MAPLE SYRUP

this weekend marked the 7th annual vermont maple open house event. throughout the state of vermont, sugarmakers opened their sugarhouses to the public to learn more about their operations, taste samples of different grades of maple syrup and hopefully purchase their products. last year, we visited the audubon center in huntington where our friend kim is the outstanding director. this year, i took my son to a friend's sugar house in rutland county, baird farm. it was a sunny and brisk day. the wind chill was a blizzardly 10 degrees. walking into the steamy house was a treat. imagine all of that steam smelling like maple syrup. wow! we had sugar on snow with a homemade dill pickle because that is the way it is done. we met a sweet dog named esta, took some photos, learned about a new technology called reverse osmosis and bought some maple syrup... some fancy and some medium amber.

this coming week is forecasted to be one of the warmest we have had this year. i think nearly 62 degrees on tuesday, april first known as april fools day and also our wedding anniversary. i suppose being farmers and all, we are april's fools. we are scheduled to start planting in the field in just a few weeks and there is still a fair amount of snow on the ground. see what i mean about being april's fools.

the onions are germinating. this week in the greenhouse, i am seeding celeriac and alot of peppers... sweet, hot, green. peppers are one of our best selling crops at the farmers market. we grow over 10 different varieties of sweet peppers. this is one of my favorite morning snacks in the field. when i was pregnant, there was no way i could even think about eating red peppers but my love for them has returned. and i am thankful for that.

A SIGN OF SPRING

the other day, i came across these snowdrops. throughout the spring and summer, i think we will be surprised by the flowers growing and blossoming since this will be our first season living on the farm. i remember from frequent visits last summer that there were lots of lilies scattered around the farm along with other landscape flowers buried in weeds. this summer, i would like to mark where & which flowers are growing with small flags. it will help me to remember in the fall when i am ready to dig up bulbs and transplant them.

as i mentioned last week, i attended the FEED conference. it was a great opportunity to meet other farmers, teachers and school food service workers in our area. we now have a great contact from the east salisbury elementary farm to school team. the school is just 10 minutes away. this makes our farm accessible for field trips in the future. for now, they have asked us to be a part of a taste test this spring. the farm to school team wants to use our black beans to develop a black bean hummus recipe to serve in the school lunch program. i am excited for the possibilities. i have been involved with the vermont farm to school program for 4 or 5 years in various ways ... digging potatoes with first graders, attending school open houses & community dinners presented by elementary students, working on farm maps with 5th graders in the classroom, handing out samples of red pepper slices during lunch periods and more. part of our mission at the elmer farm is to be a resource and classroom for local school groups. we will start small. maybe first with this taste test and taking part in the farmer pen pal program.

in the greenhouse, we have seeded parsley, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, endive, onions, scallions, calendula, kale, chard and tomatoes. we have moved all of the trays from the house to the greenhouse. i think there are a total of 20-22 trays now. the rocket stove is heating fairly well. we have also been lucky with some sunny days to help with heating. we are learning alot and already coming up with ways to improve this design for next year.

another sign of spring... spencer shaved his beard but i am not supposed to write about this on the blog.

SPRING IS HERE

hard to believe that spring is here. i am still feeling a little mixed up from starting daylight savings time so early. moving the clocks ahead gives us more daylight which many people welcome. the farmer translation: more daylight = working longer days. usually before the time change, we have worked in the greenhouse for a month, are getting our farm muscles back and are on our way to being organized. i guess the change feels abrupt this year.

i worked my way out to the barn this morning to gather more trays for seeding. what started out feeling like a brisk morning all of a sudden felt down right cruel. a wind chill below zero. i am sure it is spring in many places. for instance, dudley, NC where my dad lives or eugene, oregon where i lived for a few years. it is here that i first experienced an honest spring...flowers,warm temperatures, many bird songs, riding my bike, frisbee and yes, some slightly soggy days. i know our true spring will come here in vermont. march and april are a gift. i can sum it up in two words, maple syrup.

i went to the FEED conference yesterday. i saw some familiar faces and met new people. i enjoyed talking with other farmers about how the season is starting off. there aren't as many farmers at this conference as school teachers and food service workers. it is an amazing gathering of people coming together to find creative ways to buy products from local farmers for school food programs, connect children with area farmers, arrange farm visits and bring agriculture into the classroom. i heard many many more inspiring stories. this update is to be continued..........it is late.

here is a photo of our chicken coop. i don't know if we'll get chickens this year. we hoped to have a few layers and considered using the coop this year. next year we wanted to have more chickens and sell eggs. in the future, we plan to have a movable chicken house... many great designs out there. i am sure spencer will come up with something unique for elmer farm chickens. anyways, spencer said we can't work on cleaning out a house for birds until we have a house to live in ourselves. this makes perfect sense.

FIRST DAY OF SEEDING

i am off with a slow start in seeding my onions but it feels good to finally get going. we are holding off a bit on moving into the greenhouse. so, today i got started and set the trays out in the house. we won't move into the house for another 6 weeks so, it is nice to have a large space to use in the meantime. i was a bit frazzled this morning digging through the barn and then the corn crib looking for odds and ends that i needed to get started... a pencil, tweezers, wooden popsicle sticks and watering can. this sounds like an unusual list of items but each one is helpful. i also ran out of seed which sent me running all over town looking for more mini purplette, walla walla and superstar... no luck. i am starting the italian flat leaf parsley here at the apartment. i have heard that pouring boiling water over the seed helps to break its dormancy. it is not unusual for parsley to take 3 weeks to germinate.

yesterday morning i stopped by field farm and the grapevine deli, both businesses within a mile of our farm, to see about wholesaling a few items. initially, we were going to only wholesale at american flatbread and the coop but these two opportunities have evolved and we are looking forward to building relationships with customers close to home. selling at these two farm stand type businesses, might be an alternative to having our own farm stand. something we go back and forth on.

i have also been working on the blog and making changes in some of the formatting. it is taking me awhile to figure out the tricks of layout. i am moving photos around a little bit and i have some lists with links i want to add such as my favorite vermont agricultural sites, recipe links and an index that will help me to organize the posts.

tomorrow i am heading to the annual FEED conference held in montpelier this year. FEED stands for food education everyday. i have been involved with this program in various ways. in a few days, i will write more about the conference and my love for this unique vermont program for elementary students. i look forward to this gathering each year.

ROCKET STOVE

spencer and our friend william spent day #2 working on the rocket stove. william is a mason. he also built the heater in our home. his business is called turtlerock masonry heat and the website is well worth checking out. there are great photos of the many heaters he has built. the heater in our home resembles the elmore design.

the rocket stove is still a work in progress. by this weekend, it will be nearly finished. then we will fire it up to see how it does. our back up plan is to have seedlings in the house if the stove needs more adjustments and work after the test run. having the seedlings in the house isn't ideal but many small scale vegetable farmers resort to some sort of indoor seed starting.

ICE, ICE BABY

we an ice storm this weekend. we lost power a few times for just 30 minutes or so. there isn't any apparent damage at the farm from the heavy ice, snow, rain. the greenhouse is holding up well. i couldn't resist using the title of that cheesy 80's song by vanilla ice to name this blog entry.

spencer drove to east montpelier with angus on friday to see his parents, pick up our potting soil from vermont compost company and do a few other errands. we bought one yard and i am sure that will be more than enough. we like the fort v mix. if we run out, moo-doo is just down the road from us. we are lucky to have a neighbor to supply us with potting soil needs.

all of our seeds have arrived in the mail except the potatoes. we don't expect them until april. i bought seed from the maine potato lady this year. i see her advertisement in growing for market in most issues. fedco was out of most of the organic seed we wanted. this was a good opportunity to try a new source. we would like to save our own seed for next year. it would be a great savings for us. potato seed is expensive and heavy on the shipping charges.

spencer is working on building the rocket stove for the greenhouse. this wood stove is basically made from 50 gallon steel barrels and burns wood quite efficiently. this stove will also heat a mass of stone and brick for a slow releasing radiant heat source. this is an experiment. we hope this innovative design will be a good start and over time it will improve with experience. creativity and vision are only two of many many reasons i love my husband. i have included a few photos that he took of the project on day 1.

we have a lot to do this month. i am excited to spend a little less time on the computer and a little more in the greenhouse. our start date for seeding is march 17th... onions, parsley.

angus and i are spending the night in st.albans at my mother's tonight. my grandmother lives here too. she loves seeing angus. as the farm season gets busier, it will be more difficult to make the trip here. so, we are trying to keep up with our weekly visits for now. i made enchiladas for dinner. yum!

ARKANSAS TRAVELER

my seeds are arriving in the mail already. i have received packages from high mowing, johnny's and tomatofest. just waiting on my orders from fedco and seeds of change. so far, it looks like the orders shipped in full except two items, the red ace beet seed and hakurei turnip seed. these are back ordered and i will receive them at the beginning of april. this won't be a problem. i expected to run into many more out of stock items since i did my seed order so late. i did have a hard time finding leek seed that i wanted.

i have already started sorting the packages of seed into groups. i will probably track down some small food-grade buckets from restaurants to store my seeds in. we did this at a farm where i worked and it was a good system. we labeled each bucket with the name of a plant family.

seed packets are beautiful. the seeds of change envelopes are most striking with rich photography. i find the fedco envelopes just as beautiful in their stark whiteness and simple type. in the past, i have saved them and made cards out of them. i just remembered that when spencer and i got married, i made our wedding invitations from high mowing envelopes. romantic, creative, fun and practical.

tomatofest is a seed company that sells organic heirloom tomato seed. i really like this company. they always include a free packet of seeds to try. this year they sent me arkansas traveler. i ordered a few varieties that are new to me ... box car willie, glacier and a red cherry tomato called koralik. i can't find a red cherry tomato that i love. the last red cherry i grew was angora super sweet and the year before that was peacevine. two years ago, we grew 60 cherry tomato plants made up of 6 or 7 different varieties. we sold beautiful mixed cherry pints made up of dr.caroline, matt's wild cherry, green grape, yellow pear, black cherry, sungold and angora super sweet. in burlington, we had a great market for them. stone soup and penny cluse each bought 4 or five flats a week, plus i sold them at city market and the farmers markets.

we had a wintry mix of weather today.... rain, sleet and some wind. much milder though. i am starting to hear reports that the sap is running and sugar makers are beginning to boil. sugaring season always seems to come out of nowhere. we have about 30 maple trees on the property that we could tap. i hope we can integrate sugaring into our farm life eventually. spencer has some experience sugaring. the extent of my experience is endless school field trips to sugar houses in the spring and going to our annual maple festival in st.albans. eating all that sugar on snow has to add up to something. on a side note, i marched in maple festival parade with the school band from sixth grade until i graduated high school.

LET'S GET POLITICAL

previously, i mentioned that i struggled with my seed order this year. here was my dilemma. a few years, ago monsanto bought a company called seminis. this company controlled 40% of the u.s. vegetable seed market... supplying the genetics for 55 percent of lettuce sold, 75 percent of the tomatoes and 85 percent of the peppers and had a hold on beans, cucumbers, squash, melons, broccoli, cabbage, spinach and peas. i found this background information from an article the New Farm electronic newsletter. seminis supplied seed companies with many well known and well liked varieties for both organic and conventional vegetable farmers. seed companies such as johnny's selected seeds, fedco and territorial seed company all sold the seminis varieties. under these new circumstances, some seed companies had to make decisions whether or not to continue carrying these seeds now owned by monsanto. well, it is a long complicated story so i will make it short and sweet.... monsanto is BAD for so so so so many reasons. i am sure there are blogs completely devoted to convincing people of how bad the "advanced" monsanto chemical technologies are. i found this quote from the fedco (a maine based seed company that is run as a cooperative) website which i think sums up the core of this issue:

We have chosen to use Monsanto’s buyout of Seminis as a wake-up call. We do so because Monsanto epitomizes the road down which we no longer choose to go…the road that leads to our complete surrender of control of our seed and therefore of control of our food system.

http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/monsanto.htm

i have been a little out of the loop. last year i didn't buy seeds because we were relocating our farm from the intervale to east middlebury and we had a baby. the year before that, this buyout was new and i don't think the seed catalogues were making the issue known yet. it is a reality for us this year. i support fedco's position. their catalogue educates their customers by explaining the issue, taking a stand and listing all of the vegetable varieties they have dropped because they were previous seminis varieties. reading this list broke my heart. i love packman broccoli, mars onions, fat'n sassy peppers and more. i can still buy these seeds from many catalogues, it isn't hard. but do we want to support monsanto? no, we don't. i had to say good bye and let go of the beautiful and delicious varieties that i came to depend on.

like fedco, i also feel like this buyout is a wake up call for us. and this excites me. as young farmers, our vision is always evolving. our values and passion shape the direction we are moving with our business. this is an opportunity to use more heirloom seeds, discover new varieties and learn more about saving our own seed.

so, i would like to end with a thank you to fedco and to high mowing seeds. thank you fedco for making this issue so well known to me and also for your amazing catalogue. it is more than a seed catalogue, it is a novel. well done. and thank you high mowing for having your business here in vermont, your dedication to sell all organic seed and your presence at all of the local conferences. we support both of these companies with pride!

one more note about "LET'S GET POLITICAL," it is town meeting day in just 2 days here in vermont. don't forget to vote!