Looking forward

November 9, 2021 Uncategorized

As my son so accurately put it last week, this is the time of year when we start getting ready for next season. In the past week, we have planted the garlic that will be harvested next summer, ordered next year’s seeds, sterilized all of the seed starting trays in preparation for use in 2022, and are generally working our way through the farm preparing each bed for winter depending on what will be planted in it in the coming season and when. After the excessively cold weather last week, temperatures have bounced back up and we’re getting to enjoy several beautiful days to work through some of these end-of-season...

Extending the harvest

November 6, 2019 Uncategorized

With overnight freezing temperatures and morning frosts becoming more and more the norm, the farm is really starting to move into winter mode. Only the hardiest crops remain in the field, among them several of the baby greens, kale and collards, turnips, and the extremely cold-hardy spinach. But even these we have covered in floating row cover, a product that acts like a mini-greenhouse, maintaining a slightly higher temperatures underneath than what is reached outside. And more and more of our harvest is coming out of our hoop house. Also known as high tunnels, hoop houses have become very common on small-scale farms like our’s in the last few decades...

Spring has sprung

March 26, 2019 Uncategorized

Apologies for the long time between posts. We’ve tried to make the most of some down time and family time over the winter, but we’re truly back into the swing of things at this point. Our hoop house is full to bursting with spring greens and each week more and more outside beds are getting planted. So far, we’ve seeded and transplanted an assortment of baby greens, carrots, onions, kale, collards, and bok choi, among other things. And in no time at all, the market season will be beginning. Make sure to mark your calendar for Saturday, April 13 and come visit us at the Burke Farmers Market for our...

Heat wave!

July 5, 2018 Uncategorized

Wow, what a scorcher this week has been! With temperatures up near 100 several days this week and the humidity just about maxed out, we had to limit our working hours to mornings and evenings several days as the midday heat was too dangerous to be out in. Unfortunately, even as the heat kept us indoors, the plants and weeds keep growing, meaning we’ll likely have to work through somewhat of a backlog of tasks next week. The tomatoes have been growing like crazy in the field and we’ve gotten a few of the first ripe outdoor cherry tomatoes this week, which means in a week or two we should...

Warming up

May 4, 2018 Market newsletters, Uncategorized, Weekly Updates

It’s been another wild week of weather, with a hard frost on Monday morning and temperatures up near 90 by the end of the week! In just a few days, we went from blanketing the summer crops in the hoop house under multiple layers of row cover to keep them warm to watering all of the greens like crazy trying to keep them cool. What made things even more unpredictable is that, at the start of all of the heat, our well went dry! Well, not dry in the sense I automatically thought of, as in- there is no more water. Instead, a mechanical failing in our pump meant that...

Peppers galore!

October 21, 2016 Garden techniques, Tips & Tools, Uncategorized, Weekly Updates

Fall is the time of year when most people think of harvesting greens and root crops from the garden. However, one thing that I always have a huge amount of in the fall is peppers. Because I like to harvest sweet peppers when they “color”, as opposed to what we think of as green peppers, it takes a good while for them to ripen. Therefore, I end up bringing in a majority of the harvest from mid-August onwards. And by this point, our fridge is more or less packed with peppers! Over the years, as with many other crops, I’ve narrowed my focus to growing the pepper varieties I particularly like- Carmen and...

April snow

April 9, 2016 Uncategorized

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