Endless Winter Ends

At the end of March, there was still plenty of snow.  I dug out the water line to irrigate the hoop house.

The tractor is thinking about spring.

Freeloader

Eventually the snow did melt and I was able to see what the cover crop of Peas, Vetch and Oats looked like after a few feet of snow.   Pretty flat.  Nice mat of organic matter though.  Thats mostly pea vines you see, some flatted oat stalks.  Can't see much vetch.

Then it snowed again.  (this is April 9)  And packs of deer moved in.  The deer of the apocalypse?

But the daffodils were steadily working their way up.

Alright, mid april.  Snow is almost all gone except for a few patches in the dark woods.  I got a rusty old seed roller to aid in better cover crop management this year.  It's crazy heavy and had to be winched sideways out of the truck.

Hey, it's a porcupine in the elm tree.  (this is like 20 feet from the house)  This is the 4th or 5th one I've seen this spring.  They're everywhere right now.

Mostly onions in the seedling house, ready to get outside soon!

2014 Wrapup

So here's what happened in 2014: We grew lots of awesome veggies, made some great friends and really started to tune in the farm systems.  Hey look, it's a double rainbow over a nice buckwheat cover crop.  Ahh, nice day.

Then winter came in...

No wait, back to the rest of summer!  We planted an acre of peas/vetch/oats cover crop.

I was thoroughly startled by a cecropia moth caterpillar.  (I think that's what it was)

We grew a nice array of tomatoes in all sizes and colors

Admitted to ourselves why you shell out more $$ for UV stable plastic.  To be fair, it was the 3rd season on this cheap big box store plastic for the door.  So maybe the cost is a wash, but the cleanup and repair is no fun.  But, what did I fix it with?  The cheap stuff.  

Mulched the heck out of the cane fruits

Eleanor inspected the carrots

And then we pulled em out.  Still enjoying them well into March

Winter Rye cover crop germinated after all the peppers, onions and summer greens were tilled in.

Grew some great fall salad greens!

The rosemary kept cranking along.

The Farmall hydraulics stopped working and we ended up replacing the hydraulic pump.  Darn!

Beavers moved into Baker Brook...

And Turkeys invaded the front field...

and voles.

Once winter socked us in, and nothing was growing anymore, the wind blew some great drifts

Just last week we made our trip up to Fedco to get supplies to do it all over again in 2015!

It's all Growing!

Including the weeds!
We're just about staying ahead of the weeds in most beds.  Though it has been challenging.  This particular field has not been regularly cropped, in like decades, so there are plenty of weed seeds.   But hey, those peppers are ahead of the game!  Drip tape is the black stuff off to the left.  I have to pull it out of the beds before I do tractor cultivation.  It's a little fiddly, but the cultivation really works nicely.

Here's an overview of the main field right now!  And the hoop houses.  From foreground to background: Buckwheat, tomatoes, brassicas, pepers, Garlic and other stuff you can't see after that.

Onions! and Brussels sprouts.

Here's the Super A in wheel track cultivation mode.  I also put down a third tine to go between rows later on in the day.  It's not as close cultivating as using the belly mounted cultivators, (removed in this picture) but it can go very quick and is a bit less scary from the driver's perspective.  (OMG!  I'm going to uproot all my plants!)  I'll get better.

Brassicas after path cultivation 

Buckwheat cover crop before.  Note one bed closest tomato stakes.  That one got fish meal.  Yep, the  it's working.  Patch to the back and right is a bit damp, so it's not growing quite as well.

One pass with discs, and it's just about incorporated.  I'll wait a few days and give it another pass, then it will be ready for a fall planting of... lettuce?  brassicas? Still pondering that one.

Bowdoinham Open Farm Day

This Sunday is Bowdoinham's Open Farm Day!

Come tour Blue Bell Farm and other great farms in town and cap the evening off with some great local food down at the waterfront. 

At Blue Bell you can check out how we grow tomatoes and cukes in the hoop house, feed the chickens and wander to the beautiful back field.  There is a great path around the back field, birders bring your binos!  

June

MOO!  We'll wait for you!  Fix your damn machine.

Maine's own organic milk shut down because of ancient packaging equipment, but they're looking into some new gear to keep the milk flowing.  Tell them what you think!

https://www.facebook.com/MainesOwnOrganic/posts/10152084004181010

Not too much that can go wrong with my packaging equipment: Ye olde plastic bag.

The hoophouses have been producing some excellent salad greens.

Brassicas to the field! 

A little bit late, but I'm working up this field from sod this spring with no rototiller.  Disc, Disc, Disc.  It's working!

Mulchfest crew celebrating a job well done.

Intrepid friends from away came up to spread several truckloads of woodchips on an acre of perennials.  Thanks guys!

Pickin' rocks.

My Gravely brush hog decided to start acting up just when the grass began to grow like mad.  This was was what I stared at for a few evenings.

cylinder head removed for cleaning for the first time in ~40 years.

Ahh, all better.  But, spoiler alert, cleaning the valve stems and seats did not fix my problem... At least I got it put back together so it was running again!  Now to diagnose the fuel pump.

There's STILL farm stuff in cape elizabeth.  One truckload at a time it's making it's way up to Bowdoinham.

Spring!

 Spring Rains with intermittent sunshine = Rainbow in the front field

The hoophouse has greens in full swing.

A friend in town made a toolbar for the Super A.  I'll bolt on various harrows and hilling discs as necessary.  Amazingly, the tractor used to be that same shade of red...

The garlic is up!

Pulling a single bottom plow for the first time. Worked ok.

Seedlings of all types are coming along.  We're off!