Mile Creek Farm

Blog Has Moved

2011-05-05T11:23:00.000-07:00

We are happy to let you know that we haven't stopped blogging, we've just relocated the blog. You can now find it as part of our farm's website.

Happy reading!

Winter

2010-12-13T11:59:00.001-08:00

We got our first snow fall before we had completely cleared the fields. Here some hoops and row cover get squished by the fluffy wet stuff. Winter always hits fast... our last post was just about harvesting the last of the carrots in 70 degree weather!

There are a lot of winter jobs that keep us plenty busy. There are office jobs like reapplying for our organic certification, signing up CSA members, planning our vegetable plantings and ordering seeds. Then there are farm maintenance projects that we finally have time to do like tractor and equipment maintenance and getting a heater hung in our greenhouse. Even without the heater hooked up yet, Ben reports that the greenhouse is very pleasant to work in despite the bitter cold winds outside.

Glorious Fall

2010-11-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

This has been a great fall weather wise. Last week we enjoyed working in 70 degree weather!
While our CSA is over and we've stopped going to market, there is still life in our fields. Here we have cauliflower and broccoli raab, two cool weather loving crops growing well.

We spent time harvesting the last few carrots in the field. It's quite a process. We have to water the carrots so that they pull out of the ground. We tried forking the carrots, but got tired of going to Sears with our broken forks to exchange for new ones.

Here we have our freshly dug carrots.

And here they are all washed and bagged, ready to sell

We grew a new variety for us, an heirloom called Red Cored Chantenay, and we love it! It grows well in our soil and has a great sweet flavor. We'll be growing it again for sure.

Garlic!

2010-10-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

This week we got our garlic in the ground. Unfortunately the freshly planted garlic field doesn't really look much different than it did before we put hundreds of cloves of garlic in the ground, but all of these beds that you can see will be full of tasty garlic by the end of next June.

Before we could even venture out to the fields to plant the garlic we had to crack open each head and break it into individual cloves.

Then we laid the cloves out in rows...

And plunged each clove three or four inches into the soil.

As you can see we got lucky this year and were planting garlic in nice warm and dry weather. This is not always the case. Of course the task is not finished yet. We are waiting on some straw to mulch the garlic. This keeps the cloves from heaving out of the ground as everything freezes and thaws throughout the winter.

We planted five times as much garlic as we did last year because the taste of fresh garlic beats anything that you can get in the store. Come visit us next August and you can taste the difference!

A little more summer

2010-10-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

The past couple weeks we've alternated between fall-like and summer-like days. Today is a summer-like day. We're back to running irrigation constantly and trying to get harvest done early in the morning before the sun starts to really bear down on us. At the same time we actually have time for some farm tasks that aren't in the field, like cleaning out the chicken coop. Here's the coop with fresh, clean straw.

We have been waiting for the ideal opportunity to clean out the coop before the winter. The weather has been perfect for this task because we want everything to be nice and dry because dry straw is lighter than wet straw. The chickens seem to appreciate the clean coop, but they appreciate any greens that we toss them (in this picture they've just gotten some carrot tops) even more!

Without much rainfall most of the trees in our area have already begun to drop their leaves. We didn't really get many fall colors this season. Instead most of the trees look like these.

While the warm temperatures have made for an underwhelming leaf season, they have meant that we've still got lots of flowers around the farm. Here are some that are love these October days. This is ageratum.

And scabiosa (or pincusion).

And finally, marigolds.

In addition to flowers the broccoli is starting to come on. For the sake of our broccoli and cauliflower we are hoping for some cooler weather even if we are enjoying the warm sunny temperatures ourselves!

First frost?

2010-10-05T13:45:00.009-07:00

Tonight just may bring our first frost of the season. While this would kill the tomatoes and peppers (most of which are still alive even if they are producing very, very slowly at this point in the season) all of the other crops growing on the farm now don't mind a little bit of cold. In fact many of the crops that we have out in the field won't grow very well in warmer weather so we welcome the cold. In addition to cool weather crops the spiders are thriving right now on the farm. There are many of them in the tomato field and this one has scored the ultimate prize, a big tomato hornworm.

This broccoli is one of the crops that doesn't grow well in the summer heat. In fact it is just now getting cool enough for us to have nice broccoli. Here is broccoli that is just about ready to harvest...

and here's our best-looking broccoli crop so far which won't be ready for another two or three weeks.

This is a plant that is closely related to broccoli. It is broccoli raab (or rabe or rapini, etc.), and is spicier than traditional broccoli with smaller florets and more tender green leaves. The broccoli raab is closer and is a brighter green while the broccoli is behind.

Another green that we are growing is this rainbow kale. This is a new variety of kale that we found in one of our seed catalogs that was the result of crossing Tuscan kale with red kale. We really like it because it has a nice color to it with big leaves. Not to mention that it tastes great too!

Finally, we've always been amazed that we haven't had problems with deer eating our crops. Well, unfortunately they have found the lettuce. Since we didn't have a very large planting of it, we've just covered it all with remay which will deter the deer for this year, but we may have to come up with a different fix next season.

2010-09-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

It is about 30 degrees cooler than last week at this time! That's caused us to adjust significantly. On Monday morning as we got ready to harvest for the CSA not only did we have to find warm clothes, but we were also searching out raincoats so that we could at least attempt to stay dry. As you can see Emily doesn't look very dry, but of all the rainy weather tasks picking peppers isn't too bad since you don't have to dig anything out of the ground!

The carrots didn't come out of the ground this clean, but once the mud has been sprayed off they are ready to enjoy. At least that is the way that Evan seems to like them best. By the way, he did not manage to finish all of that carrot.

We didn't harvest these greens on Monday because they are just starting to produce. They are a plant called Hon Tsai Tai and while the leaves can be eaten they are generally grown for their flowering stems. These are a sweet, succulent treat in the spring and fall.

Finally we've got some spinach that is just getting its first true leaves. Since the weather was hot and dry we put more seed down than we usually would. In the patches that germinated well we've got lots of plants, but there are patches that aren't as good. We are trying to be better about taking notes of everything that happens during the year so that we can plan for it next year. Sometimes it is frustrating that when something is unexpected we can't correct for it until the next year, but as we grow on our land year after year we are definitely learning how to be prepared for many eventualities.

Autumn begins?!?

2010-09-21T13:24:00.002-07:00

Fall is officially here! But...it is still 90 degrees outside and we still have not gotten any measurable rainfall. In fact the irrigation routine is now so ingrained in our daily rhythm that I switch or turn on the irrigation as regularly as I brush my teeth.

Emily and I decided that we would recharge a bit this weekend before really delving into fall crops and end of the season cleanup. So we went on a farm tour to Mick Luber's Bluebird Farm in Cadiz. Mick's farm is nestled in the hills of far Eastern Ohio. The drive to the farm was beautiful and the farm itself was intriguingly different from our largely flat, midwestern setting. The growing area on the farm was divided into two spaces. One in the valley, pictured here.

And another at the top of the hill on which the farm sits.

After returning home from the farm tour we took Sunday off. The only farm work that we did was of course moving around irrigation. Then on Monday morning we dived right back into harvesting for the CSA. First we cut these bok choi. As you can see we've grown them in a tunnel of fabric called remay, which prevents pests from demolishing this particular crop.

Then we judged that this lettuce could wait another week or two until we harvest it.

Next we picked kale, sweet corn, tomatoes and finally peppers. While we picked bell peppers and jalapenos for our CSA we also grow some other peppers that we really like.

These are called Jimmy Nardellos. They are super sweet (sweeter even than the colored bells that are always in great demand) and are great raw in salads, sauteed in a stir-fry or roasted and used in soups or sauces.

We are trying another Italian frying pepper called Corno di Toro this year. These beautiful peppers range from slightly hot to mild with a great taste. They are an excellent addition to sauces. We really like them on pizza.

We also have jalapenos growing. With the hot dry weather we've heard from customers that these have packed quite a punch this year.

Finally we've got lots of bell peppers growing and starting to ripen (red, yellow and orange peppers are all fully ripe green peppers). We have not had as much luck this year with the peppers as we have in the past so we are just starting to get some turning. It is just one of the things that happens when it is constantly raining in June and the peppers get planted three weeks late!

Perfecting the art of irrigation

2010-09-14T13:46:00.006-07:00

Most farmers who grow produce in Ohio irrigate at some point during the year. This year we have run irrigation almost every day since mid-July. Because we are growing more crops and because it has been so consistently dry this is the first year that we have run this much irrigation and it is tiring. But on the other hand we get to harvest sweet corn in the middle of September!

Plus since we've kept them on water the ears are a good size. Now we just have to work on controlling the corn earworms.

We are still putting crops in the ground. Most of these seedlings will be planted tomorrow.

These seedlings won't be planted tomorrow because they were eaten by one of our chickens. They occasionally get out and on Sunday evening I found a chicken walking around contentedly. Fortunately, the chicken did not venture onto the table to eat the all of the other seedlings that were waiting to be planted.

Elsewhere on the farm it always feels a bit more like fall once we've got butternut squash curing in the barn.

Plus these turnips are growing nicely and just beginning to size up.

Finally we've got sunchokes blooming on the farm. We planted these tubers for the first time this year. They are a starchy vegetable (you eat the tubers) that is native to most of North America. We did little more than throw these in the ground and they have taken off. They are a perennial and we are using them as windbreaks in our fields. The sunflower-like flowers are an added bonus.

Labor day, literally

2010-09-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day all come and go pretty much unnoticed at our farm. We certainly don't question the significance of any of the events or causes that these days celebrate; we simply have too much to get done! So we harvested for our CSA delivery on Sunday and Monday this year, though we did take longer lunch breaks so that we could watch some of the US Open.

Even though a few cool nights (it was in the forties when we got up on Sunday morning) have begun to slow down the tomato plants we are getting another great week of heirloom tomatoes.

We like to do two plantings of heirlooms so that we can have them longer into September, but it didn't happen because of the wet weather this spring so we are still relying on our first planting.

It is dry, dry, dry right now at the farm. So we've been watering whenever possible. The well is just starting to show some signs of fatigue since it really hasn't rained since mid-July, but we are pumping out what we can to try to grow some fall lettuce for our customers.

The sweet corn is on drip irrigation so it is nice and green and almost, almost ready.

It is great having a late crop of sweet corn that will be appreciated even more because there isn't much local sweet corn around now. Elsewhere on the farm we have a very different corn growing: broom corn.

This is an ornamental corn (though you could make a broom out of it if you really wanted to) that Emily will use in her fall bouquets.

Even though the flowers are slowing down with the shorter days there are still lots of zinnias to cut. This is a 200 foot long bed of zinnias planted in three rows that is only about half of the zinnias we have on the farm this season. Emily says that she wants even more next year!

Goodbye August

2010-08-31T14:23:00.000-07:00

Writing on the final day of August is somewhat bittersweet. With a couple more ninety degree days this week we're definitely ready for cooler temps. At the same time the summer heat brings on tomatoes, beans, and other crops that we like to grow. Fields around the farm reflect both the end and the height of our season.

This was where we had a number of our potatoes. All of the potatoes are out of the field and in deep storage in the cooler. To store potatoes for an extended length of time you need to let them fully dry off after harvest. Then box them up without washing them. Then they need to be stored in a dark, humid cooler that stays above 40 degrees. So, when we need potatoes for the CSA or for market we remove boxes from the cooler and wash and bag the potatoes. At least it is easier than digging them up each time we need potatoes!

Other crops, such as beans are actively producing now and we've got to be out there in the field every couple of days harvesting them. Picking beans is a unique skill because it has to be done as quickly as possible; while, at the same time, it needs to be done thoroughly so that mature beans are not left on the plants. We've got another planting of beans that should mature in a couple of weeks, but the bugs have really gone to town on them and we're just crossing our fingers that we'll still get something out of the planting.

Evan is hoping that we get a fall crop of raspberries. So far he is by himself pretty much keeping up with what the plants produce! In fact, though he likes to pick tomatoes and beans, raspberries are the only crop that he actually likes to eat directly from the plants.

Looking ahead

2010-08-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

Growing produce throughout the summer and fall requires a good bit of planning. We have to have crops that are maturing throughout the end of August and through September since the tomatoes will only last so long (I'm sorry to say...). So we've got a few pictures of crops that are just beginning to come into production. First off we've got a planting of swiss chard that we are just beginning to harvest off of.

We like to do multiple plantings of chard since the first leaves that are harvested are the most tasty and best looking. We've also got some sweet corn that will hopefully be ready in a couple of weeks.

Almost all of the signs for local sweet corn have come down (it has been so dry here that unless you are irrigating your corn as we are it is pretty much impossible to have sweet corn at this time), but we should have some soon. Elsewhere these yellow wax beans are just coming on.

We had some of these in a pasta salad last night and they were really tasty! Of course Evan didn't wait until we got them in the house and cooked to try them.

Emily also takes into account the changing seasons when planning her flowers. These amaranth are much more popular after there have been a couple of cool nights to get people thinking about fall colors.

At the same time sunflowers are always popular and we especially like these fuzzy looking sunflowers which we've grown for the first time this year.

An unexpected benefit of this type of sunflower is the fact that the bugs don't seem to like it as much as they like all the other sunflowers.

Technical glitch...

2010-08-24T18:01:00.001-07:00

Hello all,

Our regularly scheduled posting has been delayed for a day or so due to a minor technical problem. We'll have new pictures up shortly. Thanks!

Bugs

2010-08-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

August is bug season on the farm. We see bugs everywhere, we feel them biting and nibbling on us while we work and we hear the cicadas constantly. When you spend as many hours outdoors as we do you get used to bugs everywhere. We are happy to see many of our bugs because they help keep our pest bug population in check. Some bugs though we are happy to see simply because of their beauty. Such is the case with these butterflies that love the flower field!

On the other hand when we find tomatoes that look like this we know that tomato hornworms have arrived.

These guys demolish tomato plants. Fortunately a parasitic wasp also likes the hornworms. In fact it uses the hornworm to feed its larvae. Here is a tomato hornworm with parasitic wasp larvae on its back.

It may seem gross but I'd much rather see this than to have to spend my time spraying our organic control for the tomato hornworms.

As far as our crops are concerned we've got lots of beans coming into production. We've got fresh green beans in addition to these edible soybeans (also known as edamame). They have a very loyal following among some of our customers, but we had to scale back our planting a bit this year because we ended up with more edamame than we knew what to do with last year!

Of course everyone knows how to enjoy these wonderful French fillet beans. Young and tender they only need to be cooked for a couple of minutes. We are at the end of our first planting of these beans, but we have another planting that will mature later in September.

Finally come the middle of August we've got whole fields that need to be cleaned up. This is where we have grown many of our crops over the past couple of months. They have all been mowed and tomorrow this field should be tilled and prepared for its fall cover crop of oats and tillage radish.

Tomatoes!

2010-08-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

We had our first good size tomato harvest this week. Back in May/June when we were waiting, impatiently, for our field to dry out and the tomatoes were growing taller and taller in their little cells there were moments that I thought we might not get to harvest tomatoes this year! We like to grow a number of heirloom varieties. These are tomato varieties that have been saved and passed down from year to year, oftentimes for their individual characteristics, as opposed to bred and hybridized selectively by researchers or seed companies. So heirloom tomato plants produce tomatoes that look and taste nothing like grocery store tomatoes. On the other hand they are more susceptible to variations in weather and disease pressure. This year our heirlooms are splitting like crazy. This is usually the result of uneven watering that has been exacerbated by the fact that the weather has been consistently hot and humid. Enough talk about tomatoes, now let's meet some of our heirlooms!

These three are our small tomatoes. From left to right we've got garden peach, green zebra and black trifele. Garden peach is juicy and sweet with just a little fuzz (hence its name) on the outside. Green zebra has a strong flavor that lends itself well to salads, or to being sliced and added to a grilled cheese sandwich. Finally black trifele is a new tomato for us this year, and like other dark tomatoes it has a rich, sweet flavor.

These light-colored, large heirlooms are called (again from left to right) great white, goldie, and copia. Great white is a new tomato that we tried this year because the yellow tomato that we usually grow (Lillian's yellow) was unavailable this year. These are mild and juicy tomatoes that are ripe when the bottom just begins to blush. Goldie is turning out to be one of our favorite heirlooms because it hardly cracks! This meaty tomato also has a great taste and texture that make it ideal for sandwiches or burgers. Finally, copia is one of our mottled tomatoes that is a stunning mix of yellow and red. We usually grow a variety called striped german, but didn't get any planted this year due to a couple of issues with potting mix and the weather. Copia is a similar tomato to striped german and is also great for sandwiches.

Some heirlooms look pretty close in terms of color to your "regular" red tomatoes. These are brandywine and cherokee purple (the two tomatoes in the top row are brandywines and the bottom row are cherokee purples). The tomatoes on the left are the less ripe version of each variety of tomato. Both of these tomatoes are requested by name each year at our market stand. Brandywines are sweet and juicy with a very thin skin that makes them great for eating on salads or simply sliced on a plate with a little bit of salt. Cherokee purples are dark, meaty and flavorful. Even in a good year they crack all over so it is not surprising that many of ours are cracked again this year.

Finally, we've got two different types of hybrid tomatoes. The dark red tomatoes (top row) are big beefs which are consistent, hold up well and taste great. The lighter pink tomatoes are, appropriately, pink beauties. They are just a bit juicier than big beef with a slightly thinner skin. We hope that you will enjoy all of these tomato varieties this season!

How to enjoy an onion

2010-08-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

We always try to get Evan to eat new vegetables as they come into season. This week we pulled our onion crop so he set about to learn how to eat an onion. Apparently they are best when shaken...

Then enjoyed raw and muddy.

After his onion snack Evan could help me unload a tiller that we bought. It became evident this spring that we needed a bigger, heavier tiller to prepare the ground more quickly between rains. So we finally received the tiller that was ordered back in June. I knew that the semi wouldn't make it into our driveway so I backed our pickup truck up to the semi and slid the 700 pound tiller down a homemade ramp into the pickup bed. All went well and after a couple of days of set-up and adjustments I was working some ground this morning.

By the afternoon we had flowers planted in the ground that I had just worked! Apparently we just can't plant enough flowers. This picture was snapped at 10AM at our Saturday Market.

This picture was taken at 11AM on the same Saturday. Each bouquet needs to be wrapped after being sold so Emily was busy during that hour.

Finally here's a picture that you won't often see in Ohio. Corn on driptape! Since we didn't get our corn planted until mid-July we need to be able to help it through the hot and dry August days.

The tomatoes are almost here.

2010-07-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

We've learned that one shouldn't make prognostications when farming, but I'll go out on a limb and say that we're looking forward to a good tomato season on the farm. You can see that they are starting to go from green to red.

We've been harvesting sungold cherry tomatoes and Juliette saladette tomatoes (the smaller tomatoes are usually the first to ripen). They are definitely a treat at this point in the season and the sungold tomatoes are so fragile (shortly after a rain I've watched them split while carrying them up to the barn!) that you probably won't find them anyplace except directly from a farmer who grows them.

As you can see we've been busy tying up the tomatoes to keep their vines off the ground in an attempt to keep the plants healthy. Pretty soon though we're going to run out of stake to tie up the plants.

Meanwhile the chickens keep laying their eggs though they definitely don't like the hot weather. Egg production will drop a bit in hot weather (since we don't have an air conditioned coop) because the chickens don't like to eat as much when it is hot outside. In this picture our very helpful intern Ali is carrying the eggs from the coop to the barn where we will box them up and put them in the fridge.

In the flower field Lisianthus is just beginning to bloom. This delicate flower is enjoyed by Emily and the bees alike.

The barn is also finished being painted. We've had the barn fixed (there were some rotten timbers that resulted from a missing ro0f), a new roof put on, and had the barn painted by Jim Wilson. He's a carpenter who specializes in historic preservation and timber frame buildings, and we certainly like what he's done with the barn. Every farm needs a good barn and now we're happy to show off ours.

Finally, the sun sets and moon rises on another week at Mile Creek Farm.

It's not a dry heat.

2010-07-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

I spent eight years of my childhood in Arizona where the temperature on a July day was normally well over 100 degrees, but as they say at least it was a dry heat. This year in Ohio it is definitely a wet heat. So, though we're used to working outside in all kinds of weather we've found this summer to be particularly uncomfortable. Additionally there are a lot of things that haven't worked out as we'd planned on the farm this year so we're usually pretty tired when we come inside and fortunately being greeted by the following scene helps us forget for a bit all the work there is to do.

Some of that work that we've gotten done this past week includes weeding the newly planted corn. Being primarily a farmer and secondarily a blogger I didn't think to take a before and after picture, but if you replace all the dirt that you can see with little green weeds then you'll have an idea of what the field looked like before I went through it with the wheel hoe.

Our very helpful crew of dedicated workers cleaned up these bean beds this morning. These are "fancy" French filet beans. They are long, slender and a real treat even though their smaller size makes the harvest take longer than it does with other beans.

Even though it went in much later than it should have the winter squash is starting to fill in its beds. Another couple of weeks and it will hopefully have most of the field covered with vines and little baby squash.

The zinnias are finally starting to bloom. Emily is very committed to cutting her flowers at the ideal time so fast-opening flowers like zinnias and sunflowers need to be cut every day. Add it to the to-do list!

We've found that most people either love okra or really dislike it, but even if you don't like the wonderfully slimy vegetable, maybe you can appreciate the flowering plant!

2010-07-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday was our CSA member fieldwalk. Fortunately the thunderstorm that blew through minutes before everyone arrived did not dump much rain on us. And we were rewarded with this view of a rainbow.

With cooperative weather the last couple of weeks we've run through a lot of our planting that had been piling up.

Now the greenhouse is pretty much done for the year. Of course we do still have fall broccoli to plant.

In the fields the peppers are just beginning to grow. Within a month we'll have to stake and tie up these guys because they get so heavy with peppers that they will fall over in a thunderstorm. At the same time as the peppers, tomatoes and eggplants are just beginning to produce, we are also seeding fall crops.

Under the white fabric row cover we've got a type of rutabaga that we're trying this year. We also seeded some sweet corn in this field. I know that everyone around here probably will think we are crazy for seeding it so late, but we just haven't been able to work up enough of the fields until now to get it planted. We'll put it on drip irrigation and we should have corn in mid-September.We haven't really grown much sweet corn the last couple of years because we really don't have the space to grow enough of it for the CSA and/or market, but we were determined to get some planted this year.

Finally after all of the harvest and CSA preparation was done yesterday I looked in the cooler at our air conditioner that we've modified to cool our homemade walk-in cooler down into the thirties (here's a link for more info on the coolbot that allows us to do this) and it was completely frozen over!

This is a nightmare situation for us because it means that suddenly the cooler won't get any colder than 65 degrees which is much too warm. After a couple of hours of manually defrosting the air conditioner every twenty minutes with the fan and/or a blow drier, I finally found the loose connection and was able to get it fixed in time to get to bed before midnight!

It's hot!

2010-07-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hopefully everyone is staying cool in this weather. I went out to run irrigation at 6 this morning and was surprised by how comfortable it was. I got inside to eat breakfast around 7 and got back outside at 7:30. Suddenly it was a lot warmer and you could really tell that it was going to be hot! Of course hot weather is great for a lot of our crops. We harvested carrots this week, which means that we had to wash carrots too. Not surprisingly, carrots come out nice and dirty and require a good amount of washing to get them clean. We pull the carrots and put them in buckets. Then we let them sit in water in the cooler until we wash them later that day.

At the end of the day we have dirty buckets and clean carrots!

This week we've also been setting up irrigation. The tomato field got irrigation first.

You can see the black driptape lines running at the base of the plants. (Also notice that the tomato field has a lot less weeds than it had in the last picture that we took.)

Driptape drips out water literally one drop at a time. One advantage is that only the soil gets wet which helps our plants stay disease free (since most plant diseases flourish in a wet environment). The other advantage is that we can water a large squash field all at once using the least amount of water.

We've also started planting our fall crops. This morning we got cabbage and cauliflower planted. You can see our super high tech drip tape dispenser!

Lots going on

2010-06-29T14:40:00.000-07:00

Every week there are a number of different things that happen at the farm. Every Monday and Friday we harvest for CSA and/or for market. Every Saturday we are at market. Growing a number of different crops means that any given week of the season we are most likely planting a new crop of something, tending to a growing crop, mowing down a finished crop and harvesting off of all the crops that are currently ready. Fitting other work into this schedule has proven to be a challenge so after over three years of needing to have our barn painted we are having it done for us. Currently the barn has been scraped clean and should be painted by this time next week. I also don't like climbing around on ladders and roofs so I am happy not to have to do this.

We should have cucumbers shortly. This is one crop that needs tending each week. In an effort to keep the cukes disease free we clip them to this trellis. Most of those little yellow flowers will be cucumbers in the next few weeks!

Our flower season is really beginning to take off. In her "studio" in the front room of the barn Emily turns our flowers into fresh, wonderful bouquets.

We had family in town this weekend, and we've been doing this long enough that our family knows that when they come visit they get to watch our son, Evan, while we take the opportunity to get a little more work done on the weekend. This weekend we planted lots (over 1000) of sunflowers, some strawflower and statice...

and we finished planting a squash field that we began on Friday afternoon.

At least we had a couple of dry days

2010-06-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

After we had a couple of dry days in the second half of last week, we got rained on during the first couple of hours at the market. We really don't like being rained on during market, but this was especially frustrating because we had been planning to prepare some fields that afternoon. Fortunately it didn't rain too much (.2") and we were able to get some work done that afternoon. We continued working all day Sunday, and just (barely...) before the rain came on Monday we got some more space for squash to be planted.

Here are the freshly made beds after we got a half inch of rain Tuesday morning.

Of course we also got a half inch of rain on Monday. Fortunately we got up at 5:30 and got some beans and other direct seeded crops planted before it came!

We would have loved to have gotten all of this squash in the ground...

And we would have loved to have gotten the tomatoes weeded before the last couple of days of rain, but now we'll just have to wait for the next break in the weather.

At the same time the rain drove us into the greenhouse where we could tend tomatoes and plant some flowers (we like to plant flowers in the greenhouse because certain flowers' stems will become bent and unusable if they get blown over during a thunderstorm).

Other flowers are loving this rain. Look at all these sunflowers about to share their smiling faces with us!

A Wet Week

2010-06-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

Surely, at some point this season we will pine for rain showers like we've gotten this week, but right now we could really use four or five days of sunshine.

When the fields are consistently wet we can't weed or plant. Simultaneously the rain seems to make the weeds grow nonstop. So those tomatoes we recently put in now look like this. In a day or two all those little green specks will be a carpet of weeds.

We could clean up those weeds pretty quickly with a tool called a wheel hoe, but with heavy, wet soil the wheel hoe just picks up dirt and quickly becomes useless.

So, we have to weed by hand. We are growing on some land that we haven't planted before and we have discovered that there are a lot of weed seeds that we'll have to take care of before we plant the fields again. Here are two beds of onions that we weeded by hand (you can see the remnants of the pulled grass in the path between the beds). To the left is a third onion bed that we've since been able to weed.

We like crops like peas, which manage to stay ahead of the weeds. Peas are also a favorite crop of ours because they are great to snack on while harvesting!

The only thing we may need to do differently with the peas next year is put up a taller trellis...

2010-06-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

This week we finally got our tomatoes planted. Planting the tomato field is one of the more involved planting tasks. Tomatoes take a lot out of the soil so we like to put some organic soil amendments on the field at the same time as we plant the tomatoes.

We get the tomatoes in deep by digging a hole for each one. As you can see the plants have gotten pretty tall because the weather hasn't let us get them into the ground until now.

And here's the freshly planted tomato field before the skies opened up and watered the tomatoes in. The picture below was then taken about an hour later.

Finally we got to enjoy some interesting clouds before deciding what project we would tackle the next day.

This Week On The Farm

2010-05-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

Because of fields being to wet we weren't able to plant things at the optimum time of the seedlings life. Here is an example of a flower that definitely should not be flowering still in its seedling tray! Below are very large Brandywine and Pruden's Purple waiting to be planted.So this week we have been playing catch-up. The fields were finally dry enough to prepare beds, which Ben did after market on Saturday. Here he is bed shaping at 9:30pm! The following day was a marathon planting day. We planted summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, celery, celeriac, sunflowers, asters, celosia, snapdragons, scabiosa, and marigolds. Next up, tomatoes!

Meanwhile we have lots of crops in the ground that need our attention. Pictured below is our spring brassica planting (broccoli, turnips, bok choi, arugula, etc) under protective row cover.

Here is a nicely weeded bed of turnips and below that a desperately needing to be weeded bed of salad mix. See it in there?

A Winters Worth of Work

2010-05-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

This winter we converted our corn crib into a living space so that we can have interns live and work here on the farm. It was full to the brim with ancient corn. We have no idea how old the corn was since we inherited it when we moved to the farm and hadn't dealt with it until now.

It took several truck loads to clear all the corn out. It was not the most pleasant job but the end result is really nice living quarters complete with hot water, electricity, insulation and windows!

Another big project this winter was getting our greenhouse ready to go for the spring. We had put the plastic up in the fall, but we still needed to install the end walls, sliding doors, and ventilation system. Here is a picture of the greenhouse from this week---full of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, lettuce and flowers.

1st week in May

2010-05-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

May started off well for us in that we got just over 1 inch of rain. Not too much, not too little. Perfect for our spinach, snap peas, and potatoes pictured above. The plants in the ground should really take off now and we'll be harvesting by the end of the month! We have tiny carrot, beet, salad mix, chard, cilantro, dill, radish and turnip seedlings coming up in our direct seeded beds. Our sweet potato slips came in the mail and got planted just before the rain so they should be off to a good start, all 500 of them! We have begun the spring Brassica planting and have all the kale in the ground. Next up, kohlrabi, cabbage and broccoli. Before seedlings get planted they have to harden off. We move them out of the greenhouse for a few days so that they can adjust to the direct sun and all the wind before we plant them in the field. Pictured above are Brassicas and flowers hardening off. Now, hopefully we will have a few days without rain so we can get these plants planted! The tomatoes pictured our going to be planted in our hoop house to get a jump start and hopefully be ready a few weeks earlier then usual.

Early April

2010-04-17T10:00:00.001-07:00

We are pleased that our 2010 season help arrived this month and we quickly put them to work. They came in a mini van with California plates and unpacked their stuff into our converted corn crib living quarters. They had a weekend to get acquainted with the area and then we got started with greenhouse seeding and field planting.

This week we were busy planting potatoes (all 500 lbs of them...300 lbs more than last year) and onions (about 2,000 in the ground so far). In between planting we weeded our crop of raspberries. The young plants are doing well this spring and we can't wait to harvest raspberries for the first of many years to come.

The season is in full swing and one can already see that we have expanded quite a bit this year. The greenhouse tables are already full of flats of seedlings and we have to make at least 8 more tables to accommodate all the flats left table-less at the moment. We are also growing on 2 more acres of land this year (making the total acreage a little less than 5) and we planted the onions and a few potatoes in this new ground. It has been farmed organically the past 3 years so we are hopeful that it will do well for us.

The tasks are mounting up and the anticipation of fresh picked veggies is making for an exciting Spring. Plus our Organic Certification application is being processed and we are being inspected at the end of the month. Hopefully, we will be able to label our produce as Certified Organic by the first market!

Signs of Spring

2010-03-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

It is safe to say that spring is here to stay. Around the farm there is new life steadily growing. Pictured here is a nice covered cropped field of rye that is starting to green up, garlic that is peeking through the straw mulch, and our onion seedlings now growing in our greenhouse. We are filling our greenhouse up quickly with lettuce, kale, specialty greens, scallions, and lots of flowers. Greenhouse season really gets going the 1st week in April when we will start tomatoes, peppers, basil, broccoli and eggplant. It feels great to start the season!

It's Starting!

2010-02-16T07:18:00.000-08:00

We have plants! When winter lingers on it is always nice when we start onions as it gets us thinking about summer! It can't be too far off, right? Well...onions are such slow growers and are day length sensitive that they need to be started very early. Our greenhouse is not yet heated, so we start our onions in our basement under grow lights. We have storage, red, and sweet onions started as well as leeks and shallots. Hopefully we will have a nice onion crop this year!

Winter Tractor Work

2010-02-16T06:57:00.000-08:00

Living on a farm often has unforeseen advantages. This winter has been particularly snowy and lucky for us, we have a tractor which was used to plow out our driveway! Hopefully all of the cold we've had will kill all the pests that live in the soil over the winter. That sure would be nice!

Winter On The Farm

2010-01-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

With a few inches of snow on the ground we were able to tour the farm with our son via his sled. Here he poses in front of the broccoli patch. With the mild fall we had the broccoli just keep going and going and we never had a chance to mow it. Warm broccoli soup would have been a good idea after this sled ride.

Farm Intern Wanted

2010-01-07T08:14:00.000-08:00

We are in the midst of one of our winter jobs - finding interns for the upcoming season! If you want to live and work organic farming, Mile Creek Farm is the place to be. We are seeking 2 interns from April through October to work side by side with us for the 2010 season. Duties will include seeding, planting, harvesting, weeding, and other crop maintenance. We provide housing, vegetables, eggs and a stipend. E-mail milecreekfarm@gmail.com for more info.

EGGS AT LAST!

2009-12-12T17:35:00.000-08:00

After 18 weeks of raising our Golden Comet hens, they have started laying their eggs! These first few eggs have been small (as is normal for first eggs) but oh so delicious. Here is a picture of the eggs just after morning collection and then later as our lunch! The yolks are a bright yellow color--a sign that our birds are getting a healthy nutritious diet of grass and bugs. If you are interested in purchasing any eggs send us an e-mail at milecreekfarm@gmail.com.

2009-11-25T13:39:00.000-08:00

Kale is one of the those vegetables that you get to enjoy the entire season. It is one of the first crops we bring to market and we still harvest off it long after we've stopped going to market. Here is a picture of our kale crop in the summer and one taken on Tuesday. If you look closely you can see were the stems were harvested off the stalks. Kale actually tastes better with the cooler weather and after the first frost it is sweeter. We were able to provide kale and other vegetables to some of our CSA members for Thanksgiving. The close up picture is just harvested kale ready to be portioned out to our customers. One of our favorite recipes is a kale potato gratin. It's very easy: create alternating layers of thinly sliced potato, onion, and blanched kale and top with milk. In between layers sprinkle with salt, pepper and tarragon and 2 tablespoons butter. Bake at 350 until potato is tender, about 45 minutes. Happy Thanksgiving!

Tractor Work

2009-11-17T13:50:00.000-08:00

Ben had some tractor work to do to get the fields ready for the winter and I thought it would be fun for Evan to watch. After watching the tractor mow down 5 foot tall broom corn stalks and other crops, which was fun, Evan got to investigate the tractor's steering wheel, which was even more fun!

Laying Hens

2009-11-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

This summer we got 50 Golden Comet laying hens. Here is our son being introduced to the day old chicks and some newer photos of the hens enjoying a sunny fall day. In another 3 months or so the hens will start laying their first eggs. Yummy!

Fall On The Farm

2009-11-10T13:12:00.001-08:00

Now that we are finished with our CSA and farmer's market, we can revisit projects that got sidelined this summer. One of these is our greenhouse. We had our intern help us put up the plastic as one of his final jobs on the farm this season. As I type this Ben is putting up the end walls and sliding doors. Next we have to get electricity and irrigation out to it. Next spring this greenhouse will be full of seedlings getting a great start!

Final Market

2009-11-10T13:05:00.000-08:00

Our last market fell on Halloween so of course we had to dress our son in a costume. He didn't last too long because it was chilly! The weather has let us know that the season has come to an end. Thank you to all of our customers! We truly enjoy growing food for you and look forward to seeing you next year!