Coming up for air

This past week the sun kept shining, the soil kept drying, and I was able to get many seeds and all the transplants (those that were ready to go, anyway) into the ground. At the end of the week I was tired and sore – and I’m sure my parents were, too – but relieved to have made progress. It rained on Friday night, forcing us to take a break … a welcome break. There’s always more that I wish had gotten done, but I can’t complain when I really think about all that was accomplished.

The week started with seeding of the first snap peas, which is very important as it seems to be almost everyone’s favorite veggie. On Monday evening, I put the collard greens and kale into the ground. I hoped to be transplanting these crops in late April, so May 13 felt pretty pathetic, but it could be worse! I spent the next couple of days transplanting, transplanting, seeding, and transplanting. On Thursday and Friday, I spotted tiny leaf lettuce and spinach plants that I had seeded last week (in some sandy soil that dries out faster) finally poking out of the soil. Thank goodness.

Sometime toward the end of the week, I looked up and noticed for the first time the light green cloud of new leaves in the trees. I also saw three crows chasing a raven through the air above the fields.  On Friday, I saw a porcupine crossing the road in front of me on Highway 23 as I headed back out to the farm from Duluth. I slowed down and stopped to take what ended up being a crappy photo of his rear end with my phone. What interested me was that the porcupine never altered its pace as I approached in the car, slowed down, and stopped. I guess I can understand why a porcupine might feel pretty invincible.

My progress in the field sometimes seems slower than the porcupine’s (think turtle-speed), but it is much, much faster than it was the first couple years I was farming thanks to my parents, Craig & Jean. It’s almost as if I have a magic wand – I say that a particular task needs to be done, and it happens. My dad has been taking care of all the field prep, spreading compost where needed, disking and tilling – a real gift to me, the clumsy tractor operator. While I was transplanting in the west field on Tuesday, he was prepping the middle field. On Wednesday I transplanted in the middle field while he prepped some beds in the east field … and so forth. He also keeps the piggies happy, and are they ever – their lives seem completely stress-free from my perspective:  smelly, but content.

My mom helped me a bit with transplanting onions and Brassicas and did the entire second round of lettuce– 244 plants – by herself. She has mainly been taking good care of the greenhouse, watering, weeding, seeding and potting for me. Unlike the tractor work, I do enjoy that stuff, but I’m more than happy to hand over the reins at this point so I can take care of other things. My interest has waned a bit, but my mom still seems delighted that the seeds germinate and the potted plants shoot up and out in the sun. I have a feeling the plants appreciate her enthusiasm as much or more than I do.

Brassica beds with row cover

Onions before transplanting

Onions after transplanting

Onion beds

Pigs sunning

Pigs rooting

Porcupine, with footprints

Transitions

The first 10 seconds of this video are of the lens cap (this is new-to-us technology!), but hang in there. Pigs will climb up pretty willingly, but they do NOT want to jump down. As you can see, with a little encouragement, they all survived the transition from truck to ground. In case you’re wondering, they didn’t ride all the way from Iowa in the open back of a pickup — they had already transitioned from trailer to truck. 

The piggies put their noses to the ground right away. I imagine their brains processing the new environment in this way:  “Ooh, what’s that smell; ooh, what’s that smell; ooh . . . .” 

Pigs:  gotta love ‘em.

Sun and swine

The piggies arrived from Iowa with my parents (Craig & Jean) Monday evening, and they were clearly very happy to put their feet on the ground! We ended up getting 12 pigs from a couple of different litters — one litter my parents farrowed at their place, but they’re all purebred Berkshires originating from Bonnie Acres, thanks to my grandpa, Tom Conover. Some of them already love a good back scratchin’ and the others will learn!

The pigs made themselves right at home. Elden took some videos with our new video camera — stay tuned.

On Tuesday, the sun was out again (the pigs knew just what to do — snooze in their shade huts) and after unloading the rest of the goodies my parents brought on the trailer, we were able to actually get a few plants and seeds in the ground. It’s still pretty soggy out there, but a few spots were hospitable enough to work the ground. It feels like I’m finally farming again.

May day

Thank goodness for the sun. When that beautiful globe shines on us and it warms up, however, I think it’s difficult for some non-gardeners to understand that everything is not quite back to normal (the next few cold, wet days should increase understanding, unfortunately!). It takes a while for the ground to completely thaw and to soak up all that moisture, and then I imagine the soil temperature will still be below normal for a bit. We have made some significant progress at the farm, though. We’ve gone from this on the 22nd …

 … to this on the 29th.

 From this on the 26th …

 … to this early on the 29th …

 … to this. And, thanks to another warm and windy day on the 30th, I didn’t see any snow or ice in the fields at the end of the day. The soil is very saturated with water in most places, but I can’t see standing water in many spots. That’s very good because this particular pic is a shot of the beds where the onions are supposed to go this year, and unlike the weather, the onions are right on schedule — ready to go.

Here are some of those onions in the greenhouse. My neighbor (and farmer extraordinaire) Rick complimented me on these onions yesterday, and I credited the Caretaker Farm soil mix. (It’s the same mix I’ve been using every year and I’ve never had onions so nice at this point, but I’ve never done them all in plug trays, either. Rick inspired me to do that.)

Here you can see an onion plug with roots clearly ready to get out of the confines of their tray. Hold on, little onions!

The first round of lettuce is ready to go, too. I’d normally have them in the ground by now.

The other thing that some folks don’t understand (understandably so!) is that there is always work that can be done at the farm. I remember when a new Food Farm intern asked me if we ever got a day off due to weather; I smiled and explained that those Food Farmers could get pretty creative about finding tasks for us. There are a million things on the to-do list that normally just don’t get my attention. Some of them are little things; for example, a week or more of not-very-sunny weather, combined with rich, moist potting soil and warm temps in the greenhouse results in icky green stuff (yes, that is the scientific term!) growing on top of the soil in the pots and trays. This should all be scraped off. There are big things on the list, too – organic certification, anyone? My tendency is to put off the big, complicated things in favor of checking off many little tasks. The initial certification forms might not be quite finished yet, but I have a lot of potting mix all ready to go, stockpiled in the greenhouse. It’ll all get done eventually.

When tax day is snowy . . .

I expected to be spreading compost in the fields right about now, not shoveling snow, but there’s no way around it — no matter what the calendar says, it’s still winter here. This weather will shorten our already short growing season and condense our ordinarily rushed spring schedule into what I can only imagine will be a frenzy of field prepping, seeding and transplanting when we finally can work the soil. (Right now, I’d just like to be able to SEE the soil.) I’m already anticipating a delay in our first share delivery in June, but Stone’s Throw Farm members will still get a full season of produce. I’m hoping the seedlings in the greenhouse will see some much-needed sun today, and the snow will end eventually!

 

Look at these big piggies! And notice that there’s NOT a foot of snow on the ground where they are . . . sigh.

2013 CSA Shares – Still for Sale

My nephew, Graham, likes pigs!

I’ve received a few calls recently from people asking if we still have Stone’s Throw Farm CSA shares, so I wanted to assure our website visitors that we do still have a few available. As soon as the last share is reserved, I’ll update the website here and here.Thursday pick-up is pretty much full, but we have room on Mondays at all those pick-up locations.

My nephews Franklin and Graham visited the piglets (and their grandparents) in Iowa this week.

In other words, if you’re looking for a 2013 CSA share, go ahead and send that form and check! In the worst case scenario, I would notify you that we were already sold out and return your check.

Feel free to contact me with any questions you might have about the shares, of course. Or, just check out the latest pig pics!

Spring is here?

We still had a foot of snow on the ground at the farm in Wrenshall last I checked, but the onions and leeks are doing well in their trays, and the piglets got to go outside for the first time yesterday at their current home in Iowa. It’s a little warmer there, and my parents reported that the pigs wanted out! My parents let them out into a small pen outside the “farrowing house” for a while. As you can see in the video below, the piggies were quite captivated by all the new smells on the ground there. My dad said they’re growing very fast — he’s making sure they get plenty of iron so they stay healthy. Thanks, Dad, and thanks for the video, Mom.

It looks like we could name several of these guys “Spot!”