First frost

We had the first substantial frost of the fall on Saturday. I rescued a peck of tomatoes and enough other veggies to fill a beer case, so that will be the end of the season.

I think I will not bother with sweet potatoes next year, they just aren't meant to be grown this far north. Out of 25 plants set out, I ended up with one decent sized sweet potato that wasn't munched on by moles or mice or whatever it was that ate the ends off of them. Even counting the munched-on ones I ended up with less than a handful. I have learned how to grow your own sweet potato sprouts, so if I do grow them again I will do it that way.

I think all of the turkeys are sold for Thanksgiving, I haven't done a very good job of keeping my paperwork on them in order this year. I will have to sit and chart out all those who ordered them. if you ordered a turkey , email me and tell me so, just in case.

Not much else going on. I have been interviewing for different jobs, since I have serious doubts about the future of the little Milwaukee brewery in the face of the Miller/ Coors merger. There are some great companies out there and I am hoping for an exciting new career.

Cheers!

He's still missing...

No, I have not gone officially missing , and I have not spent the last month looking for the missing duck. But there has been no sign of him, he must have flown south on us.

We got the pigs back from Kewaskum Foods on September 19th and quickly got them distributed to our customers. We have received rave reviews from all parties, I believe they are even tastier than last year's. I have had many home-grown BLTs already.

Speaking of BLTs , the garden is still going strong and we have lots of late-season produce that I need to do a better job of harvesting and taking care of.

It has been a lot of fun this summer as we have more and more meals that consist mostly of food that we have grown ourselves. Our grocery shopping now usually just means picking up some milk and fruit, with a few staples every now and then.

Not much else new, I'll try to do a better job of updating this month.

The Case of the Missing Duck

Last week Thursday I got home from work and decided to feed and water the birds, when I noted something amiss...

One of our ducks was missing! It was the drake Blue Swedish, the two hens were still sitting in their normal spot next to the stable. I started walking around the farm looking for the duck or for a bunch of feathers indicating that something had snatched it up for lunch.

I combed the place and couldn't find anything, no duck, no feathers, no nothing. Nikki had seen a yellow lab in our yard the week before, so my working hypothesis was that someone's dog had nabbed it. Nikki and I went up to Chippewa Falls this weekend, so before we left I set up my motion-activated deer scouting camera on the fence near the duck's wading pool hoping to get some photographic evidence.

My sister-in-law Jackie took care of the farm in our absence and had some further information on our return. On Saturday afternoon she saw 4 large dogs down by our woodshed, which is where I killed the chickens the weekend before. My guess is that it was these dogs that grabbed one of my ducks. The scouting camera was full of pictures, so I am going to get those developed tomorrow. It will probably just show our dog, Cash, running around, but maybe I'll get lucky.

Hearing that we have 4 dogs running around together in the neighborhood is a little worrying, I don't know if they are from an area farm or if they are wild dogs in a small pack. I hope to see them myself soon so that I can see if they have collars or if they are obviously feral.

Wow, it's been a while

Sorry I haven't updated the weblog in so long. Let's see, what is there to report?

The Garden Share program was nearly a complete success, the last week got cut off due to severe punishment from Ma Nature. We had a month of heat and drought, followed by 2 weeks of non-stop rain. Between the weeds and the slugs the garden took a beating and we just didn't have enough stuff to put together a box on the last week. I probably could have assembled enough produce to make it, but it would have been pretty sorry looking. We are nearly recovered now, the late cauliflower and broccoli are getting ready to harvest and there a few other late season veggies around. I've got 13 qts of tomatoes and 7 of salsa in the root cellar already, and hope to get 5-10 quarts of tomato sauce put up before too long.

The chickens, ducks and turkeys are doing well. I sent 4 chickens to freezer camp on Saturday, was hoping to get 8 done, but the hornets found me and so I quit after 4. Some of them were still a a little small anyway. Really big drumsticks on them, though.

The big news is that we took the pigs to the butcher this morning. It was a lot of work getting them into the truck, I ended up taking them in two trips. Pepper, which is the pig Nikki and I are keeping for ourselves was by far the biggest, weighing in at a whopping 280 pounds! She gave me a hell of whallop when I was loading them up, I was closing the tailgate of the pickup when she gave it a mighty shove that sent me flying about 4 feet backwards onto the ground, then she had the nerve to stomp on me as she jumped off the truck. I also had to basically pick up Apple and throw her into the truck because she would not climb the ramp for a bribe of any type. Moving 236 lbs of wriggling pig is a bit of a chore. So I am little bruised and battered, but the job is done.

I will be picking up boxes and boxes and boxes of pork on Wednesday September 19th for all of you that ordered a pastured pork half. I will be emailing all of you that information as well as what it's gonna cost you to get some meat.

Cheers!

Garden lessons for '08

Here are the things I have learned so far from this years' garden that should be applied to next year.

- You CAN plant sweet corn too close together
- Grow more potatoes
- One zucchini plant is enough. Really. Even when you are selling produce. I mean it!
- Mr. Stripey tomatoes are fairly tasteless and they crack.
- Grow more Brandywine tomatoes
- Did I mention that you should grow more potatoes?
- Stagger plantings of cauliflower, no one knows what to do with 15 heads of cauliflower
- German Yellow tomatoes are very susceptible to Blossom End Rot
- Don't plant your pumpkins in May unless you want pumpkin soup in August
- You go through more carrots than you'd think
- 18 square feet of chard is enough chard to supply yourself and the 3 neighboring counties all summer
- Same thing with salad greens
- Those fingerling potatoes are really quite amazing

Lost post!

I thought I had added this post a month ago, but I guess I didn't. I wrote this after having my first "all-farm BLT":

Wednesday was the day. The day I had been building up to the ;last 2 years, all of the preparations were in place, all of the hard work complete, my patience at last rewarded, it was time to enjoy the fruits of my labors.

As you remember, we raised a couple of pigs on pasture behind the barn last summer. I saved one package of bacon in the freezer from last year's pig for just this moment.

I calibrated the toaster with a few 'test slices" so that the toast would be the perfect tawny amber, a hearty crunch, but with a little 'give' to the center of the bread.

I walked up to the garden and selected a beautifully ripe Brandywine tomato, an heirloom variety with deep burgundy flesh, and nearly large enough for a single slice to cover the sandwich. It seemed heavy for it's size, an indication that it was at the peak of it's flavor. A small head of Buttercrunch lettuce, bright green against the faded gold of the straw mulch, joined the tomato on our trip back to the kitchen.

The bacon was laid into a cold cast iron skillet, and carefully monitored while cooking to perfection. It's double-smoked aroma filled the kitchen.

It was time. I assembled the ingredients, gave the sandwich a quick slice on the diagonal and dove in.Utter bliss permeated every cell of my body as I savored this sandwich, the most incredible combination of flavors known to man, and knew that each of it's principal ingredients came from within 300 yards of where I sat.

A funny fishing trip...

This doesn't have much to do with the farm, but it was so funny that I have to share my fishing experience from yesterday.

I grabbed a 6 pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and the dog and loaded up my jon boat into the back of the farm truck and went down to this little lake near us that they just opened a public access for, just to see what it was like.

As I was putting the boat in the water , I noticed this ENORMOUS inflated thing on the beach on the south side of the lake. It was hugely huge, had to be at least 40 yards long and 15 feet high. This will come into the story later.

I fished along a weed line for about 30 minutes and had nothing so I rowed (no motorized boats allowed on the lake) over near a bunch of cattails. I caught a nice walleye and a couple of good sized bluegills over the course of about 40 minutes. Not too intense, it was turning into a nice relaxing afternoon, which is exactly what I was after.

All of a sudden about 50 kids come shouting and hollering down on that beach, they push this huge inflated thing out into the water underneath a tall diving board. Then they line up on the dock and start jumping on to this thing and bouncing off of it. They are making the most godawful racket and a lifeguard is constantly shouting at them through a bullhorn. My serenity wass destroyed, but I was still catching the occasional fish so I decided to tough it out for another half hour or so.

About the time I decided this, I reel in one of my two lines to cast it back nearer the cattails. I notice half the nightcrawler got nabbed, so I reel in the other line to cast it near the cattails and then I will change the crawler on line #1. As I am doing that, I hear a rattling in the front of the boat, I look over just in time to see fishing pole number one thrashing around and go over the side of the boat! That half a crawler was dangling in the water and a big old walleye nailed it and stole my fishing pole!

By this time I am just laughing like crazy, what else could go possibly wrong!? I decide to call it a day. I had some water in the boat that I wanted to bail out before I started rowing to shore, so I dump the fish from my bucket onto the floor of the boat so I can use the bucket to bail water. I'm bailing the water, watching the fish flop around in the boat, when the one really nice walleye that I caught, about 18", gives a tremendous heave and jumps back into the lake! I was laughing so hard I was crying.

To top it all off, as I was rowing back to the dock, Cash the dog decided he wanted to go for a swim so he jumped out of the boat and swam to shore. That gave me the opportunity to spend time with a soaking wet dog in the cab of the truck, and of course he wanted to lay his head on my leg while I was driving home!

Pork order forms are out!

I emailed pork order forms to our customers today. If you ordered half a hog from us and didn't get a form, let me know!

Finally got some rain yesterday, we were getting awfully dry around here.Not much else has been going on. I had a rebuilt transmission put into Black Betty, the farm truck last week, so she's in fine shape to take the hogs to market. I found a GIANT squash in the garden of a variety that I don't even remember planting, it must have been one of the plants I picked up at the garden center when they were closing everything out. It's about as big as a basketball and growing.

Please get those forms back to us by the first week of September, we need to know how you want those pigs!

Canning season has begun!

I started canning things that were otherwise going to go to waste this weekend. I did 4 pints of pickled beets, which were slightly disappointing. I used the Chioggia beets, which have great alternating bands of red and white, like a bulls eye, unfortunately 30 minutes in the canner cooked pretty much all of the color out of them. I also canned 6 quarts of spiced red cabbage relish. It smelled great when I was cooking the pickling liquid, lots of different spices in there including mustard seed, mace, coriander, allspice, and cloves.

I also started an experiment in homemade sauerkraut, about 12 pounds of cabbage went into it and it is trying to ferment down in the root cellar. This week I am also going to start a crock of pickles, there are starting to be enough of them to pick some every day. This year I will actually follow the recipe I have for pickles, since trying to "wing it" last year left us with jars full of tasteless flabby trash. I found a recipe for bread and butter zucchini pickles that I am considering trying, we have an awful lot of zucchini still!

The tomatoes are really starting to come in now, so far the Black Krims are my favorite. I still haven't made an "all-farm" BLT with the last of last year's bacon, but that might just change tonight. And no, I am not baking the bread myself, but I might make homemade mayonnaise.

What is a Garden Share?

This is!

That's representative of the box our customers receive every Friday. The idea is that they pay a set amount in the spring for 10 weeks of boxes of produce from the garden, basically buying a "share" of the garden. This box is from 2 weeks ago. It included heirloom beets, cauliflower, banana peppers, broccoli, radishes, multi-colored carrots, zucchini, white onions, leeks, snap peas, a big box of salad greens, and baby red potatoes

In other news, Pepper the Pig decided to fall sick again on Sunday. She was stumbling around like she was drunk, and generally being uncoordinated. I figured out yesterday that she probably had an inner ear infection, so I used an old-time remedy and poured a capful of rubbing alcohol into each of her ears. I figured I would have to do that every day for 3 or 4 days but, incredibly, she was acting completely normal within 3 hours! A modern operation would have had that pig on a full course of penicillin for 2 weeks, or just culled her to save cost! I am a little tired of the drama from Pepper though, she had better be one delicious pig to make up for the hassle she has given me. Speaking of that, the appointment has been made and the pigs are going to the butcher September 10th.

An interesting morning

The saga of Pepper the Pig continues...

Friday morning, I was enjoying a cup of coffee when I glanced out the window. "Hmmm", I thought, "That is a really big dog in our yard!"

It took about 3 seconds for the truth to fight through to my still caffeine-deprived brain "That's no dog, that's a PIG!" I shouted something incomprensible to Nikki, along the lines of "puh-PIG! Yard Help Loose!" Luckily it was enough to make her realize that something was wrong and she followed me out the door.

My first action was to run down to the pasture to see how many pigs had escaped. Luckily, the other three were contentedly grazing or lying in the mud. I closed the gate and began the pursuit of our escapee. It took a few tries and about 10 minutes, but eventually we got her back where she belonged. I can only imagine how tough it would have been to wrangle 4 of them, so we got very lucky there. Our friends Mark and Amy, who were visiting this weekend, found the whole scene very comical.

Not much new..

Looks like I will not have any ripe tomatoes by the Fourth, dangit. They are not far off though.

The rest of the garden continues it's spectacular run, we've got too many snap peas to deal with right now. Soon we'll have bell peppers and some of the hot peppers are ready to pick now. Black raspberries are ripening and boy, are they sweet this year, best tasting crop we've had. I'd like to dig up a hill of red potatoes and see if there are any baby new potatoes yet, but I'm trying to be patient. Let's see how long that lasts! (Patience has not really ever been one of my strong suits, ask anyone that knows me.)

Those of you that ordered a 1/2 pig from us will be getting an order form in the mail, or by email, sometime this month. It is pretty self explanatory, but please contact us with any questions you have. That is why we are sending it out early, we want to make sure you get exactly what you want. If you do not receive it by the end of the month, let us know!

What else? I've got a full 5 gallon bucket of mulberries for my homemade wine, about 30lbs worth. That should be enough, along with 70lbs of grapes or so, to make a fair amount of wine. I have to look up some recipes.

Time for fencing

I have been living on the edge so far this year, I keep putting off getting the garden fenced in. I need to get on that, because every time I go to the garden now it seems I am scaring out a rabbit. I will not let the rabbits get a tomato before I do! Last time I was at the garden center they were out of the fencing I wanted, I may have to order it or make do with something else.

I forgot to relate a small success from this weekend, I was helping Nikki in her herb and flower garden area when I noticed some feathery greens, I asked "Is this dill?" and she said "No, that's where you transplanted the asparagus". Apparently, it worked! That is good news, I had no confidence that it would grow at all. Now I think I will transplant some more.

Pepper the pig is better every day, you can't even tell she had a limp unless you look really closely.

As I said in the last post, we are overwhelmed with mulberries this year. Come out to the farm and pick a bucketful! This may be the year that I finally make some mulberry wine. I am thinking of mixing them with some of our blush grapes, using a Bordeaux yeast and aging it on French Oak staves. It could turn out pretty nice! At Ardwyn Farm we will serve no wine before it's time. Or until we are really thirsty, whichever comes first.

Pepper's "roller coaster" weekend

Last Thursday I was on a big upswing after seeing Pepper recover from her illness and get her appetite back. Then Friday came. Everything was fine Friday morning, all the pigs were healthy and in fine fettle When I checked on them Friday afternoon, Pepper had developed a definite limp in her left rear leg. I was (probably overly) concerned and was sure she had any of 4 or 5 rare pig diseases or a broken leg. The limp was a little worse on Saturday, and on Sunday she wouldn't put any weight on it at all and pretty much laid in the barn all day. I was convinced it was a broken leg and resigned myself to making an appointment for her at the butcher shop this morning.

Well, I went out to feed the hogs this morning and there was Pepper, running around the pasture like there had never been anything wrong! She has the slightest hitch in her gait, but it looks like she might make a full recovery. What a relief, it really put me in good mood on a Monday morning.

I modified the pig's trough this weekend, and am much more pleased with version 2.0. It eliminates fighting and prevents them from actually climbing into the trough. I am going to draw up some plans and put them on a pig-raising website that I occasionally use, because there is always demand for an inexpensive feeder for the person that's only raising a few hogs.

Last Friday we had our first distribution of Garden Shares and they were very well received. Customers received the following in their 'baskets':
Broccoli
Kohlrabi
Heirloom Baby Beets
Swiss Chard
Romaine Lettuce
Sugar Snap Peas
Radishes
Mesclun Salad Greens
Thyme
Sage
Chives

I was hoping to include some mulberries, but there just weren't enough ripe ones to bother with. They will definitely be in this week's baskets. We have so many mulberries this year it is amazing.

Wow..

I am amazed at how early and how quickly so many things are ripening and fruiting in the garden. I had to tie up heads of cauliflower yesterday, the first planting of kohlrabi is gone, there are 4-5" zucchinis already and even some acorn squash starting! There are at least 75 days untl the average first frost, so there is plenty of time to keep planting things, I just wish I had more seedlings to fill spaces with. I might have to hit the garden centers and buy their closeouts!

Pepper the Pig has been acting a bit lethargic and isn't eating well, I think she got a bad sunburn the other day and I hope that's what's bothering her. I'm keeping a close eye on her and will try taking her temperature this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed that she pulls through!

Garden Shares start this week

This week Friday will be the first weekly pick-up/delivery to our CSA subscribers. Payment for the full 10 weeks is due at that time.

It looks like it will be a fairly good selection, I was just reading a column in the local paper by a guy that got his first box last week. It sounded like it was pretty heavy on herbs on not much on fruits and vegetables, so I think we are on track to provide a good value to our customers.

The Great 4th of July Tomato Project experiment is in a questionable stage, there are plenty of tomatoes started, but it is unknown if any will be fully ripened by July 4. Nearly all of my tomato plants have started fruiting, much earlier than last year, so in any case it will be a longer BLT season.

I put in the last major planting of the year on Saturday, from this point on the only seed planting will be very short-season fill-in crops. I even planted a row of sweet corn, it probably won't mature in time, but I had the space and the seeds so I took a chance.

Before and after

I can't remember the date this spring that the picture on the left was taken, but the one on the right was taken yesterday. You can see the 4-5' tall tomato plnts, carrots in the lower right, and giant onions on the upper right and lower left. More pictures are at the "Farm Pictures" link as promised.

Home again, home again

Wow, you leave for 4 days and you can hardly recognize the place when you get home! The birds all doubled in size and suddenly I had beets and brocolli to harvest!

My trip to Colorado was one of the most physically demanding and mentally relaxing 4 days of my life. We hiked a total of nearly 13 miles at elevations betweeen 9000 and 11000 feet. The first mile of the hike into the wilderness area included an 1100 foot gain in elevation. I was ready to quit after the first 200 yards! But we pushed on, over the rocks and through the snowfields, and made it to the plateau. The weather was beautiful, a little frosty at night, but not intolerable. The fishing was excellent, we had an amazing trout dinner on Sunday evening.

I'll take some pictures of the birds and garden tonight and get them on the photobucket site tomorrow, I have been pretty lax about updating the pictures this year. Sorry!

Garden monsters

To be perfectly honest, the garden is starting to frighten me. Everything is growing so well, I am certain that doom is right around the corner. Last night I had a dream that the neighbor's beef cattle got loose and ate everything in the garden.

We have sweet corn over a foot tall, tomato plants growing out of the tops of their cages,snap peas weighing down their supports, and cauliflower plants so big they are visible from space. Nikki and I have to eat a salad every night at dinner just to keep the various lettuces and greens in check. The only failure so far is the yukon gold potatoes. No sign of growth from them at all.

The pigs are getting really big and really annoying. I am going to start locking them in the barn while I prepare their feed and fill their water, otherwise they crowd around and squeal at you so much that you can't get anything done! The birds are all healthy, most of them are just getting their feathers, and the ducks seem to double in size every day.

Nikki is having a group of her girlfriends from college out to the farm this weekend, so I am getting kicked out of the house. I can't complain though, I am attending a Chili Cookoff/ Microbrew Festival/ Bluegrass fest in Snowmass, Colorado on Friday. Three of my greatest loves in one big festival! Then two friends and I are heading out to the Flat Tops Wilderness Area for 3 days of backpacking and trout fishing at 10,000 feet, in some of the most beautiful scenery in the U.S. I'll get kicked out anytime for a vacation like that!

They're here!

We got our turkeys yesterday, and our chickens and ducks this morning. Over there on the left is one of the turkey poults, sorry it's a little blurry.

When they ship the chicks there have to be a certain number of birds in each box to provide warmth. If there aren't enough, the hatchery will add random chicks (usually roosters) to the box to make up the minimum number. Some poultry raisers call these free additional birds "packing peanuts". Ideal Hatchery is apparently very generous with their "packing peanuts", because they included TEN mystery chicks in with our order of turkeys! They are all identical yellow fuzz-bodies except for one that has a slightly narrower head. It will be interesting to see what breed they end up being.

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The problem is that we were not expecting to nearly double our chicken order, so if anyone out there wants a couple of mystery chicks, they are for sale, cheep! (sorry)

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All of the birds look healthy so far and they are very active and never stop eating, so I have high hopes that they will all survive. If you want to come visit and see some very cute baby birds, come on out to the farm!

Oops, wrong day!

Nikki and I were pretty certain today was the day we were going to get our birds, so we got everything organized last night and I set the alarm so I would be up and dressed when the post office called.

Turns out we were wrong. Today was the shipping date, so we should get them tomorrow. Oops!

In other news, I am beginning to wonder if weathermen are intentionally messing with me. I think they must be, otherwise why was I standing in the garden this morning watering in the middle of a rain shower?

First salad of 2007

Tonight we're having the first salad from the garden this year. I picked a double handful of various lettuces, chard, radishes, and a couple of green onions. I can't wait. We'll also have a side dish of asparagus from the yard. I'll have to look back at the archives and see what the date was for last year's first salad.

I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when I finally spotted some potato vines beginning to appear. I was starting to think they were all duds. So far only the red potatoes are up, I hope the others follow soon.
I got the second plantings of carrots, sweet corn, radishes, beets, chard, salad greens, and peas in yesterday. I also planted cucumbers and green beans.

Saturday we spent with family at my niece's first birthday party. It was nice to see a lot of family we hadn't seen in a while, we had a great time and my niece is, of course, the cutest one year old on earth.

Dodged a bullet!

Looks like we dodged a bullet last night. The weathermen on TV were doom-and-glooming about a frost advisory for the entire state, I wasn't too concerned as it was 60°F at 6pm, but I covered everything delicate before going to bed, just to be safe. Turns out it wasn't needed, I don't think it dropped below 40°. That ought to be the last time I have to worry about it at all, I hope!

The garden looks great, I can't believe how far I am ahead of last year. I already have the first planting of corn sprouting and have squash plants at 5-6". Sunday I'll be planting cukes, beans, and new blocks of radishes, beets, carrots, and chard. I tried transplanting some of our wild asparagus to a spot where maybe it will grow a little bit better than it does by the pine trees. All we get there is stalks thinner than a pencil.

The birds arrive next week, have to remember to call the post office on Monday and warn them that they'll be getting a noisy package for us,

A new trough

The big rubber bowl we were using to feed the pigs just wasn't cutting it. They were getting too big and were fighting with each other too much. I decided a new trough was in order, where they could eat peacefully. Here it is on it's trial run. They are still a little too short to just stand next to it, so I may remove the top board on the near side. That way they won't have to climb in to eat from it. Anyway, it seems to work, and I built it with scrap lumber I had around, so it didn't cost me anything.

The garden is still doing well, my luck seems to be holding with the weather. Still no frosts in the forecast, but it may dip into the upper 30's on Thursday night. I think I'm safe.

Happy Mothers' Day to all you moms out there, have a great day!

Garden List 2007

I think I have everything that's in the garden on the list , but I'm not 100% sure. If I missed anything I'll add it in later.

Acorn squash
Banana pepper
Beets
Black Krim tomatoes
Bloody Butcher tomatoes
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Butter & Cream Sweet Corn
Buttercup squash
Butternut squash
Cabbage
Cantaloupe
Carrots
Cauliflower
Cayenne pepper
Celebrity tomatoes
Checkered Sweet Corn
Cherry tomatoes
Chioggia beets
Cucumbers
Fingerling potatoes
Green beans
Green Bell pepper
Habanero pepper
Holy Mole' pepper
Iceberg lettuce
Jubilee tomatoes
Kohlrabi
Leaf lettuce
Leeks
Mesclun salad greens
Mr. Stripey tomatoes
Old German Orange tomatoes
Peas
Pumpkin
Purple Bell pepper
Radicchio
Radishes
Red Bell Pepper
Red cabbage
Red onion
Red potatoes
Rhubarb
Roma tomato
Russet potatoes
Snap peas
Summer squash
Sweet Potatoes
Swiss Chard
White onion
Wisconsin 55 tomatoes
Yellow beets
Yellow Bell pepper
Yellow Onion
Yellow Pear tomatoes
Yukon gold potatoes
Zucchini

Taking a chance

April 30th is our traditional date of last frost for our area, but last year we had a heavy frost on May 12th.

I've looked at the extended forecast and it doesn't look like we have any future danger of frost, so yesterday I took a chance. I put nearly all of the tomato and pepper transplants in the ground, and planted pumpkins, squash, zucchini, and 2 rows of sweet corn. Now I have to keep my fingers crossed until about Memorial Day.

Not much else is new, the pigs are getting bigger, they are getting used to us now and will walk right up to us at feeding time. Soon they will start getting demanding. The ducklings, chicks, and poults will be arriving May 23rd.

Planting by the signs

I finally got my order of potatoes and onions yesterday.

I had decided that I would follow folk wisdom and plant my belowground crops in the dark of the moon, and sure enough I get my potatoes the day before a full moon. So the potatoes went onto trays and into the fridge out in the barn, awaiting more propitious circumstances. The onions we planted after supper, they were looking a little wilted and I didn't want to risk damaging or losing them.

Those of you that know me, know that I consider the scientific method the greatest achievement of man. And that I consider astrology to be beneath contempt. So why am I following dated, semi-astrological beliefs about planting belowground crops in the dark of the moon? I guess it's because I am not so foolish as to believe that there there may not be a reason that we just have not discovered yet. It seems to me that people that depended on the vegetables they planted for survival were probably more in touch with the ground that they worked and the plants they tended than we are today. If planting by the signs was good enough for them, I am not going to immediately discount it.

Since I do trust the scientific method, I am going to plant just a few of the seed potatoes today, on the day of a full moon. It may turn out to be an interesting experiment. Stay tuned!

More planting...

We had another beautiful weekend, weather wise and I took advantage of it by putting all of the cole plants into the garden yesterday. I put in cabbage, red cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and leeks.

I tilled up an area adjacent to the garden, about 16' x 20' for Nikki yesterday and she is planning a big flower garden, she got some of it planted yesterday, other seeds need to wait until there is no danger of frost.

The Great Tomato Experiment is a 50% success. The two plants in the garden are thriving inside their Wall O' Waters and have turned from sickly yellow to the deep dark green that a tomato plant should be. They are 12-15" tall and once they grow just a little bit more I am going to let them blossom, with the goal of eating a ripe garden tomato in June. The cuttings haven't shown much vigor, but I haven't completely given up on them.

The pigs are growing by leaps, and they are always hungry. I am going to have to build a new trough for them because the giant rubber bowl I've been using is getting to be too small for all four to eat at once without fighting.

Still havent gotten seed my potatoes and I am starting to get anxious. I wanted potatoes in the ground 2 weeks ago. I will have to start being a squeaky wheel, I guess.

Optimism

Someone once said that a gardener is an eternal optimist, and I think that's true. I stopped at Home Depot the other day to buy a garden hose and saw that they had 12" tall potted tomato plants for sale already. Now THAT is optimism!

But since they were cheap, and I found a pot that had two plants in it which made it even cheaper, I decided to take a chance. I bought Mr. Stripey tomato plants, an heirloom variety that is very popular in New England.
On Friday I set up a couple of Wall o' Waters in one of the beds to get the soil warmed up. Saturday I cut off all of the branches on the first 3/4 of the plants and planted them in starting medium, trying to get even more plants out of my purchase. Today I planted the original plants inside the Wall O' Waters, with most of the stem underground to develop into roots.

I have no idea if any of the cuttings or the mother plants will survive, but if they do I should have tomatoes at least 2 weeks earlier than I had anticipated. I am optimistic!

4 rods of strawberries

Because I am a dork, I get a kick out of using archaic language. I recently learned that a 'rod' is 16 1/2 feet, which is pretty close to the length of my garden beds (additionally they are a fathom wide, although that term is usually reserved for water depth). So Nikki and I planted 4 rods of strawberries yesterday, about 70 plants.

We planted a mix of Junebearing and everbearing strawberries, I'm not sure if we will see any berries from the Junebearing plants this year, but I hope there are some from the everbearers.

I am really hoping I get my potatoes and onions soon, it's time to get them in the ground. The seed company is supposed to send them at the proper time for planting, I might give them a call and see when they are planning on getting them to me.

More critters on the way!

We have completed our order for birds this year. It turns out McMurray Hatchery wasn't going to be able to help us out this year because our order was too small for their minimums.

Luckily the folks at Ideal Hatchery were able to work with us and we got exactly what we wanted. Our chicks should arrive sometime around May 21st.

Last year we raised a mixed flock of heritage-breed turkeys, this year we are raising all one breed. They are called Narragansett turkeys and are an official heritage breed. Here's the official description :

"The Narragansett turkey is named for Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, where the variety was developed. It descends from a cross between native Eastern Wild turkeys and the domestic turkeys (probably Norfolk Blacks) brought to America by English and European colonists beginning in the 1600’s. he Narragansett variety is similar in color to the Bronze breed, though it is lighter in color and in build. Narragansett turkeys are gray or dull black with a white bar on the wing feathers. The beak is horn colored, and the head is red to bluish white. "

We are also raising "meat" chickens, as opposed to "egg" chickens. Nikki chose to raise Black Broilers because they grow fast, but not as fast as some of the meat birds that grow so fast that they can't walk.

And finally, which will be a huge surprise to you faithful readers who remember my experience last year, we ordered ducks. However, we only ordered four of them. I was able to deal with having three ducks for a few months last year, so I think I can handle four. It was just that when we had nine of them it was too much. We ordered Blue Swedish Ducks, which look very pretty in the pictures, and they should look nice wandering the yard.

Now I am off to get planting in the garden. Cheers!

New Arrivals

Saturday brought two deliveries to the farm.

The first was our four new pigs from Jack and Lori Krell, owners of Organic Jack's in Hartford. The pigs are posing in the picture above.

The pigs look great and they were definitely ready to be put on pasture. They have done nothing but root in the dirt and sleep since they got here. They even (mostly) ignore the trough of feed left out for them, preferring to dig in the dirt.

The second delivery was 9 cubic yards of composted manure.

I finished digging out the walkways between the garden beds on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, then moved the compost up the hill to the garden using a dump cart and my John Deere. I could be very happy if I don't see a shovel anytime in the next 2 months or so. All of that work was worth it, though. The soil in the beds looks and smells great. Rich, black and stinky, I hope our plants will thrive in it.

I was worried about being behind last year's garden pace, but there was nothing I could do about the weather. Saturday and Sunday were both beautiful sunny days with temperatures in the 50s, good shoveling weather! With a few days of hard work I am nearly caught up. I got all the compost rototilled and mixed with the dirt today when I got home from work and I should be ready to plant seeds tomorrow, only 2 days behind last year's planting date!

What the heck?

I guess I won't be getting the garden in on Sunday after all, since we got about 7" of fresh snow yesterday! The snow should be gone by then, but I think it will still be way too wet to do anything.

Yesterday was no fun. The roads were terrible and I had to lay in the snow and put the plow back on the farm truck. My break-away mailbox design worked really well when (as usual) the snow plow hit it, but I was hoping to not have to replace the shearpin until next year. Oh well, I guess that is spring in Wisconsin.

Last Saturday was a great time, we had a a bunch of family and friends over for an early Easter feast. We cooked the whole ham we had prepared from our big pig last year, it weighed nineteen pounds and took five and a half hours to cook! I checked the cooking chart in one of my cookbooks and it only had hams up to fourteen pounds, so ours was literally "off the charts".

And now, drum roll please, the results of the voting for the pigs' names for 2007. The winner is..... Jackie, with the names Hickory, Maple, Apple, and Smoke. Second place went to Eenie, Meanie, Miney, Moe. For all of you complainers, Nikki did NOT win, she merely posted her sister's entry. A big "thank you" to all that participated!

We'll get the pigs on Saturday, we should have pictures up by Sunday. Cheers!

New logo

You can see we've got a new logo over there to the right. Ardwyn Farm is officially Certified Naturally Grown now, so we can use the symbol here on the blog.

There is not much new to report, the weather has turned cold again briefly, but it can't last forever. All of the coops, pens, enclosures, etc., have been cleaned , repaired, and prepared for their new tenants. Not long now before the pigs arrive and we'll get the turkeys a little earlier this year in order to give them some more time to grow.

Depending on weather and if the ground ever gets a chance to dry out, I'm hoping to put a lot of seeds in the garden on April 15th. That's the same day I started most things last year and it worked out just fine.

Getting things together

I got all of the garden bed boxes finished on Saturday, and got started on shovelling the topsoil from the walkways into the beds. I couldn't believe the number of nightcrawlers and earthworms in that soil, every spadeful had about 10-20 worms in it. That's a good sign, I think. I'll take some pictures of the setup this week and get them posted here.

We went to the Krell farm yesterday to pick out our pigs for this year. We found four gilts with black-spotted rumps that look pretty good. Jack will be delivering them on April 14th, so we'll have a bit of a headstart on last year. I think we should have a contest to name them this year, the winner gets 2 pounds of bacon in October. All ideas are welcome.

All of the seedlings indoors are in good shape, the peppers are just now sprouting. My tomatoes are about 90% sprouted, as is the cabbage.

Starting the garden 2007

In the past week I've got my mini-greenhouses started. We now have seeds from 7 varieties of tomato and 5 of hot peppers started, as well as cabbage and broccoli. I might be starting a little bit early, but I think I'll be okay.

I don't think I need to start anything else inside, most of the other seeds will be sown in the garden just about a month from now. I hope to have all of the raised beds finished this weekend and then I'll start working in the compost.

Not much else happening. We have decided to have four pigs this year after all. I need to get to the feed mill and see when the owner is going to start ordering birds, I'd like to get the turkeys about 2 weeks sooner than we did last year. I also need to ask how much more feed prices are looking to be this year, corn prices are sky high with so much of it being used to make ethanol.

The latest..

It looks like we'll be getting some above-freezing temperatures soon. That will be a welcome change, I'm getting a bit tired of winter.

I have been reviewing my gardening calendar and prepering to start some seeds indoors. I have a little better plan this year, I think, and should see an increase in the viability of my seedlings. Speaking of the garden, it looks like we have probably sold all of our CSA shares, now I just need to make sure we have plenty of veggies for our customers! I am not too concerned though, as I feel I was very conservative in estimating the number of customers we could support.

The number of pigs we will be purchasing seems to be up in the air again, as Nikki and I were comparing notes the other day and it looks like we already have 3.5 pigs spoken for in the fall! So we will have to sit down and talk about exactly what we want to do. We raised 2 hogs pretty easily, but unless my math is off, 4 pigs would be twice the work.

I had a phone conversation with a representative of Naturally Grown, and after a short interview, they agreed to proceed with our certification. We'll have an inspection sometime and then things should be complete. I'll add a link to them soon.

2007 seed orders are in!

I placed our order with Jung Seeds on Monday. Looks like we will have plenty of potatoes and onions this year, we'll be getting 225 onion sets and 4 different kinds of potatoes. I also ordered buttercup squash, 2 kinds of sweet potatoes, snap peas, swiss chard, and a mix of lettuces. All of the other seeds will come from leftovers from last year's order and saved seeds. I can't wait to get back out there in the dirt, it will be a while though.

More bad weather on the way, we got about 20" of snow last weekend and they are forecasting 2-4" of slush for tonight, which sounds dreadful. 4" of slush? Yuck!

Not much else happening. Have to start making calls about getting some feeder pigs and getting some horse manure and topsoil delivered for the garden beds soon.

Shoulda checked the forecast..

I guess I shouldn't have said anything about the weather, because we are currently under a blizzard warning. Nikki is up north for the weekend, involved in a program called Becoming an Outdoorswoman. They are going to teach her how to tie flies, ice fish, shoot a bow and other outdoorsy stuff, I hope the weather isn't too terrible up there and that she can make it home safely. I have already plowed the driveway twice, just trying to keep up with the drifting, and we are supposed to get another 12-20 inches of snow tonight and into tomorrow.

In other news, I have completed the application for our farm to become Certified Naturally Grown. It's along the same lines as being Certified Organic, with the same requirements for decent treatment of animals and no use of drugs or hormones, it just has somewhat less stringent rules on feed. It will be nice to get the certification, I don't know exactly what use it will be other than to reassure our customers.

Some editing of the previous post, we are now thinking of maybe only raising 3 hogs this year and seeing how much more work it is than 2 were. Also, I forgot to mention that I think we are going to raise a few pheasants this year as well.

Hope everyone is keeping safe and warm, Cheers!

Winter survival

Well it looks like we have made it through (hopefully) the worst of the winter. We had about 25 days in a row of sub-freezing and sub-zero temperatures, but things have warmed nicely the last week or so. The warmer weather, along with a second surge of gardening catalogs, have me thinking spring but that is still a good stretch away.

We are starting to put together our garden and livestock plans for 2007. Right now the plan is to get 4 pigs, 10-12 turkeys, and half a dozen or so meat chickens. If the chickens are worth it we may raise them all summer, we shall see.

The garden will, in theory, provide at least twice as much produce as last year and we'll be experimenting with some new varieties and some different companion plantings. Some of the new vegetables this year will be red potatoes, sweet potatoes, swiss chard, a strange Peruvian hot pepper, and some new herbs. We will most likely not plant soybeans again this year,except as a cover crop.

Now that spring is approaching, you can look for more timely updates to the blog. Thanks to all of our faithful readers!

Hello again!

It has been a VERY long time since I updatedthe blog, but things are pretty slow in the winter. Here's the skinny:

1) No more critters. All of the livestock is now gone from the farm and is in the freezer.

2) Unseasonable warmth! The weather is unbelievable, it has been in the low 50s this week and I can't remember the last time it was below freezing in the daytime.

3) New garden. I have been taking advantage of the warm weather to get a head start on next year's garden. I have begun building garden beds out of pressure-treated 2x8s. The beds are 16'x 6' and we will have 10 of them, with 3' pathways between. Hopefully this will cut down on the weeding and increase the productivity of the garden.

4)Vacation! Nikki and I had a wonderful 4-day vacation over New Year's in Door County, WI. We stayed at a nice B&B, ate great meals every day, and we both jumped in Lake Michigan on New Year's Day with the Jacksonport Polar Bear Club. The lake temperature was 38°, it was bracing!

That's about all I can think of, hope everyone had a great holiday season.