A Picture This and That Post

Sometimes we have so many things we'd like to share with everyone that there is no good way to have a theme for the blog post.  So, prepare yourself - I'm not sure where this one is going to go!

Early Season Crops
We backed off the early season crops this year so we could focus on getting a good start on the main season AND so we could put up a new high tunnel.  But, we have had spinach and the asparagus is getting started this week!  The spinach, per the norm for our overwintered spinach, has fabulous taste.  But, we've gotten a better harvest than usual out of it.  This bed in the high tunnel was harvested late fall and again this Spring.  It's about done now, but we've been pleased with it.

Bloomsdale spinach in early March

Ibuprofen Season
April and May is when Tammy and I get reminded by muscles we forgot we had that they still exist.  You call it Spring.  We call it ibuprofen season.  You can try to work out in the off-season, but it's never the same as doing the work.

The yellow cart loaded with the tools for planting.

Spring Has Sprung
Signs of Spring include robins, crocus flowers, pasque flowers, thunderstorms AND the sound of Barty (the BCS walk behind tractor) at the Genuine Faux Farm.  We are pleased to report that we managed to get all of the peas and carrots in prior to the rain.  We also got an outdoor succession of spinach, mustard greens, arugula, radish and turnips into the ground.  The real winner, however, is the fact that we have 75% of our potatoes in!  We have never gotten potatoes in this early at the farm.  And, it may never happen again.  But, we'll be happy about it and let other events unfold as they may.

The cherry tree also announced that it was Spring

Doors That Work
We introduced an old horse trailer to the farm last year as a home for the boyus (our meat chickens).  But, the doors were rusting out and we were pretty sure they would not last more than a week or two this year unless they were fixed.  Neither of us works much with metal.  But, the Band Saw Man himself (Jeff Sage) is a wizard with it.  Look at the wonderful doors he put on the "nuggets" home!  Now, we just need to do a bit more sealing up of some of the holes on this thing and it will be in great shape.

Band Saw Man - one of our favorite people!

New Equipment
We continue to refine our operation and acquire new equipment when the opportunity appears to be right.  This year we picked up another running gear.  This one, once we put a deck on it, should be the right size to do a number of things on the farm, including moving water.

 And, since we like to collect flair boxes (this is our third), we picked this green one up.  We just have to make decisions regarding the roles of each of the three flair boxes on the farm.  That might seem silly, but we might explain it in a later post so you see what there is some logic to this.

The Year of the Tater?
We are annoyed by the difficulties we've had with potatoes the last few years.  Granted, some of it has to do with the early weather in combination with our soils.  We certainly did what we could each of those seasons, but we refuse to believe that we can't make adjustments so we can succeed regardless of those situations.  So, one thing we are trying is putting some experimental potatoes in a raised bed at the farm.  We got these planted on Easter weekend.

And look what popped up this weekend!

Tammy Would Rather Look at the Sunset
We were picking and cleaning/packing spinach for last week's Waverly Farmers' Market on Friday evening.  Tammy left the high tunnel to grab a couple of coolers, leaving Rob behind to work on the spinach.  She did not come back for some time.  It turns out she wanted to take some pictures.  I suspect it might have been more fun than what I was doing.

It all worked out in the end.  We had lots of great spinach at market AND Tammy managed to capture this photo.