Spring is Here!

Here it is, four days into spring...can you feel the warm air just around the corner?
The planting has begun here "en force", and we have many of the cool-weather loving plants seeded in their blocks. This includes three types of broccoli, three types of cabbage, cilantro, endive, orach, and scallions, just to name a few. A week or two from now they should be poking their heads above the surface. Here is a picture of some of them:


We grow our seeds without the use of peat or plastic pots by using a little device called a soil block maker to create a mold of potting soil. The seed is planted directly into the block, which is basically held together by peat and water. It is a wonderful invention - it keeps the plants from becoming root bound in a pot, decreases transplant stress to almost nothing, and eliminates the need for pots (which gets rid of a lot of waste!) We highly recommend block makers for anyone who enjoys gardening from seed.


The lettuce, spinach, arugula and kale we seeded a couple of weeks ago are doing great - they are just growing their first set of true leaves now. A few more weeks, and they will be headed into the ground!

Last evening we began the tomatoes and tomatillos in their blocks, under some nice warming lights. They need a soil temperature of about 75 degrees in order to get started - since we probably won't see that outdoor temp until June, we start them all indoors now. This way they will be ready to go into the ground in June when things warm up. We've got 13 varieties of tomatoes seeded, including several heirloom types. Pictures will be posted when they finally sprout!

Enjoy the first week of spring!

Spring is just a week away!

Despite morning temperatures that hover around 24 degrees, the calendar tells us the spring equinox is just a week away. Warmth is on the way.

It's been another busy couple of weeks here at the farm. We began the first set of seeds, and are happy to announce that the arugula, kale, spinach, and lettuce have just popped their tiny heads above the soil surface. Another few weeks and they will be ready to go into the ground. These plants are cool loving, and can usually handle some dips in temperature (with a little help from row cover), giving them a nice early start in the season.

A new batch of strawberry plants, blueberry bushes, and asparagus crowns have just arrived at the farm, and we'll be working hard over the next few days to get them into the ground. Can't wait for these guys to take off!

Remember our little chicks? Well, here they are now at 4 weeks old. Pretty amazing how quickly they grow isn't it? They've discovered "perching" and have made many entertaining yet unsucessful attempts to jump out of their pen to see if the grass really is greener somewhere else. Just be patient chickies...you still need that heat lamp!

The barn wall has been successfully repaired, and we now turn our attention to building that cool room. Stay tuned for pictures as the project gets underway.

We hope everyone enjoys this last week of winter!

Introducing the newest members of the Many Friends Farm family!

We have added 13 new friends to our growing menagerie in the last couple of weeks, and thought we would share the news, along with some pictures here. First, our new little chicks...12 of them to be exact. They are about 2 weeks old now, and chirping up a storm under their red heat lamp.
We are looking forward to their yummy eggs, which they should start to produce sometime in July or August.

Second, our new pal Libby. She is our new golden retriever, a little over a year old, and still full of an amazing supply of puppy power. Our other dog Henry isn't quite sure what to make of her! She has proved herself to be quite useful in the rodent chasing department though, and we are hoping she will be just as good at spotting those pesky elk before they come near the field.

Speaking of elk, they finally threw down the gauntlet. Last year we put up fencing that was both tall and wide. The "wide" was supplied by crossarms that extended out horizontally from the fence itself in both directions. Well, several weeks ago we found a very damaged crossarm lying on the ground, ripped from it's support on the fence...with a pile of elk poop on top of it! The insult! We have taken their challenge though...and are in the process of erecting an 8 foot fence that will be electrified. For some reason this is starting to feel like that Caddyshack movie.

We have also been busy planting some new fruit trees - a nice variety of apples, pears, and peaches. The trees are about three years old and won't start producing for a couple of years, but we sure are looking forward to that day.

One last piece of farm excitement - as this is being written, the back wall of our barn is being rebuilt (it got pulled off during the winter storms). Although the huge panoramic view from inside the barn was beautiful, it will be nice to have it intact again. Thanks to the guys from Richards Construction for doing such a great job!

Well, that's the news from the farm. We will be starting our seeds in the next couple of weeks, and will add some updates as things get growing.

Thank goodness for moles!

It has been quite a busy week here at the farm. After some long days put in down in our greenhouse, we finally finished one set of shelving. We are pretty proud of our accomplishment, and are really looking forward to getting our seed blocks out there.

Mother Nature has been trying to convince us that winter is over...it has been sunny here for days, not a cloud to be seen in the sky. But it surely is cold at night, and frozen every morning, so we're just not falling for it! We are going to start some of our cold hardy seeds, like cabbage, onions, and kale and see how it goes, but we'll just have to be patient for the others.

Today we set about making potting soil for the seeds we will be planting. Last year this was a chore that took hours to accomplish. This year, we came across an inexpensive mortar mixer being sold on Craigslist, snatched it up and brought it back to the farm. If it can mix concrete, it can mix dirt! We put it through it's paces today, and are quite pleased with it's performance...we were able to cut our mixing time in half, and no back pain! Yeah for mortar mixers.

To top it off, we got a little help from those usually-not-so-helpful guys the moles. Field soil is an ingredient in our potting mix, and the daunting task of digging it up was not something we were looking forward to. That's when we took notice of all the little mounds of dirt that have been springing up in the past week...hey...somebody dig the digging for us...and we don't have to screen out any weeds or grass! So a big thanks guys!! Now if we could just convince them to leave our root crops alone! :-)

Speaking of help...we were wondering if any gardeners out there had any of these little gizmos (pictures) lying around that you would like to get rid of? Many nurseries and garden centers give them out when you buy a flat of flowers etc. They are incredibly helpful as seed flats here at the farm, and we would be more than willing to pick them up. Drop us a line or give us a call if you would like to get rid of some, and a big THANKS in advance!

Hope everyone has a great week!

What a rambunctious winter!

We hope everyone survived the weeks of snow and ice last month and that 2009 has started out well. We are keeping pretty busy out here on the farm. The December snows brought a portion of our barn down, and after four estimates we are on track to getting repairs underway. As a part of the repairs we decided to build ourselves a new cold room to keep the veggies fresh after harvest. Stay tuned for pictures and updates on our construction adventure!

Speaking of construction, we decided to take hammer and nail in hand and make ourselves some shelves to hold our seed blocks (starts) in the greenhouse. It is slow going, especially since we keep running up to the house to Google "how to build a shelf"and "how do you make a right angle". Needless to say, we are less than experienced in the field of building, and I am not sure our services will be in much demand off the farm :-) Despite our best efforts, they are actually turning out to be pretty sturdy, so perhaps there is hope for us yet! Pictures are forthcoming!

I don't know about you, but as we awaken to the icy cold each morning, we find ourselves dreaming of warmer days. We've spent many hours in the last couple of weeks pouring over the seed catalogs to find some delicious new veggies to grow. We were pretty excited when we got out first order in the mail today! We've got 3 varieties of eggplant, some heirloom sweet peppers, and some tasty looking heirloom lettuce seeds just waiting to start their new life. It won't be long before we are starting seeds in the greenhouse. We'll update with pictures as they get started.

That's all for now. Hope you enjoy the last few days of January!

Many Friends Farm - September 2008

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