2011 Begins Now!

I wonder how likely it is that anyone is still reading this blog? If you've been checking regularly for updates these last two months, I'm deeply sorry for your ongoing disappointment. If you're rejoining us now, I promise that the updates will be more regular and forthcoming in the future, and if you've just discovered us, ignore all that. This is a highly active blog with a huge following, that you should share with all your friends because it's so awesome! Got that? Good! Moving right along...

The lack of activity on these pages the last two months has corresponded to a lull in our activities in Greenfield. For most of October and November, Terra has been concentrating on school and I've been catching up on personal business in Lexington. We've also both been participating in National Novel Writing Month for the past 30 days, and as of today have both completed that monumental task successfully! The farm hiatus is coming to an end however. Beginning today, we are gearing up for the 2011 season.

Now you might be wondering what 2011 is going to look like compared to 2010, our inaugural year. Hopefully, the answer will be very different. The biggest change, and one you will be hearing a lot about over the coming weeks, is that we will be introducing a CSA this year. We are still in the planning stages for this, and will be making a lot of our decisions about the scope of our farm based on the demand we see and the amount of capital we can raise before the growing season starts. Last year, we successfully demonstrated that we can grow a variety of delicious vegetables. This year will be about turning that effort into a successful business and scaling it up to a point where it actually makes a noticable difference in the larger community.

The first step of this process will be developing a business plan and determining what large investments we will be making this spring. We will need to make equipment purchases and also upgrade our facilities to meet our goals this summer, and we would greatly appreciate feedback and involvement at this stage in order to clarify our planning and give us some concrete data to build upon. I invite anyone who would potentially be interested in purchasing a CSA share from us this season to post thoughts. Specifically, we're looking for what types of produce you routinely use in your cooking, how you would prefer us to distribute it to you, and what you might reasonably expect to pay for it. Information like this will enable us to plan our crop layout and distribution scheme.

Terra and I are both very excited about what 2011 has in store. We had a lot of fun last summer and met some fantastic people along the way, and this year promises to be even better. Please post your thoughts and stay tuned for more!

-Dan

Farming Alone

Things have gotten a bit more difficult at the farm now that Terra is back in school. I've still been making regular trips up to Greenfield to maintain the plants and start packing equipment away for the winter, but the pace of my work is quite different now. I've noticed that it's easier to focus on one specific task for a certain length of time, but when I reach the end of that task it's harder to start another. I am more tired at the end of the day, and I feel as though I've accomplished less overall even if I can pick off specific chores.

Because of my experience this summer, I have become convinced that farming at a scale that produces goods needs to be collaborative in order to be truly successful. I'm sure there are cases where one single farmer has managed to produce an abundance of goods and taken them to market, just as there are cases where an individual has made a successful film or staged a play entirely alone. But these are exceptions to a widely established model: in farming, just as in performing arts, the end result is almost always an expression of the creativity, dedication and effort of multiple individuals.

So though I am farming by myself, I would not go so far as to say that I am farming alone. Our garden, which is still producing an abundance of vegetables, has come to this point as much though Terra's dedication as my own, and I should also credit Terra's family, my family, and all the others who have supported our grand experiment this summer. On long afternoons of solitary tomato and bean picking, it is the thoughts of what we set out to accomplish at the beginning of this year, and all the people who got us there, that keep me from feeling lonely.

-Dan

Winding down, Gearing up.

I can't believe that it's already mid September. For me, this summer has been a chaotic blur of farming, working in Lexington, and lots of driving in between. In the last four months, the only time I've been in one place more than four days at a time was when Terra and I were in Maine. So while I'm sad to see the farm winding down for the season, it's also a bit of a relief; I won't have quite so much on my plate in a few weeks time.

Once the day-to-day work at the farm comes to a close, however, Terra and I are going to turn our attention to the very large and involved task of planning for next season, now that we are fairly certain that there will indeed be one. Early on, we decided that this season was mostly about testing out what works and what doesn't, and it has worked out well in that regard. Going into the planning process, there are already a few things about next year Terra and I are in total agreement on (winter squash gets it's own field, for instance), as well as some things that we will be discussing at length and working out some appropriate solutions for.

A few items in the latter category include the formation of a CSA, the future development of the Greenfield Farmers Market, and the scope of our farm come next spring, accounting for Terra's and my living situations. For those of you still reading our blog (I know the updates have been sporadic during the growing season), we'd like to invite comments and active participation as we begin this process. This is going to be a busy winter for Cloverly Farm, and it will be April 2011 before we know it.

Our Routine

So I think we're well established enough to be able to say that we have a 'routine'. Granted, it is always changing. But I thought it was fair to spell out the basics here:

Our most successful endeavor so far has been home and office delivery. It started by calling our friends at their homes and places of work and asking if they, their families, and their coworkers were interested in a delivery. We got a lot of positive responses, and we've made a list of people and places that we visit about once a week. The list seems to grow every week, and now we have three businesses and five homes that deliver to regularly!

How the delivering works: Dan and/or I load all the veggies into the back of the car after making some phone calls to see who is interested in veggies today. Then we drive over, and depending on the place, we bring all the veggies inside for people to browse, or we let people come out to our "portable farm stand" in the back of the car.

We also have done special deliveries, such as meeting people at a public location for a delivery. We really strive to be accommodating (I mean, if people want our veggies, they should be able to get them!) and we've made a lot of progress through this method of sale. Even with the farmer's market and whatever else happens, I still see home delivery continuing to be a big part of our future at the farm.

Other methods of sale? Not as much. We are starting the Greenfield Farmer's Market (or "trial market", this year..) which has not been very profitable yet, but seems to be growing! For the past two weeks, it has been just Dan and I, our small vegetable stand, and a couple posters, but this coming Tuesday holds promises of two more vendors -- one who sells goat milk soap and lotion, and one who sells gluten free baked goods!! I am so excited to see who shows up this week.

And our very last, teeny-tiny idea? We are hoping to get a farm stand. We've called a business with a currently unused farm stand set-up and asked for permission to use it and do maintenance on it. We're still waiting on a reply, with crossed fingers!

AND NOW.... Photos!! Just like I promised!

Here's our very first stand at our trial market!

This is how our veggies stay when they are not being delivered or in any other use. It makes our porch quite lovely!

Here's a dish my mom made from multicolored veggies AND pasta! It was so beautiful, and just as delicious!

Another shot of the stand, with a signage-close up. Dan looks so chill. :)

Our little helpers, displaying our veggies! They are so helpful.

So, I know it's not pictures of the garden itself yet... But those are coming soon! VERY soon, now that I have a useable camera! Promise!

-Terra

How we're doing... What we're thinking...

Cherry tomatoes ......................................... $2.00/pint
Green Beans/Yellow Wax Beans .................. $1.50/bag
Onions ........................................................ $0.75
Radishes (are back!) .................................... $1.00/bundle (~5)
Beets .......................................................... $1.00/bundle (~4)
Zucchini ...................................................... $0.75/ea
Summer Squash (Crookneck or Patty Pan) ... $0.75/ea
Cucumbers ................................................. $0.50/ea
Carrots ....................................................... $1.50/bundle (~6)
Soft-neck Garlic ......................................... $1/bulb
Kale ............................................................ $1.50/bundle
Eggs (From the Fletchers) ............................ $2/dozen

This is our current list! (not bad!)

Still battling with hornworms and other pests (Potato beetles attacked one of the groups of potatoes and completely demolished it! Agh!)

The other day I worked on building "squash towers", which was basically a desperate attempt to get the butternut squash away from the other plants, composed of 6 big saplings trussed together in a teepee shape with branches woven in between. I then wound the vines up and around the structure. Who knew that winter squash sent out such ridiculous vines?? I guess I should have known, but I wasn't ready! Next year I will be though. We're planning a whole separate field for winter squash - the way it should be!

Speaking of next year, we've been having a lot of conversations on that subject. As of now, we are planning on continuing, but it's going to rely heavily on the support of our friends and the community. We don't want our work and learning experiences to go to waste! If we do continue, here's (approximately) what it will (probably) look like:

A field for squash and a field for corn (perhaps manifesting itself into a "3 sister's garden", which we considered doing this year but determined it was not feasible with the time we had left.) So where our big garden is now, there may be a giant garden of corn, beans, and squash.

Perhaps something new and exciting!! We have lately been considering the prospects of honey, perhaps with a lovely field of berries to support it. We also have come back around to the idea of planting some christmas trees, as an investment in the future (they take about 5 years to mature from the size that we would buy them).

A weekly appearance at a farmer's market (or two or three!) We plan on re-applying to the Peterborough farmer's market and the Hancock Farmer's market, and we are still working on establishing a trendy new co-op sort of market in Greenfield for farmers, gardeners, home gardeners, bakers, and anyone who produced food and wants to share it with their community. I see no reason why Greenfield shouldn't be able to entirely support its community's food needs, given the amount of land we have and the number of people who have picked up gardening and farming and want to learn more!!

And altogether, hopefully the farm will be more established, a blooming business that is perhaps beginning to stand on its feet, or even just a comfortably large home garden that shares itself with the community. Whatever it ends up as next year, we hope that we continue to be supported in the endeavor and that we can keep working toward a positive change in our community! A garden is never a bad thing to have.

-Terra

PS. Pictures soon, I promise. Just gotta keep bugging Dan. :)

Where have we been???

It's hard to believe how long it's been since our last post. Things have been flying around here!

The squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes have exploded. It's been difficult just keeping track of them.

We're currently selling carrots, beets, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, purple broccoli, and kale. Because there are SO many vegetables, we've begun to sell more often. I usually bring a cooler of veggies into town every week day.

The tomatoes constantly need to be staked and re-staked, as they grow at an alarming rate, and there are so many of them! (4 rows!) Also, we've gotten a small infestation of tobacco hornworms, which we've managed to keep under control (they can devour an entire tomato plant in a matter of days!) but those need constant supervision.

The onions look like they're ready to be prepped for storage, which involves breaking the stem while they are in the ground and letting them sit for a while.

New crops need to be planted for fall. Spinach, lettuce, and whatever else.

And on top of all of this, Dan and I have begun to work toward starting a farmer's market in Greenfield. So far, we've attended a planning board meeting, and we were met with a lot of support! But there are a lot of obstacles to overcome. On Thursday, we will be attending the Selectman board meeting to share our idea. The plan is still a bit half-baked, but hopefully with enough community support, we can pull together a well functioning market that will help Greenfield to become a better town.

Now, I'd better go out and get to work! But hopefully there will be another post soon. :)

-Terra

Foes

I figured this topic would be a logical follow up to Terra's post last week on friends. Although we've been relatively fortunate thus far, there are a lot of forces that are working against us, and overcoming those negative factors takes up a large percentage of our time and energy. This is the case for all farmers, though in our case we tweak the balance in favor of time, where more mechanized or industrialized practices substitute energy. Here are some of the baddies we're up against, as well as what we've been doing to combat them.

Large Mammals

Nothing has quite the same potential to cause damage to a garden as a creature that can walk around, has an appetite at least as big as a human's and possesses at least some basic higher cognitive ability. Dogs, cows, deer and moose therefore are all very major concerns. Though we haven't suffered any losses from produce being eaten as of yet, Jackie and Granite manage to trample at least a few small plants just about every time they visit our garden, so we've taken to keeping them out as much as we are able to. For keeping the wild critters out, we've spent the last few days putting up an electric fence around the perimeter, which will stop the tramplers at least, and hopefully be enough to discourage anything from exploring our vegetables and discovering how tasty they are.

Insects

We've been pretty fortunate not to have too many major insects pests, because they are much harder to control than big animals. So far, the only one we've had any trouble with is the cabbage worm, a small green caterpillar that likes to gnaw holes in our broccoli and cauliflower. We're taking a pretty straightforward approach: when we see them, we pick them off. It should be noted however, that there are plenty of insects that are a much bigger problem for us, the farmers, then for our crops, such as black flies, horse flies and mosquitos.

Weeds

On a farm our size, weed control is actually fairly simple. We've been pulling weeds out by hand when they become big enough to be a problem and letting them compost. I'm actually hesitant to label the weeds a foe, because they can do a lot of good. The small, immature weeds that grow on the sides of our rows help to stabilize the soil, and the composted weeds will be good for the soil once they break down and release the nutrients they've stored. There are a few exceptions however. Along the stone wall on the west side of our field is a lush crop of poison ivy that doesn't help us in any way, and the lingering grass roots in the soil that keep shooting up new blades despite all of our best efforts are really kind of uncalled for at this point.

Environmental Factors

In addition to living foes, we have a number of inanimate ones as well. Weather is the main one. The hot stretch we had a couple weeks ago made working outside at times impossible, so it cut into our work time in a pretty critical period. Many of the cold weather plants also suffered from heat canker, a condition where the stem is constricted at the base due to the soil being too hot, during this period. Since we farm in New England, variable weather is simply a fact we have to accept, as is having an endless supply of glacial debris in our field. We have pulled perhaps a quarter ton of small to mid sized rocks out of the ground in the process of tilling and cultivating the soil. We've been using these to fill our drainage ditch.

I hope this current post doesn't sound too pessimistic. While listing together all the negative forces we're dealing with might make it seem like we're up against a lot, none of these by themselves has been to hard on us. We continue farming and dealing with the challenges as they come up, and so far it's working pretty well.

-Dan