It’s been a bit cold here at the farm and we hear it will be getting colder. We have been covering all the tender plants with row cover. Lots and lots of stooping and digging and burying the edges.
Sunday night is supposed to be down to 27 degrees. Cold, but not as bad as last year’s 18 degrees (for 2 nights). So if we make it through this cold spell, we feel that Spring will finally have sprung.
It’s been awhile since the last blog, and there’s lots of catching up to do. A brief summery of what’s been going on at and around the farm in the last 3 weeks includes:
We would like to extend many thanks to the Core Group for organizing the signup meeting. We think it was enjoyed by all. The blurriness of the picture may be due more to the whirl of activity than a shaky hand.
We also have been visited by several William Jewell students who are each doing 15 hours of service learning work at the farm as a part of their Ecology of Food course. We are friends with the instructor Paul Klawinski, who we’ve known since our first market days in
Greenhouse and field work have been on the list of things to do too. The greenhouse is emptying of its Spring transplants, as they go to cold frame to “harden off”. Much of the cabbage, broccoli, asian greens lettuce, cilantro, and onions have made it to the fields. With the Spring crops heading out, the greenhouse is filling with summer ones, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, basil, and soon summer squash and cucumbers.
We have also seeded our first batches of peas, beets, carrots, turnips and radishes. We will continue this week to plant the potato crop. We are halfway done. We also seeded 100 lbs of wheat and 25 lb of crown vetch as a cover crop in many of our empty beds.
The plants look as healthy as they ever have this year and we are very happy. We are not sure if it is our source of compost, the extra worm castings, or adding EM (effective microorganisms) to the greenhouse water. While it probably isn’t any one thing, we feel adding “good” bacteria to our system can only help.
We hope to get some more good planting in this week and will have time to keep the membership posted more often. In the meantime we have cleaned out our root cellar and larder and found a nice stash of carrots, beets, celeriac, potatoes, turnips, radishes, onions and garlic. We also found our cabbage kept well this year in the cooler, and a delicious slaw has been in order lately.
You can do the same thing at home if you have a basement, garage or other room that stays cool but above freezing for the winter. Simply layer your carrots, beets or other roots in sand, and set them in a dark area (or cover them). You’ll find the carrots you put away in November may actually be more sweet and tender in March and April.
And finally a video, simply because we can. Rebecca planting with the G.
It became official this week, our old gas-powered Allis-Chalmers G tractor moved under electric power! Never having done this before, and not knowing what to expect, the first few feet of motion were a thrill. We simply copied other people’s designs and followed their instructions, but it felt like we were at the origin of the invention of a new machine. It works!!!
We are now at the stage of getting it ready to do some farming. As the Spring is late this year, with soils still being too cold and wet to plant, we have a little time to make adjustments and practice with the G. We still have to hook up the battery charger, build a box to cover the batteries, make some modifications for a few things that didn’t quite fit, and modify some of our implements.
But we are ready to go. Enjoy the videos below.
Rebecca’s first run
Rebecca in reverse
Rebecca second gear
The cold weather continues, with hope for 50 degree weather next week. We expect the grass to start greening up in the coming days, as things begin to awaken, driven by the day length as much as the temperature. The greenhouse continues to fill up with broccoli, cabbage, herbs, celeriac and flowers, with Asian greens, more lettuce, kale and kohlrabi to be seeded before the end of the week.
The fields are still quite soggy, and we have a good week or two to wait for them to dry out. The photograph is of the Spring beds located near the main gate. Just past them is our well mulched patch of strawberries that we are hoping will produce a nice crop for 2008.
They will be Rocky’s big test, keeping the racoons from snacking on them. Right now he still hasn’t grown enough to know how to chase them, as we have had one break into our back porch the last couple of nights with him nearby. Once his baby teeth are gone we expect him to do better.
The wildlife on the farm has been beautiful this Spring as always. We have learned to notice the change in the birds arriving at the feeder. The most striking bird we see is the Red Headed Woodpecker. Other birds scatter when it flaps it’s way to the suet. It is wonderful to see in-flight too.
Other birds are a bit farther away, but a regular visitor to the farm’s air space. The Snow Geese fly so high sometimes that they take awhile to spot, their loud honking giving them away. Another sign of the changing season. We feel lucky to have such a show everyday, and are glad with this blog to be able to share with you.
As the first days of Spring get closer, and the weather begins to ever so slowly warm up (hopefully this week), we continue work on the tractor conversion, greenhouse growing, dog training and house remodeling. With the anticipated 50 degree temps by Saturday, and the longer days, winter is losing its grip.
The onions are growing (they actually like it a little cooler), and the greenhouse has also seen the first lettuces germinate. On Tuesday, volunteer Jeff Hunter came out and helped us plant our first batch of broccoli, dill and cilantro. On Saturday, the cabbage gets seeded.
The tractor conversion project is proceeding too. After more studying, and getting a copy of the wiring schematic that wasn’t included by the equipment supplier (a big help), the task at hand seems much more clear. Today (Wednesday), we will weld up a platform for the batteries and begin wiring the tractor. From the photos you can see the work that we did last Saturday–attaching the pully system to the motor drive, and then attaching the whole thing to the tractor.
And then there’s Rocky. He is doing well, though his training is quite time consuming. Puppy that he is, he needs somewhat constant attention to keep him amused, and to make sure he isn’t doing things he shouldn’t. As we work more outside it helps, but he has 
a lot of training to go if we are to make sure he doesn’t run into the road, eat our laundry off the clothesline, chew up our irrigation supplies, and/or damage our plantings. We have bought a shock collar, but have not tried it out yet. We want to break him of the habit of running toward the road soon. We are hoping that many of his other habits will disappear as he grows out of puppyhood.
We welcome our members out to help socialize him and keep him amused. He seems to be great with kids, and is trying to buddy up with one of our cats.
On Saturday 2/16 member Lorne Carroll came out to help with the G conversion. As we kept warm by a propane heater, we emptied the boxes of parts and began assembling what we could.
The basics of this conversion is to remove the gasoline engine (done last week) , and tie an electric motor to the drive shaft of the tractor. You can see the shaft in the picture at left.
As a part of the G conversion kit we purchased, we have the pully unit that will attach to this drive. Then, the new electric motor will drive the pully, and the wheels will move! Just that simple, except for the fact that we have 6 eight volt batteries to wire up, as well as safety fuses, controllers, and other pertinent equipment. So, we are still on the first step–installing the motor and new drive system.
The video at left is of Lorne securing the new electric motor to the plate that will attach to the tractor. It was then we found out we were shipped a part with some missing components, so work slowed a bit. This Saturday 2/23 we start up again as we weld up a platform for the batteries to sit on, and start installing more parts.
Eight days, some water and warmth, and the onion seedlings have begun to push through. For most of the trays it looks like a good germination rate. Others are still getting started.
We continue our seeding this week with herbs and a try at black currants.
Rocky is doing well, though it turns out, not especially obedient. Due to his many escapes, we have begun letting him out during the day. He has learned to stay around the house but has been getting into trouble in the home garden (eating row cover) and chasing our cat Sunny.
Still, he’s doing good for less than 2 weeks on the farm. He also was spayed this week. And those are puppy paw prints next to the size 11 boots, not mountain lion.
Here’s Rocky in the snow.
With the arrival of our seeds, and the warming of the greenhouse by the strengthening winter sun, the 2008 season has begun. Onions are the first to be seeded, over 5,000 tiny seeds. Started on February 4, they have begun to germinate, pushing up out of the potting soil on their way to your plate.
Thousands more seeds are destined to be nurtured to maturity. So we hope for the best in 2008.
this is our farm’s new blog. patience is key while we figure out what the heck we’re doing.
rebecca