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Spring greens, farm news, and a little Round Up!

5/4/2010 8:38pm by Michael Scheidel

Early greens sale:
Thanks to all who came out this past weekend to buy early spring greens and more. We will be having a market at our farm each weekend, and possibly once during the week, during the month of May so stay tuned. We will be e-mailing our listserv tonight about this week's details.

EVERYTHING IS BREAKING DOWN.
We currently have a broken down push mower, a broken down ride mower, a broken down egg-mobile, a broken down tractor (actually just a punctured tire as I pulled it into the barn today), a broken down Subaru (down to just the family van!) and a mis-behaving walk-in cooler. "Mama said there'd be days like this ..." So I ended this frustrating day by beginning to prune my neighbor's peach trees of which he has given me reign over the first row, about 8 or 10 trees.

Chicks:
Our broiler hens are about a week old and are already losing their fuzzy-little-balls-of-love appeal. We have managed to keep predators away from from them so far. I am currently building a moveable pen to pasture them in and am working on my pasturing plan for them.

Laying hens:
We have a few renegade hens who insist on flying the coop each day and eating all of my freshly laid, expensive grass seed intended to cover up the trenches I dug for waterlines to the outbuildings. They are looking more and more scrumtious each and every day.

In the field...:
Weeds are already a challenge as we are working with ground that has been in weeds for almost 30 years. Strawberries look good so far. We might just have our first taste in about 2 weeks. The rain has kept me out of the fields with machinery but I managed to get my first bed of head lettuces in the ground last week. Garlic is looking great and my first plantin of sweet corn is about 5 or 6 inches high.

Round Up:
I've never even used the stuff and if I did, I'd proabaly love it except for one thing...weeds are beginning to create resistance to it (read this New York Times article about it {http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?ref=todayspaper}. Also soon to hit the shelves are round up ready vegetables. So far, genetic modification in corn and soy have created a round up resistant seed. Most of the corn and soy used in animal feed. This summer the first round up resistant VEGETABLES are due to hit the shelves. I believe the first round up resistant veggie will be cucumbers!

Flowers and herbs:
Our cut flower selection is ready to plant and include a couple of celocias, zinnia, rudbeckia, lizianthus, snaps, sunflower, larkspur, and salvia to name a few. Herbs will include several types of basil, marjoram, russian tarragon, oregano, parsley, common mint and spearmint, cilantro, thyme, and winter savory.

Anyhow, I hope all are well and ready for the season to kick in. I just want everything to fix itself, the wind to stop blowing, the flea beetles and slugs to go away, and peace on earth.
Warmly,
the Dreamer
ms
lpf

1 Comments »

Keith Manmiller said,

6/10/2010 @ 8:06 am

I made my first trip to the farm this past Tuesday. The selection for this time in the growing season was amazing. I met Michael and Emily and you could tell how proud they were of their produce. There were some varieties of Greens I had never seen before. It was tough limiting my selections because everything looked great. I purchased 2 quarts of Strawberries( not in the shares) and they were the sweetest I have had in a long time. I bought some garlic scapes, I took them home and sauteed them with the spinach( also from the farm) and roasted red peppers and they were delicious. I am really excited to see what is in store for the rest of the season.