Updates

Last week was quite rainy and we are trying to play catch up with field work along with picking for the shares. On Saturday Abby, Hadley and Mike worked until 7:00pm laying plastic mulch for our squash, pumpkins and watermelons. We finished planting them on Wednesday. We are already seeding many of our fall crops for fall in the hoop house now.

The hot days we have had in June have stressed some of our early crops already, some lettuce and spinach are showing signs of bolting and we are worried that our Pac Choi (or Bok Choy) will too. We were going to put another crop in place of Pac Choi, but decided to put in again this week in case it does bolt soon. You got to work with what nature gives you!

 

Last week was quite rainy and we are trying to play catch up with field work along with picking for the shares. On Saturday Abby, Hadley and Mike worked until 7:00pm laying plastic mulch for our squash, pumpkins and watermelons. We should finish planting them by the end of the week. We are already seeding many of our fall crops for fall in the hoop house now.

The hot days we have had in June have stressed some of our early crops already, some lettuce and spinach are showing signs of bolting and we are worried that our Pac Choi (or Bok Choy) will too. We were going to put another crop in place of Pac Choi, but decided to put in again this week in case it does bolt soon. You got to work with what nature gives you!

 

Hey all. The season is really in gear, and we’re growing a lot right now, in all senses of the word. Just last thursday we welcomed eight new hens into our hode-podge flock. The new birds are all a year old this month; three of them are Black Stars, and five of them are Red Stars.

I arrived at work a week ago to find the new hens waiting for me in a small pen. I was the only one working at the time, so I began the careful task of shuttling each girl over to her new home in my arms. One thing I noticed was how comparatively cagy the Black Stars were, although having never worked with this breed before I’m wont to generalize from a sample size of three. One of the Black Stars escaped my tender clutches, and boy did she scoot around the farm! It was actually pretty adorable to see a chicken book it like that.

 

 

Now the new girls are sitting pretty in a mobile chicken structure we built for them. Our old chicken structure is a very basic frame made of 2×4’s, with bent metal hoops wrapped in chicken wire. We use tarps to provide shelter, and run an electrified wire around the perimeter to discourage digging predators. The new structure is part run, part coop, and can be scooted along the pastures to provide fresh forage for our hens. The coop portion of the structure has a welded metal mesh floor (1″ mesh), which protects them from digging predators (we have coyotes!) without necessitating an electrified barrier. It also allows their poops to pass through, fertilizing the ground below, and minimizing cleanup for us! The run is exactly that: a pen to allow the girls to forage on fresh pasture every day.

The downside of this structure is its weight: it’s very heavy and requires two people or a tractor to move. We chose to construct the run with 2x3s for stability, but they’re quite heavy. In our next iteration, we’ll probably do a hybrid design with a bent metal hoops forming a run, affixed to the solid coop structure.

 

We’re of course really excited to have these girls on our farm, but their breeds don’t come without some concerns. Both Red and Black stars are what’s known as “hybrid” breeds, although they’re not traditional F1 hybrids. These birds are bred to produce an incredible amount of eggs, nearly one a day throughout the year, but their prolific laying comes at a biological cost. Hybrid hens are “designed” (and they really are designed) to work within an industrial model, as an interchangeable part of an egg-production machine– a part meant to be replaced once a year. As a result, the health of these birds is compromised–  these birds are prone to cloacal prolapse, broken bones, and after a year they generally begin to fall apart. Additionally, it seems to me as if these ‘hybrid’ birds are more prone to aggressive neurotic behavior, pecking at each other mercilessly and cannibalizing vulnerable birds. So, as I said, we’re happy to welcome these girls into our farm, but we’re going to be switching to more stable, “heritage” breeds, like our Barred Rocks, in the future. For more information about hybrid chickens, check out this paper.

But I’d prefer not to end this post on a down note like that, so here’s a picture of that escapee in action:

 

We’ve been keeping an eye on that spinach leaf-miner situation, and it looks like we’re not going to have to  treat chemically! We were quite diligent picking the larvae out of the leaves, and it appears their numbers have declined significantly. This is most likely owing not only to us (though we’ll take the credit where we can get it), but also to a shift in season: more predatory insects are afoot [awing], and there’s been an explosion of vegetation around, so our poor spinach isn’t the only meal for these larvae. The spinach is looking tasty, and we’re excited to see it in shares next week!

Hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing Memorial Day weekend!

We spent our vacation doing what we love most…farming!  As we learned last year while we delivered CSA pickups on July 4th, farmers very rarely get holidays.  After having several days of indoor working last year in the rain (plenty to do, but just not outside!) we felt like we had to take full advantage of the beautiful weather.  On top of that, we got a surprise Friday afternoon when our sweet potato slips arrived a week early (funny enough, this exact same thing happened last year, and I have the scars to prove it from when I fell down my stairs at 5 am in the morning to go dig holes!)

ANYHOW, I digress.  Here’s what we accomplished on Belmont Acres Farm this weekend:

– 500 leeks, 400 heads of lettuce, 450 butternut squash, 300 acorn squash, 300 delicata squash, 150 watermelon, 75 zuccini, 75 yellow squash, all started in the hoophouse

– 80 Fungal resistant tomato planted in fields (hopefully fungal resistant!), staked, and mulched

– 200 parsley plants palnted

– 200 basil plants planted

– 500 sweet potato slips planted

– 50 cucumber plants planted

– 100 zuccini/summer squash planted in the field

 

So yea, we got some work done!  This doesn’t even include all the plowing, tilling, composting, and mulching that goes into preparing the beds.  We’re also underway on a cold box for the wash room.  I’m also constantly getting stressed when I don’t think everything will fit in our fields, but somehow we always seem to find space!

And in other news, we may have some new lady inhabitants at the farm this weekend.  Stay tuned for details!