From the farmers….
We are so ready to be done with rain. I’m not even sure anymore if we even need more rain to replenish the aquifer. All of our sandy soil is wet as deep as we dig so it seems to be plenty wet here. After just two days of nice weather, it rained on our Fall End of the Harvest Festival on Sunday. What a disappointment. Just a day earlier it had been so pretty here with the brilliant colored maple trees, the yellow birches and the pumpkins and gourds and squash providing more seasonal color. But in the rain everything looks grey and gloomy and dead.
On Tuesday, we hosted a group of seniors from the Wilder center – in the rain of course. We had a really fun time – as we did with the small but energetic group who came to the Fall Festival in spite of the rain. It is always fun to host groups of folks here at the farm. As we talk and share with others about our farm and our philosophy about food and agriculture it reinforces for us why we do this and why even though we are so often exhausted and overextended, we still love what we do and can’t imagine doing anything else.
We continue to harvest the last of the veggies. We thought that all the potatoes we had left to dig – nine 250 foot rows – were the red Norlands. But surprise – four of the rows are Yukon Golds. Due to intern mapping error and me just not checking – we thought that none of the Yukons survived getting frosted in the barn prior to planting. And while the rows are missing a lot of plants – there will still be a lot of potatoes there. Yukon Golds are our favorites with Norlands second. We did get all the Norlands dug, but weren’t able to get the Yukons. If we have way too many for our root cellar, we will be contacting you about more potatoes.
All of the squash is harvested. Because of the invasion of squash bugs, we suffered huge losses on almost all varieties. It seems that the Sweet Dumpling and Butternut survived the best. We are exploring a lot of options for next year to control the bugs including a pyrethrin/diatomaceous earth mix and a neem mix and ducks. We’re not sure how we can fence the ducks to stay in the squash area and no where else and not be sitting ducks for eagles and hawks, but we’re exploring possibilities. We can’t use any poultry that would peck or eat the veggies rather than the bugs. Most of the ideas we’ve found in our searching are simply not practical on the scale we grow.
In case you didn’t read your email from us this week – we could use help on Saturday. We will be tearing the plastic mulch out of the fields. This is an easy but dirty job – and it is one that is so much better with a lot of people to make it go fast. Since all of our interns except one are finished for the season, we could certainly use some help. If Saturday doesn’t work for you – we will also be working on tearing down the fields on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday next week. If you’ld like to come and help for three or four hours, we would love to have help. Let us know.
On Saturday, we’ll be loading up all but the smallest two pigs and sending them off to the butcher. It will be sad to see them go. We have so enjoyed the antics of fifteen pigs this year. We will miss them but will have the two littlies left to raise for another month or so. Even though it is sad, it is also a good feeling to be paring down. Already our chores are so much quicker with fewer livestock. All the rabbits are in the freezer and next week we’ll be putting the ram in with the ewes so that will be one fewer separate animal to care for. Then in another week, we’ll combine the older ewes and the younger ones so that all the sheep will then be together – and easier again to care for.
Until next week ….
The Bread Box
This week your bread is Sunset Squash Bread. A yeasted bread, a mix of butternut and Blue Magic squash add flavor and color to this Tassajara Yeast Bread. A good bread to serve with soup.
What’s in your Share
Onions – Red Burgermaster
Potatoes – Norland Red
Beets – Red Ace/ Detroit Dark Red/ Chiogga
Swiss Chard – Northern Lights
Kale – Red Russian
Carrots – Cosmic Purple/ Bolero
Radishes – Scarlet Globe/ Pink Beauty/ Shunkyo Semi-long
Squash – Sweet Dumpling (tan and green heart shaped with grooves) / Buttercup (green turban) /Delicata (tan, green and yellow oblong striped)/Red Kuri(orange teardrop)
Pumpkin – Baby Pam, New England Sugar (small orange pie) Lady Godiva (yellow and green stripe odd shaped – use for seeds only) Jack be Little (mini orange – edible) Baby Boo (mini white) Gooligan (orange and tan mini)
Gourds – small assorted mix, Autumn Wings mix
Corn – Earth Tones Dent
[Note – we are very short staffed this week and this list includes a lot of labor intensive harvesting. This is what we plan for your share – we are hopeful that we can get it all harvested this week.]
We are so ready to be done with rain. I’m not even sure anymore if we even need more rain to replenish the aquifer. All of our sandy soil is wet as deep as we dig so it seems to be plenty wet here. After just two days of nice weather, it rained on our Fall End of the Harvest Festival on Sunday. What a disappointment. Just a day earlier it had been so pretty here with the brilliant colored maple trees, the yellow birches and the pumpkins and gourds and squash providing more seasonal color. But in the rain everything looks grey and gloomy and dead.
On Tuesday, we hosted a group of seniors from the Wilder center – in the rain of course. We had a really fun time – as we did with the small but energetic group who came to the Fall Festival in spite of the rain. It is always fun to host groups of folks here at the farm. As we talk and share with others about our farm and our philosophy about food and agriculture it reinforces for us why we do this and why even though we are so often exhausted and overextended, we still love what we do and can’t imagine doing anything else.
We continue to harvest the last of the veggies. We thought that all the potatoes we had left to dig – nine 250 foot rows – were the red Norlands. But surprise – four of the rows are Yukon Golds. Due to intern mapping error and me just not checking – we thought that none of the Yukons survived getting frosted in the barn prior to planting. And while the rows are missing a lot of plants – there will still be a lot of potatoes there. Yukon Golds are our favorites with Norlands second. We did get all the Norlands dug, but weren’t able to get the Yukons. If we have way too many for our root cellar, we will be contacting you about more potatoes.
All of the squash is harvested. Because of the invasion of squash bugs, we suffered huge losses on almost all varieties. It seems that the Sweet Dumpling and Butternut survived the best. We are exploring a lot of options for next year to control the bugs including a pyrethrin/diatomaceous earth mix and a neem mix and ducks. We’re not sure how we can fence the ducks to stay in the squash area and no where else and not be sitting ducks for eagles and hawks, but we’re exploring possibilities. We can’t use any poultry that would peck or eat the veggies rather than the bugs. Most of the ideas we’ve found in our searching are simply not practical on the scale we grow.
In case you didn’t read your email from us this week – we could use help on Saturday. We will be tearing the plastic mulch out of the fields. This is an easy but dirty job – and it is one that is so much better with a lot of people to make it go fast. Since all of our interns except one are finished for the season, we could certainly use some help. If Saturday doesn’t work for you – we will also be working on tearing down the fields on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday next week. If you’ld like to come and help for three or four hours, we would love to have help. Let us know.
On Saturday, we’ll be loading up all but the smallest two pigs and sending them off to the butcher. It will be sad to see them go. We have so enjoyed the antics of fifteen pigs this year. We will miss them but will have the two littlies left to raise for another month or so. Even though it is sad, it is also a good feeling to be paring down. Already our chores are so much quicker with fewer livestock. All the rabbits are in the freezer and next week we’ll be putting the ram in with the ewes so that will be one fewer separate animal to care for. Then in another week, we’ll combine the older ewes and the younger ones so that all the sheep will then be together – and easier again to care for.
Until next week ….
The Bread Box
This week your bread is Sunset Squash Bread. A yeasted bread, a mix of butternut and Blue Magic squash add flavor and color to this Tassajara Yeast Bread. A good bread to serve with soup.
What’s in your Share
Onions – Red Burgermaster
Potatoes – Norland Red
Beets – Red Ace/ Detroit Dark Red/ Chiogga
Swiss Chard – Northern Lights
Kale – Red Russian
Carrots – Cosmic Purple/ Bolero
Radishes – Scarlet Globe/ Pink Beauty/ Shunkyo Semi-long
Squash – Sweet Dumpling (tan and green heart shaped with grooves) / Buttercup (green turban) /Delicata (tan, green and yellow oblong striped)/Red Kuri(orange teardrop)
Pumpkin – Baby Pam, New England Sugar (small orange pie) Lady Godiva (yellow and green stripe odd shaped – use for seeds only) Jack be Little (mini orange – edible) Baby Boo (mini white) Gooligan (orange and tan mini)
Gourds – small assorted mix, Autumn Wings mix
Corn – Earth Tones Dent
[Note – we are very short staffed this week and this list includes a lot of labor intensive harvesting. This is what we plan for your share – we are hopeful that we can get it all harvested this week.]
Help on Saturday
See the From the Farmers column for information about helping on the farm on Saturday or during the last three days of next week. Thanks.
On the Road, KSTP program change
The date for the On the Road program to feature Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm has changed to Sunday, October 19th at 10:35 PM. Watch for it.
