The Fire

That which does not bear fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Spent raspberry and blackberry canes and various weeds (especially cocklebur) are fuel for fire that presents a strangely beautiful striking image on this cool Spring day. If we do not bear good fruit in our lives, metaphorically, we are fit for such consuming fire. Let us strive to PRODUCE good fruit, so we are not consigned to the trash fire of self-absorbed humans, who quickly become utterly forgettable.

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Market just keeps on looking better all the time

I think we’re really getting the signage thing down pretty good.

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New Signs

Caitlin making new price signs for the produce. Now they hang from a cable above the veggies, clean and free and easy to see.

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Radio interview this Sunday

If any of you are interested in hearing me have a 28 minute conversation with Willa Lefever on food and farming, tune in to 1280 WHVR at 12:30 on Sunday, March 24 for Sundays With Sonnewald. Hear us dream about many gardening options, a garden at the prison, valuing our soils, and catch a glimpse of what’s going on at the Horn Farm Center! The show will be cached at sonnewald.org after it airs.

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Now carrying Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

 

Seeds are such harbingers of hope. They look dead, like nothing will ever come of them. But hidden inside them are whole worlds of beauty waiting to unfold, given the proper conditions. So it is with many things in life. What looks dead and final and hopeless is secretly only awaiting the right conditions to break forth into seemingly miraculous new life. Seeds always give me hope!

You too can purchase your very own harbingers of hope, for the low, low price of just $2.50 plus tax. We now have an additional array of seeds for sale, besides the FEDCO seeds we’ve already been selling. Now we have 20 varieties of heirloom seeds from Baker Creek. They are:

Emerald Giant Pepper

Beit Alpha Cucumber

Purple Jalapeño

Extra Dwarf Pak Choy

Parisienne Carrot

Early Purple Vienna Kohlrabi

Red Marconi Pepper

Jing Oange Okra

Chinese Green Noodle Bean

Wethersfield Red Onion

Armenian Cucumber

Green Macerata Cauliflower

Thai Purple Podded Yard Long Bean

Tunisian Baklouti Pepper

Star of David Okra

Garden Cress

Muscade Carrot

Violetta Italia Cauliflower

Moonshadow Hyacinth Bean

Black Mustard Greens

Happy planting!

 

 

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Preparing

Today was a day of preparation. We trimmed the raspberries and blackberries.

 

Our local community of small farmers continued the venerable annual tradition of banding together to unload our group order of seed potatoes. Even Ellis and Jos helped!

Nothing compares to a good sense of community, to rip off a quote from Garrison Keillor, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

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Just around the Corner

Yes, Spring literally is just around the corner.

The crocuses are up!

 

We’ve been busy seeding lots of flats of onions, leeks, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, broccoli, purple cauliflower, kale, celery, cutting celery, parsley, lettuce…

Collards and kale are getting started in the hoop house. Also, sugar peas, snap peas, and fava beans are just about ready to pop up in there. Outside, we’ve sown the earliest onion sets, radishes, turnips, arugula, and shell peas. The garlic is poking up through the composted horse manure. This is going to be a good year. I can tell.

 

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Starting seeds

Grow lights set up and in use!

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March, Again

Well, I’ve been a very bad blogger. It’s been a whole year since I’ve written anything here. My excuse, of course, is that farming is more than full-time work, and I generally am too tired to think clearly at the end of most of my long days to be able to write anything of value. Of course that could prove entertaining if I gave it a shot anyway, and wound up writing a bunch of ridiculous nonsense. But I digress… 

So, March is here again, and again I’m hard at it sowing seeds in flats. And again, I’ve got FEDCO organic seeds for sale at the market. The baby collards and kale are starting to grow in the hoop house, and the early sugar peas, fava beans, and spinach have all been planted. Arugula, radishes, turnips, and onion sets went in the ground yesterday, just in time for this “onion snow” we’re about to get. I’ve got lots of flats of all sorts of vegetables sown. Funky varieties of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants that I’ve never tried before… should be lots of fun come harvest time. I planted extra of a lot of the plants, so hopefully if they all sprout and grow well, I’ll have some plants for sale this spring.

Spring really is my favorite time of the year. It is so full of freshness, rebirth, renewed hope, and the sweetest return of colors with all shades of green on display on the hills and valleys as if to say, “Whatever were you worried about? Winter is only temporary. Bursting forth, Life reigns supreme!

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