread it out over several days, finishing today-Wednesday.

We are trying something new this year relative to onion planting. Normally we grow onions from seeds and transplant each little plant 4 inches apart. We found last year through a trial that we can instead plant 4 together, and space them at 1 foot. This spacing allows us to use the water wheel transplanter to plant onions and save us from one of the most tedious (there’s that word again) jobs on the farm. More to come on the onions.


Planting sheet and seed pack


Planting onion seeds in soil blocks

Remodeling continues on the office and living room. It has been a dirty, uneventful tearout, but there was one interesting suprise. Our living room ceiling was drywall over cracked plaster. The furring strips that were used to attach the drywall are 18 foot long tongue and groove floor boards. They’re coated with a nice green patina of lead paint, but may prove useful in some other part of our renovation.


Furring strips

Friday

Monday

Winter Hits the Farm

Uncategorized

Considering the fact that an estimated 100,000,000 people were impacted by the Blizzard of 2011, this is but another snow story. Here at the farm we experienced mainly bliss though it all. The heads-up that modern meteorology provides allowed us to plan ahead, and view the snow and wind from the safety and warmth of our small farmhouse.

We spent the day moving our office and living room out of the back half of the house to prepare for our latest home renovation project—total tearout of plaster and lath, insulating of exterior walls, some carpentry, electrical, drywall, painting, and a new wood stove. We ended the day making a large pot of chili, cole slaw and pumpkin-coconut pie.

We awoke today to 5 degrees and a beautiful sunny morning, with an inch of snow in some areas and drifts of 2 to 3 feet in others. The cats as you can see have the life, sitting on a sunny chair looking out at the bird feeder (a word that means something different to them).

The knowedge of impending snow also kicked us into gear on Friday and Saturday to do some much needed repair to the greenhouse before the start of the season. Both corners of the greenhouse were rotted and required repair. Also, the plastic had several major rips and needed replacement.

With the help of one of our 2011 interns, Lucas Knutter, we tackled the job over two days. Day one consisted of the carpentry. Day 2 with installing the new plastic. Once we get some openings sealed along the roof line the greenhouse will be ready to go. The only things keeping us from planting the onions is the arrival of our Microleverage compost (Tuesday’s delivery had to be cancelled), and waiting for the single digit and sub-zero temps to pass. The season is about to begin.


Removing the rotten lumber

Installing a new corner

Removing the old plastic

Installing new wiggle wire channels

Installing the new plastic


The bubble inflated, trimming the plasic