Rock N Row Cover

We worked a full day at the farm to weed, move rocks, and get our row covers installed over our plants. We took a 45 minute lunch in the barn during the lightening and thunderstorm and witnessed a lightening bolt so close that it sounded like a shotgun going off. SCARY! We were about to call it a day, but they sky cleared up and the air cooled off. So, we pushed on.

When we arrived at the farm we noticed that deer had eaten several of our soybean and green bean plants. We also noticed several insect created holes in the leaves of the soybeans. If it hadn't been for these factors, we probably would have quit after one row cover was installed, because weeding and installing one row cover already made my back a little achy from all the bending over. Let me tell you that farming is not easy on the back and body. It makes me aware of muscles I haven't used on a regular basis. :)

Check out the videos below showing our quarter acre farm  before and after row cover installation!

Hooping it up!

Damian and I are working on our next project for preventing bug and pest damage of our crops. Instead of spraying pesticides, organic farms often use "floating row covers" to keep bugs away. The floating row cover is made of a lightweight mesh that allows rain and sunshine in but keeps the bugs out. We have 1000 feet of row cover purchased, but have to build the hoop infrastructure to support the fabric. If we lay the fabric directly on the plants, heavy rains could crush weak stemmed plants or smother the plants into the mud. Making a hoop infrastructure for the fabric to lay over will create a small covered tunnel for the plants to grow and not get crushed or smothered.

Some of the gardening stores sell pre-made gardening hoops; however, we calculated that we would save over $120 if we purchased wire and cut our own. After hours of cutting, shaping, and pushing the wire into the earth, I am proud to announce we have 210 hoops arching over our small plants.

Without the floating row cover, I think the hoops look like a piece of installation art. It is only step 1 in the process, but step 2 will hopefully be completed this weekend. After we get the fabric in place, we will have 17 small tunnels. I can't wait to see what it looks like.

Soybeans growing under brand new hoops

Adding hoops under ominous skies

Hoops are finished!

Finding Inspiration in Cape Cod

Recently, I took an extended weekend trip to Cape Cod to celebrate my girlfriend's engagement. We rented a house near Nauset Beach and I was not expecting to find gardening inspiration around the corner. When I took a Sunday morning walk, I heard chickens, peeked through the thick bushes off the side of the road, and found a gem of a garden. I saw someone gardening and shouted out my appreciation for their garden. Then, they shouted back that I should come on a garden tour, so I did!

The garden was owned by a man named Bobby. He described himself as a gloom and doom sort of man that grew all of his own veggies because he didn't trust the government and decided he had to take care of himself. :)  Despite his negative description of himself, I found Bobby to be quite pleasant and very knowledgeable!

Bobby talked extensively about his honey bee hives. He told me that his wife and himself  started the whole garden by selling honey at the local farmer's market. He told me that he produces over 150 lbs of honey a year. After much success with the honey, they started vegetables and fruit trees soon after. He had numerous types of lettuces, peas, tomatoes, and more. He gave me more weeding, fertilizing, and growing tips than my brain could handle.

I love serendipidous meetings and am thankful for Bobby giving me gardening inspiration while on my trip in Cape Cod.

I spotted Bobby's garden from the road

Rainbow Chard

Proof that using red plastic mulch does make tomatoes bigger

Beautiful organization and colors

Bobby showing off his peas and leafy greens

Bobby was an expert beekeeper

Bobby starts all his plants from seeds

Opening up a package of irrigation freedom - DRIP TAPE!

If someone had mentioned "drip tape" to me a year ago, I would have said, "DRIP WHAT?" Now that we have started a farm, drip tape has become our most recent investment and vital component to our farm.

Practically speaking, using a hose to spray a quarter acre of land could take forever! With the drip tape, we are able to to water the soil around the plants by turning on the faucet for a half an hour and not have our hands tied up with the hose sprayer. Also, we are able to set a timer to water our plants when we are not able to get to the farm. Basically, it means that we will have wonderful irrigation freedom! If we can feed our vegetable plants and keep them happy, we will hopefully have healthy and beautiful vegetables to sell at farmer's markets in the future.

We were completely satisfied with our purchase of our drip tape kit at Drip Depot and would recommend it to anyone interested. It was easy to customize and purchase our kit. When we received our purchase, they even sent two Tootsie Roll Pops as a thank you for our order. :) The online store offers videos that help with visually understanding how to set up the system. When we got into the field on Sunday, it took Damian only a few hours to set up our irrigation system that we will use for years to come! Irrigation systems are cool!


I love getting huge packages delivered!





Drip Tape Depot gave us a 2 Tootsie Roll Pop Thank you!




Huge spool of drip tape

 




Damian is connecting the drip tape to the main line

 



Damian is installing the drip tape

 


Finished drip tape irrigation system

  

Garden Harvesting

Originally, Damian and I had planned to harvest a bag of lettuce a week throughout the summer, so that we could have fresh salads every week. However, we now know that is not going to be possible. 

Due to the extremely hot weather last week, we had to harvest all of our romaine lettuces and broccoli due to "bolting." Bolting is a common problem experienced when growing cool weather crops and getting an early heat wave. Bolting is an undesirable formation of flowers and seeds in vegetables such as lettuce, broccoli, and cauliflower. Bolting destroys the flavor of the leaves and florets by making them bitter and tough. It is caused by high temperatures, long periods of high light intensities, and drought.

Even though we didn't get to harvest all of our vegetables when we wanted to, we are excited to see so many healthy vegetables come out of our garden by the first week of June. Currently, we have harvested the following vegetables from our garden:

• 8 heads of romaine lettuce
• 6 bags of lettuce
• 4 bags of spinach
• 5 bunches of radishes
• 2 bags of sugar snap peas
• 5 broccoli heads
• 1 cabbage
• 6 onions
• 3 funky carrots



Sometimes you have to put on a pretty dress to proudly show off your greens




Broccoli before it bolted




When romaine lettuce bolts, it looks like there is a pineapple shooting out of the top




Sugar Snap Peas




Funky carrots #1 & 2




Funky carrot #3 likes to dance through the air :)



From the garden to the table - GALUMPKIS!

Whether it is burritos, sushi, or galumpkis, one of my favorite ways to prepare food involves wrapping and rolling! Tonight, I prepared galumpkis with freshly harvested cabbage from our garden. Galumpkis are a form of cabbage rolls. They are traditional Polish dish made from lightly boiled cabbage leaves, which are wrapped in a burrito-like manner around pork or beef, chopped onions and rice; baked in a casserole dish with a tomato sauce. It was delicious!

 Here is the link to the recipe I used: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/stuffed-cabbage-rolls-galumpkis-recipe/index.html

Fresh Cabbage from the garden

After boiling for 5 min, blanch cabbage leaves in cold water

Cabbage leaves stuffed with meat mixture and rolled up like a burrito

Add the prepared tomato sauce & cook at 350º for 1 hour

Galumpkis on my plate ready to be eaten!

Tilling is complete!

Damian and I worked all weekend to till our quarter acre of land and it is FINALLY complete!  In celebration of the end of our massive tilling project, I uploaded a video tour of our progress.

 It may not be very impressive to some of you and may just look like DIRT. However, let me tell you that this "dirt" has been: plowed, disced, mounded, composted, raked, tilled, and sculpted with love and lots of sweat. The "dirt" at the top of the mounds is actually fluffy and ready for my transplants and seeds. I am waiting a few days to put them in the ground because the weather is still going to be in excess of 95 degrees for the next three days. It is best to put the transplants in the ground before a good rain and when the weather isn't quite as hot as it has been.

Tilling the earth is butterfly approved

As of yet, Damian and I have not quite mastered the rise-with-the-sun kind of farming. We like to sleep in and we usually get to the farm around noon on the weekends. Today was different. The temperature was suppose to get to 98 degrees and we decided to get to the farm early to utilize the tiller we rented from Home Depot. Even though waking up at 5:30am on a Saturday isn't my idea of fun, we got to the farm early and saw the dew misting off of the grass around our farm plot. Beautiful!

We got to work on tilling asap. A tiller is designed to break up huge clogs of dirt into finer particles and make it a more friendly environment for growing plants. The tiller is a monster of a machine that has a mind of its own. It pulled, tugged, and dragged me around. After tilling up 2 rows, I felt like the machine had beaten me up. So for the most part, Damian tilled and I raked. We took a long break from noon to 5pm to let the oppressive heat pass. Regardless, we sweated A LOT!

While tilling, the butterflies were active and curious about what we were doing. They must have landed on Damian and I about a dozen times. Even though I was beaten by the machine, the butterfly kisses made me smile and kept me going. Thank you butterflies.

7am at the farm



Butterflies like buy one get one free hoses

Damian tilling

Amber tilling



Butterflies like my sweaty sunscreened arm



Butterflies like Damian's sweaty head