I may be slacking, but the seedlings aren't

Exciting times here around the farm! Unfortunately, the Farm Dog is too exhausted from being tricked by squirrels to blog, and now we're behind over here. So without further ado, a brief update of how things are growing by area...


The back garden, called the triangle
Garlic is up and tall! So are the shallots, green onions, and garlic chives. Peas, chard, and spinach were experimentally direct seeded REALLY early because of the early spring, but they just came up and are looking great!
These photos were taken about a week apart. In the last one, from 4/22, you can see the cauliflower, broccoli, and beet seedlings in trays in the foreground. Radish, lettuce, and onions (below ground) planted out next to the garlic. Plus, the richer dirt where compost was added.

The seedlings! Of course, this has been the most exciting part. I was a little slow in getting heat to the summer seeds, so the sprouting was not ideal. As you can see early on, things progressed evenly. But very quickly, an overachiever emerged... Luckily, by the time that zucchini lost its mind, the cold weather seedlings were ready to check out life outside the house, so the zucchini has ventured out as well. Otherwise, the grow lights are just too far away from the tomatoes...

More room for the tomatoes now that the cold weather seedlings live outside 24/7...

Speaking of grow lights, WOW are they great! The last couple of years I have started my seeds in a sunny window, and the difference in growth is just amazing. Hopefully this will also avoid the two week halt in growth that has typically happened while the plants figure out what exactly they were thinking growing so tall once the wind arrives...

So that about sums it up.

More to come on a few riveting topics including:
1) How I listened to the wrong hay/straw guy and am now forced to hang all my hopes on a weird little bag of corn gluten meal.
2) Massive Flea Beetle Infestation, and how [I hope] the farm gets saved by insecticidal soap
3) The Very Exciting reused lumber effort to make the raised beds. And...the hilarity that ensued once we made what we drew up on the plans. [Teaser: Veggies do not require bathtub-sized raised beds to grow.]

News Flash: Farm Dog Afraid of Puddle

I have NO idea what was happening here, but I could watch this all day. Hilarious.

Also, check out the latest Wando pea development. They found the tomato cage all on their own!

Weekend Update

Here are some classic "before" photos of the farm before this weekend's work-a-thon.
Clearly, the place was a pit. I thought the worst part of all was going to be the thick layer of sludge below those piles of leaves, but once I got all the sludge out, I discovered (Trial of the Farmer #1) the real worst part. Ice! The quarter of the farm beneath 18" or so of grass and leaves was still frozen solid!

(See the ice crystals in the middle???)

Luckily, the rest of the farm was more than ready to be worked, so I prepped all the rest of it except that one area. Based on some very scientific (read fourth-grade-chemistry-set) experimentation, it looks like the pH of the farm is great--right around 6.5. The macronutrients, on the other hand, are practically nonexistant. The consumers and I knew this, of course, and had planned on adding plenty more compost this time around...

So after about 100 pounds of manure and compost,* plus two wheelbarrows full of fresh compost from the neighbor, Chris, the soil was considerably richer in all of the important ways.


(*Note: this makes it seem like Farming in April in Minnesota is No Big Deal. Wrong. Really, we're talking about Trial #2 of the weekend. The longer version of this story is that I pried the compost Saturday off the shelf at the Garden Center, leaving chunks of ice behind, was excited to get started, then opened the bags to realize it was all kind of frozen. So I opened the bags, left them in the sun, and came back to work on this project Sunday. Very frustrating for a farmer who is not as patient as she should be).


Also, in the middle of all of this, the Farm Dog, who looks deceivingly cute in this picture:

managed to sniff out the MiniChuck, which, after a winter of hibernating, is much less Mini and much closer to the size of a cocker spaniel. Fast forward through a flying leap into the farm, tie out ripped from the ground, and a good chase through a couple of backyards, and Maisy eventually gave up on the Chuck. But at one point, she was about six inches away from a mouthful, and then probably an ugly fight. In case you were wondering what a Farm Dog does after such an exciting chase... The answer is sit at attention like this for about 8 hours over two days, staring in the direction of the Chuck sighting. That dog has a one track mind...

And last, but certainly not least... The "after" pictures. Here's the little bit of side farm all cleaned up:
And here's the first 2009 installment of (Mini)Chuck's eye view* from the MiniChuck highway. As usual, you'll have to click on the picture to have a chance at reading the words... You can see in the top left corner of the picture the still-frozen area. That will be prepped later...

*No idea what I'm talking about? Here's the first. (Sidenote: Wow! I forgot what Farming actually looks like when it's underway. Even more excited now!)




Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 58F
Yesterday's low: 39F

All Mixed Up

Folks. It's March. There are seedlings on my windowsill. It is snowing outside. The trees have buds. But the windchill this morning was in the teens. I somehow did this to my computer and spent almost an hour trying to figure out how to undo it (have you ever tried to use a touchpad sideways??? It is not natural, people).

And Maisy Gower, Farm-Dog Extraordinaire alternates between slipping back into hibernation on her special pile of three beds (see below) and making me absolutely crazy by pacing with spring fever.

Nothing to do but work 'til it's over.

Happy Birthday, Farm Dog!

Anybody who doesn't love scrambled eggs, cheese, and bacon for their birthday breakfast probably can't be friends with the newly4 year old Farm Dog.

Happy Frost 2008

Happy Frost Day, fellow farmers and friends of farmers! Luckily, this farmer pulled all the tomato plants this weekend, which may be the first time in which me being a step ahead of Mother Nature worked in my favor. Pictures of the Last Harvest soon...

In the meantime, you'll probably enjoy this. And if you don't, I have no idea how you survived reading this blog so long.

Fall Days, Sunshine

Rosa: "Hey--watch this."

I'm just going to walk up, quietly...

Give her a little smooch...

...and then pounce!

...and pounce!

and get in her face. :)

Oh yeah. The tomatoes just barely survived the threat of frost (note the low...).

Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 63F
Yesterday's low: 32F
Warnings: This is looking like the last week for growing...
Mood of the farm: Frigid.
Reason to consider a new career: farmer has to have something to do in the winter besides wait for spring...

A Slight Change to the Growing Schedule

So I fessed up here recently that I planted lettuce seeds in an attempt at a "fall crop." It was kind of late, since the frost comes early here in the tundra, but I thought the Farm was looking a little empty (no, really. It's almost completely empty except for the tomatoes and watermelons) so why not give it a shot. I planted the salad mix lettuce seeds from the spring--a good variety with at least some types that thrived in the important temperature range. Well, bad news, folks. That dirt isn't growing a single thing. Actually, it is growing a number of weeds in the vicinity of where I planted the seeds, but not actually where I planted them... A little google searching suggests that lettuce seeds don't last too long (see--I wasn't completely wrong about the "bad seed packet" thing...), so maybe that's the deal. Should you have any additional suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments!

Luckily, however, I seem to be growing something new of the Farm that I didn't plant. It seems to be some kind of cross/hybrid thing, but I can't really tell fully what kind of cross...


Okay, actually, it's a Maisy plant. But she was so proud of herself for getting all wrapped up in there (that I didn't manage to capture on camera, sadly), that I had to post the pic.


I think maybe she was using the sick tomato plants as camouflage while spying on Rosa... Anyway, since there's not really much new on the farm since last week for a MiniChuck's Eye View, I thought I'd at least give you this.

Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 63F
Yesterday's low: 49F
Warnings: It's really cold, folks...
Mood of the farm: Gearing up to grow fast during possibly the last warm spell at the end of this week.
Reason to consider a new career: None. I'm ecstatic with my career today!

Cooking with Bounty

Last night, I had a craving for spring rolls and a Vietnamese dish for which I have no name. And so I asked myself, "Self, What Would Archie Do?" Luckily, I decided Archie would call Anonymous K to find out how one might go about making such a meal. Archie, clearly, is a very smart guy. Once I got home from the store, Dr. J had a craving to take Maisy for a run. Actually, she might have just had a craving for me to stop whining about Maisy's poor behavior. Either way, I said I'd trade her a run with my dog for dinner, and she agreed. And what was born? Free-spirited fellowship. Spur of the moment, completely unplanned, impromptu fellowship. And we didn't even freak out about it. Or if we did, we totally made it seem like we didn't.

Anyway, what, you ask does this have to do with the farm blog and farming? Well, it has everything to do with the farm because a lot of this meal was made with food from the farm or the CSA share (aka Farm Box). A few things came from SuperTarget (gasp) or the Asian grocery store, Shuang Hur. I even marked where the food came from for you in the picture (FG = Farmer Gower, of course).

Those are some good lookin carrots.

Rice paper in water.

My spring roll technique needs work.

Dr J., humoring me re: the ridiculous bowl situation.

Me, eating out of, yep, Corning Ware. But I'm still proud enough to display the meal in my signature pose, naturally.

In the end, everything turned out to be pretty tasty. The sauce was definitely not right (at least not at first. After a second, it got close to the right flavor...), and my lack of large bowls was definitely a difficult problem. But, you know, we're free spirits, so we just rolled with it.

Cornfed Farmers' Market: A Photo Essay

Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 83F
Yesterday's low: 55F
Mood of the farm: Squishy

Getting Crafty With the Farm

Remember all that cilantro I was mad about because it went to seed? Well, I figured I ought to at least make something good out of the deal, so coriander it is. Also, Rosa and Maisy have been munching on something near the farm that makes them immediately drool and then vomit. Repeatedly. I'm hoping this is the cause, and getting it off the farm with also get rid of the dog antics.

The plants were ready for drying, so I cut them this afternoon, and hung them on my porch on a makeshift line. Yes, I use package wrapping ribbon for all farm projects. It's just a thing with me.

Then, I carefully crafted some highly technical, farm-specific devices to catch the seeds that fell. The one on the left wasn't dry enough to need a catcher (technical term) yet.
Now I just have to hope my neighbors don't think I'm up to some illicit activity and call the cops before these plants are done drying...

Aftermath on the Farm

Well, here's some of the wreckage from Wednesday's antics. I know the zucchini looks giant, but before antics, it didn't really rest on the ground like that.

A closeup of the damage. But also, luckily, of lots of new flowers and leaves ready to go.

The watermelon, too, seems to have suffered a few torn leaves, but all in all, survived just fine.

In some good news, here are the Lemon Boys. The first picture is from the plant with the smaller tomatoes--the second picture has the big ones. Is it just me, or if you squint your eyes just right can you see the slightest hint of yellow in that second picture......

Farm Vitals
Yesterday's high: 85F
Yesterday's low: 64F
Warnings: Dog owner can't keep her dog on a leash
Mood of the farm: Healing
Reason to consider a new career: I'm thinking I should be focusing my energy on dog management...