Recap 2016

Where did we leave off?  Oh, spring of 2016...
Well, kiddo #2 came along and it's a little harder to stay awake into the evening on a computer.   But the season was awesome!  Little rain, but awesome.  To recap:

Rebuilt hoophouse doors to increase ventilation, and decrease frustration.

Observed rogue chickens in their natural habitat.

Expanded the north field

Rebuilt the seedling house in a better location.

Again, to increase ventilation and decrease frustration.

Started a new raspberry patch

Upped my potato growing game.  Disc hillers on the toolbar really helped speed things along.    (we're in Maine for goodness sakes, gotta grow potatoes)

Brought tons of veggies to Bowdoinham and restaurants and natural food stores.

 Watered Watered Watered Watered Watered Watered Watered Watered

It was a really dry summer.  

But as long as it got water, it grew!

Moved chickens and harvested good compost supplies.

Installed sprinklers on timers.  Awesome, I can go on deliveries and my seedlings won't die.

Made time to eat plenty of ice cream

Broke the Gravely brush hog.

(key on main gear broke, (as it should) which then chewed up the driveshaft (as it shouldn't))

And then fixed it!

Observed frost-killed buckwheat, and not-frost-killed oats cover crop.

One tree decided to change color before the others.

whew

March

Well, we got that rosemary weeded out.  Thanks little helper!

Got a little spring fever.  The snowmelt had Baker Brook flowing nicely so we took the first boating adventure of the year.  First, a portage...

And then set sail!  Good fun, till we sprung a leak.  Darn pointy beaver-chewed sticks.

The onions germinated.

And so did helper #2!  Awesome.

 Aaaand back to the salad greens.  They're up too!  You don't really want to see more cute baby pics do you?

We started seeding some Broccoli and cabbage.

Despite, what looks like a very wintry scene outside,

Really, spring is here!

Winter

Pretty mild winter.  Got a little XC skiing in, some rest.  Pruned apple trees, fixed broken machines.  And then the snow disappeared.  I feel like if we get another winter like this we'll lose our New Englander street cred.

The big technological upgrade this winter was to improve veggie storage efficiency!  See those little black boxes on the side of the junction box?  Those are SPDT relays, the hero of this little story.

 The walk in cooler has two circuits, one for the compressor, one for the pair of fans on the evaporator.  Now normally the fans inside on the evaporator run full tilt 24/7.  So you walk into this cooler and are just being blasted by fans.  That means the veggies are being blasted by fans too, the fans use electricity, they generate heat, and then when the temperature goes up, the compressor turns on to make it cold again, using even more energy.  This happens even when the outside temperature is 35 degrees.  At that point, this thing should use no electricity at all!  But it does because of those stupid fans on all the time.  

Relays to the rescue!  For the curious electricians out there you'll have to zoom in on my DIY schematic below.  I built a second circuit in there that tells the fans to shut down once the setpoint has been reached, all while keeping the compressor circuit and fan circuit electrically isolated .  Ah marvelous you say, but don't New England winters normally drop below 32 degrees?  Indeed they do, so in comes a 2nd thermostat, if the temperature goes below 32 the fans kick on, as well as an outlet to a space heater.  Then the temp goes up to 34 and everything turns off again.  Well thats nice you say, don't they have these sort of options already available? Yep, but not for $20!  And I designed it myself so I'm proud.  I'll see if I can post the how-to on FarmHack.

I suppose a root cellar would save even more energy, so if anyone wants to loan me a backhoe I'll work on that.  

Started irrigating the hoophouses.  They get awfully dry in there over the winter.  It will take a few days of sprinklers to really get the ground ready for spring greens. 

But the rosemary overwintered just fine. 

While I was doing some weeding Iggy (the stuffed chameleon) took a dust bath.