Bobbin Farm Breaks New Ground for 2014

Bobbin Farm is expanding and breaking new ground at our new location.  We are leasing land from the Brooks School.  The former lawn has become a field of winter rye planted in early September to nourish the soil.

Foreground shows the pad for a high tunnel with the field beyond.

Today, after two sizable snowstorms, the frame of the high tunnel was erected.  Early spring or during a January/February thaw, it will be completed.

Walking down the unpaved road towards the field

The house in the sun. 

Been plenty busy in this "off" season.

Could Not Do This without Help

As the farm season is coming to a close, I extend my thanks to those who helped me out this season.

Gorgeous CSA boxes with lovely bouquets are due to Natasha's help.  Along the way, she planted, weeded, tied tomatoes and delivered.  Now, she returns to her illustration and design work.  She is missed.

Natasha gathering sunflowers for bouquets for shares.

Kamal does the grunt work, running and fixing the machines and guides me through business planning.  His requests for precision and clear directions from me (the-tangent-laden-big-picture-gal) are generally not met.  Poor guy!

Kamal digging French Fingerling potatoes.

Many thanks. 

End of the Season Chores

Here are some of the fun things that I have been doing to clean up and to prepare for next year.

Pulling the stakes, drip line irrigation and twine from the tomatoes.

Taking down the tomatoes reminds me of the feelings that I had as a kid when we took down the Christmas tree.  You don't like doing it but you have to: carefully placing the ornaments in their boxes, unraveling the garland, getting as much of the silvery icicles off the tree so that it can be chipped and coiling the lights.  Nothing said the holidays were over better than this task and our family used to do this on New Years' Day.  For me, nothing says the farm season is nearly done better than taking down the tomatoes.

All the twine used to trellis the tomatoes.

Rinsing the stakes off, dipping them in a weak bleach solution and letting them dry.

Stacking the stakes in the car. 

Bringing these six-foot stakes between the buildings, through the back yard to be stacked here. 

The plowed field being readied for cover cropping.

An example of another part of the field cover cropped with Winter Rye.

Knowing When to Let Go

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am wicked stubborn.  Ask my family.  This week was a test to my tenacity.  

As each week this season brought pounding rain to the farm, many of the plants succumbed to disease.  Do I try to nurture the plants along?  Hoping for some yield, if reduced, and all the while allowing the disease to spread?  In the organic growers' toolbox, there's few options to protect against plant disease - especially fungal diseases in this very wet year.  

Cantaloupe with powdery mildew as the leaves die, the weeds take over. 

 

 

Lemon cucumbers try to keep producing.

Here's watermelon with the foliage dead it has no way to ripen.

Within the last week all the big plant diseases have visited our farm (In our county, Late Blight for tomatoes and potatoes has been spotted). While trying to save my winter squash and my late planting of more cucumbers and summer squash, I asked my farm manager to harrow in five planting beds. 

Gone are the cantaloupe, watermelons and cucumbers.

When the fruit won't have a chance to ripen and before the disease takes hold in new plantings, it seemed the right time to let go of a few crops.

What It Takes This Year to Get Green Beans

In previous years, rabbits got the beans first.  This year it has been rain and insects.

Ready to replant some beans that the rain washed away and/or made the seed rot.

The leafhopper really likes beans as their signature is inserting a toxin that turns the leaves yellow, then brown.  The plant has to fight the toxin rather than creating a bean.  These beans were covered but as they flowered, the cover was removed to make way for the bees to do their job.

Thinking that starting them in trays might give them a head start. 

While starting them in trays helped, I covered them only to find that some did not survive this long stretch of unbearable heat, despite irrigation.

Getting the soil ready for another planting of tasty haricot vert.

We'll see how this planting does. 
Meanwhile, my backup is the pole beans that are starting to flower this week.

The leafhopper likes them but I am hoping they will overcome the pest.

Late June, Early July Scenes from the Farm

In the last four weeks, we have had ten and a half inches of rain.  There's been lots of mud and the summer crops are just holding on, while the spring and fall crops are doing well. We may have a great crop of cabbage and leeks.  We'll see as a heatwave begins this week.

Putting straw mulch on the potatoes after hilling; then covering with white row cover them until harvest in September.

Yellow Swallowtail caterpillar devouring the flowering dill.

Young Barn Swallow taking a brief rest on the tomato stakes between eating mosquitoes.

Today, I missed taking a picture of a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers!  I hope to see them again.

First CSA share of 2013 Season

Broccoli

Some crops liked the unprecedented eight inches of rain in less than two weeks more than others.  Hence, it was demonstrated in what was included in this week's share: broccoli, kale, collards, chard, lettuce, escarole or dandelion greens and radishes. 

Picture inside the box.

More Planting Done and to Do

Upper field of greens, beets, carrots, herbs, onions, cukes and summer squash on June 3

Most of the planting for the upper field has been done.  Pumpkins and winter squash will fill out the field.

Finished planting pole beans, basil, carrots, salad greens, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and flowers with the implements of organic fertilizer, watering can, and a plastic tray.

 

planting hot peppers

Potatoes emerge after the recent rain.

Tomorrow with help, we tackle planting three varieties of eggplant (two lovely Italian types!) and four varieties of sweet peppers.

Been Pretty Busy on the Farm

Well, the seedling did well in the Community Gardens Greenhouse and we moved them to the farm.

Here's all that needs to go into the ground soon.

We had a rainy, unusually cold Memorial Day weekend and that gave me a chance to plant onions, leeks and shallots. 

Grass-like stalks are onions - started in the house under lights in mid-February.

While, this weekend offers mid-July weather, which has made the peas, spinach and broccoli raab rather unhappy. 

Peas under cover to protect from rabbits.  Now, the cover is off so they don't over heat. 

Aforementioned crops like the cooler days of spring and mid-90s will prove difficult. All the protective row cover had to come off.  I will hope the rabbits are not interested!  Meanwhile, the heat produced flowers on the spinach and that means it is ready to go to seed.

This week, we got squash, melons, cucumbers, sweet potatoes  planted and still working on planting the tomatoes.

Cucumbers about to go under cover to protect from the cucumber beetle

Sungold  cherry tomatoes planted!  Have to wait until mid-July to taste them.

Fingerling potatoes popping through and now it is getting time to weed.

Planting Chard, Carrots and Lettuce

I planted on a day when we expected rain. 

Well, the rain never arrived.  So today, I watered this first bed of 140 feet.  Last year this bed held potatoes, but in practicing crop rotation, I have put the potatoes far away in hopes of deterring pests and disease.

At the top of the bed, is lettuce mix under some shade that will be picked at the end of June.  While in the middle you will find carrots, they may be ready in the beginning of July.  The chard will be ready in late June or early July.  Most of my planting has been started in the greenhouse, more about that later. 

Planting Potatoes with Help from Family and Friends

Jude and Kamal planting French Fingerlings before the rain starts again.

In between the raindrops,we got most of the potatoes in the ground this weekend.  I still have some Russian Bananas to plant.

French Fingerling Smoked Paprika and Gouda frittata

  Above is lunch for Sunday's help.  Luckily for us, some of the fingerlings did not sprout (hence not good seed) so we ate them. 

Five double rows completed.

The field is still wet so we could not use the rototiller.  All was done by human power.  I was dreaming of a draft horse or an ox to help us with this. 

Growing Seedlings Makes the Local Paper

I started the summer crops in the Community Gardens Greenhouse in Lowell.  Working with a team of volunteers and our park liaison, Deb, this will be our last year to use the site.  We were featured in the Lowell Sun today: newspaper article