BRRRRR........

we are expecting a frosty night with low temperatures around 26 degrees. this is not alarming news or that unusual for this time of year. it seems like right around mothers' day we always have a freeze. i am confident that our crops in the field will be fine. most of them are already covered with remay (a breathable row cover) for protection against the damaging flea beetles. the only crop i am somewhat concerned about is the chard. i covered it just in case. at 7 pm, the greenhouse was still fairly warm from the bit of sun we had today. spencer is going back at 9:00 to start a fire. i am a little nervous about all of our greenhouse plants as they are young, tender and not tolerant of frigid weather.

another chore to do... put up our deer fencing. spencer has taken the lead on this project. it turns out there is a free clinic this weekend put on by the dealer... wellscroft. spencer is thinking about attending. it will probably be worth the trip.

we are close to finishing our application for organic certification, all 16 plus pages. there is a significant amount of documentation required for field production, pest and disease management, fertility and soil building, neighboring farm fields, a three year field history, seed sourcing and more. in the end, keeping track of all this information is in the interest of the farmer. it is valuable information to track for future decisions on managing crops. anyways, i like collecting, recording and organizing data.

right around this time of the year, we start to feel a crunch with all of the field planting, greenhouse seeding and weeding. in just a few weeks, we will begin harvesting which adds a whole new element to our farm routine. there is enough time in a day to do it all. we do the best we can. after all, we are still finishing the farm house so we can move in on june 1st and we have 16 month old boy who keeps us on our toes. we love our work and having a son to share this farm life.

AN OLD BARN

yesterday, we received news that the hay barn at the intervale had been set fire to and was totaled. since we were in st.albans visiting, we decided to stop in burlington on our way home to see the damage for ourselves. it was a sad sight. in the rafters of the old barn, you can see the wavy metal hanging still. these are pieces from a greenhouse that spencer had disassembled and stored here when he was the land manager for the intervale. the barn was old, classic, 130 years old. i am sure it was destined to be restored one day as the calkins farmhouse, corn crib and other horse barn have been. this malicious act has resulted in a true historical loss.

as i mentioned just above, we were visiting in st.albans on sunday... for the maple festival. i can't remember such fabulous weather for the event. my sister, julie ran in the sap run this year. congrats julie, well done! this race is an 8.5 mile run from swanton to st.albans along route 7. it is a fun run and i was sorry to have missed it. next year, i will resume training. we watched the parade and the high school band led as always wearing the same military like uniforms that were purchased my freshman year. the hats that go with these uniforms are black, fuzzy, draped with braided cords and stand about a foot tall on the head. and the best part of the maple festival, sugar on snow!

at 6:00 this morning, the skies are grey and it is calm. we are waiting for rain. today, there is 100% chance of rain with accumulations of 1/2" to 3/4". usually, in april, we don't wish for such showers but it has been a very warm, sunny couple of weeks. the fields we are planting are very dry... too dry for germinating direct seeded crops. we have been irrigating the field just north of the house. last week, we direct seeded more spinach, another planting of peas, arugula and broccoli raab.

we took the day off yesterday, but our long car ride served us well for farm talk... bookkeeping, strawberries, farm equipment. i also had a chance to browse edible green mountains. if you get a chance, grab a copy at your coop. this "edible" magazine is printed for many other regions besides vermont... boston, portland, san fransico. i think there are publications for about 25-30 different regions in the united states. look for one in your community.

ONE MILE IS 5280 FEET

the garlic is doing well. it is growing fast and looks monstrous next to the beds of the puny onions we planted today. i am going to go through it with the hoe before i put the mulch back on.

today was a huge planting day. we were lucky enough to have a friend come and volunteer for half the day. we planted 800 bed feet of onions. this translates to 4,800 lineal feet of onions which is almost a mile of onions transplanted 6" apart. one mile is 5,280 feet. we had to get the irrigation going right away. super dry, super warm, super sunny, super windy.

too tired to write anymore. however, before i get off the computer, i am going to add a new list to our blog. it is a list of all the wonderful people who have given us their time to help on the elmer farm this year. we are so appreciative.

TOM THUMB

tom thumb is the name of the heirloom variety of the lettuce pictured above. the heads are smaller than average at maturity, only about the size of apples. this is the first year we have grown them. in the tray, they are hypnotizing with their swirly centers. i love trying different varieties and crops that we have never grown before. it is just one of the things that keeps farming fresh... romantic.

yesterday was a big greenhouse day for me. i started potting up peppers... 300 so far and about 250 more to go. it is striking how vigorous some varieties are compared to others at this stage. one of the most notable, the carmen pepper. this sweet red pepper proved to be an outstanding new variety a few years ago. the production, flavor and market popularity are all reasons why it is becoming one of our new favorites. until recently, the lipstick pepper always held a special place on the market stand and in my heart. aside from its sassy name, the lipstick peppers are small, thick, sweet and taper to a blunt point. however, i find they get anthracnose fruit rot and the branches break easily during harvest. i didn't plant any this year and now i am having second thoughts... maybe it is not too late?

aside from working on potting up the peppers and eggplant, i also potted up cherry tomatoes. we have scaled down from 60 cherry tomato plants to just 25 this year since we don't have a market to sell flats of them like we did in burlington. 25 cherry tomato plants are still a lot of work. the 9 varieties create a beautiful mix of shape, color and size that make them irresistible at the farmers market.

tomorrow is our first big transplanting day with over 2,500 onion sets in addition to our spring brassicas and lettuce. it will be another beautiful day for field work. and we might even have an extra helping hand tomorrow!

ANOTHER SUNNY SUNDAY

today was another warm april day, close to 77 degrees again. this makes quite a few sunny days in a row. spencer set up irrigation yesterday for the field with the direct seeded crops. we will use our overhead sprinklers for this area. the lower field by the greenhouse will be on drip mostly. next week we start transplanting into this other field. it looks great.

spencer started to prep the beds by discing some of winter wheat today. i finally had a chance to cut back the raspberry canes. i usually get them pruned before the new shoots start coming up. i was late this year. this is another perrenial crop that we plan to move around into a more permanent spot. i transplanted them last summer from burlington. these bushes seem so rugged. i am sure they will do just fine. i don't expect to get much fruit from them this year. that is fine. we have more than enough wild berries on the farm to keep us happy.

our washing machine is hooked up now. i have to say "thanks mom" for letting us wash clothes at your house these past 6 months. i also made a few trips to the laundromat that i won't miss. this weather has been perfect for line drying. i love the way clothes smell when they are dried in the sun. funny, yesterday i was thinking about the time when some of our clothes were stolen off the line the night before i started high school. my parents have a clothes line called an umbrella drying rack that i really like. i came across one in the real goods catalogue one day.

A BOUQUET

today i cut flowers at the farm and made my first bouquet of the season... daffodils. it was just the kind of day you would expect to cut fresh flowers.

i worked in the greenhouse for a bit this morning. some seeding, some rearranging trays. i have really noticed that in the morning and late afternoon, there is quite a bit of shading on the bench. i put the trays in more strategic places... brassicas and lettuce in the more shady area and peppers, tomatoes and eggplant in full sun. next year we will take this into account when we are redesigning our propagation area. i also direct seeded beets and carrots today. i threw in some cosmic purple and creme de lite varieties of carrots at the last minute for fun.

this afternoon, angus and i spent a few hours working outside. angus had his first official farm chore. he watered about 8 of the rhubarb plants i recently transplanted. i put water in the can and showed him which plant to water. he was awesome. he is obsessed with the watering can i use for our houseplants and has even sought out the watering can at spencer's parents house. it was fun to play and work with him. i was digging up another bed for the rest of the rhubarb starts.

BITTERSWEET

there isn't anything sweet about bittersweet. this photo of our house was taken in the early fall of 2006 before we purchased the elmer farm from the vermont land trust. as you can see, the front of the house is strangled by bittersweet. apparently, there is a variety of bittersweet that is harvested and used to make beautiful wreaths that has showy red berries. the variety we have is just plain obnoxious. the first project i did at the elmer farm was cut all of this back. instantly, the house could breath. i was 7 months pregnant at the time. last fall, i cut it all back again and dug down 6 inches in the entire area the bittersweet was growing and ripped out every piece of root i could get my hands on. then, i put down a thick layer of cardboard and raked all of our front lawn leaves onto the cardboard in hopes of smothering it. i haven't seen a sign of it yet but i know it will find its way to the light of day. then what? my plan was just to keep smothering the best i can with mulch. any other thoughts???

today i potted up parsley and i found some damping off which was a bummer. i still got a hundred healthy plants out of the sowing. i was hoping to have more plants to pot up and sell at the farmers market. i could still seed more but parsley takes a long time to germinate and then it wouldn't be ready for a few weeks after the market starts which might be fine.

this week i am moving onions, scallions, lettuce, chard, broccoli, cabbage and kale to a more exposed spot to harden off. a taste of the outdoors, more direct sun, a little wind, cooler nights. we don't have a set up for this so we'll probably put something together with hoops, pallets and some row cover (for evenings). a few days of this then off to the field. i have seen great set ups for cold frames at other farms. i really like how this was done at crossroads farm. wish i had made notes or took some photos from my visit last year.

i am seeding most crops with farmers market and our wholesale accounts in mind. some of the crops i have seeded are for dried flowers to make into wreaths, herbs for salves & tea, hot peppers for pickling and perennials for around our house. i might be taking on too much but it is hard to hold back in the greenhouse this time of year. it is so easy to keep sowing all these little packets of seed.

the weather is predicted to be sunny and in the 60's and 70's all week. really i think this is fabulous. it will help dry out the fields and give the growing season a little boost. i don't want to be ungrateful but why rush it... i would be over joyed with a few weeks 45 - 55 degree weather. i have a hard time acclimating. i never never never complain about cold, snowy, rainy, gray weather. i often complain about hot, sunny, humid weather. what is wrong with me?

FARMER POTLUCK

yesterday, we went to our friend, fellow farmer, mentor... ken's place for an addison county farmer potluck. this was the last one of the season, understandably. these potlucks are informal social gatherings that take place throughout the winter at different farms in addison county. it was fun to have the potluck at ken's farm, tio grains, since he has just moved into his nearly finished house that spencer has helped build.

we met several dairy farmers, a beekeeper, a cheese maker, several grain growers and a few other vegetable farmers. suzanne of singing cedars farm was there. we have met on about a half dozen occasions and i always enjoy crossing paths. i forgot to mention to her that we enjoyed their eggs on the special salad at american flatbread this weekend. by the way, this special salad was amazing... frisee, white asparagus, crumbled hard boiled eggs with a caper dressing.

we arrived late to the party and stayed longer in the afternoon to visit with ken. here is a photo of spencer and ken chatting. ken's farm is located just 15 miles away from the elmer farm and the views are spectacular. neaby his farm, a creek/small river called lemon fare which which beautifully flooded some fields. i like the name of this river.

one last note, i transplanted about half of my rhubarb so far. i divided the plants when i dug them up and i am hoping to get about 20 new plants.

A FULL DAY'S WORK

yesterday, i spent the entire day working at the farm while spencer took angus to his first farm auction. it felt great to put in a full day working on various projects. i feared that with all of this time to myself i would be overwelmed by my endless "to do" list. i just started with first things first and let the day unfold. it was fabulous.

i spent a little time in the greenhouse, mostly watering and looking for signs of germination in the peppers. it looks like some of the hots are coming up... serrano del sol. the peppers are seeded on trays set on heat mats to keep the soil temps higher but germination is taking longer than expected. seeing the hots come up today was a good sign.

i removed all of the mulch from the garlic. i found tons of earthworms which made me happy and lots of deer prints which didn't make me happy. the garlic looks pretty good. we planted 6 different varieties. the two most vigorous varieties at this stage are what we call ann elise stock (seed saved over the years from a former intervale farmer) and german white. the softneck is coming up fairly well while the ukranian red, phillips and an unknown variety that i have been saving from seed are slower. i originally bought this seed i have been saving from a garlic farmer about 7 years ago who is no longer vending at the burlington market. once the soil warms up a bit more and the garlic really emerges, i will put the mulch back on the bed around the plants. the mulch helps with retaining moisture and keeping the weed pressure down.

i finally assembled the seeder we bought with our wedding gift certificates from johnny's selected seeds. the seeder is alot like a planet junior. i like the heaviness of it and the hopper & seed plate configuration. the planet junior seems to have more sophisticated options such as using a scattershoe to plant peas, but over all i think this european push seeder is a nice option for us... far superior to the earthway.

then i used our new seeder in several beds that spencer prepped the other day. the small field north of our house has our best soils due to the soil structure and organic content. i planted peas, radishes, spinach and some hakurei turnips. i don't think any of these will be ready for our first market... may 10th.

and i did a little farm computer work... not as glorious.

spencer and angus had a great time at the auction. sounds like there is over a solid foot of snow just on the ground just to the east of the mountains and a mere 10 miles away. spencer purchased a stick welder. welding is another perfectly useful skill to have when farming.

SEEDLINGS

i spent a few hours seeding this morning... eggplant, cherry tomatoes, more brassicas, lettuce. the parsley and tomatoes aren't quite ready for potting up. other exciting news... the garlic is starting to come up. i pushed away the mulch in several places to check. we planted over 1,000 cloves last fall. we are growing a softneck variety for the first time. i hope to make braids this year. when i apprenticed at approvecho in oregon, i learned to make them. that is also where i learned to bake bread and knit among many other usefull skills. a great opportunity to learn a little bit about forestry, alternative cooking technologies, gardening and homesteading.

this morning, angus was walking through the fields on the way to the greenhouse. though he is only 15 months old, i think he has deep inner wisdom to be a dowser. he strayed all over the field finding the largest pools of water.

A SUNNY SUNDAY

wow, it was a beautiful day today. we spent the day as a family in burlington. spencer, angus and i headed out in the truck early this morning to pick up our washer and dryer at the house on manhattan drive. it will be so convenient to do laundry at home again and i can't wait to set up a clothesline. while we were at the house in burlington, i was also planning on digging up our rhubarb to transplant at the farm. the buds are starting to emerge but the ground is still frozen. i will give the ground another few sunny days to warm up. i was afraid of damaging the roots. i took a photo of the emerging rhubarb but it wasn't a flattering picture and the plants weren't recognizable. i am excited to bring the rhubarb to the elmer farm because it originally came from divisions of the plants at the intervale community farm where i worked for a couple of years.

the manhattan drive house looks amazing. danielle and benner are doing a great job on finishing up the trim and other projects like putting knobs on the doors. the windows look fabulous since they have been scraped and cleaned. they have made a wonderful home there. i felt like we never got settled when we lived there in part because we knew we were looking for farmland to buy and in part because we weren't completely finished building it. this house will always hold a special place in our hearts because this is where angus was born and spencer worked so hard to build it.

danielle gave me seed she saved from her garden last year. both of the flower varieties she gave me are heirlooms from seed savers exchange, calendula mixture and sea shells cosmos. i am looking forward to adding them to the elmer farm planting schedule.

the photo in this post was taken last night at the farm. it was getting very dark so nothing in the foreground shows except a hint of the greenhouse.