Market Update.

I’ve been working on getting the market ready for opening: washing shelving, floors, and windows, sewing new skirting for tables, and curtains for the windows, planting flowers, and rearranging our space.  Being back inside the market is as exciting as planting the first seeds in the spring!  I enjoyed the time I spent with those of you who visited our market so much last year and I’m looking forward to it again this year.  The kids have been a big help this year and are enthusiastically throwing themselves into the work because when the market opens they know that they will get to spend afternoons with Nana at the pool.  Sweet little things.

I’m also really excited to share with you some of the products we will have this Saturday!

Today Maple Mist Farm dropped off several sizes of pure Ohio maple syrup as well as maple sugar.  What is maple sugar?  Maple sugar is divine, that is what it is.  Stop in and try some, we have it available in shakers as well as bulk and they have even included a recipe with the largest size of maple sugar.

We are also going to have the following:

• swiss chard
• spinach
• head lettuce
• leaf lettuce
• beets
• radishes
• green onions (bunching onions)
• zucchini
• fresh herbs (mint, summer savory, thyme, oregano, basil, lemon mint, lemon balm)
• tomato plants (potted)
• basil plants (potted)
• strawberries
• fresh bread
• granola
• pizza crusts
• ice cream cones
• assorted baked goods

Market Update.

Hot. Humid. High Tunnels.

Things are really growing in this heat!  One day it is freezing the next day it is almost 90, so goes an Ohio spring.  Headed up to the farm early to get our heavy work done before the real heat and humidity of the day set in.  Praying for a little rain to soak into the ground and help our plants grow.

Hot. Humid. High Tunnels.

Cool Weather. Rain. Rascally Rabbits.

I cannot believe the weather we are having!  Last week the weather stayed in the upper 80s for several days only to be followed by freeze warnings for the weekend!  Lucky for me that we have spent most of our time planting in the high tunnels instead of outside so that we didn’t have as much to cover.

Speaking of high tunnels, I think, we are finished planting in the big one.  We have tomatoes: heirloom, beefsteak, roma, cherry, grape, slicers, juicers, and in a variety of colors.  To accompany those beautiful tomatoes we have also planted a variety of peppers, and in the smaller high tunnel we have basil, oregano, cilantro, and more.  Just what you need for fresh sauces, salsas, gazpacho, and margarita pizzas.  Yum! We also planted onions, cucumbers, lettuce, beets, swiss chard, spinach, zucchini, and acorn squash inside this year.  Outside we have onions, cabbages, kale, collard greens, and strawberries.  Tomorrow I’m putting out watermelons, cucumbers, squash, and beets, lettuce, carrots, swiss chard, and spinach. It really won’t end until, well, I’m not sure when it will end this year!  Oh and did I mention that we are hoping to have cut flowers this year too?  They are in the ground so fingers crossed on some beautiful blooms!

We spent the rainy morning working in the small high tunnel.  Weeding the herbs is an almost every other day chore, but as they grow and fill out the number of weeds diminishes. The kids helped all morning, and if there is one thing that I have learned about working alongside your children it is that they will remind you that work should be fun.  This morning that fun came in the hunt for a garter snake who has taken up residence among our spinach and broccoli plants.  What better way to encourage kids to pull weeds than to say that if they do they’ll more than likely find a snake!  Great fun for them, but the very thought gave me the willies.  I won’t kill a snake on sight, but I will squeal and jump.  In the high tunnel though a garter snake might come in handy preying on the very things that are preying on our plants.

 

Speaking of things preying on our plants, this year I have a new nemesis.  A rascally rabbit has decided that our plants are just as enticing as we think they are.  I’m open to any and all suggestions on dealing with rabbits!  I had never encountered this issue in my garden at our house, probably because it was so close to our house and the dogs and children were on nearly constant patrol.  Send your thoughts, experiences, and anecdotes my way.

In closing, we hope that you are enjoying this Memorial Day and have had the chance to thank a veteran today for their service.  We are happy to have our cousin back in the states after his second tour of duty in Afghanistan.  Many members of our families and our friends have served this country to preserve our freedoms, and we cannot thank them enough.

 

 

Cool Weather. Rain. Rascally Rabbits.

We have finished filling the large high tunnel with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash.  The tomatoes and cucumbers will grow up the twine which you can see my dad installing in the picture.  We use tomato clips for both the tomatoes and cucumbers to help train them up the twine.  The peppers are planted between the rows of lettuce and spinach which we will be harvesting in the next couple of weeks, giving the peppers room to grow.  Our smaller high tunnel is quickly filling with herbs.  Cilantro and basil will finish out the plantings in there.

Outside we are getting the soil ready for our Three Sisters plantings, more lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, squash, melons, green beans, and cabbage.  It’s quite a bit of work this year because the soil was compacted by the heavy machinery we used on another project, and the fact that Wyatt always wants to fall asleep in my arms while I walk along with the rototiller.  Although, we are several steps ahead of where we were last year, we still are working hard to revitalize the soil for our outdoor garden, and we are behind with our high tunnel tomatoes and peppers because our tunnel wasn’t up in time.  Every year we will be a little closer to being on track, right?

Our rye cover crop is still growing and growing.  Yesterday I watched what at first appeared to be smoke blowing across the farm, but it was actually the pollen from our rye.  It is too tall for the children to see over now, and I warned Wyatt that he might get lost in it if he tried to run through it!  It made me think of the dire warnings from my parents about not wandering in the corn fields when I was a child.

After working at the farm in this heat and humidity we have had the last few days, there is nothing more refreshing than a dip in the pond.  The kids and the dogs are very appreciative of this addition to our farm!

 

Our Prayers to Oklahoma

Our family is praying for the people of Oklahoma.

Our Prayers to Oklahoma

Opening Day. What's Ready. What's Next.

Opening day for our farm market will be June 1, 2013!  We will open from 9 o’clock in the morning until 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

Please note that we have changed our hours this year.  We will be open Tuesday, Wednesday, & Friday from 10 am until 5 pm, and Saturdays from 9 am to 1 pm.  We will be closed Sunday, Monday & Thursday.  After much deliberation over the winter we decided that this schedule would allow us to provide the best products for you while not falling behind on the work that goes into those products.

On June 1st we expect to have a nice selection of head and leaf lettuces, spinach, radishes, green onions, swiss chard, and possibly broccoli, cabbage & beets.  In the coming weeks we will also have carrots, tomatoes, strawberries, beans, peas, onions, cucumbers, zucchini, and more.  We also put out quite a few herbs this year including: rosemary, thyme, oregano, lemon mint, lemon balm, bronze fennel, basil, cilantro, chamomile, sage, etc.  And we are hoping to have cut flowers available later in the summer.

 

Opening Day. What's Ready. What's Next.

Conestoga Remix: Camper Makeover

We bought a camper. A fixer upper.  ”She just needs some paint, some fabric, maybe new flooring.”

And then the curse of every DIYer struck, “What if we put in a new ceiling?” “What about this bench? We could move it and build a new table.” “Ugh, this vinyl trim, I think we could put up beadboard walls and new trim.” and what started as a simple redecorating became a full fledged, gutting.

Now, half of the camper is in the lawn, the cabinets and drawers are all in the garage and the cushions are in the living room.  Summer is rapidly approaching, and although we aren’t under a deadline to actually take this baby out this summer, we do realize that our extra time for a project like this will evaporate like the morning dew in July.

What possessed us to take on such a project?  Good question.  It all started with our decision to head to Montana in the fall to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary.  That’s right, elk hunting, my gift to him he is a very lucky man.  What else would you expect from people who went moose hunting in Alaska for their honeymoon.    We started looking for a camper, which was going to have to be a fixer-upper given the price range we had in mind.  But for the cost of flying 2 adults and 4 kids, renting a car, staying in motels/hotels, the camper was a good investment.  Now, we have an epic journey west planned, hauling our camper and stopping at all the amazing places between here and there.  That is if we finish putting the camper back together!

 

I’ll admit that initially I was hesitant about fixing up a camper.  With 4 kids, I wanted something that was going to make pulling into a campground easy-peasy.  Those campers were several thousands of dollars out of our price range though.  While pouting about Jay’s determination to stick to a certain monetary figure I pulled up Pinterest and searched “vintage camper makeover”.  Oh land, I was in.  What people have done with campers is fantastic.  Here are a few of the ones I’ve been inspired by:

 

 

You can check out some of my inspirations, ideas, and more on my Pinterest Board: Vintage Camper Makeover.

 

Conestoga Remix: Camper Makeover

Farm Week in Review.

This time of year, I have great intentions for the amount of things that I will accomplish in one day.  Most days, I actually get through a handful of those things.  One thing which I wish that I took more time for was writing.  If I could take the time to tell the stories that race around through my head as I try to settle into bed at night. . . well, farming would be my hobby.

We’ve been planting and harvesting and planting again in the high tunnels/ hoop houses. And, we have bravely set out onions and peas outside.  I say “bravely” because this spring is behaving less like the springs of the past few years and more like the springs of my childhood.  In fact, next week it is supposed to freeze, that’s right folks FREEZE.  I generally stick to May 15th as the last threat of frost in our area, and *fingers crossed* this is just Mother Nature’s way of sticking to her schedule.

This year we have a much better handle on how to plant successively.  Please do not read this as saying that we have the answer, but simply that we learned our lesson last year.  For our place, this means that we are still starting seeds in the greenhouse to be planted several weeks from now.  It also means that we arranged our high tunnel to accommodate shorter and more numerous rows.  However, we still were a little carried away with the tomatoes, which now number over 60 in the high tunnel, what can I say, we love tomatoes!  And anyone; relative, friend, general acquaintance, person we greeted at church in the pew behind us, will also love tomatoes by the end of the summer, because I will be passing out tomatoes like Gideons pass out bibles.

We are still getting all of the livestock situated for the summer.  We have a a handful of criteria: 1) grass fed 2.) ease of chores 3.) kept out of the garden.  This means we are checking fences, creating moveable paddocks, and finding the holes through which those goats with mythical collapsable ribs can wiggle through.  Our turkeys and ducks come at the end of May!  And we will be looking forward to our grassfed broilers a little later in the summer.

Oh! And before I forget we have bees and fish arriving in the very near future (like Saturday)!  There will be more on this soon!

Farm Week in Review.

Sowing and Sewing.

Our weekend was full of sowing and sewing!  The sunshine and warmer temperatures allowed us to get a lot of sowing done in the hoop houses and outside fields.  We transplanted the rest of our herb starts into the small hoop house, and added rows of spinach, beets and carrots to the big hoop house.  Outside we planted strawberry starts to fill in last year’s rows, and planted asparagus, rhubarb, cabbage and peas.

 

Sowing and Sewing.